The Buena Vista Social Club was a club in Havana, Cuba that was popular in the forties for holding dances and jam sessions. It has since closed, and is now a recording by Juan de Marcos Gonzalez, and Ry Cooder. I’ve got one of the BVSC albums, and recently got my hands on one called Rhythms Del Mundo: Cuba. It features covers of popular songs with la Cuban flair. It’s very cool. Who knew that Coldplay’s Clocks would be so good with that beat? And Maroon 5’s She Will Be Loved is a definite improvement, as I hate that song anyway. Yikes.

This album was also created to help fund APE, or Artists’ Project Earth, a very cool organization that is concerned with climate change and other humane earthly issues.

I’d love to post the whole album, cos its great, but then I’m sure I’d get into nasty legal trouble. Just to give you an idea, here’s the tracklisting:

1. Clocks - Coldplay
2. Better Together - Jack Johnson
3. Dancing Shoes - Arctic Monkeys
4. One Step Too Far - Dido & Faithless
5. As Time Goes By - Ibrahim Ferrer
6. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For -
U2 & Coco Freeman
7. She Will Be Loved - Maroon 5
8. Fragilidad - Sting
9. Killing Me Softly - Omara Portuondo
10. Ai No Corrida - Vania Borges feat. Quincy Jones
11. Modern Way - Kaiser Chiefs
12. Don’t Know Why - Vania Borges
13. Hotel Buena Vista - Aquila Rose & Idania Valdez
14. The Dark of the Matinee - Coco Freeman feat.
Franz Ferdinand
15. High and Dry - El Lele de Los Van Van feat.
Radiohead (samples)

Really, really kickass links (if you don’t know about the BVSC, definitely check it out. Music lovers will appreciate.)

Rhythms Del Mundo // APE // MySpazz (RDM) // Buena Vista Social Club (Wiki) // Buena Vista Documentary (PBS) // YouTube Video showing the collaboration

BUY THE ALBUM

 Coldplay - Clocks [5:02m]: Play in Popup | Download
 Jack Johnson - Better Together [3:28m]: Play in Popup | Download
 Maroon 5 - She Will Be Loved [4:06m]: Play in Popup | Download
 Coco Freeman & U2 - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For: Play in Popup | Download

A couple of years ago while I was visiting my best friend, she gave me a CD she purchased, telling me she thought I'd like it. She enjoyed it, too, but thought the boyfriend and I would like it a bit more, and she was spreading the music love, something I totally agree with. 

She was spot on. Turns out she bought the CD because it was related to Jack Johnson, and back in the day she collected almost everything he produced. This happened to be a soundtrack that was done for one of his many surf movies (Thicker Than Water, The September Sessions). I quickly fell in love with it, and have listened to it on and off since. Since this month is one of those 'on' times, I thought I'd share the prettiness with you.

Sprout Soundtrack @ JackJohnsonMusic.com

Buy Sprout Soundtrack // Film 

Banderilla - Calexico MP3

[audio:http://lovethemusicreviews.com/audio/10%20Banderilla.mp3]

Spanish Flowers - Sprout House Band MP3

[audio:http://lovethemusicreviews.com/audio/12%20Spanish%20Flowers.mp3]

Practice Twice - Sam Prekop MP3

[audio:http://lovethemusicreviews.com/audio/01%20Practice%20Twice.mp3]

Jazz + Ska + Pop-Rock + Down-Under + Reggae = Excellence 

Two Shoes - The Cat Empire (2005)

The Cat Empire Official Website 

Label: Velour Recordings 

I've had the sublime luck to get my hands on The Cat Empire. 

I feel like a bad person now, because I hadn't heard them before, or spread the word about how amazingly rockin' they are. Australia continuously pumps out the music, the good stuff that we shouldn't go without.

We (refers to my infamous boyfriend, the guy I bounce everything off of) put this album in mid-blast to check out while we did a Spring clean yesterday, and after the first track, we turned it up full-blast and yelled to each other, wide-eyed, "These guys are ***king awesome!"

After some bopping and cleaning, I asked the boyfriend what he thought (he's a VERY harsh critic), and he admitted to infatuation. Excellent.  

Two Shoes is excellent. A wild, upbeat fusion of jazz, reggae, ska, hip-hop, with influences of Cuban, Latin, and Aussie music. The actual quality of the instrumentals and vocals is amazing; a band comprised of six main members plus "The Empire Horns" works together very well. The loose down-under accents of the vocals gives me a deja vu of British ska, whilst making it a very relaxed and lazy fun.  

The album was just released in the U.S, after being a double platinum down under. This is the first album of theirs I've had the luck to listen to, so hopefully I'll be getting my hands on other material. Short of comparing this work with their other work, I can say just by this listen that the album is awesome, and has immediately been filed into my favorites.

I'm not sure how successful they'll be in the U.S.; not because they lack talent or anything of the sort, but because the U.S. music scene differs greatly from the prominent, popular music in Australia. Perhaps the U.S isn't ready for their unique, crazed sound, as prevalent music here seems to be emo-metal and bubblegum pop, r&b, and hip-hop. We'll see. I hope they'll be a hit, because then they'll probably take a tour, perhaps making their way down to see me. Yay. 

Some favorites: "Protons, Neutrons, Electrons", "The Chariot", "Two Shoes", and "Sol Y Sombra".  

Final Verdict: Definitely worth listening to, and buying. Make a trip out today and pick it up–seriously.  

The Cat Empire - Sly

[audio:The%20Cat%20Empire%20-%20Sly.mp3]

The Cat Empire - Two Shoes

[audio:The%20Cat%20Empire%20-%20Two%20Shoes.mp3]

The Cat Empire - Hotel California (Released on Like a Version by Triple J, an Australian radio giant) 

[audio:The_Cat_Empire_-_Hotel_California.mp3]

Stream "The Chariot"

Related Visual:

"Sly" on David Letterman (YouTube) 

 Related Links:

Buy This Album!

The Cat Empire Official Website

The Cat Empire on MySpace

Bio on Wikipedia