Artist preview: Maria Linares

Okay, so music reviews are kind of trite. I certainly don’t care what others think of my favorite bands ? That said, I was introduced to an artist, Maria Linares, by my good friend over Throw the Dice and Play Nice who conveniently has written something of a more in depth look at Ms. Linares with a nice artist Q&A. Once you’ve finished reading this, head over to her blog and check it out.

Briefly, you should well get a bit of background, which can probably best be stolen directly from her personal website

“Maria Linares is a New York city based film Composer, Singer and Songwriter. She has written songs for Telemundo TV series and has composed and produced music for short films, television, jingles and multimedia projects.”

From what I’ve heard she tends to specialize in something of a stripped down one girl with a pretty voice, and one acoustic guitar type song, but as with any rule, there are exceptions within her freely available online catalog.

Maria’s strengths definitely come in her Spanish language music. That is not to take anything away from her English language work, as it is also quite good, but she just sounds more comfortable singing in Spanish, as well she should as a Colombian native. She isn’t going to draw a direct comparison to Shakira a fellow Colombia recording artists releasing English language work in the states. Maria’s music, or at least the majority of what I’ve been able to track down, is recorded with a simple accompaniment for her vocals, and this by no means is a bad thing. Her vocal work is meant to be the center piece to her recordings, and she does a great job of making it exactly that. She is a terrific songwriter, and can more than hold her own with many of today’s popular acts. The only question I have is why I haven’t been so fortunate as to hear this music before. I can’t say it’s what I want to listen to all of the time, but she certainly produces excellent music to relax and unwind to. Despite how beautiful it is I’m a rather heavy sleeper, so much so that I proudly own the Sonic Bomb alarm clock , and as such cannot listen to her soft acoustic tracks early in the morning. I can however enjoy her music, during the work day, once I’m good and awake, or while relaxing in the evening.

I am especially a fan of the track “La Princesa y el Dragón”  which is an excellent representation of what she can do vocally, and what kind of beautiful composition she produces.  Her English language track "Answers" is also an exceptional offering with similar styling to her well constructed Spanish language songs, though despite being well performed and well constructed the vocals feel just a bit forced. To her credit, if I were to sing in Spanish, my vocal line would sound tremendously more strained than hers ever will. She definitely has the talent to become more comfortable with her English language songwriting and can easily grow to being an even stronger artist than she is currently. I don’t know when she recorded “Answers” in relation to when she recorded her cover of Cindi Lauper's "Time after Time" but she does an excellent job with a song that has been redone by near countless artists.  Maria Linares’ cover stands strong against renditions done by more established acts, and can definitely go toe to toe with the original recording.

For what it’s worth, I am certainly eagerly awaiting the release of her full length album.