Posts under ‘music’

As I’ve mentioned before, my favorite music genre is Alternative–in both English and Spanish. So for the 2010 Grammy Awards on Sunday the category I was focusing on was Best Latin Rock, Alternative, or Urban Album.
As might be expected, it was rappers Calle 13 who walked away with the prize. (They came away from the [...]

Eugene Hütz, the frontman for Gypsy-punk band Gogol Bordello was explaining  in an interview a few weeks ago why he believes the sound his band creates should be judged on its own terms.
“For me, it was always known that Gypsy music can become a very much appreciated subculture. It was always marginalized in this World [...]

Between them, Latin music stars Calle 13 and Juanes have won a boat load of Latin Grammy awards. Last month, the alt-hip hop duo Calle 13 won all five categories for which they were nominated. The more pop-oriented Juanes has won 17 Latin Grammys—more than any other artist.
While their music differs, Calle 13 and Juanes [...]

Having spent most of my life in close proximity to cities, I’ve never acquired a taste for country music. But that hasn’t prevented by teenage daughter from doing so.

With cross-over successes like Taylor Swift or former American Idol contestants such as Kellie Pickler on the radio, country music is finding its way onto more [...]

Cinco de Mayo was a bitter-sweet day this year. Sweet for all the usual reasons. Bitter because it was the final episode of the Neil Hohmann’s terrific Latin music podcast Ritmo Latino. 
Neil has impeccable taste in music. Earlier this year he turned me onto a new podcast called “The Sounds in My Head.” It’s mostly [...]

One of the silliest aspects of Kanye West’s rude interruption of of Taylor Swift’s VMA honors for best female video was that Beyonce wasn’t even nominated for the award Swift received. To make matters worse, Beyonce ended up winning the  best video category.
Let’s hope everyone behaves themselves at the 10th annual Latin Grammy Awards [...]

Neil Hohman, the creator of the latin music podcast, Ritmo Latino announced that the May edition will be the last. This comes as a disappointment to Latin music fans who relied on Neil’s impeccable taste and encyclopedic knowledge of Latin American music. If you’re not familiar with this podcast, editions dating back to 2006 are [...]

When I was in high school working as a busboy at a neighborhood restaurant, there was a waiter who found out about Sade about four or five months before she became famous. He kept talking about her song “Smooth Operator” and telling me to listen for it.
After the song became a hit, he’d remind me [...]