The Singles Jukebox

Welcome to our annual coverage of the Latin Grammy Best New Artist nominees! Today and tomorrow we’ll be reviewing the singles of the contenders we haven’t covered yet. First up, a Brazilian telenovela actress-turned-singer…

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Jonathan Bogart: Caffeinated jangle-pop of a sort nearly two decades out of date in the Anglosphere, with lyrics that read like a child’s idea of sexiness, would not have been my first pick for a song that would make me smile this week, but I am a deep, deep sucker for caffeinated jangle-pop, and the lyrics being in Portuguese makes them sound slightly more sophisticated than they are. And, frankly, this week being what it is, I could use anything that will make me smile.
[7]

Katie Gill: Those drums, guitars and harmonies sound like Abrahão wrote a song to play during the opening credits of a rom-com, run through a layer of mid-2000s “Soak Up The Sun” for added emphasis. And I am 100% here for this. It’s bright and fun and cheery. I didn’t even know I missed that sort of pseudo-genre until Abrahão reminded me of how much I loved it in the first place!
[8]

Alfred Soto: The swelling guitars and flippy-floppy drums suggest a vision of pop that America has abandoned. It has its charms, like many tracks with mild-voiced singers.
[6]

Juana Giaimo: Easy-going music has an advantage: it can never really be bothersome and is guaranteed a big audience. But it also has the cost of being highly forgettable unless you have a distinctive element — I’m thinking of Julieta Venegas’ accordion and her slightly raspy voice. Also, I might not get all the words very well, but “Sou Fatal” doesn’t seem to be the best lyrics for an acoustic, upbeat and plain song like this. 
[5]

Cassy Gress: I don’t really buy that she’s fatal (in the stabby sense or the succubus sense), and I can’t tell whether that’s her fault for having slightly too heavy of a voice for this jangling 2001-ish acoustic pop, or whether it’s the song’s fault for being insufficiently dark.
[4]

Will Adams: Sunny pop-rock that recalls the era of Hoku. The vocal tracks carry the weight, though, while everything else is set to cruise control.
[5]

Iain Mew: Warm and lazy and the perfect soundtrack for a long afternoon stretching into evening with little to do, at least if it’s one where you can’t be bothered to get up and put on something that does a bit more.
[6]