Customer Reviews

Six Degrees Records Global Grooves Sampler (Amazon MP3 Exclusive Version)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This album may be free, but it has cost me about 4 (ok 6) new albums, and I couldn't be happier! I enjoy exploring new music and this compilation provided me a gateway into a whole new area of music that I have only experienced at its edges. Global groove seems an apt way to generally describe the album, but that understates the richness of the album. The Malian guitar of Vieux Farka Toure, which led me to his father Ali, has many parallels to delta blues. This album will take you on fresh and new journeys, all the while tapping your toes, and swaying your hips.

There are a few good songs on this global sampler. As with most samplers, the best one can hope for is to find a few good songs and maybe discover a new good artist or two. This sampler more than satisfied that expectation for me. I found 4 keepers on this one. Unfortunately this is an "album only" offering, so one has to download the entire album to get the few good songs. This is especially irritating to those of us who have slow dial-up internet. The 4 tracks I deemed as keepers are...

Lal Meri - Dreams of 18: A trio from various cultural backgrounds featuring Nancy Kaye, Ireesh Lal and Carmen Rizzo. A catchy pop song with Kaye's smooth vocals and a mix of Indian music in the background. My favorite track from this sampler.

The Dø - At Last: A very nice rock/pop song from the duo of Dan Levy and Finnish singer Olivia Merilahti. This song is from their album `A Mouthful' which was released elsewhere in 2008, but won`t be available in the US until April 6, 2010.

CéU - Bubuia: A Brazilian singer named Maria do Céu Whitaker Poças who goes by the simpler name of CéU. I'm a fan of Brazilian music even though I don't understand a word of Portuguese, and this song is sung in Portuguese.

Undersea Poem - Makes Me Happy: Lighter fare here, sort of a light bossa nova pop song. This song is from the self-titled album Undersea Poem, from the duo Chris Root (American) and Juju Stulbach (Brazilian). The lyrics to this song are in English.

Excellent title with hard to describe tunes. Its not that the songs are so avant garde that they are inaccessible, but that our narrow musical definitions of "pop", "r&b", "rock" and "dance" just dont encompass them. Some songs take element of all of these genres, and add in the basic rhythmic groove that is the backbone of world music, some have a more ethereal feeling, but all of them are worth the download. I would certainly have paid money for this, but I'm glad I didn't have to! Get it, share it, its good.

I got this sampler because it was free, and it has some really great music on it! I'm glad it's in my collection now!

What a delightful record! Fresh, new, a diverse compilation of fun songs. Danceable, but also great to write to (though hard to sit still), or paint, or clean house, or brush your dog - with a permanent smile on your face, trying to hum along in the process.
THANK YOU for making this available for free.

Sounds like a great world music sampler, but each song is labelled at 99 cents? At top the album is labelled FREE. What gives?

I downloaded the album-- it worked great and I wasn't charged.
As an album it's all free. You just can't download track by track for free. Pretty cool way of exposing lesser known artists.