José González

Pop Quiz: By looking only at his name, what part of the globe do you think José González is from? 

• a) Mexico
• b) Spain
• c) France
• d) United States
• e) None of the above

Believe it or not, the answer is "e", none of the above. Our artist of the week is actually from Gothenburg, Sweden. I found that interesting, you may or may not, but I've always found trivia like that intriguing. Anyways, let's get down to business (to defeat the huns) shall we?

Photo courtesy of Chordism

Who is José González?
You know he's from Gothenburg, Sweden, but what else is there to know?

Photo courtesy of Fine Art America

His parents were originally from Argentina before moving to Sweden two years before he was born in 1978.  José listened to music during his childhood, was a guitarist for a band for a while, eventually becoming a solo artist in 2003. His music typically falls under indie-folk, or acoustic-folk, a genre I didn't know was a genre. Unlike the band I reviewed a few weeks ago, Locksley, José González is much calmer in comparison.

As Gonzalez plays the classical guitar, his music is quite melodious, soft, and gentle upon the ears. Remember how I talked about music you can sleep or relax to? This is it. I found myself studying for an upcoming test and getting ready to bed to the light strumming of José González.

I was planning on listing all of his albums and successes during this portion of the post, but he has too many to list! Here are just a few of the accomplishments of José González:

• His cover, "Heartbeats" is featured in episodes of the shows Scrubs, Bones, Whitney, Brothers & Sisters, and 90210.
• He's won a VGX Award for Best Song in a Game
• Released six albums: Veneer, In Our Nature, Live at the Wireless, Live at Park Ave, Crosses / Heartbeat, and 3 EP Collection

Grace's Pick:

Album: In Our Nature 

Photo courtesy of Amazon

Song: "Down The Line"

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Image courtesy to Wikipedia