In this article at Salon "six writers share the Valentine's Day goodies that really get their hearts racing". One of the six caught my attention. I'll tell you at the bottom why.

Heartache, overheard
Can sadness be sexy? Ask the Portuguese. They invented the musical form fado, and they gave the world its queen, Amalia Rodrigues. Fado is the sound of raw longing. It's the taste of something you never had, or maybe had once but haven't been able to get out of your head since. While the style, which takes its name from the Portuguese word for "fate," frequently touches on the hardships of life or the love of the sea, it never strays far from its deeply romantic essence.

Fado is the melody that comes streaming out of taverns, places where the smell of nicotine still hangs in the air and wine flows freely. It's music played very late at night, in dark corners, to accompany stolen kisses. In a genre that has been virtually unchanged in nearly 200 years, no one has ever quite stamped such unique sincerity and bittersweet beauty on the music as Amalia. To listen to her voice, wrapped around the soft strum of a guitar, is to be quietly dazzled by the universality of the emotion she conveys.

Is there a place in the 21st century for songs of lovers swept away by storms, for voices that would never win in any television popularity contests? And while of course there's a place for songs that ask what you're going to do with all that junk inside your trunk, what about music that grapples with the "sad fate" of "hard passion"?

So, should you find yourself alone one night with someone who will be gone in the morning, put a little Amalia on while your candle burns at both ends. Does it matter if you can't translate the words? No more than it does to go weak in the knees at the sight of a lover, to feel a shiver at a touch. Hers is a voice that scrapes, that trembles, that strives not for technical perfection but simple release, however fleeting. And if later, you find yourself just plain alone one night, put on a little Amalia again, and
revel in the exquisite sting.

-- Mary Elizabeth Williams

The reason this caught my attention is because I'm Portuguese. I grew-up listening to Amalia. But my two cents here: There is no doubt Amalia is the queen of Fado but many of her recordings, because of their age, lack the production quality we're used to today. There are enough good CDs of her but they may be hard to find. If you want to give Fado a try, look for another Fado superstar. Her name is Mariza and the production quality of her CDs are top notch. The one CD I have that I love is called Fado Curvo.