Music Video: Lucybell - Sembrando en el mar

I have been on something of a German kick lately here on Open World Music.  That is the general gravitational pull that this blog has often had, as it started out because I was inspired by the German music scene while trying to bring some cultural relevance to my daughter's German language education.  But I also like to move farther afield, as appealing rock and pop music in the local language comes from just about everywhere in the world.  So, today I moved somewhat laterally to Chile.

I say "laterally" not because German is an official language in Chile.  Rather, due to heavy German immigration into Chile beginning in 1845 and lasting until today, German cultural influence on Chile is broad and significant.

But all that is irrelevant to the task at hand: introducing Chilean alternative band Lucybell.  Formed in 1991, and putting out 7 albums since then, this band from Santiago is a widely beloved fixture on the Chilean music scene.  While the deep, rich voice of Lucybell's lead singer leaves the listener with no doubt that this is a South American band, Lucybell's music has strong ties to 1980s and 1990s British pop.  Sembrando en el mar is a fine example of this influence, while also demonstrating that they have their own unique voice.

Music Video: Sport - Der unsichtbare Dritte

Sometimes, when digging through the music that I have been collecting over the past three years for Open World Music, I stumble across a band that I was really into a while ago, but that had kind of fallen off my radar.  Sport from Hamburg, Germany is one of those bands.  Sport is often heavy music, with pounding bass drum and grinding guitar.  Sport is always dark and broody in mood.  But Sport is always engaging, in sort of a Stranglers having a really bad day sort of way.

Anyway, I have always wanted to post a Sport video on Open World Music.  The problem is, the band is almost invisible.  They have no videos that I can find, other than album tracks that fans have posted.  They barely have a website.  They have had a MySpace page since 2005, but the one album that they list on their discography isn't even one of their albums (they have released five albums as far as I can tell, but even that is just an educated guess).  Even the name Sport is so generic as to render them all but invisible to search engines.  I wonder if this is intentional, but something tells me that they're just not that into marketing themselves.

But, if you look long enough, you're bound to find something.  And so, today I bring you the single music video (and it's a fan video at that) for a Sport song that I could find, Der unsichtbare Dritte.  In my opinion, it's not their best song.  But it is pretty representative of their oeuvre.  If you like this, Sport just released a new album this month called "Aus der Asche, aus dem Staub", and it's on iTunes.

Music Video: Dendemann - Stumpf ist Trumpf 3.0

Sometimes I don't get kids.  Over her six years, my daughter has expressed a strong preference for music that is raucous, that has a beat that you can dance to, and that has a chorus that you can sing along to.  Oh yeah, and she prefers bands with female lead singers.  That's fine.  I get that.  But every once in a while she finds a song that she really likes that doesn't really check any of those boxes.

The other day, that song was German hip-hop artist Dendemann's song Stumpf ist Trumpf 3.0.  Don't get me wrong, I have always liked this song myself.  It is aggressive but smart.  Plus, as can be seen from the video and its wonderful parody of the old TV show MacGyver, Dendemann has a solid sense of humor.  But Dendemann's voice is, if nothing else, gratingly masculine, and his beat and lyrics can neither be easily danced to nor sung along with.  I guess that is the fun thing about music: you never know what you will ultimately find appealing.  The fun is in the searching.

Music Video: Wise Guys - Jetzt und hier

I have always had something of a love/hate relationship with a cappella groups.  On the one hand, I can't deny the vocal virtuosity and creativity that goes into making an a cappella group work.  On the other hand, more often than not, a cappella groups are self-consciously comic and kitschy, almost to the point of daring the public to acknowledge liking them.  I find this attitude more off-putting than endearing.

Sometimes, though, this cheeky attitude works.  In the case of German a cappella band Wise Guys, it has raised them to the pinnacle of the German pop charts.  Songs like Jetzt und hier ably demonstrate Wise Guys' ability to craft incredibly catchy pop songs, and to deliver them with a cheeky smile, without allowing this cheekiness to degrade into self-parody.

Music Video: Massimo Volume - Fausto

As a music fan, I am always fascinated by the labels applied to bands and musical genres.  These labels can go from broad, like pop, indie, or metal, to very narrow, like dancehall, death metal, or folktronica (I particularly like the sound of that last one!).  Anyway, despite having been an avid listener for well nigh 4 decades, I have never before heard the term "math rock".  Never before, until today.

Apparently, the Italian band Massimo Volume is a math rock band.  According to the ever faithful, and never wrong, Wikipedia, math rock is rock music that is played according to ever changing  and complex meter, as opposed to typical rock that is usually played in straight 4/4 time.  I can't speak to whether that describes an actual genre of music as defined by the musicians themselves, but I suppose I can pull it out at my next cocktail party to see if it excites the ladies in the room.

In the meantime, check out Massimo Volume's Fausto to see if any of this makes any sense to you.  For whatever it is worth, I am notoriously bad at assigning genres to bands.  Typically, genres are used in music for the purposes of exclusion rather than inclusion.  I think that's a shame, because whether or not Massimo Volume is math rock or something else altogether, they're still a lot of fun to listen to.

Music Video: Xavier Naidoo - Alles kann besser werden

I have never been much of a fan of American soul and R&B.  All too often it has struck me as artistic virtuosity without emotional depth.  Perhaps it only took listening to a German R&B artist to really get out of that frame of mind.  After all, if you only have a tenuous grasp on the language, you are compelled to focus entirely on the virtuosity aspect, with less regard for emotional depth.  Indeed, it is through this focus on the virtuosity that one can discover the emotional depth.

One artist who has helped me down this path is Germany's Xavier Naidoo.  With a voice that beautifully transcends language, and with music that frames that voice perfectly, Xavier Naidoo has made a believer out of me.  Perhaps the best track from his most ambitious album of the same name is Alles kann besser werden.  Whether you understand German or not, this is an amazing piece of soul and R&B, where Naidoo's artistic virtuosity conveys remarkable emotional depth.