I’m going to delve into the past a little bit today. This blog is mainly to analyze current music trends, I know, but I just finished writing a paper on Bossa Nova for my Brazilian Culture and Civilizations class, and let me tell you what I found out while researching:

Damn, bossa nova is awesome.

I had a bit of a head start on the rest of the class, I’ll admit, since my parents used to play Getz/Gilberto all the time at dinner parties (“The Girl From Ipanema” always reminds me of candlelight and spilling wine, for some reason), but I didn’t know anything about its history until now. And it’s pretty remarkable, and worth sharing with you.

I’ll give you the shortened version of my 10 page paper. Flashback to the late 1950s, Brazil. They’re still about 50 years behind the rest of the developed world in terms of…