One of the problems with generic descriptions is that they are usually small and generalistic words trying to cover an endless sea of possibilities. After all, what is pop other than music made for a popular, mainstream audience? The other problem with pop, in particular, is that the pop forged in one part of the world is subject to widely different influences than that made in another.
For example, sitting here in southern England, I am used to pop music built on 60’s chart experimentation, New York disco, Club-Med dancefloor sounds and modern soul revivals. What is so great about In Love Wit U is that you can hear Ester Azeredo’s formative Rio years echoing through, the sound of jazz, bossa nova and samba, as well as the pop grooves and rap interludes which help turn it into truly world music.
And I say world music in all seriousness. In my view, world music isn’t a place of rootsy demarkations, one inhabited by recordings of traditional Hungarian folk players or Mongolian throat singers, it is a place where modern cultures collide and clash creatively to forge music without either generic or geographic limits. And that is the sound that Ester Azeredo is making here.
It is full of life and positivity, groove and grace, it is infectious and accessible and it is like little else to be found in western pop…I say that because she has now made her home in Tampa, Florida after a number of years in Europe.
Pop music, like anything else, is best when it evolves naturally. But, again, like everything else, that evolution is motivated by certain stimuli. Songs such as In Love Wit U and artists such as Ester Azeredo are exactly the push that western mainstream pop needs, the challenge to accept and if the sounds woven into this sonic design and the benchmarks set here are not just the competition needed to shake up the scene, then I don’t know what is!
