Bring on the music...

[Nigel w]

Phew! Now all we need to do is find something interesting, engaging and entertaining to talk about. Music, anyone? What thoughts, theories, wild rumours and crazed obssessions are buzzing around out there in Forum-land? My brain's gone numb, so somebody else, please !!!!

[Charlie]

This is a question for everyone:

Roughly, what proportion of the records you listen to at the moment could be classified as 'world'?

I ask the question because I think that 'outsiders' imagine that the moment somebody finds they they like a record that is not in English, they never listen to one in English again.

Whereas the impression I have from the discussions here, it's probably about 50/50, with a lot of the English language records being oldies of one kind or another, while the world stuff is more often recent.

Am I right or wrong?

[David Flower]

For me I would say about 60% 'world'. but at least 60% of that is old reissue stuff. As mentioned I don't have so many new world albums that I listen to a lot. I wouldn't mind trying to keep up with new english language pop if I knew of a decent radio programme that plays the interesting-not-just-aimed-at-18 year olds-stuff. Any suggestions?

An aside, referring to your impression of non-world fans' impressions of who we are. I've never understood why people can't understand that these strange musics are what you will hear if you travel to a non-western destination. More and more people like to travel, eat the food, maybe check out the culture, get into the place. Which presumably means going out at night where they will probably encounter salsa, son, cumbia, samba, mbalax, and all the rest. And probably have a great time. It suggests they don't follow it up back home because of peer pressure or that they'll be associated with the likes of us. Which as I say, I don't understand. I can't believe travellers just go to the clubs that play the same stuff as at home. Maybe they do

[dan myers]

I am going at about 80/20 in favour of world records.
And yes the world records are much more recent.
Since getting hooked on world, I have found it very difficult to listen to English language music as the lyrics so often seem tuneless and irrelevent.

[Rob Hall]

I have tried to make a point, lately, of dividing my listening time equally between new stuff and older stuff. It's something I've always done to some extent, but I've recently felt the need to make an effort to re-visit some of the older stuff to see how it stands up and try to remind myself of what it was I liked in it in the first place. Hence, I am currently ignoring potential barriers and playing just about anything that takes my fancy. The biggest constraint for me is (a) time and (b) the fact that not everyone in the house shares my listening tastes. You know what sounds good after all these years? There's a few tunes on the first album by Traffic which are marvellous; the first two Maria Muldaur albums and the first two Pointer Sisters albums still put a smile on my face. All of these and more have been sharing listening time lately with Devotchka, Firewater, Dhafer Youssef & Wolfgang Muthspiel, Yasmin Levy, Shelby Lynne, Cheb i Sabbah and brass bands from all over the world.

I guess that means you're right Charlie.

[Charlie]

Desert Blues Vol 3 just came through the door....

Could be 100% world in our house for a while (taking over from Wasis Diop's Greatest Hits, which has recently been pulled off its place in the shelves to become a gentle background sound, with unfamiliar tracks appearing in between those I liked)

[kevin]

I would say that my listening is split 50/50 between World and English Language, mostly old Congolese and old American such as Hank Williams - not much new music at all.

This got me thinking about English Language World music. A couple of tunes I can think of are Angelina by Sweet Talks and Look Around by Femi Kuti and I am sure there are quite a few other African tracks but what about the rest of the world?

Can we muster up enough for a compilation and what would it be called?

[CantSleepClownsWillGetMe]

Roughly, around 70% world stuff in the Clown household.

The other 30% comes from listening to a local radio station, (which plays both old and new pop/rock), and 'hearing' some of my son's rap, rock and pop. He's partial to a spot of Iris DeMent or Brooks & Dunn now and then, but I've been warned not to tell his friends, or he's [and I quote] 'a dead man'.

June

PS Answering Kevin's question - Lingo Stars? ... The Anglo Files?

[David Flower]

Can we muster up enough for a compilation and what would it be called?

"Notes from a small island " or has that been used?

[Nick Boyes]

I suppose I listen 50/50.
I think a good sample of what goes on ( musically ) up the hill is what came through the letterbox in the past few weeks.
In no particular order
Nigeria Special that great Soundway compilation
Les Amazones De Guinee
Ohio Players Fire
The Temptations Psychedelic Soul a compilation
City Lounge 3 DJ 4 Cd compilation from the Wagram label in France

Gosh I'm a mixed up 'kid' !!

[Ken Josenhans]

Hmmm, gonna make me assign percentages...

30% world (skewing much more heavily towards European continental than most participants here, right now I'm a complete sucker for hurdy gurdy, accordion and continental bagpipes) I'd say contemporary releases dominate my listening time here.

20% folk (meaning traditional-ish from the UK, Ireland and North America) and again contemporary releases dominate, though I do dig back into the classics from my childhood 30 years ago.

30% classical and opera

10% rock pre-1990

10% jazz, mostly older styles

[will vine]

As I said somewhere before, thanks to unbelievable advances in recording and playback technology, we are a blessed or cursed generation lumbered with our whole lives' musical history to nibble on so why wouldn't I do that?

I guess it's about a 50/50 thing ...world and (predominantly) old english- speaking stuff.

[Nigel w]

Contrary to suggestions elsewhere on this site, I do not spend much of my time listening to old rock music (although I'd actually like to have much more time to do so, because I confess I love wallowing in the nostalgia of the records I bought as a teenager in the 1960s from the ISB to Hendrix...) But I get sent about 50 new cds a week and if people go to the trouble of sending them, I feel semi-obliged to listen. The balance of what I get sent is probably about 80 per cent rock/pop and 20 per cent world music. But my listening ratios are then balanced by the fact that I discard many of the pop/rock releases (in many cases, it only takes a track or two to realise I don't want to hear any more) while I will return again and again to many of the world music cds. That then probably levels up the balance to something like 60-40 in favour of world music.

Then you add in what I listen to for pleasure when I'm not dutifuly working through what's arrived in that morning's post bag. Here it gets more complicated because it usually means other people are around (my wife Magali, two adult sons and soon-to-be daughter-in-law, who happens to be a Somalian refugee). They defer to me as the family DJ, but I try not to be too tyranical, so its Bach fugues and Mozart arias for Magali ; for Muna it's K'Naan and Ethiopiques (as a Somalian she really dislikes Ethiopians but loves their music!); Bob Dylan, Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell and plenty of African stuff for me; Nusrat, Ravi Shankar and Arabic stuff for our oldest 31 year old son (who was a huge Blur/Oasis/Pulp/Radiohead fan a dozen years ago but has now totally abandoned western pop) and nothing for youngest son who is obssessed with James Bond and Star Wars soundtracks (sorry Piers, but you can listen to that on your headphones without inflicting it on the rest of us!).

There's an interesting (and short) list of stuff everybody loves. Charlie will be pleased to hear that Mariza is at the top of that list, followed by Buena Vista (still never tire of it), first Ruben Gonzalez solo album, Youssou, Baaba Maal, Khaled, Indian ragas and Tinariwen. So ultimately, if I'm looking to play something the entire family loves, it almost invariably comes comes down to world music.

Sorry - a very complicated and tortuous answer to a very simple and straightforward question!

[Philip Ryalls]

This is a question for everyone:

Roughly, what proportion of the records you listen to at the moment could be classified as 'world'?

I ask the question because I think that 'outsiders' imagine that the moment somebody finds they they like a record that is not in English, they never listen to one in English again.

Whereas the impression I have from the discussions here, it's probably about 50/50, with a lot of the English language records being oldies of one kind or another, while the world stuff is more often recent.

Am I right or wrong?

25%
And wrong about the English stuff.

I know this because I have recently been stocking up my ipod nano.
World music on there includes:
Simphiwe Dana x 2
Anoushka Shankar
Andy Palacio
David Byrne's Brazil compilations
Sound of the World 2007
Ethiopiques

I tend to listen to what I have enjoyed at gigs, so definitely loaded were:
Chris Wood/Trespasser
Bella Hardy/Night Visiting
Martin Simpson/Prodigal Son
Lisa Knapp/Wild & Undaunted
Steve Earle/Washington Square Serenade
+ Simphiwe Dana

Gigs coming up include Wayne Shorter and Enrico Rava, so they are on there too.

And some decent pop; Amy, Duffy and Rihanna. Some more Jazz; Kenny Garrett, Eliane Elias, Bill Evans, Miles (Filles De Kilimanjaro & On The Corner), Keith Jarrett (La Scala).

Reggae: Augustus Pablo & Lee Perry productions

And finally Bob Dylan (Desire, Time Out of Mind), Joanna Newsom, Gillian Welch and Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan.

[Dayna]

I think I listen to 50%World now & 50% Old Rock. I am discovering more & more of both lately. If I find some CD I really like, I seem to get stuck on it for quite a while. Then I finally move on to another one.