The Essential Guide To...Series

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Are they better or worse than Rough Guides, in your opinion?

They come in packs of 3 cds each-- so far I have Brazil and India, have yet to get Arabia and Salsa, and there is also one entitled simply "Essential Guide to World Music."

Are they worth their salt?

― RoxyMuzak© (roxymuzak), Tuesday, 25 April 2006 15:55 (twenty years ago)

I don't think I've seen these at all, actually. Judging by the track listing, your Brazil comp is pretty good -- a few tracks that are too often anthologized (eg., Bat Macumba, O Leãozinho, Take It Easy My Brother Charles) but otherwise pretty good.

I pretty much avoidbuying single-disc comps nowadays unless I'm buying loads of them in one "area." I never feel like the sample set is large enough (and I get really annoyed at the duds, which there always are).

― someone let this mitya out! (mitya), Tuesday, 25 April 2006 19:02 (twenty years ago)

"Guides" to "The Music of" a certain nation, especially ones as large and diverse as Brazil or India, increasingly annoy me. There's this tendency to want to showcase as broad a range of genres and time periods as possible, which results in a very superficial survey and the inclusion of a lot of stuff I'd rather not hear at all.

Imagine someone trying to make an Essential Music of the U.S.A. comp -- it'd probably start with a fife and drum track, then Battle Hymn of the Repbublic, then maybe Robert Johnson, an appalachian banjo track, Fanfare for the Common Man, Tonight from West Side Story, Lazy River done by Louis Armstrong, New York New York by Frank Sinatra, then I Feel Good, then maybe Light My Fire, Stayin' Alive, The Message, Smells Like Teen Spirit...??? In other words, it's a dumb idea.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Tuesday, 25 April 2006 23:51 (twenty years ago)

I don't know, that sounds pretty cool to me.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Wednesday, 26 April 2006 00:04 (twenty years ago)

Hurting that sounds pretty accurate to me!

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Wednesday, 26 April 2006 00:37 (twenty years ago)

(he said, not reading the post before his)

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Wednesday, 26 April 2006 00:38 (twenty years ago)

the African one isn't terrible, but I have at least five better Rough Guides of African stuff, and probably more.

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Wednesday, 26 April 2006 03:32 (twenty years ago)

"Guides" to "The Music of" a certain nation, especially ones as large and diverse as Brazil or India, increasingly annoy me.

So said the music lover. Some people are just curious and don't want to spend lots of money and time to buy 15 albums of music that they're not even sure they're going to like. I don't think there's any reason to get annoyed as long as you approach these things as an introduction or a sampler. And Rough Guide has actually been pretty sensible re: your complaints: I think they've now got five or six Brazil-related discs (Brazil, Bossa Nova, Bahia, etc.).

― someone let this mitya out! (mitya), Wednesday, 26 April 2006 08:43 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, I'm hardly approaching this as "the only indian cd I'll ever need" or something. Using it as a rough intro only.

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.