Search - F.R. Machuca, R. Hernandez :: Best Music From Around the World: Cuba

Of all the compilations, this is the worst I've heard.

Stavros Macrakis | 04/14/1999

(1 out of 5 stars)

"If you can imagine a Lawrence Welk impersonator playing at a nursing home bake sale, and you can imagine yourself enjoying this, then here is the CD for you. The artists' names are often not listed, and the authors of the songs hard to identify -- perhaps with good reason. Basically, 'All the Best' seems like a collection of songs that lost the competition for the 'hold' music on the telephones at the Havana Bureau of Unemployment. Put your six bucks towards Cachao or Cubanismo or any of the dozens of other Cuban CD's available at Amazon which will never disappoint you in the way that this one does. 'All the Best' is like a box of shoddy imitation cigars bought from a jinetero at the Malecon."

Energetic, expressive, deliciously kitschy Cuban music

Stavros Macrakis | Cambridge, MA, USA | 08/09/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Funny thing. I agree with both of the previous reviews, one of which gave this record 5 stars, the other 1 star.It outrageously kitschy, with standards like La Bamba and Guantanamera, the strange homage to Carlos Santana, several medleys (an intrinsically kitsch format), and all that.But it's also great fun. I laugh and I cry when I listen to it, not because it's ridiculous (although there's some of that), but because it's not afraid of emotion, of expression, of drama. It does have those Lawrence Welk-ish riffs, but it also has those precise Cuban rhythms, those singers' entrances bending notes just so, those shifts of key or of rhythm in mid-song, ....It annoying that the artists aren't identified and that there are no liner notes, but that's a minor point.Enjoy this, sing along with it, dance to it, laugh along with it, what the hell, laugh it. It's a blast!"