Rhythms Del Mundo: Rocking my world?

Right, so last week I was in a restaurant in central London and a song came on. I said to myself "Hang on a minute, is that a...latin jazz cover of....Coldplay's 'Clocks'?" Which it appeared to be from every way I could tell. What really amazed me about it was how well it worked--if you said to me someone did a latin jazz cover of a Coldplay song I would probably shrug it off as some kind of gimmicky thing, but when I hear this I really loved the way it sounded. The new elements were fitted inside the existing song, not painted over the top, if that makes any sense.

Anyway, I was at Pacific Coast Pub/Restaurant (possibly the best pub in California) last night and I heard it again so I dashed over to the jukebox to see who the album/artist were. Turns out it was this album called Rhythms Del Mundo in which the Cuban musicians from Buena Vista Social Club give this same treatment to a bunch of rock/pop songs. Also, sales of the album go toward some kind of global warming awareness thingy. Knowing all that, my feeling is that it could be really awful and gimmicky and cynical, but having heard the cover of 'Clocks' not knowing anything about it, I am truly intrigued to hear the other tracks. Maybe I'm just the target demographic for this kind of gimmickery, I don't know. That would make me a sucker.

I'm resisting saying that I think I should rush out to buy this album because I'm trying to resist the idea that enjoying music automatically equals buying albums. Albums are a commodity, plus they take up space. But music is not necessarily a commodity. Y'know? Of course if you download the album instead of buying a CD the argument could get more complicated. Intellectual property and all that.
- posted by k @ 3:07 PM