Gypsy Musyc

When The Gipsy Kings were recommended to us this weekend, we were skeptical. But we found some of their stuff, which Wikipedia describes as "Rumba Catalana, a pop-oriented version of traditional flamenco music," and it is good stuff. They were, unbeknownst to us, top of the Billboard charts in the late 80s... We are always looking to branch out in our musical tastes, and world music is a huge ocean we know next to nothing about, but the Putumayo crap (which is to world music what mall food court fare is to ethnic food) peddled in so many places had almost soured us on it.

And on the topic of world music, we'd like to plug Heitor Villa-Lobos, the Brazilian composer who found that a handful of Brazilian folk songs have identical chord progressions to Bach's cello suites, meaning that the folk songs can be sung with Bach as the accompaniment. The resulting Bachianas-Brasileiras are fkn incredible music. Go have a listen.