The Rough Guides (World Music Network)
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So where does the neophyte begin? A cross section of titles from various labels is usually the way to go. But I got curious when I started seeing World Music Network’s Rough Guide series, an offshoot of the Rough Guide travel and music reference books. Each CD is dedicated to a different region or genre–some general (The Rough Guide to the Music of Eastern Europe), some specific (The Rough Guide to the Music of Zimbabwe). I’m an enthusiast but not an expert, so I wasn’t sure whether to trust these albums. After all, first among them was The Rough Guide to World Music, an “around-the-world-in-70-minutes” comp that I viewed sideways, through slitted eyes; there’s also something on World Music Network called One Voice that sounded my folkie alarm (naturally it included a cut from Sweet Honey in the goddamned Rock). But as subsequent titles filled the racks, each looked better than the last–and then I saw the reggae volume. The Rough Guide to Reggae could’ve been the fifth disc of the perfect Tougher Than Tough box: it looked and sounded definitive.
Now that I’ve acquired 17 of the catalog’s 30-plus titles, that’s what the Rough Guide comps strike me as–definitive. True, there’s a seemingly academic approach: completism counts for a lot with these guys. But they’re not at all dry, and an untrammelled enthusiasm shines through. Plus, they’re a bargain: averaging 70 minutes and 15 tracks, they retail for about $12 at independent record shops, $13 or $14 at chains. Not every one is classic; several are merely OK, and a couple flat-out suck. But that’s got less to do with the choices than the styles themselves–Irish and Scottish music are generally too sentimental for my blood, though the The Rough Guide to Scottish Music deserves a nod for including a techno track. (Scotland’s rave underground, as fans of Trainspotting know, is enormous.)
Mambo’s most famous offspring, of course, is salsa. The compilation devoted to that style is consistent and exciting, and it goes down as smooth as ice cream, even at its most angular. It favors a classic sound, forsaking drum machines and exaggerated tempos (a lot of modern stuff sounds like gabber with horns). Fruko y sus Tesos and Charlie Palmieri stick out most notably, thanks primarily to magnificent piano playing. Even better, The Rough Guide to the Music of Cuba avoids the prominently salsa-esque in favor of the slower, the sexier, the funkier: this is an album where you come for the groove and stay for the tunes. In particular the last cut (Los Terry’s “Tinguiti ‘ta Durmiendo”) is Cuban head music, engineered to evoke shocking depth from a good sound system, and Ritmo y Candela’s “Descarga en Faux” is perfect seduction music.
