13 August 2021 - Elvis Crespo - Suavemente

I guess this kind of turned into a thing.  Well, it is a good thing.  This has been a great music week.  

You know what else is great?  This 1998 single by Elvis Crespo, which actually crossed over onto the English-language pop charts for a couple of weeks.  For many, this was the first introduction to the horn-heavy merengue style.  For Elvis Crespo, this was his debut solo single, having been a member of a couple of Puerto Rican merengue ensembles prior to this.   

On a personal note, this is one of my very favorite songs in any language.  It is not remarkable lyrically (he's asking a girl to kiss him.  A lot) or musically (it's merengue), but together, it is a fun, energetic song.  By the end of the song, you're going to be singing "Besándome otra vez" too!

For now, sit back and enjoy this great tune, and try not to dance.

12 August 2021 - Ritchie Valens - La Bamba

I really am not doing a thing here.   I just want to put it out there.  This classic song wasn't completely written by Richie Valens. But it's not a cover.  He took a traditional Mexican folk song and set them to a rock line - that he, at his very young age, wrote himself.  

The song was to #22 on the pop charts in 1958.  He died in February 1959, in a plane crash with Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper, aged 17 - so he was younger than that when he wrote this simple but perfect verse-chorus-verse rock song.

Now, what Los Lobos did when they took the song to #1 on the pop charts - THAT was a cover.

11 August 2021 - Carlos Vives & Shakira - La Bicicleta

I promise you there are no plans for a weekly theme here.  But when Columbian superstars Carlos Vives and Shakira collaborate on a song that they cowrote and put on BOTH of their albums, I can't ignore that.  

The song, which was decades in the making, musically pays tribute to their native Columbia - bringing in many elements of Columbia traditional music.  The lyrics do as well - it is absolutely about a bicycle ride, but it's a nostalgic trip through their hometowns - a sweet, reflective song.   The video reflects the locales mentioned in the lyrics, as the two of them bicycle through their respective hometowns seeking out dance battles.   As you do.  

10 August 2021 - Julieta Venegas - Todo Está Aquí

I mean, she's got albums besides Limón y Sal.  She's got a lot of them.  

I've been talking for years about the unsung greatness of Julieta Venegas - which I stand by.  I mean, it's not really unsung - she's got a Grammy (for Limón y Sal, to be fair) and six Latin Grammys sitting on her shelf.  One of those Latin Grammys was for Algo Sucede, the 2015 album from which this song is taken. 

The song itself is a simple love song - talking about the happiness of love and how you really need nothing else.  Because, well, everything is here.  It is brilliantly written and performed.

Julieta herself is multiinstrumental.  The original version of this song was, of course, piano-centered.  However, that doesn't mean she can't perform it on guitar, too.

OK, I feel better now.  

10 August 2021 - Julieta Venegas - Limón Y Sal

Don't worry.  We're not doing a Spanish week.  We ARE going to post Julieta Venegas whenever she pops up on our radar, though, because she is a delight, and she DID when we started writing yesterday's post - because, of course, all Spanish-language artists are the same, right?

Wrong.  Really, really wrong.  

This song, the title song from her Grammy Award-winning hit album of the same name from 2006, deals with the acceptance of a loved one for everything they are - the good and the bad - fitting in thematically with the whole album's theme of the ups and downs of relationships.

That's right, English speakers.  These theme exist in songs in other languages.  And few write them better than Julieta Venegas.  She has forged a quiet and understated, yet very successful, career writing thoughtful music in Spanish - and, thirty years into her career, continues to do so.  

She also continues to perform this song.  Here she is, on piano in 2000, giving a heartfelt rendition of the tune in a live performance to a pandemic-driven empty room.  I haven't mentioned here that she's multiinstrumental (I did here) but, she's multiinstrumental.  

9 August 2021 - Mala Rodríguez - La Niña

I had to go ahead and just use all the special characters in this one.  

You see, this was a breakthrough single for Mala Rodríguez in Spain, but Spanish TV banned this video.  Something about a child as a drug dealer didn't sit well with the censors.  However, that's what the song is about - a kid who wants to be a drug dealer like her dad.  

I've said it before - people aren't used to a girl from Sevilla being so in-your-face with hip hop and talking about such taboo subjects - and so brilliantly. 

 

This song is from 2003.  So many years later, La Mala still performs it.  Here she is in April, taking a break from her yoga content on Twitter, to perform the song live.  Her performance at 42 is a little more laid back and subtle than at 24, but it's still epic and powerful, painting a colourful picture.  

6 August 2021 - Joni Mitchell - Big Yellow Taxi

I had SO MUCH material for #MapleLeafMarch that I literally posted every day - and we rarely do weekend posts here - and even double posted for a couple of days.

I STILL have material.

Maybe I should make it an annual thing.  Hmmmm.....

I somehow didn't get to Joni Mitchell, from Fort Macleod, Alberta. That's right.  She's not only from Canada, she's from the part of Canada that 90% of the country doesn't live in.  Clearly, she is a legend - winning many Grammys and Juno Awards.  This song, from 1970, was one of her first hit singles, and it's a cheery-sounding song that actually decries the suburban sprawl that was happening at the time.  It is still one of her best-known songs, and the message still resonates, more than a half century later.  

That's right.  Joni Mitchell has been making music for more than a half century.  She's slowed down in her late 70's - largely due to a brain aneurysm rupture she suffered in 2015 - but she has not stopped.