I hardly ever put music to play in shuffle mode. I usually enjoy picking a specific album and let it play in its entirety. Sometimes I listen to an album by Slayer, then Nevermore, then Madredeus (?). Then, I listen to Black Sabbath, then Rush, then Vartina (?!). Once in a while, people around me ask "what the heck is that you’re listening to?".

Many people think I only listen to Heavy Metal, but that’s totally not true. There’s music I absolutely do NOT listen to, but I do enjoy finding out about music from different parts of the world that sound very different from the stuff I normally listen to.

That’s what this list is all about...

#10: Rondellus
Reading the book "How to Call Attention to Your Music", by Derek Sivers, I found out about this music group. Here’s how they caught my attention:
"A traditional medieval music group from Estonia doing an album of Black Sabbath songs played on medieval instruments and sung in Latin."
I just had to check them out!

#9: Iron Horse (Metallica)
I do not like Country Music, but I do like Bluegrass. I like the pace, I like the banjo, and the harmonized vocals. I like Metallica (it’s always been one of my favorite bands). Then you put the two together. That’s what Iron Horse did. Sounds like fun!

#8: Twelve Girls Band
What are those instruments?! They look funny and ancient, but this group make it sound interesting in their music. It’s different, it requires skill… I dig it.
Uhoh, This content has sprouted legs and trotted off.

#7: Beatallica
It sounds like Beatles, but played by Metallica. The lyrics are a mix of both bands. Sounds great to me.

#6: Baby Metal
The first reaction to most people listening to this band is "WTF?!". Heavy Metal mixed with Japanese K-Pop music? Many die-hard metal fans hate it. Once I got over my initial "WTF" state, I actually got their album.

The music is heavy (heavier than many metal bands out there), with great drumming and great guitar playing. The kids singing do sound kind of weird, but, those kids seem to be having fun, and I like that.

Their stage production looks really good, sometimes even scary, reminding me of Japanese horror movies (which I really like).

Even when they’re not playing their headline concerts, they still put on a great show. I mean, they play metal festivals in the middle of other traditional bands, and they don’t feel the pressure. Even playing while the sun is still out (so no big lights production there), they still get on the stage and play their music. I really like that attitude.

#5: Toy Dolls
This is one of the bands I listened to when I was skateboarding back in my teenage years. Fun!!

#4: Madredeus
Over 20 years ago I was zapping through channels and ended up landing on this one where they were talking about this group from Portugal who were playing in Brazil that week. They were showing some of their live footage and I loved both the singer’s voice as well as the acoustic guitar work in their music. This one song sounds sort of happy and different from most of the stuff I normally post here, but many of their other songs are very intense, even though they’re mostly acoustic. I really like their music. I’ve wanted to make a metal version of one of their songs for many years; hopefully I’ll get to it soon.

#3: Brenda Lee
Not sure I like this song. I just do. I heard it at a friend’s place several years ago, dug it, and got a few other ones by Brenda Lee. Definitely ‘weird’ compared to most of the other stuff I listen to.

#2: Mario Lima Brasil
Back in 1995 I was listening to a radio station in Brazil that plays classical music, world music, etc. At some point this song started to play. I didn't catch the name of the artist, so I called up the radio station to ask, went out to find the CD and still have it with me in my library. I still listen to it when I'm meditating or doing something that requires some level of attention.

#1: Vartina
Zapping through channels in 2001 I landed on one showing live footage of Rock in Rio. It was this group with 4 female singers, singing in a language I couldn’t pick up a single word, but still, the whole thing had this hypnotic feel to me. I remember thinking: "Wow, how can anyone care about being there to watch lame lip-syncing queen Britney Spears, when there are these unknown girls singing like that!!". I liked this group so much I went after more information about them. I found this one song, Aijo, and loved it. When it got to the 3’22" mark, I was awestruck. I’ll explain why...

My all-time favorite fiction book has been Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth every since I’ve read it, sometime in the 90’s. At some point I wanted to write a song about it. It was going to be a 12-minute long song, split into 5 different sections. The initial section was going to be inspired by the book’s prologue, where a witch casts a spell. I sort of had in my mind what that witch sounded like. Well, when I got to the 3’22" mark of this song by Vartina, I leaned back and thought: "THAT IS IT!!!! That’s what I need in my song!!". I had no way to understand what that singer was saying, but I was pretty sure she was portraying a witch in the song (later I found out info on the web confirming it).

Fast forward to 2002: I emailed Ken Follett to let him know how much I appreciated his work, and that I had this intention to write a song about one of his books. It’s a shame I don’t have a copy of his reply, which was something along these lines. "Thank you very much, Claudio. However, I’m a musician myself, and if anybody is to write songs about my books, that’d be me.". Needless to say I gave up on that idea.

Anyway, I continued listening to Vartina (who, by way, played the music for a theater adaptation of Lord of the Rings in Canada in 2006… take that, Mr. Follett!).