#Perez Prado

[citizenscreen]

Cuban pianist, bandleader, and composer Pérez Prado was #botd in 1916. Known as “The King of the Mambo” for popularized the mambo in the 1950s.

[vinyl-artwork]

Perez Prado - A Cat In Latin, 1964.

[rastronomicals]

10:35 AM EDT August 12, 2024:

Perez Prado - "Goldfinger" From the album Music To Read James Bond By (August 1, 1968)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

[dozydawn]

Elizabeth Punsalan and Jerod Swallow 1996 Free Dance “Rhumba + Cha Cha”

Quizás, Quizás, Quizás by Perez Prado.

[jazzdailyblog]

Doc Cheatham: A Life in Jazz

Introduction: Adolphus “Doc” Cheatham was a master of the trumpet whose career spanned over seven decades. During this extensive period, he collaborated with some of the most influential figures in jazz, and his unwavering dedication to his craft left an indelible mark on the genre. In this blog post, we delve into the life and legacy of Doc Cheatham, exploring his early beginnings, major…

[hit-song-showdown]

Year-End Poll #6: 1955

The sound of a decade does not change the minute the ball drops on New Year's Eve. With the benefit of hindsight, it's easier to form these cultural shifts into a narrative, even when said shifts aren't always obvious. 1955 offers us the music we've grown accustomed to over the course of this decade: traditional pop, vocal quartets, jazz standards. However, this year also gives me an opportunity to highlight some different genres that will come to shape the decade in the years to come.

The post-war 1950s saw a boom in popularity when it came to music from South and Central America. We saw this before with the inclusion of other Spanish language songs reaching the Top 30, but artists like Pérez Prado and later Ritchie Valens helped to popularize Latin music in the States. Pérez Prado is, of course, known for popularizing mambo, a Cuban genre of dance music, by incorporating big band influence. The Prado song featured on this poll is not mambo, but rather one of its descendants, cha-cha.

In 1955 year-end chart, we're seeing the first traces of a genre of music that will help define the decade's sound: rock and roll. With the inclusion of Bill Haley's Rock Around the Clock, we're seeing the first rock and roll song to top the Billboard charts. Obviously, rock and roll has existed long before Bill Haley and Pat Boone reached the top 10. Unfortunately, like many other historically Black genres, white faces typically sold better with mainstream audiences. Is this the last we'll see of record executives using white performers to market Black music to white audiences?

Foreshadowing is a literary device--

More information about this blog here

[thyarqade]

Perez Prado - Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White (slowed+reverb)

[popmusic101]

Flashback: Mambo No. 5 - Lou Bega

30th September 2024

'Die With A Smile' is still #1 (for the sixth week now!), so we'll flashback twenty-five years to 1999 when the #1 song was the incredible 'Mambo #5' by Lou Bega.

Is it a slightly annoying song? Yes, 100% But now that we're not in 1999 anymore, and 'Mambo No. 5' isn't getting overplayed on the radio, I think we can all agree that it's also really fun and maybe secretly kinda great. But, speaking as a 90's kid, there was definitely a while where it earwormed it's way into everyone's brains and drove us all crazy.

I was surprised to find out that Lou Bega's version of 'Mambo No. 5' is actually a cover! The original is an instrumental jazz-mambo song by Perez Prado (who was also known as the King of the Mambo) back in 1949. It's also kinda great, and you can see why Lou Bega built his version off of the original.

Bega's 'Mambo No. 5' hit the #1 spot on the charts in basically every country. Seriously! Take a look at this. It's crazy, and I actually haven't seen another song that's done this (although I'm sure there are others out there).

Apparently America were not willing to jump on the same bandwagon as the rest of the world though! The #1 there was Santana and Rob Thomas' (from Matchbox Twenty) 'Smooth' which weirdly only got to #18 in NZ.

'Mambo No. 5' was Bega's only major hit, so he was essentially a one-hit-wonder. He is still making music though, with his most recent album released in 2021.

That's it for now. See you next week when we'll see if Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars can achieve a seventh straight week at #1.

[pm-me-people-sucking-your-heels]

Perez Prado supremacy

[castillejo2311]

[art-that-fucks-you-up-tournament]

SET EIGHT - ROUND TWO - MATCH FOUR

"Carroña" (2011 - Javier Perez) / "The Dog" (1819–23 - Francisco Goya)

CARROÑA: The description I found at the Cornish Museum of Glass' website for this piece states that it is inspired by the loss of traditional glassmaking in Italy, which fits very well with the red glass chandelier. Obviously, it is glass, but the chandelier pieces also resemble bones, organs, and other recognizable, natural shapes rendered in shiny red glass as if made of perpetually-fresh blood. It is made to represent an animal, and I would like to argue that this animal is human. The very human urge to create and own things that are nice is combined with the reliance an artist has on the customers' enjoyment of the art - the chandelier represents the humans who were a part of the glassmaking industry, or even enjoyed it, and their culture is here, being consumed.

That brings us to the birds, the crows eating a corpse. But the crows are not necessarily guilty of killing this chandelier; the glass sprays as if it fell. The crows may or may not have pecked it from its ceiling, but they are certainly enjoying the spoils. The crows are eating the chandelier, and if the chandelier is humans and culture, what are the crows? Are they merely the representation of the way of life - the energy of the food - being changed into another form, like the people who would have learnt the trade or those no longer capable of making a living off of it moving on? Or did they indeed commit the crime they are feeding off of, and are other markets or businesses come to take profitable pieces of the chandelier?

Also, c'mon, it's crows eating a cool-looking chandelier. That's pretty metal, if you ask me. (grinning-reaper-black-pearl)

THE DOG: I saw Goya's dog in the Prado years ago, and it struck me with such dread and sadness. The whole gallery with his "black paintings" was an incredibly intense and uncomfortable experience -- you can really feel the dark emotions in these pieces. I think I actually cried looking at this one -- the dog is so helpless, just a little island in all the negative space. (ladycoriolanus)

(Carroña is a sculpture by Javier Pérez made with murano glass and stuffed crows. It measures 120 x 235 x 300 cm (47 x 92.5 x 118 in).

“The Dog” is an painting by Francisco Goya, that was originally painted on the plaster walls of his house and later transferred onto canvas. It measures 131.5 cm × 79.3 cm (51+3⁄4 in × 31+1⁄4 in) and is located in the Museo del Prado in Madrid.)

[rastronomicals]

3:51 PM EST February 16, 2023:

Perez Prado - "Goldfinger" From the album Music To Read James Bond By (August 1, 1968)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

[peachesodell]

A peak at the holiday cocktail party of yore... clinking glasses, murmurs of mirth, a faint scent of Arpege perfume and somewhere there's a 78 rpm record playing Mambo No. 5 by Perez Prado.

[hit-song-showdown]

Year-End Poll #9: 1958

More information about this blog here

Now that we're reaching the end of the decade, we're seeing the culmination of the rising trends coming together in the charts. Traditional pop, early rock and roll, Latin pop, and the novelty song. Even going beyond the genres themselves, 1958 also marks a shift regarding the business side of the music industry. In August of this year, the Billboard Hot 100 was officially implemented, but we won't see the effects of that until next year. The 1950s serves as a fascinating transitional period in music culture.

And just to make things more complicated, some versions of the 1958 year-end chart feature both the A-sides and B-sides of some of the songs. I wondered if it had something to do with the introduction of the Hot 100, or perhaps because the B-sides charted equally or higher on different charts. But I have nothing to base that hypothesis off of and my own research hasn't helped me find anything. I reached out on the Billboard subreddit for help and a user named jdeeth was kind enough to give me a more thorough explanation. To make a long story short: in addition to the implementation of the Hot 100, 1958 was also the year Billboard started listing two-sided hits as a single entry, but this practice didn't catch on. However, there are future entries where two-sided hits are listed simultaneously again, but under different circumstances so I'll cross that bridge when it comes up.

[harenodrawsthings]

A Dream from Last Night: Second Anniversary

The night between the seventh and eighth of April marks the anniversary of my first and very unexpected Douman dream. These drawings were actually supposed to be for the first anniversary last year, but I didn’t have time to do anything in time. I made these sketches later on,and held onto them for months to post for the second anniversary.  I put the rest of the description in a read more because I have much to say!

For the theme I went with a part of the first dream that was influenced by a book I read about graphic design in Cuba. The first three images depict a scene from the first dream I regret not drawing, the segue from the reveal to the mambo montage of Douman in Cuba. Edit, tumblr doesn’t like external links so I’ll have to just mention to see “Que Rico Mambo” by Perez Prado. The song in the montage was indiscernible, but the one mentioned is the closest I could find to it. Douman dropped their disguise via walking past an arcade column.

The other images were for the anniversary, where I had some fun doing studies of the graphic design book that influenced the Cuba segment of the first dream. The “Visit Cuba” image is the only one I referenced directly, with some edits of course, while the rest are inspired by a bunch of different things from the book. (there was no credit in the book for the referenced image other than it was a luggage label) 

I like to think that once Merlin and Dantes are summoned, as individuals who watch dreams, they also see all of Pilar’s encounters with Douman in her dreams. So for the anniversary drawings I wanted to make a sort of comic depicting that in some way. 

The last drawing I had this idea that suddenly came to mind, something like a welcome poster. I had a lot of fun conceptualizing and drawing it. 

I never got to finish some of these and sadly don’t currently have the time to do so, but I wanted to post them anyways since I’ve been holding onto them for months. While I currently have other higher priority art to do, I’m looking forward to continuing drawing all the dreams! The most interesting thing is that after I finished 5.5, I stopped having them. I do like that it worked out that way, the final dream was a perfect last dream encounter before finally seeing one another in 5.5, and plus the dream count is capped and not a growing list anymore lol.