Another 'world'

When you think of the term 'world music', what do you think of? Peter Gabriel hand-jiving in shirtsleeves with Youssou N'dor? African highlife music on in the background at the veggie co-op round the corner from your student house? Perhaps you think of Andy Kershaw extolling the virtues of a Malawian bongo player in the days before he was stalking his wife on the Isle of Man, or it might just be the warming Heinz tomato soup sounds of Ladysmith Black Mazambo (sic)?

Unfortunately, so do I. Not that it's awful or boring, as I do like some of it. I mean, you can hear the highlife influences in Jimmy The Hoover's Tantalise clear as a bell. But why does it have to be like this?

To me, world music shouldn't just be about Damon Albarn worthily playing the lute with a bunch of tribesman in some dustbowl banana republic with a five-page report about how marvellous it all is in Observer Music Monthly; it should be about music from all around the world, whatever it is. Not just traditional stuff but pop too. We should be encouraged to enjoy stuff from Holland (Shocking Blue), Brazil (Os Mutantes), France (Serge Gainsbourg), or Greece (Aphrodite's Child).

In the spirit of this, I'm currently enjoying a fantastic three-CD Irish showband collection - all the hits and more - and a great compilation of Japanese girl singers from the Sixties.

Anyhoo, what I'm trying to say is, where does one draw the line? When is world music not world music? Is it just traditional instruments and songs or is it pop too?

While we ponder this vitally important question, here's Germany's Roy Black - surely the Fatherland's own Engelburt Humperdinck - with the very schlager-y Dein Schonstes Geschenk. It's got a children's choir in it, though those dollybirds in hotpants must have been added for light entertainment value by the producer.