Daniel Melingo

Daniel Melingo sounds so good on Santa Milonga that it's hard not to think the aging Argentine rocker was meant to drop rock and take up tango. Or perhaps it's the rock attitude that gives him the brio, the guts, to joust with tango, singing it the way it's meant to be sung, as much a battle as a performance, an exercise in exploring tension, in using a broken voice to explore the paradoxical pleasure you can find in being broken. Melingo has reinvented himself late in the game, and thank god he has: his tango work eclipses that of many professional tango singers at the moment.