Okay, let's unpack this. I want to start today
with a bit of a psychological test. Oh. Or maybe
it's more of a riddle. If I show you the punctuation
mark, just a single, bold exclamation point,
what sound do you hear in your head? Immediate
volume. Yeah. It's a shout, a command. It's alarm.
It's like the visual equivalent of someone yelling.
Exactly. It demands attention. It screams, look
at me. This is urgent. But today we are looking
at something, a cultural artifact that takes
that symbol, slaps it on the cover, and then
tells you to pronounce it as, well, sound of
total indifference. You are, of course, talking
about the Blah album. I am. The album is titled
with the symbol, but the artist, Claudia Paschal,
insists you pronounce it Blah. It's her 2020
debut and... Honestly, the more I looked into
the notes on this, the more I realized this isn't
just some quirky pop record. It's a masterclass
in identity crisis, artistic rebranding, and
just terrible, terrible timing. That is the perfect
way to frame it. Because on the surface, sure,
it's a collection of pop songs. But the mission
of our deep dive today is to really dismantle
how an artist goes from being a contestant. you
know, a face on a TV screen, to being an artist
with a capital A. How do you reclaim your voice
when millions of people already think they know
who you are? And doing it while the world is
literally shutting down around you. Oh, yeah.
We have to talk about that release day later.
It is. It's harrowing. It adds this whole layer
of context that just changes how you hear every
single song. But first, for anyone listening
who might not be tuned into the Portuguese music
scene, let's set the stage. Who is Claudia Pascal?
Why does she need to reclaim anything? Well,
she's a singer who found herself in the center
of a very specific whirlwind, the Eurovision
Song Contest. She represented Portugal back in
2018. Okay, so for those uninitiated, Eurovision
is massive. It's camp. It's a spectacle. It's
hundreds of millions of viewers. It's like the
Super Bowl of music, but with, you know, more
sequins. It really is. But it's also a bit of
a golden cage. If you're known for Eurovision,
you're often seen as a performer, not a creator.
Right. You're the person who sings the song someone
else wrote, wearing the costume someone else
designed. You're a vessel. And breaking out of
that box to release a serious personal debut.
Incredibly difficult. So difficult. You have
to convince people you have your own thoughts.
So fast forward to 2020. She's ready to drop
her debut. She titles it A .I. So what? Is she
bored? is she trying to be difficult i don't
think it's difficult i think it's subversive
i mean think about the pressure we just described
you're coming off this massive tv platform the
industry expects you to come out swinging loud
poppy desperate for attention an exclamation
point right i'm here buy my record look at me
exactly so she puts the exclamation point on
the cover to acknowledge that but then she just
she undercuts it completely she says no pronounce
it blah it's a shrug it's a shrug it's dismissive
it's a signal that says I am going to take this
seriously, but I am not going to take myself
too seriously. It feels like an inside joke with
the listener. It's disarming. It is. And the
sources mentioned this wasn't just a title, it
was a persona. To promote the album, she didn't
just do the standard press tour. No. She introduced
a fictional character named Blah. Wait, explain
that like an alter ego, a Ziggy Stardust kind
of thing. A little less glam rock, a little more
absurd. But yeah, essentially, she created this
character, Blah. to handle the loud parts of
the promotion. It's a brilliant coping mechanism,
if you think about it. How so? If you're anxious
about releasing super personal music, you create
a buffer. You create a character to take the
heat. That actually ties into the source's description
of the album's goal, which was to be highly personal
and expressive. It seems contradictory, doesn't
it? You'd think so. To be personal, but then
hide behind a character named Blah. But I'd argue
it's the only way to be truly personal inside
the pop machine. By acknowledging the absurdity
of it all, the marketing, the look -at -me culture,
you buy yourself the freedom to be honest in
the music itself. So she's setting the ground
rules. Exactly. We can be silly, but the emotions
are real. It's almost like she's saying the marketing
is the joke. The music is the truth. Precisely.
And to get to that truth, she didn't rush. This
is a key detail from the notes that stuck out
to me. Eurovision was 2018. This album dropped
in 2020. Two years is a lifetime in pop. Yeah.
Usually you want to strike while the iron is
hot, right? You get off stage, you drop a single
the next week while your Instagram is peaking.
You don't just disappear. Correct. Taking two
years signals intent. It says, I'm not churning
out content. I'm crafting a record. And she didn't
do it alone. She brought in Tiago Bittencourt.
Now, for the listener, Tiago Betancourt isn't
just some guy. In Portugal, he is a heavyweight.
A massive heavyweight. Singer -songwriter, producer,
very respected. Not the first person you'd expect
to produce a pop record for a Eurovision alum.
He brings a certain gravitas. So she teams up
with him, he produces, helps with songwriting.
But the liner notes are stacked. You've got David
Fonseca, Samuel Uria, Nuno Markle. I mean, they're
the cool kids of the Portuguese music scene.
If you're building a fantasy league of songwriters,
that's your team. Here's my skepticism, though,
and I think the listener might be wondering this,
too. If you're Claudia Paschal and you're trying
to prove you're your own artist, not just a television
singer. Yeah. Why? fill your album with other
people's writing. Doesn't that risk drowning
out your own voice? Doesn't it just reinforce
the idea you're an interpreter? And that is the
central conflict of this entire project. The
notes specifically say she wanted to move away
from television formats, which are all about
interpreting other people's songs. Karaoke with
a budget, basically? Harsh, but yeah. That's
the stigma. So how do you use these heavy hitters
without becoming their puppet? Paschal used what
I'm calling the filter method. The filter method.
OK, break that down. So the source material quotes
Paschal saying she reinterpreted their work to
suit her own voice. That word reinterpreted is
doing a lot of heavy lifting. It implies that
even if David Fonseca wrote a melody, it didn't
make the cut until it sounded like Claudia. So
it's the difference between a cover band and
a jazz standard, maybe. Or think of it like a
film director. A director doesn't write every
line or hold the mic. Sure. But the movie feels
like their movie because every decision passes
through their specific creative lens. Pascol
acted as the director. She took these inputs
and filtered them through her blah aesthetic.
So the blah isn't just the sound, it's the filter.
Exactly. If it felt too serious, blah, too generic,
blah. It had to be quirky. expressive, and fit
that slightly off -kilter world she was building.
She made them come to her world. That makes sense.
It empowers her. She's not just the singer, she's
the curator. Curator is a great word for it.
And what she was curating was a very specific
tone. The sources describe the album's core as
an attempt to lighten up serious matters as a
coping mechanism. I love that phrase, lightening
up as a coping mechanism. Because usually when
we talk about serious artistic statements, we
think of like black and white photography, sad
pianos. Right, the whole tortured artist trope.
We think depth requires darkness. But she went
the other way. She went colorful, loud. She went
with raspberry sounds. Yes, we have to talk about
PPPF -FFRR. That is a real track title, everybody.
PPPFFFRRR featuring Nuno Markle. Try saying that
without smiling. You can't. It's literally the
sound of blowing a raspberry. It's childish.
It's what a toddler does when they don't want
to eat their peas. It is childish, but it's deployed
so strategically. If you're dealing with anxiety
or fear or pressure. Sometimes the most powerful
thing you can do is just stick your tongue out
and make a rude noise. It deflates the monster.
It takes the power away from the scary thing.
Its absurdity is a shield. Exactly. And looking
at the track list, you see this tension everywhere.
There's a song called Janan Somos Animus. We
are no longer animals. Which sounds so lofty
and philosophical, right? Like something from
a textbook. But in her hands, delivered with
her wit, it's probably playing with how we act
like animals. or pretend to be civilized while
everything falls apart. It's that contrast. High
-concept, low -stakes delivery. And this tone
wasn't just dumped on people. She teased it out.
The timeline in the notes is really interesting.
She started dropping breadcrumbs way back in
March 2019. A full year before the album. A full
year. Tere Inan Tere comes out, then Viver in
December, then Espalabrasas in March 2020. She
was building this world brick by brick. Which
brings us to the brick wall she ran into. We
can't tell this story without talking about the
date, because context is everything. March 27,
2020. I just want you to close your eyes for
a second and remember where you were late March
2020. Ugh, it brings up a visceral reaction.
Just saying the date makes me tense up. It was
the week the world stopped. It was. Lockdowns
were being enforced. Portugal was entering a
state of emergency. There was no toilet paper.
People were washing their groceries. The level
of collective fear was at a historic high. And
the entire entertainment industry just... Press
pause. And here's Claudia Pascal with her debut
album, Two Years in the Making, scheduled for
that Friday. Most artists delayed. I remember
that. A lot of big names pushed their albums
back to summer or fall. Everyone wanted to wait
until they could tour, until record stores reopened.
But Universal Music Portugal and Pascal decided
to push the button. They did. And not just digitally.
They released the physical CD. That seems...
Who is going to a record shop in Lisbon during
a lockdown to buy a CD? Almost no one. The stores
were largely closed. It was commercially counterintuitive,
to say the least. But they did it anyway. And
I think this connects back to that theme we discussed.
The lightening up serious matters. As a coping
mechanism. I think the release itself became
part of that. How do you mean? Well, think about
it. Everyone stuck at home. The news is terrifying.
It's all graphs and infection rates. And suddenly
this colorful, weird, joyful album drops. An
album that literally tells you to say blah to
the stress. It's almost medicinal. It served
a purpose. It wasn't just entertainment. It was
a distraction. A colorful object in a gray world.
A reminder that art was still being made. But
did it work? Commercially? Because sentiment
is nice, but the industry is a business. Surprisingly,
yes. The album peaked at number six on the Portuguese
albums chart. A top 10 during a pandemic. That's
really impressive. It's huge, especially with
no tour, no in -store signings, no normal TV
circuit. It proves the audience was hungry for
exactly what she was selling. Connection. Connection
and lightness. You know, we mentioned the collaborators.
When you listen to the track Viber to Live, featuring
Samuel Uria, and you're sitting alone in lockdown,
hearing two friends singing together. That lands
differently. It sounds like a party you can't
go to, but you're happy it's happening somewhere.
It's a documented community. Even though we're
isolated, the music reminded us that friendship
still existed. It transformed the album from
songs into a lifeline. I want to circle back
to the filter method one more time in this context.
If she hadn't established that strong blah persona,
do you think the album would have survived that
chaotic release? I don't think so. If it had
been a generic pop album, it would have been
swallowed by the news cycle. But because it had
this strong, quirky hook, the blah, the raspberry
sounds, it cut through the noise. It had a distinct
flavor. And that's the lesson. You can't control
the timing. You can't control if a pandemic hits.
All you can control is the filter. Is your voice
distinct enough to be heard even when the world
is screaming? That's a powerful takeaway. She
bet on her own weirdness. She bet on her weirdness
and she bet on the intelligence of her audience
to get the joke. And they did. Number six on
the chart. They absolutely did. So we have the
history, the production, the crisis. I'm looking
at the track list again and I keep coming back
to Aspala Brasas. That was the single released
right in March 2020. Right. A spell of process
essentially means someone who stirs things up,
a fire starter, a rowdy person. Which is perfect.
She's releasing a song about stirring up trouble
while everyone is being called to stay calm and
stay inside. It creates this wonderful friction.
And that's what good pop art does. It rubs against
the reality of the moment. It doesn't just reflect
the world. It challenges it. And Pascal challenged
the gloom of March 2020 with neon colors and
nonsense sounds. It brings to mind the role of
the jester in the royal court, you know? Yeah.
The jester was the only one allowed to tell the
truth to the king, but they had to do it with
a joke. That is a fantastic analogy. Claudia
Pascal, with her blah and her p -p -p -f -f -f
-r -r -r, was playing the jester to the tyranny
of the virus. She was looking at this terrifying
situation and blowing a raspberry at it. And
we needed that. We didn't need another sad song.
We needed a permission slip to laugh. We desperately
needed it. So let's zoom out. We've done the
deep dive. We've unpacked the punctuation. What's
the big picture here? The big picture is about
agency. Agency. Yes. When you come from a reality
TV background, you have very little agency. You're
a product. This album was Claudia Pascal seizing
agency. She chose the collaborators, the producer,
the weird title. And she chose to release it
during a crisis. And she chose to define herself
not by the volume of her voice, the exclamation
point, but by the attitude of her delivery, the
blah. Exactly. She redefined success on her own
terms. She took the expectation, be loud, be
a star, and twisted it into be real, be yourself.
It's a case study in authenticity. We throw that
word around a lot, but here it meant not polishing
the rough edges. It meant keeping the weird parts.
And realizing that the weird parts are actually
the most valuable parts. That's what people connected
with. Not the perfect vocals, but the personality
behind them. So for the listener who's maybe
stuck in their own Eurovision box at work, in
their creative life, where people expect one
thing from them, what does this teach us? It
teaches us that you can use the resources of
the system, the big producers, the established
writers, without becoming a slave to them. You
use the filter method. Right. Take what works,
filter it through your own unique perspective,
and don't be afraid to give it a name that makes
people scratch their heads. Even if that name
sounds like a shrug. Especially if it sounds
like a shrug. A shrug is a powerful position.
It says, I am secure enough in what I'm doing
that I don't need to shout about it. I think
that's the lingering thought I have from this.
We live in a world that is so loud. Everything
is breaking news. Everything is urgent. It's
exhaust. Everything is an exclamation point.
And maybe the healthiest thing we can do sometimes
is look at all that urgency, all the chaos, the
expectations, and just say, Blah. Embrace the
indifference. Not because you don't care, but
because you refuse to let the noise control you.
Blah. As an act of rebellion. I like that. It's
a powerful tool. So here's the question I want
to leave you with today. In your own life, amidst
all the notifications and the demands and the
serious matters, where can you find your blah?
What part of your life needs to be taken a little
less seriously so that you can actually survive
it? And once you find it, maybe make a raspberry
sound at it. Couldn't hurt. Thanks for diving
deep with us. See you next time.