Dar & Receber - António Variações

It's odd that among all of Europe's great pop music eccentrics, some garner sizable cult audiences in the US and UK, while others achieve great success in their native countries while passing virtually unnoticed by the American and British pop/rock cognoscenti. Cult legends like Serge Gainsbourg and Jacques Brel remain college radio staples in the English-speaking world, while even less iconoclastic musicians like Goran Bregović, Boris Vian, Lucio Battisti, Selda Bağcan, and Pugh Rogefeldt have small followings outside of their homelands. It's unfortunate then, that António Variações, one of European pop music's great innovators and oddballs, remains woefully obscure even after having achieved great success in his native Portugal, as well as having essentially changed the face of Portuguese pop music in the 80's with his clever mixing of synth-pop and electro-rock styles with more traditional Portuguese forms such as fado. And for anyone who counts his/herself as a member of Sparks' fanbase, Variações will sound like manna from heaven. Ironic, since Sparks, an American group, were abysmally unsuccessful in the US, while racking up many hits in Europe. But truly, this sounds so much like Sparks that it's impossible to ignore: the almost goofy synth-rock beats, the sweet falsetto vocals, and the general flamboyance all call to mind the Mael brothers' best work. But to label Variações as a mere Portuguese imitation of those underground rock pariahs is to miss the glorious individuality of his work. Dar & Receber, the last album he recorded before dying of AIDS-related illness in 1984, is a masterpiece of European pop music. Halfway between new wave and Iberian folk music, it's one of the most underrated classics of the 80's. "Canção de Engate" was the hit, a song that, for many Portuguese, iconicized the civil liberalization that followed the Carnation Revolution of the 70's. The rest of the album is just as iconic, and just as exciting, and if you feel the need to put a face on the man behind the music, google Variações to see one of the most singular styles of the 80's... scissor-shaped glasses ought to have been big.

Tu estás livre e eu estou livre.