Iranian pop.

Recently, I was wandering around the archives of the Los Angeles Times, and gladly discovered the newspaper published an article about the resurrection of Iranian pop, through the examples of Googoosh and Kourosh Yaghmaei, and thanks to labels like Finders Keepers and Now-Again.

Unfortunately, only the outside world (meaning excluding Iran) is able to listen to those releases ; you have to realize that Googoosh stopped singing in 1979, when the Iranian Revolution chased the Shah and replaced him with a religious regime. She resumed performing only after she moved to the USA in 2000. 

Kourosh is another example of wasted talent ; after the Revolution, he lived a bit in Canada, but eventually returned to Iran, thus suffering from the numerous restrictions on music playing.

Long story short, the story of Iranian pop music is an interesting yet unfinished one and guys like Andy Vottel and Egon made it available to us. Even the hypish Vogue Magazine praised the release of the Kourosh boxset. 

Lucky us.

Edit : I forgot to talk about another record, because I didn't know it at the time, and discovered it only a week ago. This record is a compilation album released by Vampisoul, accurately titled "Rangarang : Pre-Revolutionary Iranian Pop". No opinion about it yet, as I haven't been able to fully listen to it, but once again, a good news about the current spread of Iranian music.