AA.VV.
Rhythms del Mundo

THE REVIEW

Well… it wasn’t enough dealing with “We Are The World” or “Pavarotti & Friends” bombarding us and making us shell out cash under the guise of African Debt or World Hunger (while Luciano was roaming from Europe to America perpetually in search of food).
Never satisfied with all this whirlwind of (virtual) millions and (real) morons, just recently (around pre-Christmas time, of course) this “Rhythms del Mundo” appeared, a “non-profit” (Ha ha ha ha [editor’s note]) mishmash/panettone, bringing together a cast of international stars of Cuban musicians including Ibrahim Ferrer and Omara Portuondo from the Buena Vista Sòccial Club (Sòcc = money in Bolognese) with American and British artists like U2, Coldplay, Sting, Jack Johnson, Maroon 5, Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs, and many more.
Artists who, in fact, DID NOT ACTIVELY PARTICIPATE in the album beyond allowing the use of vocal samples and little else. This must be said (to avoid misunderstandings and more blah blah).
Wow, what an effort our Whips, our Stars made, huh? What golden hearts I’d say :):):)

The statement reads: The proceeds from the album will be donated to the Artists’ Project Earth charity (APE, but many read it as "Artists Full of Ego"), which raises funds for natural disasters caused by climate change (of course… a small thing that can be solved with some concerts and sales of this CD… those COSMIC things with no grounding and stuffed with plenty of rhetoric). It further reads: … all the artists on this album fully support the cause of this project and blah blah blah, as even my frozen vegetables know that of this money (assuming it arrives), the above-mentioned populations will see YES and NO 2%, but the percentage is probably excessive.
But let’s leave the Fantasy-Politics and Fantasy-Bitter aside.

The recordings of this kind of album-hodgepodge were made in Havana at the Abdala Studios from April 2005 to June 2006. Most of the singing remains the same (which means NO NEW RECORDINGS, see earlier!!), the Buena Vista Social Club musicians used the original instruments for each song creating something that’s between the usual salsa-merengue noodling (cute yes for 10 minutes, then unbearable!!) and pop/rock music with embarrassingly awkward contaminations so often that you'd want to glue your ears to your temples with Super Glue for eternity.
This "Little Sound Chemist" includes reworked songs like “Clocks” by Coldplay (one of the most mind-boggling, like having "Anarchy in the UK" played by the Hillyard Ensemble of ECM), “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” by the Ever-Present-U2, “Better Together” by Jack Johnson, “She Will be Loved” by Maroon 5 (another nice sonic Frankenstein), “High and Dry” by Radiohead and “Dancing Shoes” by Arctic Monkeys (these two at pitiful and inexplicable levels, like, WHY inflict this?! Was it REALLY necessary?!?!).

Ohh but this "Rhythms Del Mundo" also includes music by the most famous Cuban singers like Omara Portuondo and the last vocal recording of Afro-Cuban bolero singer Ibrahim Ferrer, who died in August 2005, Barbarito Torres, Amandito Valdes, Virgilio Valdes, Angel Terri Domech, Manuel 'Guajiro' Mirabal, Orlando Lopez 'Cachaito', Demetrio Muniz, (only Don Diego de la Vega, Speedy Gonzalez and Don Quixote de la Mancha are missing). Pure appendix without importance…

That great paraculos Thom Yorke commented: “We need a law, we need a government that includes climate change problems in its programs. If we wait for the industry to deal with it voluntarily, this will never happen. So anyone with an interest in solving the climate change problem should express it to their official Government because this is the only possible way” and so far, OKAY, I wonder though… but to establish a simple "Fundraising" without making a mishmash of these musical wild glues, was it really a huge heresy? Publishing, for example, a book and promoting it through Prezzemolo-Bono on various Italian Sunday shows wouldn't perhaps garner more support, giving the project something much more serious?!?!
Was such a cosmic-sized similar crap/pastiche really necessary?! I would have preferred to give 10 euros to the cause directly by purchasing a "serious" research on the problem (perhaps with testimonials from various Star Testimonials) rather than spending 20 on this junk that you can't even sell off at used record stalls!
There is always a relationship between THE CAUSE to be defended and THE MEANS used to do so: making such a "sappy" and poor album also means considering the climate problem a Farce and a pure pretext to "do something else"…
And unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be.