BVSC
The Buena Vista Social Club has a new collaborative CD out entitled “Rhythms del Mundo: Cuba.”

The CD takes such songs as “Clocks” by Coldplay, adds an Afro-Cuban instrumental flare to Chris Martin’s voice, and unfolds a very danceable, catchy, (some might say) more pleasurable version of Coldplay’s hit. The BVSC also pairs their spicy rhythms with artists such as Sting, Arctic Monkeys, Maroon 5, Vanya Borges.

The producer and source of inspiration for this album, Kenny Young, gathered the musicians and they recorded in Havana. In his interview with WXPN, we learn that their album had motives reaching beyond waking up our eardrums.

“The project was sparked off by the devastating Tsunami of Xmas 2005… The project evolved when more environmental disasters struck… But the big picture was climate change. You can call these natural disasters but after all the research and scientific data, we know that we’re at least partly to blame for some of these disasters. Global warming is now in the news daily. If we don’t act in the time frame our experts give us, our grandchildren will curse us eternally.”

Also interesting to note, the album features the last song BVSC long-time member Ibrahim Ferrer recorded, “As time goes by,” as he passed shortly after. This is the type of pop-culture attention that global climate change deserves – and reminds that we are NOT “global warming ready.”