10 Friday, March 30, 2012 www.thenational.ae The National thereview The National thereview Friday, March 30, 2012 www.thenational.ae 11 this week’s essential reading { ‘Doggy style’ by Despite many claiming that he epitomises the worst trends in music and Kenneth Capello, culture, Capello examines why Miami club-rap superstar Pitbull is so popular music { GQ playlist  Essential releases from four more labels that began life as record stores

Mike Oldfield Tubular Bells (1973) Deep In 1972, Richard Branson founded Virgin Records and Tapes, a niche prog-rock record store in west London before branching out into music publishing a year later. Tubular Bells sold in its millions partly due to its opening track being used in down The Exorcist.

The Smiths The Queen is Dead (1986)

Geoff Travis’s Rough Trade also began life as a London vinyl shop before evolving into below a label that housed the cream of the UK’s indie rock scene. This included Morrissey and Marr’s outfit, although the pair apparently loathed their label A subterranean New York record boss, with Frankly Mr Shankly reportedly being a thinly- store and the salsa culture that disguised jibe at Mr Travis. surrounds it are the subject of a fantastic new two-CD compilation, Ladysmith Black writes Andy Battaglia Mambazo Rain Rain Beautiful Rain (2004) The twisted innards of New York’s Times Square subway station do While Gallo Records, which not make for a particularly pleas- New York’s Record Mart as it was decades ago. Courtesy of Jesse Moskowitz started out as a gramophone ant place to go shopping. It’s not record outlet in 1926, grew to an altogether dreadful environ- become South Africa’s biggest ment, but neither is it conducive surrounds it are the subject of Sub- Record Mart became the centre windows is a motley mix of mod- sifications for some of them in- down to focus for a bit on drums Son Primero’s El Avance fea- record label, it wasn’t until to the life of leisure. The main way Salsa: The Montuno Records of a network materialising around ern consumer ephemera, from clude such specific mantles as – played in empty space by what tures one of those competitions, Paul Simon adopted the LBM’s objective for most who walk these Story, a fantastic new two-CD different forms of pan-Latin mu- candy-coloured sets of Beats by Dr “guaracha-mambo”, “montuno- sounds like a slightly more re- staged near the end of a song that thoroughfares is to get out or get set filled with infectious sounds sic in New York, where the clash Dre headphones and disposable pachanga”, and “doo-wop baba fined relative of Animal fromThe starts off conventionally enough enchanting harmonies for his on their way as quickly as possible. from a city in constant motion. and clang of people and things cameras to voltage adapters for rumba”, but for the listener a lit- Muppets. It’s spirited, celebrato- but builds and builds toward its Graceland LP that its artists Nevertheless, there are a select You don’t need to be an aficiona- gives rise to styles that, at least in electronic goods from other lands. tle lost on what any of those might ry, and a little bit crazy, all the bet- climax. At one point the drum- achieved the international few stores scattered through tun- do of Latin music to get the fever, their primes, can’t help but sound Inside are rows and columns of mean, a simple appreciation of ter for when the rest of the parts mer veers out of conventional- acclaim they deserved. nels that splay out underground. or even necessarily know what like nothing else. You can hear it DVDs, for aspiring followers of the rhythm in the words goes a – perky piano, brassy horns, ebul- ity and just starts pounding on One with an indiscernible name “salsa” really is. Just press play on in Subway Salsa’s first track, Coco therapeutic yoga regimens and long way towards signalling the lient bass – enter back in and re- things, with what sounds like a sells clothes, a slapdash mix of Subway Salsa: track one and an abundance of vi- My My, a 1975 classic that churns fans of films like Fame and Gumby: sensations that lie in wait. store the crack symphonic whole. big smile on his face. Once he’s Sean Paul The Montuno Records Story souvenir “New York” sweatshirts tality comes across loud and clear. with enough kinetic energy to The Movie. The music selection Some of them are gentle, like There’s something psychedelic done, a flute player comes in and Dutty Rock (2002) and discounted Puma trainers. Various Artists Record Mart and the associated power a whole two-CD set on its comprises stray pieces of vinyl (in- those prompted by Zaperoko’s No about the way the music on Sub- plays an unhinged solo that at Another stocks chintzy jewellery Dh98 Montuno Records label, which own. The percussion scatters cluding a copy of Subway Salsa on Quedo Ni El Gato, a relaxed song way Salsa moves. Piano, especial- one point includes him strangely and silk scarves. Yet another turns started in the 1970s, owe much to everywhere, a bass line works to inconspicuous display) and oth- that keeps its wiggling to a mini- ly, figures prominently in close to screaming through the tube at his The roots of reggae label VP family photographs into simula- the stewardship of Jesse Moskow- try out any conceivable note that erwise the cover-art booklets for mum and basks in notes from an every track, usually in constantly lips. Records can be traced to a tions of oil paintings, and not far This would be Record Mart, a mu- itz, who grew up in New York and might brighten its mood, horns many hundreds of CDs exhibited acoustic guitar that fall like a nice circling, cyclonic patterns that What he might be screaming is tiny Brooklyn store founded from there lurks a tacky gift shop. sic store with a rich lineage as one counted himself among “the hip blare with the intensity of a fan- in plastic sleeves. Among the sec- spring rain. Others are bracing accrue power and speed through not easy to discern, but wonder- by Jamaican immigrant Randy But then there’s one, at the bot- of the city’s premier Latin-music Jewish kids in Brooklyn, Queens, fare from a war that is somehow tion headings: Salsa, Rumba, Afro- and charged, like those at work in reiteration. It’s dizzying, in all the ing about the meaning of it is a Chin back in 1979. Over the tom of the main stairs, that seems shops. Its roots trace back to 1958, and Manhattan” who “all loved exceedingly festive and fun. And Cuban Jazz ... Manny Oquendo Y Libre’s Bailala best ways, with an ability to clear worthwhile exercise. It’s hard to years, dancehall stars such out of place in that it appears to and it has served up salsa and the Latin”. (“Mambonicks”, he later is that a random three-second al- Drawing on the exchange of Pronto, which throws out all sorts a receptive mind and replace think of many better ways to pass as Beenie Man, Buju Banton, have an actual pulse. It teems with like ever since (save for an eight- calls them in the liner notes.) From lusion to the Batman theme song what an introduction in Subway of convulsive percussion sounds whatever was in it with something the time. Elephant Man and one-time an energy that none of the others year period around the turn of his underground shop, he started thrown in near the middle? In- Salsa’s liner notes calls “occult and fiery flute lines that make a lasting. The sensation spreads as Beyoncé collaborator Sean even approaches. Music pumps the century when it shut down be- stocking as many Latin records as deed, it is. knowledge and cultural legacies” case for re-evaluating the kind well, to the extent that some songs Andy Battaglia is a New York- Paul have all found themselves loudly out from inside, sound- cause of station renovations, only he could get his hands on – in an Oddly, Record Mart neither at Record Mart, the label issued an of intensity expected of flutes in sound like competitions among based writer whose work appears tracking the scrum of commuters to open again in 2007). era when that meant getting actual looks nor feels especially ripe for eclectic mix of styles and sounds general. At one point near the players in the band to see who can in The Wall Street Journal, under the VP umbrella. in a manic search for trains. Record Mart and the culture that “hands” on actual “records”. romanticising. On display in its during the 1970s and 1980s. Clas- middle, the song starts to break wow all the others the most. The Wire, Bookforum and more.