Trip of the moment

While I've always loved strong female vocals, recently my preferences have taken a rather odd turn. It started maybe a month ago when I walked into That CD Shop in Great World City. A woman with a voice as sweet as honey and English lightly accented, sang The Bee Gees'"Staying Alive" to the mildest of bossa nova beats. I know that description can hardly be appealing, but the reality of it drew me to the salesgirl to ask what was playing. She told me about Eldissa--three Brazilian lasses who did covers as well as a couple of their own tunes. When I asked her to play more, she fast-forwarded to Irene Cara's "Fame", Anita Ward's "Ring My Bell", Lipps' "Funky Town", Abba's "Gimme,Gimme,Gimme", Michael Jackson's "Rock With You", The Village Poeple's "Go West" And Barry Manilow's "Could It Be Magic", among others. Baduy na kung baduy. And yet it isn't. In fact, it's pretty cool, actually. Listening to Eldissa is like experiencing a series of emotional epiphanies about long ago times, for these are old songs sung like new. Who could have ever imagined that "Go West" could sound so cool?

And then, while browsing at a Hong Kong bookstore, I noted the soundtrack and inquired what it was. A Japanese femme named Noon was singing Frank Sinatra, strong vocals and again, an accent that was startlingly, impossibly attractive. What's up with that? Noon is kitschy cool. When I got back to Singapore, I dropped by Gramophone and picked up Noon's Better Than Anything. Now I'm addicted to that cosmopolitan Tokyo air in "Moon River", "One Note Samba", "It Had To Be You", "Call Me", "Danke Schoen" and others.

There's a whole lot of Diana Kralling going on; and everything is starting to sound alike to me. How marvelous that there are these voices from other worlds, singing the standards in extraordinary ways and giving the old songs their own inimitable flavour. I am so tripping.