Album Review
Brazil: the greatest songs ever.
Various
Petrol Records
[With a slow hand Joseito Fernandez reaches forward and touches the CD player as the album finishes. He sits back and they wait respectfully while the process of aural digestion takes place. Finally, one of them speaks.]
Joseito Fernandez: What do you think?
Compay Segundo: I think we shall avoid in the future any album with 'great' or 'greatest' in the title. They are begging to get kicked.
Joseito: They are begging to get bought, which concerns me more.
Compay: Mr Gaisberg once wrote about Japanese gagaku court music saying that "it was impossible to distinguish one song from another." This album gives me a similar emotion, but for a different reason. The sound is not alien, as the Japanese was, but very much too familiar. It is neutered bossa nova funk.
J: Oh, too harsh! It has a little balls.
C: Where?
J: 'Krioula;' I can wiggle my hips to it.
C: Tch, one can wiggle one's hips to most of these but I do not see by what surprising coincidence all the 'greatest' songs of Brazil manage to sound so very similar. Nor do I see why Brazil has not produced a greater song than this cover version of 'The Girl from Impanema,' or this Mo' Horizons playing 'Brazil' with which the album starts. The nicest one can say about that is that it makes everything following it sound better. The notes are terrible. We learn nothing about any of the bands. Instead they try to sell us the CD again - tell me, don't shops often sell CDs sealed shut, so that you cannot open the covers?
J: Sometimes, sometimes not.
C: Well, let us assume that a person is most likely to read the inside of the inlay only after they have bought the CD. Why then do they fill it with this sales talk nonsense? "For centuries, one country has symbolised a fantastic escape into an elemental, tropical paradise - Brazil." There is your balls, Joseito, right there. "The Carnaval fever takes you by surprise. Your imagination sends you colourful images of sexy Brazilians dancing on the beach." I do not like it when strangers tell me what my imagination is doing. It insults me. I want to hit them and tell them not to be rude and presumptuous. Even more than that, I do not want to buy any more of their albums. "The music of Brazil has always been characterised by a great diversity ..." why is that great diversity not on this album?
J: It would have been better if they had not made grand claims. They should have let the music rest.
C: 'Greatest' was a sad and misguided word. Where is Caetano Veloso in this album? Where is Elis Regina? 'Greatest songs ever' indeed! 'Nice enough modern chill-out songs' perhaps! 'Unchallenging music you can wiggle your hips to, from Brazil!' I would not be annoyed you know but for that lying word, 'greatest.' It is not good enough to say, "Oh, it is only a sales pitch, we are only trying to sell." You are robbing the language of truth, sir, you are committing a crime against the brains and heart of humanity. I would also not be annoyed if I had not wanted this album to be a fine one.
J: Is that so; you wanted it to be fine?
C: Yes! Look, this is a new company in Australia and they are putting out music albums from different countries, see, they have a 'greatest songs' from Africa, one from India - two from Cuba! -
J: Are we on the Cuban ones?
C: I don't know. We will one day check their website and find out. I can imagine that they will have someone update your 'Guantanamera' and have it sung by some pretty young girl -
J: I do not mind pretty young girls.
C: - a pretty young girl with an electronic backbeat behind her and a remix, a little bit retro but chill-out. In any case, I was excited when I saw these albums. I thought, how wonderful, how brave of them to choose foreign music to promote instead of the usual American pop that sells so well. What a challenge they have set themselves! What a brave adventure! I admire men who go on brave adventures. Listen to this from their website: "We want to expand the musical appetites of consumers and put the romance of music back into their hearts and souls." Doesn't that sound promising?
J: I do not like the word 'consumers.'
C: No, but aside from that word it sounds promising. You are right, however. Their description of themselves resembles a fight in which an advertising executive overpowers a musician and throws him out of a window. Here is part of it. "CM Murphy has assembled an extraordinary group of individuals to form Petrol Records, which after only twelve months has taken its unparalleled creative flair, marketing expertise and dynamic worldwide relationships to become what is commonly spoken of in the industry as "the hottest new music label in Australia"." I see suggestive words, but when I touch them their meaning is so vague that they evaporate. With whom do they have these relationships? Who are their contacts abroad? Are they people it is worthwhile to know, or are they the people who make cheap CDs to 'Celebrate your holiday in Greece!" with a horrible band doing Zorba impersonations? Why must the relationship be 'dynamic,' a word which describes a kind of scurrying energy not suited to listening to music? It's as if they had filled the page with a big sentence that says, "We know nothing about music, but we like the language of business textbooks." I want to trust them but they make it hard for me. I am distressed.
J: Our conclusion then is that the album is pleasant if all you want to do is relax, but it is being sold under false auspices.
C: It's nothing special.
