Novo Fado

Long dismissed as "hidebound and resistant to change," fado music is enjoying a revival via "an explosion of new voices, most of them female," reports Larry Rohter in the New York Times (3/25/11). Popularized in Portugal by the late Amalia Rodrigues over her 60-year-career, fado is "Portugal’s soulful, guitar-based national song style." It fell into disfavor after Portugal’s fascist regime fell in 1974, abandoned by a younger generation that "saw fado as a symbol of the country’s backwardness and repression."

There was also the legend of Amalia to live up to. "Any time a new singer appears, there’s always a comparison with Amalia, since she is the great goddess of fado," says Yolanda Soares, who is among the singers taking fado in new directions on her latest record, Metamorphosis. Ana Moura is also part of the "novo fado" movement, and catapulting "the genre into the 21st century, opening a space for bold experiments with repertory, instrumentation and ways of singing." For Ana, this includes a fado cover of a Rolling Stones song, No Expectations.

The genre actually dates back to the 1820s, "as the music of a port," explains fado singer Mariza, "a place where mixtures take place, with sailors bringing influences" from around the world. Its essence is in a Portuguese word, saudade, "which basically translates into "longing, yearning, nostalgia or melancholy." Some singers are updating with different instrumentation, like electric guitar and drums, while others are challenging "the traditional fado uniform of severe black dress and shawl," which some see as conveying "the image of a victim." The one thing that hasn’t changed, however, "is fado’s image as a genre in which women dominate."