No great fan of World Music, I do recommend this recording.

Rhythms Del Mundo is an electrifying album that fuses music of different cultures and comes up with a melting pot of rare sounds.

While the majority of the original artists’ vocals remain the same, The Buena Vista Social Club musicians took the original orchestration from each song and created something utterly unique, casting their trademark mastery over each track.

Their noted and exceptional musicianship seduced even the notoriously protective Arctic Monkeys into handing over their track. As well as The Arctic Monkeys‘ track `Dancing Shoes’, Rhythms Del Mundo included reworked tracks such as `Clocks’ by Coldplay, `Better Together’ by Jack Johnson, `She Will be Loved’ by Maroon 5, `High and Dry by Radiohead‘ and others.

The album is in aid of Artists Project Earth (APE), which lends support for natural disaster relief and climate change awareness.

If you’re an Arctic Monkey’s fan (all so absurd) you have to see this mash-up. So weird, I like it.

Click PLAY or watch the Monkeys in old Havana on YouTube.

Hear short sample clips of the other songs: – Rhythms del Mundo Cuba – official website

Rhythms del Mundo: Cuba

The chorus is deafening. Everyone agrees the days of Digital Rights Management are coming to an end.

Here’s the best alternative to date — Amie Street

I’ve been writing about the Amie Street music site since their launch last July. Their model has the potential to disrupt the music industry from the bottom up: Bands and labels upload music, which is downloadable in DRM-free MP3 format.

The price always starts at free, and as more people download the song, the price starts to rise, eventually hitting $.98. Higher priced songs are by definition more popular, and I’ve found that anything over $.50 or so is pretty good music. 70% of proceeds go to the band/label, and Amie Street keeps the rest.

The service is now starting to make real progress with labels, too. They’ve signed a deal with Nettwerk Music Group, which will be uploading their entire library to Amie Street over the next few months. The first music to go up on the site is the new Barenaked Ladies album, Barenaked Ladies Are Men. All sixteen songs from the album are available here.

The songs will only be free through the first few downloads, and will start to rise after that. But even at full price, listeners are getting quality music, DRM-free.

Let’s hope other labels follow Nettwerk shortly. Market driven prices and no DRM = Music Nirvana.

Barenaked Ladies: New Album. Free. No DRM. Now.

Amie Street