Luz

Djavan

The Peak of a Master Melodist

Computers are generally considered to be a positive evolutionary step in the production of popular music—they make it possible to move ideas around quickly, to try different sound combinations without endless rerecording. But there's a downside: Computers have induced several generations of pop song-writers to think of melodies as little more than repeatable patterns. Quincy Jones, the producer responsible for Michael Jackson's Thriller and other smash hits, considers this a problem: "What you hear nowadays are these little bitty phrases, two measures or four measures, that wind up being the whole melody . . . but they don't really take you anywhere."

To encounter more expansive themes, ideas that swerve around sharp corners and take flying leaps and generally don't end up in expected places, check out Luz, the career peak of Brazilian singer and songwriter Djavan. Recorded in Los Angeles in 1982 and sung entirely in Portuguese, this is a shining example of compositional ideas that wander far from, and happily elude, repetitive two-measure loops on the grid. Djavan's songs here—particularly "Sina" and "Capim"—are like winding paths through a forest, with each verse pulling you closer to a clearing. Splayed out over long and lazy phrases, Djavan's music registers as the opposite of numbing repetition. Instead it unfolds like a breathtaking vista.

Djavan enhances this feeling by the way he sings—with a breezy irreverence. He's got that Brazilian understatement working, and though he knows these melodies are plenty compelling, he doesn't deliver them straight. Moving with gymnastic dexterity and a great sense of flow, he massages the original themes into improbable, astoundingly musical shapes. Needless to say, none of them fits into a two-measure spot on anybody's grid.

Genre: World, Brazil
Released: 1982, Sony
Key Tracks: "Petala," "Sina."
Catalog Choice: Seduzir
Next Stop: Lô Borges: Lô Borges
After That: Tribalistas: Tribalistas
Book Pages: 228–229

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About 1,000 Recordings

Celebrate the joy, the revelation, the mystery, the fun, the sheer shivers-up-the-spine pleasure of great music.

Essential operas. Milestone rock albums. An education in the blues. The world of world. Classical from Bach to Bartók to Beethoven to Brahms. And dozens of unexpected gems, surprising discoveries, and long-lost masterpieces.

This is an online version of the list (published alphabetically in the book). The entries in the book break down genre bias and broaden every listener’s horizons—think Miles Davis to Claude Debussy to the melodic story-songs of The Decemberists. And the writing is passionate, informed, opinionated.

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