Parece un Martes 13 by el Signo

Another Argentine dance song; this time "Martes 13" by el Signo.  There are other versions of this song (I have four in total) which aren't quite as dancy sounding, but this is clearly a synthpop New Wave song of the type that was popular in Europe and North America at the same time that this was being produced in South America (very early 90s.)

"Martes 13" means "Tuesday the 13th" in Spanish, but for whatever reason, Tuesday is their bad-luck day when paired with the 13th rather than Friday as it is in the English-speaking world.  The lyrics, for those of you who don't speak Spanish, are all about worrying about bad luck and stuff with some vaguely creepy details here and there; they're nothing special.  One of the interesting angles is the Argentine tango that makes up some of the backing rhythm.

In any case, The Sacados and el Signo were both primarily somewhat localized bands, so I doubt I'll revisit much of them in the future, but it's fun to see both a blast from my own past as well as a glimpse into what was going on in a section of the world that's normally a little removed from the pop music centers of Western Civilization.

Lollipop—Dulce Nada by The Sacados

My brother asked me about this song recently, so I thought; what the heck, let's feature it.  The Sacados.  They're an Argentine group, and a lot of Argentine pop music fits the "Rock Argentino" style.  A few groups were more electronic in nature, though: The Sacados are a kind of pop/house fusion, and El Signo were kind of a rock/synthpop fusion.  I should put one of their songs up one of these days too, right?

Anyway, here's "Lollipop/Dulce Nada."  I probably would prefer "Corre González" or "La Primavera" myself, but since my brother specifically asked about this one, here it is:

Das Omen by Mysterious Art

When the internet was still relatively new, and Youtube wasn't around yet, and getting mp3 files or used CDs of music wasn't something that you could log into Amazon or iTunes or whatever and just do, I was often led on a merry chase trying to find esoteric or obscure stuff.

One of the bands that I heard about in the early 90s as being a bit of a cult favorite in the late 80s was Mysterious Art.  They never got, as far as I know, any North American release, so they were already very tricky to find by the mid to late 90s when I was looking for them.  But they had a huge hit in Germany in 1989.

I did a post on a song of theirs earlier, but in my effort to not be too predictable, of course, I missed their most famous song.  They weren't exactly a one-hit wonder, but missing "Das Omen" is kinda missing the point, in many ways.