Once more, I am posting something dedicated to a friend of mine whom I consider a great talent. Before starting to read the post, click the play button below the CD cover so you can listen to her while you read. Thank you very much in advance.

You are listening to my friend Claudia. She doesn’t sing for a living so the CD cover is fake and baked in Photoshop. Actually to succeed doing that in Portugal (singing), you don’t need to be a good singer or even have a good voice. You just need to stick to lyrics about unfaithful husbands, matrimonial drama, or related topics, suggested by some producer. Then this same producer suggests some really bad techno loops probably mixed with something more classic like an accordion or piano. That’s what sells in my home country. There’s only a few exceptions. Everything else, elsewhere called music is something alternative. You have a good example at my Ninfa Artemis post which I don’t get surprised if it sells or hits the charts.

Enough of talking about bad Portuguese artists, because this is an exception. I know Claudia for a long time and even had a chance to work with her in radio. She even participated in a small band that for the reasons mentioned above never had a chance to hit the charts but I enjoyed the few of their live concerts I had a chance to be in.
I even recently invited her to be the voice of the interactive Christmas card for our advertising agency. Well, that means the 38 voices of everyone on the card. I placed a link in the end of the article so you can listen to and understand what I am talking about without interrupting her singing (or reading this). I mean, I would like to see some of the so called Portuguese artists to sing three full octaves, including sharps, as you can see in that Christmas card, specially on a very tight schedule and without a lot of free time (and without a studio to do some miracles). She even said she would do it for free.

This afternoon she sent me “just a little piece of music”. The one playing now. I opened it expecting it to get some new pimba (term for trash music in Portugal) artist appearing in the scene. But I recognized her voice in the very first second and she caught me by surprise. And I got kind of goosebumps and felt cold in my spine while she was singing. I only get that when listening to certain Björk songs or watching a dolphin show. Don’t ask me about the dolphins but Björk is my favorite singer for ages. And actually I would love to see her recording (amateur nature or not) something in a Björkish fashion, with a lot of screams and stretching the limits of voice capabilities (and breathing).

The point here is that it should be a crime for the music scene producers to keep funding bad artists, when there are so many genuine excellent voices out there (like Claudia’s). Everything that seems to matter to sell an album in Portugal (Well, it happens worldwide too) is a big pair of boobs or a lot of muscles (thanks gym-drugs and silicone), a pretty face or a few of them, an extensive array of recording studio miracles and a good marketing campaign to convert the consumer (the boobs and pretty faces become really handy here). Voice is a completely optional item. What commands the “good music” is just cheap (well funded) marketing. If you listen to normal music that you enjoy you’re a freak and you are not riding the last wave (or fad). I am glad I do that. I don’t care. And I’ll be the first one to buy the first CD from Claudia if it appears in the market, as well as for the many Claudias out there.

Thank you very much to listen to her “little piece of music”!

Feel free to leave any comments on this post.

Download the mp3 file of this “little piece of music”.

Open the Xmas card (featuring Claudia’s voice) I mentioned above.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 30th, 2007 at 19:11 and is filed under Nostalgia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.