Ouwraight Poudafinga!

About five or six years ago my brother Paul went to Australia for a while. I only say "my brother Paul" to set the stage, and so you know his name. I've not got any other brothers. Anyhow, I think Paul was in Australia escaping the law or hunting wallabies or something (I guess I truly am not my brother's keeper), but the gist of it is that he was gone for a year or two. He did come down/up to Costa Rica for my wedding, though, which is pretty great, considering that he had to fly around 138 hours to get here, and he had to layover in Atlanta three times for some reason.

OK, I jest a bit. But he did go to Australia for a while and he did come to our wedding, and when he got here, he gave me an mp3 CD of various music. One of the albums that was on it was Tea & Sympathy by Bernard Fanning. There are about four things that seem a little weak about the album title and the singer's name, but I assure you that it's a great album and has become one of my favorites. My favorite song on that album is probably "Sleeping Rough," but since it's not got a video, here's the video for "Songbird," so you can have something to look at (you'll have to watch it on YouTube, since embedding has been disabled).

Good stuff, right? So I told Paul I really liked this guy's music, and he told me about Powderfinger*, Fanning's band. Apparently they're from Brisbane, which is really close to where Paul was living/ hiding out. He mentioned that he should let me listen to some of their albums, since he had a few, but we kept forgetting about it every time we were together in Colorado. So I started checking them out more by myself on the "Internet." If you've not used it before, it's a really neat place for music and stuff. I'm really liking Powderfinger, so I thought I'd share this nice video from their last album (from 2009):

It's a great song, a great video, great lyrics... all in all, it's pretty, um, "lovely"(?) Is that what Australians say, or is that British people? Lucy, you're the only Australian I know: can I get a little help here?

Anyhow, I'd highly recommend both Fanning and Powderfinger if you're looking for some good music. Unfortunately, they're no longer together, but they did leave quite a few good songs and albums to check out.

Thanks for reading, and keep your eyes open for more Blogtoberfest to come!


*Powderfinger: OK, maybe "Powderfinger" is some kind of drug reference, an Australian slang word, or an Australian slang word referring to drugs, but did anyone else think of skiing and powdered snow when they heard this name? Or is it just me because I come from Colorado?

Shakira

I know that for a while now, many of you have been asking--well, "shamelessly begging" is probably a more appropriate word choice--for me to do a blog post about Shakira. So, here you go.

After living in Costa Rica for almost 5 years, I should probably understand Shakira's Spanish lyrics better, but I don't. My only consolation is that I can't understand her English lyrics very well, either. I'm wondering, though, why she makes English and Spanish versions of much of her material (yes, I know the answer is "more market, more money," but artistically, I don't really get the point).

I remember 11 or 12 years ago, when I was an exchange student in Germany, we saw the video for her song "Wherever, Whenever":

I've got a couple of things to say about this video:

1. Sure, she's very pretty, but I guess I'm one of those guys who's just not turned on by those weird gyrations. To paraphrase Seinfeld, it's like a full-body dry heave.

2. "Lucky that my breasts are small and humble / So you don't confuse them with mountains" may be some of the stupidest lyrics ever sung in English, and I'm including songs by Raffi here.

3. No one likes the pan flute.

Still, after seeing this video, I believe I had a conversation with my friend Christa, who assured me that both Shakira and Ricky Martin were much more sophisticated and "deeper" in Spanish, but something had gotten lost in the translation. I had to listen to them in Spanish, I was told.

And I think she was right; Shakira is better in Spanish, especially if you don't understand Spanish. Maybe it's something about her beats or rhythms that loan themselves to being accompanied by Spanish lyrics, but it just seems better. Check out these two recent examples, "Loba"/"She Wolf" and "Rabiosa." First, the Spanish version of "Loba":

And now the English version:

Do you see what I mean? In the first one, you're somewhat distracted by a pretty girl, and you quietly wonder to yourself if she'll accidentally snap her spine dancing like that. But in the English version, you can understand the lyrics, and you just think, "Hmm, this song is kind of stupid."

Let's look at Exhibit B, "Rabiosa":

And here it is in English:

So, yes, exact same video. The weirdest thing about this song is the lyrics; they've translated "Rabiosa" as "Rabiosa," "boca" as "boca," and "Oye mami" as "Oye mami." Maybe someone's taken the hint that her songs are better in Spanish, and so the English versions are just gradually becoming Spanish versions, one word at a time.

In any case, here's my favorite Shakira song and video, which as far as I know, is only in Spanish:

So, there's your Shakira post. Now shut your bocas.