Julieta Venegas esta actualmente trabajando para poder sacar su nuevo álbum de estudio,el cual será el sucesor oficial de Limón y sal del 2006.

Julieta habló sobre el nuevo álbum que es muy diferente a los anteriores ya que, según ella, es muy “casero”.Este nuevo album saldrá en marzo del proximo año.

Nacional Records Sampler 2009 | The New Sounds Of Latin Music FREE

Los Fabulosos Cadillacs – CJ
Aterciopelados – Bandera
Mexican Institute of Sound – Yo Digo Baila
Pacha Massive – If You Want It
Uproot Andy – Brooklyn Cumbia
Nortec Collective Presents: Bostich + Fussible – Shake It Up
Bomba Estereo – Cosita Rica
Latin Bitman – Help Me [Feat: Francisca Valenzuela]
King Coya – Trocintro [Extended Version]
Fidel Nadal – Puerta De Oro [con Pablo Loscano]
Todos Tus Muertos – Mate
The Pinker Tones – Happy Everywhere
Hello Seahorse! – Bestia [Julieta Venegas Remix]
Tonino Cartone – Amar Y Vivir
Senor Coconut – La Vida Es Llena De Cables
Monareta – Llama
Eric Bobo – Chicken Wing ft. The Demigodz [Explicit]
Gonzalo Yanez – Encadenado
Juana Molina – Insensible
Sara Valenzuela – Esta Vez [Album Version]
Manu Chao – Clandestino

Download it TODAY!

I have always had a thing for world music (like Cypress Hill, the Dropkick Murphys, and Loreena McKennitt) and when I was trying to teach my self spanish I decided to seek out some good indie music from the Spanish-speaking world. It took quite a bit of digging for me and sifting through a lot of narco correas (look it up) to find some truly great bands. Here is my list of my top five favorite Spanish-speaking bands for english speaking indie fans.

5. Juana Molina – Un Dia

Alright, I’m staring off this list a little disingenuous. I put up Juana Molina up here even though I am still trying to like this band. My wife really enjoys this artist, but I struggle to find a time when I am in the mood for it. The music is great and multilayered and was even featured on Radio Lab. I didn’t want to discourage my personal lack of ability to like this with the fact that I think many of you would enjoy this unique album. My guess at closest american artist would be an acoustic and a capella attempt at My Bloody Valentine.

4. La Quinta Estacion – Me Muero

La Qinta Estacion is one of my personal favorite Spanish-speaking bands.  I would liken them back to a more traditional version of No Doubt being more traditionally alternative rock focused. The success of the music here is rooted firmly in the vocals of the lead singer who is just great. The video for Me Muero is particularly good and a great starting point for the band because who doesn’t love a ballad mashed up with some lucha libre?

3. Julieta Venegas – Limon y Sal

Julieta Venegas writes good, catchy pop music. I wouldn’t quite go as far as to say she is ‘indie’ as she is ridiculously popular in the Spanish-speaking areas, but I think that she has a style that many indie music listeners would enjoy (somewhat similar to Pizzicato Five being indie here in America).

2. Manu Chao – Próxima Estación: Esperanz

Another great bending of styles is Mana  Chao who sings in French, Spanish, and English. This is a fun party album and features so many unique and different styles it’s all over the map (literally). I would say the closest English-speaking indie band equivalent would be Of Montreal with some Devandra Banhart thrown in for good measure.

1. Bebe – Pafuera Telarañas

Bebe has the distinction of having the highest play count for any song in my iTunes library (for any genre) for the truly great and always listenable, Siempre Me Quedera. This album is great from start to finish and features so many different styles of music that Bebe does with ease. Forget Spanish-speaking, this is one of the best indie albums ever made.

Spanish hip-hop singer, Mala Rodriguez has collaborated with Puerto Rican Duo Calle 13, Julieta Venegas and Nelly Furtado among others. Her songs have been featured in Spanish and Mexican Films such as Y Tu Mama También.

Her great hip-hop style with flamenco influence has placed her in a new and unique genre of music. She is currently touring through Spain, for dates click here.

Two songs to show you how she can master all the different types of music styles she touches.

La Mala Rodriguez & Calle 13 – Suerte Con El

Nelly Furtado, Juleta Venegas & La Mala Rodriguez – Bajo Otra Luz

Disclaimer: If you were wondering what kind or rock music was popular in the ancient Roman empire, I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong Latin rock post.

A lot of people have no idea that there is more to Latin music than mariachi or salsa or whatever other musical stereotype they hold dearest.  I’m not saying YOU didn’t know, because if you are reading this blog, frankly, you’re already awesome.  I’m going to try to cover some of the greatest rock bands of Latin America, including some of the most well-known and then going into some less commercial gems.  The compiled list after the jump.

1) Maná:  One of the most popular rock bands in Latin America, Maná has a distinctive style that can be contagious, innovative, and yet mainstream at the same time (which is probably why it’s so popular).

2) Jaguares: Though most popular a few years ago, I think this band is still going strong. I just LOVE the guitars.

3) Caifanes:  This is probably one of the most famous songs, and one of my personal favorites.

4) El Tri:  One of the oldest and most beloved rock bands in Mexico. The song starts at about 2:05 .  Wait for it, it’s worth it.

5) Café Tacuba: I find them to be somewhat like Maná in terms of style, but judge it by yourselves.

6) Enanitos Verdes: “Lamento Boliviano,” in my opinion, one of their best.

7) La Gusana Ciega: I added this band because, though virtually unknown, theirs was the first concert I ever went to.  There were people bouncing off the walls. Literally, throwing themselves at and bouncing off the walls.  It was the craziest thing my 13 year-old self had ever seen, and it just brings back nostalgic, pubescent memories.

8 ) Julieta Venegas: A more alternative pop/rock singer.  In fact, all the musicians or groups that follow belong to this class of music.  They are not quite rock but not quite so pop.  I thought it would be nice to include some of them, too, for those who prefer this style.

9) La Ley:

What do you think?  Any favorites?  If you have any more band recommendations, leave them in the comments!

y Fernando Gonzalez

It’s perhaps fitting that Cantora, simply woman singer in Spanish, turns out to be the last recording by Argentine folk singer Mercedes Sosa, who died of kidney and liver failure, Sunday, October 4, at a clinic in Buenos Aires. She was 74.

Cantora is a disc of collaborations with a stellar roster of  Latin music singer and songwriters, some young enough to be her grandsons and granddaughters, representing a broad musical spectrum including conventional pop and rock, but also alterna-folk and classic tango.  The set up could suggest that Cantora is just another gimmicky “concept” disc, trading on brand names, searching for that mythical wider audience. If it’s not, it’s because, well, it rings musically true.

For starters, Sosa sings Sosa. Her voice might not be as strong, but it remains an admirable instrument, rich, powerful but also malleable, still stunningly expressive. Her vibrato has grown wider with age but she uses it with restrain. There is almost an audible affection and admiration in the work of her collaborators (some of whom were not even in the same studio with her) and it’s all warm and fuzzy, but the arrangement is clear enough — it’s their move. It’s up to them to stay true to their own style and still keep up and blend with Sosa – and to their credit, most do.

Also, musically Cantora succeeds because it stays true to Sosa and coherently close to folk music throughout. And while it includes songs in traditional folk styles, it also acknowledges other, newer, popular genres such as rap and cumbia villera, a take on cumbia that emerged in the shantytowns of Buenos Aires, as if suggesting that this might be today’s folk music.  It´s a subtle but powerful statement — and one that fits Sosa´s character and extraordinary career.

Sosa was born in poverty, her father a day laborer, her mother a washer woman, in Tucumán, a province in northwest Argentina, on July 9, 1935. At 15, she won an amateur-hour contest sponsored by a local radio with a two month contract for appearances as its grand prize.   It turned out to be the start of her career.

By the late 50s she had moved on from traditional folk  and embraced the Movimiento del Nuevo Cancionero, a fledging movement with a new approach to folk music that updated the standard folk lyrics to sing about the plight of the poor and disenfranchised. This, naturally, led her in time to champion the Nueva Canción (New Song), a movement in Latin America in the 60s that blended traditional rhythms and lyrics addressing social and political concerns. This became a deadly serious business in Latin America in the 70s, as ruthless military dictatorships took power. Sosa was detained and body searched on stage at a concert in 1979. Many in the audience were detained. In the following weeks, her concerts were cancelled after anonymous bomb threats were called in. And while there was no cause open against Sosa, her songs were banned on the radio and she was prohibited from performing.

Understandably feeling persecuted and unable to make a living, Sosa left in self imposed exile to France and Spain.

She returned to Argentina in 1982, just as the military dictatorship was beginning to disintegrate. (In fact, in retrospect, Sosa´s epochal 13-night comeback stand at the Opera Theatre in Buenos Aires, captured on the disc Mercedes Sosa en Argentina, was in itself a measure of the increasing weakness of the regime.)

Sosa had been an international artist, performing in the United States and Europe, since the 1960s, but in her condition as an exile she transcended her role as a folk singer and became a symbol of resistance and the struggle for human rights.  It was a heavy mantle that she carried effectively – while also making clear to whoever wanted to listen that she was an artist first.

“Sometimes, one is made to be a big mouth or some sort of Robin Hood and it’s not like that,” she once told me, in the 90s, with an edge of frustration in her voice. “I am a woman who sings, who tries to sing as well as possible with the best songs available. I was bestowed this role as big protester and it’s not like that at all. I’m just a thinking artist.”

And being a “thinking artist” for Sosa not only meant singing questioning lyrics, but also opening up her musical world.

Since her return to Argentina and for the past 20 years, rather than basking on the warm glow of her status and playing it safe musically, Sosa increasingly crossed over stylistic boundaries, taking a Pan-Ibero-American approach. She would still sing Argentine folk music and remain true to her Nuevo Cancionero roots, but also integrate music by Brazilian artists such as Milton Nascimento, Caetano Veloso and Chico Buarque; Spanish singer songwriter Joan Manuel Serrat and rocker Joaquin Sabina. And in Argentina, where the music communities long lived in parallel worlds that rarely acknowledged, much less addressed, each other, Sosa seemed to make a point of ignoring stylistic boundaries. She worked with neo-folk singers such as Leon Gieco (a Bob Dylan-like figure) but also recalcitrant rockers such as Charly Garcia, pop rockers such as Fito Páez and new tango stalwarts such as bandoneonist Rodolfo Mederos. And it wasn’t just big names but also up-and-coming songwriters, playing sort of fairy godmother by calling attention to their work, giving them, in a word, her blessing.

Which brings us back to Cantora, which includes collaborations with old friends such as Serrat,  García, Spinetta and Paez, but also Shakira, Gustavo Cerati, René Perez (Calle13), Lila Downs, Julieta Venegas and Franco De Vita, as well.  (This is, by the way,  an international edition of an original two-disc set released earlier this year in Argentina. Other artists from that collection who are not featured here include Pedro Aznar, Luis Salinas, Luciano Pereyra and Ruben Rada.)

Most of the songs were written by the guests, although there are also intriguing reprises. Some weak (Shakira over emotes her part in Silvio Rodriguez´s “La Maza”). More are exceptional such as the smart remaking of Victor Heredia´s “Canción Para un Niño en la Calle,” (Song for a street kid) by René Perez, who alternates his rapping with Sosa´s singing creating a truly touching counterpoint.

Nine, or exactly half, of the songs in the set feature strings arranged by long time Sosa’s pianist and musical director Popi Spatocco. And while the sound is lush and lustrous it also at times gets too precious, almost reverential and it covers the program with a certain melancholy. (Brazilian singer Daniela Mercury, even toned down from her usual high energy, hyperkinetic self to perform Chico Buarque’s “O Que Será,” comes as a welcome relief.)

Sosa sounds at ease with pop rockers Cerati, Garcia, Páez and Spinetta, but truly shines in her collaborations with Lila Downs (Heredia’s classic “Razón Para Vivir”) and Julieta Venegas (her own “Sabiéndose de los descalzos,” which could easily have been part of Sosa’s 70s repertoire). At the risk of reading too much into it, she sounds then as if passing the torch to a younger generation of  folk singers, also reinterpreting their tradition to make it of their time.

Open minded, respectful of the past but decidedly forward looking, Cantora is a worthy finale for an extraordinary career.

To read other reviews and commentary by Fernando Gonzalez clilck here.

Mercedes Sosa,  “la cantora popular” symbol of the struggle against dictatorship and civil rights in Argentina, died today at age 74. Unquestionably the greatest Latin American folk music singer was hospitalised last month In Buenos Aires as a result of renal dysfunction. Here above she sings one of my favourite South American ballads.

In 60-year career, she performed all over the world, shared the stage with the most famous artists and poets such as Victor Jara, Pablo Neruda, Ignacio Villa and Atahualpa Yupanqui, she leaves an incomparable artistic heritage.

Born to underprivileged parents in San Miguel de Tucumán on July 9, 1935, Haydar Mercedes Sosa started her career at a very young age, impressing her public with passionate traditional popular songs. Eventually achieving her great success in the Sixties, in 1967 she performed in a extensive tour throughout the United States, Russia and Europe.

In 1971 she publishes “La voz de Mercedes Sosa” and “Homenaje a Violeta Parra” into which she marvellously sang the greatest hits of the famous Chilean singer, including the celebrated “Gracias a la vida”. In 1972, regardless the military oppression she released “Hasta la victoria“, a collection of  clearly social and political impact plus the famous “Cantata Sudamericana” written by Ariel Ramirez (music) and Felix Luna (lyrics).

Mercedes Sosa was also considered as an icon of resistance to the tyranny in South America and after the military golpe (1976) she became a prey of military censorship. She was banned from making records and arrested while performing a concert in La Plata. In 1979 she fled to Paris and afterwards settled in Madrid (1977). During that period she wrote many songs dedicated to her country, hoping for harmony and democracy. “Todo Cambia“, “Luna Tucumana” and “Solo Le Pido a Dios” and many more soon became the anthem of the new generation of freedom lovers.

Finally back home in Argentina (1982) she assisted to the reinstatement of democracy and celebrated it with a record/documentary named “Como un pájaro libre” and since then she never stopped singing, performing, enriching her discography.

Her latest work only recently released, “Cantora – Un viaje intimo” is a double CD  where Mercedes Sosa duets with South America’s leading artists, such as Julieta Venegas, Shakira, Lila Downs, Caetano Veloso, Marcela Morel, Gustavo Cerati, Jorge Drexler, Gustavo Santaolalla and many more.

The funeral service to pay homage to this greatest artist will be staged in the “Hall of Lost Footsteps” by the Argentine Congress.

I join two of the many messages posted on the site: “The world is not fair”; “Negra querida, your voice will keep following us singing”. And I prefer to remember her singing a sweet lullaby:

ds

Julieta Venegas será la próxima embajadora de buena voluntad de UNICEF, según el comunicado de prensa enviado por la organización. Me dá gusto que más artístas ayuden a esta causa.

Bien por Julieta Venegas.

La UNICEF nombrará a la cantante Julieta Venegas en una ceremonia oficial el próximo 20 de septiembre
La Convención sobre los Derechos del Niño cumple 20 años desde su aprobación y para celebrarlo la UNICEF nombrará a la cantautora mexicana Julieta Venegas como Embajadora de Buena Voluntad.

La artista recibirá el nombramiento en una ceremonia oficial el 30 de septiembre en la capital mexicana.

La Convención es un tratado internacional con 54 artículos sobre derechos humanos que los gobiernos deben garantizar a los menores de edad y que fue aprobado casi por unanimidad en la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas el 20 de noviembre de 1989.

Venegas, ganadora de un Grammy al mejor álbum latino pop y de varios Latin Grammy entre otros reconocimientos, ha grabado cinco discos, de los cuales ha vendido más de cinco millones de copias alrededor del mundo.

La artista prepara un nuevo álbum y en una de sus más recientes actualizaciones de su página Twitter señala que está escogiendo los temas que incluirá.

“Después de meses y meses de escribir, ahora estamos empezando a decidir cuáles van y cuáles no. Decidir tiene lo suyo”, dijo el 1 de septiembre según la página.

Julieta Venegas, Mala Rodriguez and Nelly Furtado are a powerhouse of Latina talent, and together, “Bajo Otra Luz”, is just okay. I liked Mala and Julieta’s “Eres Para Mi”a lot more.

KJEDELIG: Ikke akkurat futt i planen til Nelly Furtado.

Jeg må innrømme at jeg ble stor fan av den litt nasale vokalen til Furtado da hun slapp «Loose» i 2006. Den rulla konstant i spilleren, og jeg hørte nesten i hjel «Say it Right» og «Do It». Har sjelden vært så danseivrig som jeg var høsten 2006.

Viser bredde

Etter monsterhiten «I’m Like a Bird» (som for meg personlig ble fullstendig maltraktert på et fuktig nachspiel en gang, men det er en helt annen historie), har den canadiske sangeren med portugisiske foreldre mikset pop, hip-hop, reggaeton og folk på en måte som gjør det vanskelig å plassere henne i én sjanger. Der «Whoa, Nelly!» var pop og «Folklore» lekte med visekonseptet, kom «Loose» med ytterligere sjangre, og i mine øyne viste Nelly Furtado seg som en bred artist. Samarbeidene hennes med superprodusent Timbaland har heller ikke gjort noe for at jeg skal like musikken mindre.

Skiller seg ikke ut

Den nye skiva «Mi Plan» slippes 28.09, og er det første albumet Furtado gjør med kun spanske tekster. Ved første gjennomhøring synes jeg det er kjedelig. Noen fine harmonier, blant annet med mexikanske Alejandro Fernández på «Sueños» – en lugn låt som klinger OK. På «Bajo Otra Luz» har hun fått med seg Julieta Venegas, og den dansbare, søte låta var den som satt seg best. «Suficiente Tiempo» er litt daff, men grei nok – alt i alt er det ingenting som skiller seg ut. (Alle låtene er tilgjengelig i den ordinære utgaven av Spotify.) For øvrig har hun også med seg Josh Groban på en låt også, uten at det blir noe mer interessant av den grunn.

Samtidig som jeg sliter litt med å digge musikk jeg ikke skjønner tekstene til, er jeg likevel ikke enig i Dagbladet anmeldelse av skiva. «En gørr smørsangerinne» er Nelly Furtado ikke i mine øyne, selv om «Mi Plan» ikke følger samme gradvise forbedring som de tre første gjorde.

Vente på bedre tider

Fra dama som har levert låter som «Try», «Turn Off the Light» og «Say it Right» er dette alt annet enn en stjerne i boka. Jeg foreslår å kose seg med det hun har gjort før «Mi Plan» og heller satse på at hun kommer sterkere tilbake. Rap-Up.com melder at neste engelskspråklige album byr på nytt samarbeid med Timbaland, og da er det jo håp.

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[starttext]Julieta Venegas – Andar contigo (Karaoke)
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[starttext]Julieta Venegas – Eres para mi (Karaoke)
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeMr52TjjWoendofvid
[starttext]Julieta Venegas – Limon y sal (Karaoke)
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[starttext]Julieta Venegas – Me Voy (Karaoke)
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