What's hot and what's not in world music? If you believe the Billboard magazine charts, the most popular world music recordings are Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli's "Romanza," Canadian singer-composer Loreena McKennitt's "Book of Secrets" and "Buena Vista Social Club" by Ry Cooder and a band of veteran Cuban musicians.
How popular? The Bocelli recording has been No. 1 for 26 consecutive weeks, and all three CDs have been on the world music chart for more than a year. Which hasn't exactly allowed room for any new efforts to break through to the top spots, although "Cantos De Amor," the new album by the perennially popular Gipsy Kings, has risen to the No. 3 position in the first seven weeks of its release.
The other Billboard world music Top 10 are Angelique Kidjo's "Oremi," Mickey Hart's "Supralingua," eponymous albums from Gaelic Storm (from the movie "Titanic") and the Canadian Irish group Leahy, the Afro-Cuban All-Stars' "A Todo Cuba Le Gusta" and Michael Flatley's "Lord of the Dance." And the Top 15 includes albums by Mandy Patinkin and a collection of songs inspired by "The Lion King."
It is, at best, a curious list. If Bocelli, for example, belongs on a world music chart, then why not Pavarotti? And if McKennitt, a Canadian more commonly associated with folk and New Age music, is present, then why not Yanni, who is Greek?
Fortunately, the Billboard charts, which are "compiled from a national sample of retail store and rack sales reports collected, compiled and provided by SoundScan," do not have the final word. Music Boulevard, the popular Internet record retailer, has a somewhat different world music chart, based upon its own retail sales figures.
Its No. 1 album is Peter Tosh's "Legalize It," followed by Colombian singer Shakira's "Donde Estan Los Ladrones," Enrique Iglesias' "Cosas Del Amor," and albums by the Gipsy Kings, Gaelic Storm, Ricky Martin, Mana, Bob Marley and Leahy. There's no sign of Bocelli or McKennitt, and the chart is dominated by four hugely successful Latin acts--Shakira, Iglesias, Mana and Martin--while the Gipsy Kings, Gaelic Storm and Leahy duplicate their Billboard chart appearance, and the presence of Tosh and Marley underscores the continuing vitality of Jamaican music.
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But the Billboard and Music Boulevard charts are similar on several counts: They reflect the tendency of the American entertainment media to sign and promote world music acts that have a pop orientation; they reveal the public's continuing fascination with Irish music (enhanced by the success of "Titanic"); and they indicate the growing importance of Latin acts in the domestic U.S. record market.
