Customer Reviews

Infinito Particular

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

For Marisa fans, this is an absolutely beautiful album. I've listened to it many times weekly since I purchased it. I highly recommend it, WITH reservations. I went through serious torture just getting it into mp3 format to play on my iPod. If anyone would like instructions on how to circumvent this lame copy protection scheme in order to play this music on a different medium-within the scope of the license you purchase with the music-please email me and I'll be glad to share how to do it. This is a classic example of publishing companies gone too far. If Marisa's next album comes out with EMI copy protection, I will be forced to stop recommending her music.

Marisa Monte has done it again with an album where all the songs are soft, clear and relaxing.

If you are into brazilian contemporary, you cannot miss Marisa Monte. As a raod warrior I carry her in my pack of cds to help me relax, order my thoughts and let go.

I would add that I did expect a bit more variation, for her voice is well adapted to every style she wishes to explore. Yet this album is quite the same in all its tone (which is not bad, but if you are new to MM better start with roses and carbon).

Marisa Monte's voice is as gorgeous as a woman's voice can ever hope to be and the songs in this album are beautiful. You will want to take this music everywhere with you, in your CD player and in your personal digital player.

However, EMI has made sure that it is not easy for you to use iTunes to rip the music and create AAC files for your iPod. The CD carries a Windows program to protect the music content and to restrict the ways in which you are allowed to use the content that you have paid for. Pop it in to your computer's CD drive on a Windows machine and the Autorun feature takes control. It will allow you to burn identical copies for back up (carrying the nasty program with them) or to generate WMA files at 128 kpbs encoding. EMI has made these decisions for you and only with some pain you can bypass them. Their website states that it's Apple who is at fault for not licensing their DRM to third parties. This makes this CD unusable in iTunes. This thin excuse collapses when you consider that even using Windows Media you cannot freely choose the encoding bit rate for the music you bought.

Fortunately, I discovered that I could use a Linux ripper (grip) to extract the tracks as .wav and then use them to burn a real audio CD without this abominable "copy control" program which is sold as an "enhancement" to this product. The clean audio CD is iTunes friendly and only with this gimmick you can generate the AAC files for your iPod. Shame on EMI for making me waste an hour of my time to be able to use the content I paid for in the way that is most convenient to me.

After one hour of monkeying around, I finally can enjoy Marisa's beautiful music in the digital player that I own. No thanks to EMI for the hassle.

Marisa Monte has released two albums, this one and "Universo au Meu Redor," simultaneously. The big question is: why? Some critics see this album as a samba album and the other album as an MPB album. I'd say this is the dreamy album and the other one is the languorous album. Is there a big difference between the dreamy and languorous? Um, no, not actually, very little difference at all. Yes, Ms. Monte has a phenomenally beautiful voice; but, no, neither CD is an example of her best work or even close to it. As one album is about 44 minutes long and the other about 39 minutes long, the big question is why she didn't edit a couple of the many pedestrian songs and put out a single CD. For an artist of her skill, for an artist who records so infrequently, both these CDs are disappointments. There is nothing daring or innovative here--nothing even remotely close to the quality of Cibelle's latest CD, for instance. Everything is very pleasant, but there is not much that is memorable, and only a couple of songs at best that will ever have a serious shot at making her greatest hits albums of the future. Great voice, but this seems a very uninspired effort.

I bought this M.M. CD with EMI's infamous Copy Controlled technology. I did not have one single problem saving this CD into my computer (I use iTunes software). I do not own an iPod, so I don't know if the MP3s could succesfully be saved into that device. I also aquired MM's Universo ao meu Redor, and Daniela Mercury's two new CDs, all with Copy Control, and they all were saved succesfully... Now... So far I have heard the first 5 songs of the album, and I really liked it. I have been a fan of Ms. Monte for many years, and I really like this sound above the overly produced Cronicas Memorias e Declaracoes...

It didn't play in my 4 yr old stereo system (Pioneer TX-970). So, I put it in my PC. You must accept some weird agreements about some software that will be installed. So I did. The music played but I could hear clicks every so often. I tried to remove the software but no way. And I couldn't get this onto my ipod. Now I'm stuck with this junk CD.

What a nightmare, avoid like plague!

This is not a review of the contents of this new pair of "twin" records from Marisa Monte. It is a warning to the buyer. Marisa Monte's two new discs are manufactured with anti-pirate software that prevents the owner of the disc from converting the songs into a format that can be loaded onto an iPod.

While I acknowledge that those who have property rights in works of art and music should be entitled to take reasonable measures to prevent damages caused by illegal and unauthorized commercialization of these works, I do not believe that the this sort of anti-pirating device is a reasonable measure. It interferes to an extraordinary degree with the reasonable uses of the legitimate purchasers and consumers of the music. iPods and mp3 players are ubiquitous. CDs as a medium for repeated play of music are fast being abandoned; rather, manufactured and packaged CDs now more than ever are simply a medium for moving music from the record company to the consumer in a symbolic format, but is certainly not the preferred format of repeat play any more.

Not only is this anti-piracy measure unreasonable to the extent it interferes with legitimate customer use of the product, but I am also skeptical that damages are as real and material as record companies believe. The record industry has been in decline for many years, and not exclusively because of the expansion of piracy. The market has been saturated and transformed. In most industries, a marketeer knows that you cannot count on mass consumption anymore. Consumers have become fragmented in their tastes and preferences. Gone are the days of massive pop phenomena. Pop records simply are not the same symbolic media of community and consumption that they were in the 1970s.

Further, are record companies justified in defending monopoly profits that allow music stars to live like ... well, like music stars?

Also, are the consumers of pirated music - generally lower income people in low and medium income countries - really potential consumers of $17 compact discs? Is the teenager in the street of Mexico City or Sao Paulo really someone who has $17 to spend on the latest ____ disc? Aren't these people who but for piracy would be marginalized and excluded from the music market? If anything, their demand for music would be much lower than it actually is, if their only option were $17 cds embedded with anti-piracy software.

Finally, I doubt this sort of device will be effective against true copyright pirates for long. Piracy is a profitable business that employs technically savvy criminals. I would not be surprised if within a short time, pirates somewhere, somehow, "reverse engineer" or "crack the code" of the anti-pirate devices that are used on this record. The only ones who don't have the time, resources, and technical skills to reverse engineer or crack the code are the consumers, the legitimate paying customers like me who only want to be able to listen to this music on an mp3 player or computer.

First, I believe this is the most ravishingly beautiful CD Marisa Monte has created. Yes, I have "Universo ao meu redeo." I love that completely too. As she has said interviews, she has released her unidentical twins in 2006.

Songs are short here. Hardly any are longer than 3 minutes. If you measure a CD by its length in minutes, then you will be disappointed. If you measure it by quality, then no. Her conception in this album is as perfect as I have ever heard from her. The songs,she says, were from several years or back composing, and if so, she has assembled a complete concept such I never have heard from her.

There is so much here. (Although Marisa has created so much beautiful music in the past, that . . . who can compare?) Dance tunes like "Aquela" and lyrical poems too. Brazilian music is almost all intensely lyrical. You must understand the Portuguese language or find a translation to really plump the depths of what is going on in the song.

Regardless, you can still be seduced by the sound. And it is here, in spades.

Here she composes songs with Carlinhos Brown and others, and I can't find anything that is not just wonderful. There is not one song here I would wish to set aside for another one. They are all equally wonderful.

If you love this and want more, go get Marisa's first CD. Or Memórias, Crônicas & Declarações De Amor. This CD is the basis of her concert DVD from her Rio de Janeiro concert and buy that too. Then you will start to know her.

Honestly, Infinito Particular isn't her best work. I would put it on par with "Mais". It does not being to compare with "Memorias..." or "Cor De Rosa..." By no means is this a bad album, but it doesn't have any tracks that stand out. There are no Magalabares, Diariamentes, Maria de Verdades, or even a Nao Va Embora type track on this album. I only give it three stars because I am such a huge MM fan, and after such a long wait, we got two mediocre albums, when I was hoping for something that would dominate my IPod for the next few years.

With a PC, no problems playing, using something like CD EX to rip mp3s, and play on say a rio player. Don't worry too much...

A great album , as good as any of her others IMO. Maybe not as immediate, but her production techniques are really maturing and getting more interesting