a similar thing happened to me way back when...
travelling
through Greece and this cheekily breezy pop song (but with full on
Greek vocalese and melody) got into my brain. i tracked it down at a
cassette store in Athens by singing the tune to the initially
bewildered but then heartily enthusiastic shop owner. about half the
other tracks on the cassette were good as well.
I've played
it again recently and didn't enjoy it that much - I suppose it's a
bit like a holiday romance in that regard.
and I still have no
idea what they're singing about which is probably for the best as
they're most likely to be utter crap
― philT, Sunday, 17 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)
When it comes to Egyptian music, I like the classics (Oum Kalthoum,
Asmahan, Farid el Atrache, Riad el Sounbatti, Said Mekawi--mostly as
composer, a smattering of Mohammed Abdel Wahab and Abdel Halim Hafez).
Very little since "New Sound" took off at some point in the 80's. I
don't like the way they are using electronics (at least in the work
I've heard). I have to admit that lately I've started to suspect that
much of the older music was more influenced by western pop music of
its day than I originally thought. In fact, the older music
which sounds most dated tends to sound that way because it has
elements of "dated" western pop music. On the other hand, at its best
it definitely made a distinctively Arab aesthetic statement.
What you hear as voices flying all over at random, sounds heavenly to
me, and not really random, at least in the older songs.
This isn't really what your article was about, I ralize, but I can't
quite bring myself not to respond to something about Egyptian music.
― DeRayMi, Sunday, 17 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)
Don't let me kill this thread. No knowledge of Arabic music required.
― DeRayMi, Monday, 18 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)
The thing I latched onto in Bill's piece, because it's something I've
started to think myself - is the "You can like anything" idea. Can
you?
― Tom, Monday, 18 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)
Absolutely, you can. It just depends on whether you feel you are
brave enough to take that first step to change....
― Nichole Graham, Tuesday, 19 March 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)