La discoteca ideale Qobuz

Nel 2018 Rodrigo Leão, compositore e pianista nato a Lisbona nel 1964, ha celebrato i 25 anni di carriera solista dopo l’enorme successo che ha riscosso per quasi un decennio con il gruppo Madredeus, fondato da lui e Pedro Ayres Magalhães, nel 1985. Ave Mundi Luminar (Columbia, 1993) è stato il primo tassello di un percorso che lo ha reso uno dei musicisti portoghesi più emblematici e riconosciuti sulla scena internazionale. La celebrazione ha incluso la riedizione della colonna sonora del documentario Portugal, um Retrato Social (serie TV realizzata nel 2007 da Joana Pontes e Antonio Barreto) intitolata Os Portugueses (Sony Music, 2018). L’estesa tracklist di 28 canzoni include 10 nuove registrazioni di brani dei Madredeus (tra cui O Pastor e Guitarra) e di Sétima Legião, la prima formazione del compositore (Mil Maneiras de Amar). Il clou è un brano inedito intitolato Restos da vida, eseguito da Camané, uno dei più grandi cantanti di fado di oggi. Selma Uamusse e Ana Vieira sono le altre voci che accompagnano queste melodie nostalgiche, concepite come musica da camera, con archi e fisarmonica intrecciati con le morbide tessiture sonore di sintetizzatori e pianoforte.La selezione di Rodrigo Leão per Os Portugueses mette in evidenza la lingua portoghese e la musica tradizionale puramente strumentale, che si legano con una visione minimalista più contemporanea. Questo sguardo intimo sui contenuti esprime in modo più ampio la sonorità così caratteristica di un autore che si è guadagnato un posto indiscutibile nella musica portoghese. I Madredeus continuano ad essere inequivocabilmente presenti nello sguardo del musicista, non solo nella sua memoria raccontata in questo lavoro, ma anche nei suoi progetti attuali. Un anniversario che celebra le caratteristiche più attuali della musica portoghese. © Ulyses Villanueva/Qobuz

Bastano due accordi di synth per riconoscere il suono tutto particolare degli Eurythmics, gruppo emblematico degli anni ’80. Il tandem costituito da Annie Lennox e Dave Stewart simboleggia perfettamente quella new wave sintetica (pop nel fondo, futurista nella forma) tipica di un decennio in cui le chitarre erano quasi diventate cosa poco gradita… Il duo britannico sarà in testa alle classifiche per tutti gli anni ’80 e Sweet Dreams diventerà il loro brano per antonomasia. Alla partitura, Dave Stewart si lancia in una new wave cupa stile Bowie (Love Is A Stranger) oppure osa un krautrock leggero (Sweet Dreams). Sa anche essere funky (I’ve Got An Angel) e persino disco (Wrap It Up). Al microfono, Annie Lennox impressiona optando per una voce soul o, al contrario, decisamente austera. Un classico del genere. © Clotilde Maréchal/Qobuz

Dopo un primo opus abbastanza magico di country alternativa pieno zeppo di energia (A.M.) ma concepito al momento della separazione turbolenta dal suo gruppo Uncle Tupelo, Jeff Tweedy questa volta se la prende comoda per generare il secondo album di Wilco. Già, l’opera è ambiziosa perché doppia. Un formato che, per via di affinità musicali, farà scrivere a non pochi giornalisti al momento dell’uscita del disco nell’ottobre del 1996 che Tweedy firma qui il suo Exile On Main Street. Come per il capolavoro dei Rolling Stones, l’eclettismo si esprime attraverso il rock’n’roll basic, la bluegrass, la country rock, lo psichedelismo, la folk e la soul madida. Con le chitarre in tutta libertà, della pedal steel, degli ottoni e tutto un insieme smisurato di strumenti, il Wilco di Being There tesse un’impressionante tela tra gli Stones nel periodo del loro massimo splendore, i Replacements, i Beatles e i Big Star dell’album Third. Alternando ballate e tormente elettriche, Tweedy mostra soprattutto che partendo da una base abbastanza classica e atemporale, si aggiudica la posta in gioco con le sue canzoni grandiose e le sue composizioni dall’architettura stupefacente…Questa Edizione Deluxe rimasterizzata propone, oltre all’album originale, quindici bonus inediti che includono in particolare versioni alternative di I Got You e Say You Miss Me e un live registrato il 12 novembre 1996 al Troubadour di Los Angeles e una sessione per la stazione radio KCRW di Santa Monica captata il giorno seguente. © MZ/Qobuz

Pubblicato nel dicembre del 1976, questo quinto album degli Eagles rimarrà il loro più grande successo. Trascinato dal suo singolo di successo omonimo, Hotel California segna una svolta nella carriera del gruppo americano. Bernie Leadon, il più country della band, è uscito di scena e qui entra in gioco Joe Walsh. A sua volta, sembra che anche Don Henley assuma maggiormente il controllo delle cose. Ne risulta un disco più mainstream di quelli precedenti, che è caratterizzato, in particolare, da un suono in cinemascope all’altezza delle sue canzoni. Tutto è XXL qui! La produzione, gli assoli, le melodie… Tutto! Capolavoro del rock classico dalle curvature FM, questa è soprattutto un’opera che attraversa decenni e decenni e fa comunque sempre impazzire la folla. Glenn Frey, Don Felder, Joe Walsh, Randy Meisner e Don Henley non ritroveranno mai una complicità e incisività così impressionanti… Pubblicata nel novembre del 2017, questa edizione del 40° anniversario propone l’album originale rimasterizzato, insieme all’energico live californiano registrato al Forum di Inglewood nell’ottobre del 1976. © CM/Qobuz

Nonostante le regole del gioco fossero chiare già dal loro primo album, i Ramones riescono a superarsi con il terzo episodio della loro saga binaria. E anche ad affinare la loro arte! Ancora una volta, con questo Rocket To Russia tirato fuori il 4 novembre 1977 in piena guerra fredda, è tutta questione di sinfonia in tre accordi, di storie allegramente sciocche 100% da teenager e, soprattutto, di portare con orgoglio il rock’n’roll alla luce del giorno: in un garage! Ma i ritornelli di Sheena Is A Punk Rocker o Teenage Lobotomy sono inarrestabili per la loro efficacia nella rilettura del patrimonio rock’n’roll, pop bubblegum e surf. E anche quando rivisitano la celebre i>Surfin’ Bird dei Trashmen o Do You Wanna Dance?, resa famosa da Cliff Richard, i Beach Boys e perfino Bette Midler, i nostri delinquenti punk del Queens fanno del rock selvaggio e tormentato come nessun altro! Questa edizione, che celebra i quarant’anni di questa sublime esplosione sonora, propone due mix dell’album: quello dell’album originale e uno nuovo chiamato Tracking Mix e firmato Ed Stasium, ingegnere del suono della versione iniziale. Comprende, inoltre, 24 tracce rare o inedite, delle demo, delle versioni alternative e delle canzoni nel lato B. Infine, ciliegina sulla torta, un live scoppiettante inedito dei (finti) fratelli Ramones, registrato il 9 dicembre 1977 all’Apollo Centre di Glasgow in Scozia. © MZ/Qobuz

Elliott Smith's third album sees his one-man show getting a little more ambitious. While he still plays all the instruments himself, he plays more of them. Several of the songs mimic the melody mastery of pop bands from 1960s. The most alluring numbers, however, are still his quietly melancholy acoustic ones. While the full-band songs are catchy and smart, Smith's recording equipment isn't quite up to the standards set by the Beatles and the Beach Boys. The humbler arrangements are better suited to the sparse equipment. "Between the Bars," for example, plays Smith's strengths perfectly. He sings, in his endearingly limited whisper, of late-night drinking and introspection, and his subdued strumming creates a minor-key mood befitting the mysteries of self. "Angeles" is equally ethereal -- Smith's acoustic fingerpicking spins out notes which briskly move around a single atmospheric keyboard chord, like aural minnows swimming toward a solitary light at the surface of the water. The lyrics are a darkly biting rejection of the hypercapitalist dream machinery of Los Angeles (it would make a great theme song for Smith's label, Kill Rock Stars). Ironically, "Angeles" was included on the Good Will Hunting soundtrack, which won Smith the acclaim of Hollywood's biggest, brightest, and best connected voting body, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Smith's stock in L.A. soared after he took his bow at the Oscars with Celine Dion and Trisha Yearwood. It might have been more interesting had he sung "Angeles." © Darryl Cater /TiVo

The supporting tour for Green exhausted R.E.M., and they spent nearly a year recuperating before reconvening for Out of Time. Where previous R.E.M. records captured a stripped-down, live sound, Out of Time was lush with sonic detail, featuring string sections, keyboards, mandolins, and cameos from everyone from rapper KRS-One to the B-52's' Kate Pierson. The scope of R.E.M.'s ambitions is impressive, and the record sounds impeccable, its sunny array of pop and folk songs as refreshing as Michael Stipe's decision to abandon explicitly political lyrics for the personal. Several R.E.M. classics -- including Mike Mills' Byrds-y "Near Wild Heaven," the haunting "Country Feedback," and the masterpiece "Losing My Religion" -- are present, but the album is more notable for its production than its songwriting. Most of the songs are slight but pleasant, or are awkward experiments like "Radio Song"'s stab at funk, and while this sounds fine as the record is playing, there's not much substantive material to make the record worth returning to. © Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

It's hard to overstate how much the songs of Jagged Little Pill — released on feminist pioneer Madonna's Maverick label at a moment when Hootie & the Blowfish and the theme from Friends were anesthetizing America — shook up pop radio in 1995. No one was prepared for first single "You Oughta Know," which stormed into ubiquity in a blaze of raw fury aimed at a "Mr. Duplicity" who rebounded too soon. Often mis-characterized as pure vengeance, the dynamics-propelled rocker (with bass and guitar from Flea and Dave Navarro, then of the Red Hot Chili Peppers) was really about being forthright and staking a claim to un-pretty feelings: "And every time you speak her name/ Does she know how you told me/ You'd hold me until you died." Of course, Morissette had no choice but to be divisive. From the album's opener "All I Really Want," you'll know if you love or hate her voice, with its affected tics and shrieks. Let it also be said that Jagged Little Pill is not an album for those who find harmonica grating, and that jaunty hit "Ironic" may drive literalists crazy with its litany of inconveniences ("It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife"). But it's that lack of self-consciousness from Morissette (19 years old at the time) that makes songs such as the grungy "Forgiven" — a defiance against patriarchal Catholic guilt — and self-empowerment bop "You Learn" a clarion call of independence for young women looking to ditch fear. It also let her create a completely new sound that didn't draw directly from typical female influences (save for the folksy "Hand In My Pocket", which comes on like the spiritual descendent of Edie Brickell's "What I Am") and left a mold for countless female artists after. © Qobuz

Uncle Tupelo ended in volleys of bitter acrimony between founding members Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy, and as most of Uncle Tupelo's final lineup joined Tweedy to form Wilco, Farrar set out to assemble a new band that suited his specifications. Teaming with UT's original drummer Mike Heidorn, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Dave Boquist, and bassist (and Dave's brother) Jim Boquist, Farrar's new group Son Volt started with the deep, resonant sound of his work with Uncle Tupelo and moved it several steps further, and the band's debut album, 1995's Trace, ultimately displayed his talent to better advantage than any album he made before or since. Sequenced to highlight the dynamic push and pull between fierce rockers like "Route" and "Drown," full of Farrar's Neil Young-styled electric guitar, and quieter and more thoughtful numbers like "Tear-Stained Eye" and "Windfall," Trace honored both sides of Farrar's musical personality, and the muscular but unpretentious attack of his backing band was made to order for these songs. And the mixed themes of freedom, disappointment, and betrayal that punctuate Farrar's lyrics clearly reflected his state of mind as he walked away from one band and into another. One could reasonably describe Trace as Jay Farrar's version of George Harrison's All Things Must Pass, a watershed work where the artist occasionally looks to an unsatisfying past as he sets out on a bracing new adventure, and like All Things Must Pass it was a triumph that Farrar would never quite repeat as he created a body of work that was satisfying but never balanced songs, performances, and mood with the easy perfection he achieved here. However, when Trace appeared in 1995, it was hard not to believe Farrar had broken up Uncle Tupelo for all the right reasons, and it's still a powerful, beautifully crafted, and deeply moving set of songs. © Mark Deming /TiVo

After the freakish hard rock of The Man Who Sold the World, David Bowie returned to singer/songwriter territory on Hunky Dory. Not only did the album boast more folky songs ("Song for Bob Dylan," "The Bewlay Brothers"), but he again flirted with Anthony Newley-esque dancehall music ("Kooks," "Fill Your Heart"), seemingly leaving heavy metal behind. As a result, Hunky Dory is a kaleidoscopic array of pop styles, tied together only by Bowie's sense of vision: a sweeping, cinematic mélange of high and low art, ambiguous sexuality, kitsch, and class. Mick Ronson's guitar is pushed to the back, leaving Rick Wakeman's cabaret piano to dominate the sound of the album. The subdued support accentuates the depth of Bowie's material, whether it's the revamped Tin Pan Alley of "Changes," the Neil Young homage "Quicksand," the soaring "Life on Mars?," the rolling, vaguely homosexual anthem "Oh! You Pretty Things," or the dark acoustic rocker "Andy Warhol." On the surface, such a wide range of styles and sounds would make an album incoherent, but Bowie's improved songwriting and determined sense of style instead made Hunky Dory a touchstone for reinterpreting pop's traditions into fresh, postmodern pop music. © Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Entertainment! is one of those records where germs of influence can be traced through many genres and countless bands, both favorably and unfavorably. From groups whose awareness of genealogy spreads wide enough to openly acknowledge Gang of Four's influence (Fugazi, Rage Against the Machine), to those not in touch with their ancestry enough to realize it (rap-metal, some indie rock) -- all have appropriated elements of their forefathers' trailblazing contribution. Its vaguely funky rhythmic twitch, its pungent, pointillistic guitar stoccados, and its spoken/shouted vocals have all been picked up by many. Lyrically, the album was apart from many of the day, and it still is. The band rants at revisionist history in "Not Great Men" ("No weak men in the books at home"), self-serving media and politicians in "I Found That Essence Rare" ("The last thing they'll ever do?/Act in your interest"), and sexual politics in "Damaged Goods" ("You said you're cheap but you're too much"). Though the brilliance of the record thrives on the faster material -- especially the febrile first side -- a true highlight amongst highlights is the closing "Anthrax," full of barely controlled feedback squalls and moans. It's nearly psychedelic, something post-punk and new wave were never known for. With a slight death rattle and plodding bass rumble, Jon King equates love with disease and admits to feeling "like a beetle on its back." In the background, Andy Gill speaks in monotone of why Gang of Four doesn't do love songs. Subversive records of any ilk don't get any stronger, influential, or exciting than this. © Andy Kellman /TiVo

Love's Forever Changes made only a minor dent on the charts when it was first released in 1967, but years later it became recognized as one of the finest and most haunting albums to come out of the Summer of Love, which doubtless has as much to do with the disc's themes and tone as the music, beautiful as it is. Sharp electric guitars dominated most of Love's first two albums, and they make occasional appearances here on tunes like "A House Is Not a Motel" and "Live and Let Live," but most of Forever Changes is built around interwoven acoustic guitar textures and subtle orchestrations, with strings and horns both reinforcing and punctuating the melodies. The punky edge of Love's early work gave way to a more gentle, contemplative, and organic sound on Forever Changes, but while Arthur Lee and Bryan MacLean wrote some of their most enduring songs for the album, the lovely melodies and inspired arrangements can't disguise an air of malaise that permeates the sessions. A certain amount of this reflects the angst of a group undergoing some severe internal strife, but Forever Changes is also an album that heralds the last days of a golden age and anticipates the growing ugliness that would dominate the counterculture in 1968 and 1969; images of violence and war haunt "A House Is Not a Motel," the street scenes of "Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hillsdale" reflects a jaded mindset that flower power could not ease, the twin specters of race and international strife rise to the surface of "The Red Telephone," romance becomes cynicism in "Bummer in the Summer," the promise of the psychedelic experience decays into hard drug abuse in "Live and Let Live," and even gentle numbers like "Andmoreagain" and "Old Man" sound elegiac, as if the ghosts of Chicago and Altamont were visible over the horizon as Love looked back to brief moments of warmth. Forever Changes is inarguably Love's masterpiece and an album of enduring beauty, but it's also one of the few major works of its era that saw the dark clouds looming on the cultural horizon, and the result was music that was as prescient as it was compelling. © Mark Deming /TiVo

Love's Forever Changes made only a minor dent on the charts when it was first released in 1967, but years later it became recognized as one of the finest and most haunting albums to come out of the Summer of Love, which doubtless has as much to do with the disc's themes and tone as the music, beautiful as it is. Sharp electric guitars dominated most of Love's first two albums, and they make occasional appearances here on tunes like "A House Is Not a Motel" and "Live and Let Live," but most of Forever Changes is built around interwoven acoustic guitar textures and subtle orchestrations, with strings and horns both reinforcing and punctuating the melodies. The punky edge of Love's early work gave way to a more gentle, contemplative, and organic sound on Forever Changes, but while Arthur Lee and Bryan MacLean wrote some of their most enduring songs for the album, the lovely melodies and inspired arrangements can't disguise an air of malaise that permeates the sessions. A certain amount of this reflects the angst of a group undergoing some severe internal strife, but Forever Changes is also an album that heralds the last days of a golden age and anticipates the growing ugliness that would dominate the counterculture in 1968 and 1969; images of violence and war haunt "A House Is Not a Motel," the street scenes of "Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hillsdale" reflects a jaded mindset that flower power could not ease, the twin specters of race and international strife rise to the surface of "The Red Telephone," romance becomes cynicism in "Bummer in the Summer," the promise of the psychedelic experience decays into hard drug abuse in "Live and Let Live," and even gentle numbers like "Andmoreagain" and "Old Man" sound elegiac, as if the ghosts of Chicago and Altamont were visible over the horizon as Love looked back to brief moments of warmth. Forever Changes is inarguably Love's masterpiece and an album of enduring beauty, but it's also one of the few major works of its era that saw the dark clouds looming on the cultural horizon, and the result was music that was as prescient as it was compelling. © Mark Deming /TiVo