Word: pops
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...from round these parts, its hooks and grooves are ones any veteran soul-boy or jazzer can relate to: funky brass, swirling organ, growling sax, rippling congas, ecstatic vocals - this is not the sound of a national culture struggling to make itself heard over the global noise of pop. Rather, these are artists who 40 years ago itched to be part of it, who dressed like doo-wop boys, played funk, jazz and RnB in Ethiopia's hotel bars and nightclubs and were stars of a scene that, for a while, was known as "Swinging Addis...
...encouraging. Eleven years of military dictatorship under Colonel Mengistu and a dusk-to-dawn curfew had all but extinguished Addis Ababa's nightlife. The few hotels in the capital offering live entertainment were mostly the haunt of business and diplomatic flotsam and hookers, while the music was desultory generic pop, played on cheap synthesizers. "It took several trips and several more years before I understood what had happened," says Falceto. "These big bands were dead. They just didn't exist any more." Incredibly, the vibrancy of Addis's musical life in the 60's and 70's owed...
Plenty of pop albums have been ripped apart by music critics - including a few by model-singer turned French First Lady Carla Bruni. But Bruni's newest release, Comme Si Rien N'Etait (translation: As If Nothing Happened), out July 11, has elevated her well beyond ordinary targets of music snobbery like Vanessa Paradis or Kylie Minogue...
...Bruni is now that rarest of things - a pop star savaged by critics and policy wonks...
...destroyed guerrilla camp, another scolds him: "The men have been living here on rice and beans, sleeping out here in the cold on these rags. These are some f___ing hard men. You ladies bitch if you get an MRE [Meal Ready to Eat] without a f___ing Pop-Tart...