Day 4: Good Old-Fashioned Bum Music

I just bought Amadou & Mariam’s newest album, Welcome to Mali about a week ago. Of course, true to form, I hated it at first , but now I'm coming around. And actually, I started the first draft of this post 4 days ago and have just slashed more than half of it in light of repeated listens over the weekend. Now I like the second, third and fourth track and I’m sure by this time next year (or next week) the album will be walking on water and curing kids from cancer.

Welcome to Mali had a lot to live up to after the unadulterated adulation I held for their 2005 breakthrough album Dimanche à Bamako, an album into which I wore grooves last year. For every tough, sad day of 2007 and every jubilant, sunny day in the beginnings of 2008, Dimanche à Bamako was the soundtrack of my life.

It is still early days yet, but my general impressions of Welcome to Mali are that this album is a little slicker than the last, a little more highly-produced and that they are trying to appeal to a broader audience by singing in English. You know what I think about that? I think artists should sing in their native language. Always. There are enough English singers out there to sing in English. I didn’t especially appreciate Nina Simone singing ‘Ne Me Quitte Pas’; I don’t especially like Madonna singing in Spanish or the Gypsy Kings singing in English. Stick ta whatcha know, I say. And in Amadou's case, singing in English makes him sound like he is in kindergarten. To me, it takes away from the quality of the rest of the album. I enjoy their distinct vocals, but they take some getting used to; and there seems to be a few more guitars than in their last album and it seems less 'ethnic,' for lack of a better term. But I guess, ya can't stop praw-gress.

I guess my concern is that they are sacrificing their artistic integrity (bach! I can't believe I just said that!) with the hope of appealing to a broader audience. Sing in English and the audience will follow? Personally, I've never thought that language in music mattered all that much. I don’t know what the words mean, but who cares? I’ll sing along with my own little sounds and tongue clicks and make my own words up. It works with Tori Amos.

THINGS YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT AMADOU & MARIAM BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK:

• Originally from Mali, Amadou and Mariam now live in France.
• Their music is refered to as Afro-blues and combines traditional Mali sound with rock guitars, Syrian violins, Cuban trumpets, Egyptian ney, Colombian trombones, Indian tablas and Dogon percussion.
• Manu Chao produced their 2004 album Dimanche à Bamako.
• They have collaborated with the Scissor Sisters.
• They sang the official theme for the World Cup.
• Damon Albarn, of Blur and Gorillaz fame produced this album.
• They are blind.*
• They are rhythmically irresistible and make me do a seated bum dance in my car almost every day.

(*I only mention this because it is not immediately obvious from their pictures and I was well-entrenched in their music before my X embarrassingly pointed it out to me. I am just trying to compassionately prevent you from making the same mistake. Looking back, it does seem kind of obvious, but I honestly just thought they were trying to be hip and trendy.)