When you think of Portuguese music, fado immediately comes to mind, the melancholy song of Lisbon and Coimbra, listed by UNESCO. But Portugal has a much broader musical tradition, from the choral singing of Alentejo farmworkers to the protest songs that accompanied the revolution, from 1980s rock to electronica born in Lisbon's Afro-Portuguese neighbourhoods.
Folk music
Every region has its own traditional music and dances, kept alive by ranchos folclóricos, costumed groups who perform at festivals: the vira and chula of the Minho, the corridinho of the Algarve, the dances of the Beiras. In the Alentejo, cante alentejano, unaccompanied polyphonic choral singing, has been listed by UNESCO since 2014 (see Serpa). In the Terra de Miranda, bagpipes and the stick dance of the pauliteiros ring out (see Miranda do Douro).
Typical instruments are the twelve-string guitarra portuguesa, the voice of fado; the viola braguesa and viola amarantina; and the cavaquinho, a small four-string guitar from the Minho. From a relative of the cavaquinho, the Madeiran machete, taken to Hawaii by Madeiran emigrants in 1879, the ukulele was born.
The music of the revolution
In the 1960s and 1970s, under the dictatorship, música de intervenção, politically committed song, emerged, often censored. Its most famous author is José "Zeca" Afonso. His song "Grândola, Vila Morena", broadcast on the radio just after midnight on 25 April 1974, was the agreed signal for the start of the Carnation Revolution, and it is still the anthem of Portuguese democracy, sung at demonstrations. Alongside him, singer-songwriters such as Sérgio Godinho, José Mário Branco and Fausto wrote the soundtrack of those years.
Rock and pop
After the revolution Portuguese rock exploded: Rui Veloso, considered the father of rock sung in Portuguese, Xutos & Pontapés, GNR, UHF and later Ornatos Violeta. In the 1990s Madredeus, with the voice of Teresa Salgueiro, took a sound poised between fado, early music and minimalism around the world, helped by Wim Wenders's film Lisbon Story. Alongside this scene lives the hugely popular música pimba, cheerful dance-hall songs often full of double meanings, the soundtrack of summer village festivals.
Afro-Portuguese Lisbon
An essential part of contemporary Portuguese music comes from the African communities (see immigration): Cape Verdean music, mornas and coladeiras, Angolan kizomba and semba, and kuduro, an electronic rhythm born in Luanda and reinvented in Lisbon by Buraka Som Sistema. Today artists such as Dino d'Santiago and Branko blend these roots with pop and electronica. Fado is renewing itself too, with voices such as Mariza, Ana Moura and Carminho.
Eurovision and festivals
In 2017 Portugal won the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time with Salvador Sobral and the delicate ballad "Amar pelos dois", written by his sister Luísa, and hosted the contest in Lisbon the following year. The country is also one of Europe's summer festival capitals: NOS Alive and Rock in Rio in Lisbon, Primavera Sound in Porto, Super Bock Super Rock, Paredes de Coura in the Minho, the world music festival in Sines and Boom at Idanha-a-Nova.