Bust-a-Bossa

What’s with this bossa nova craze? I really don’t get it. At the record store I saw bossa nova Beatles, even bossa nova VST & Company… and now bossa nova Disney?! Okay so maybe the sound is soothing and it’s sophisticated yet simple enough to appreciate. But still. Suddenly there are so many of these bossa nova albums that they now occupy a whole shelf in major record stores. Why bossa nova, of all rhythms? Why not something cooler, like reggae? Bossa nova’s one of the rhythm choices I never picked when I was toying around with those early Yamaha organs or those Casiotones. But that’s not really the reason why this bossa nova popularity gets my goat. I think I realized it one day when I was having dinner and I had to sit through an entire meal listening to some female singer do an insipid bossa nova version of “Digging Your Scene” by the Blow Monkeys. It’s not the bossa nova rhythm per se; in fact, it is rather relaxing. Rather, it is the way a number of these cash-on-a-craze artists have merely transposed existing songs into a bossa nova beat without even thinking of a good enough reason to do it except the obvious financial one; I suppose they all want to be bossa nouveau riche, after all. And it’s this obviousness that’s so painfully dissonant to the ears. It’s really lazy music and even lazier musicianship, and they’re earning money without earning their dues. I propose we gather all these bossa poseurs and exile them far, far away in some remote village by a cliff near the edge of ocean; there they’ll inflict their boring bossa on one another. For them that place is hell. For us we’ll call it Bossa Nova Villa. (Pa-thump-thump!)