What's the best Portuguese guitar music?

I hope someone more knowledgeable answers your question but in the meantime I would suggest that the best Portuguese music comes from their former colony Brazil, specifically the Bossa Nova stuff of Jobim and that crowd and especially that stuff as interpreted by Stan Getz and similar jazz musicians who brought it to the US.

You should watch “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou”. The entire soundtrack is composed of amazing acoustic covers of David Bowie songs sung in Portuguese.

I couldn’t find any but if you do, the domain address Portugueseguitarmusic.com seems to be available. :)

Or look into fado, a relatively new (1930’s) Lisbon/Coimbra/Porto-based singing/strings traditon featuring guitar.

Great Question!

PORTUGUESE GUITAR

@susanc is right, fado is a good example where they use a lot of Portuguese guitar. Often, that’s the only instrument they use.

Carlos Parede is by far our most-known Portuguese guitar player. His father, Artur Paredes was also very important as a Portuguese guitar player.

Besides those two, we also had other great players such as José Nunes, Fontes Rocha, Jaime Santos and Raul Nery.

PORTUGUESE MUSIC IN GENERAL

That depends on what genre you are interested in.

We have a lot of great rappers like Sam the Kid, Boss AC, Sp & Wilson, Valete and Da Weasel.

If you are interested in rock then you have to check out Xutos & Pontapés. They have been active for over 30 years. They’re our “Rolling Stones”.

As for Pop/Rock music I’d suggest Rui Veloso, Sérgio Godinho or Pedro Abrunhosa, both of them very popular.

Another very popular genre nowadays is called Kuduro. It has African origins. The most popular representative for this genre is definitely Buraka Som Sistema.

If you’re interested in some other genres, by all means let me know!

@Hobbes Yes! The artist on the soundtrack you are referring to is Seu Jorge, and he is amazing. I have the soundtrack and would highly recommend it.

edit::

- when I said “both of them” I meant “all three of them”.
– I forgot to mention some of our most famous fado singers. Amália Rodrigues, who was by far the most influential in popularizing the fado worldwide, died in 1999. She was really good! Other famous fado singers are Mariza, Carlos do Carmo and Cristina Branco.