The Wily Filipino

Mood Music.

The other day I had to return those badly copied bootleg VCDs and demand my money back. I replaced them, after much searching, with a couple of other bootleg CDs: one party hip-hop compilation (terrible, but I'll write about this later) and another CD called Starbucks N.Y.C. New York Jazz.

In the last decade or so there's been a revival of an interesting genre of music -- though it's not necessarily a genre, but more of a mood. It's not strictly Bachelor Pad or Exotica in the standard sense -- it's not Esquivel or Kenyon Hopkins or anything that can be properly called swanky -- but a feeling of sophistication is certainly involved, as well as an alcoholic beverage of one's choice. (Imagine these records coming with a stamp on the cover: For the Discerning, Sophisticated Listener and you know what I mean.) If anything, the period evokes the mid-'60s to the mid-'70s, a time when both Stan Getz and, say, Roger Nichols could be heard on the radio. (I've always claimed 1968-72 were the best years for music, period, but I digress.)

I blame the revival of this aforementioned swanky, sophisticated mood on the fantastic Spanish record label Siesta, who veers more closely to the soft-pop side of things. (Their twee-pop division, including Girlfrendo and Death by Chocolate, is equally stellar.) The Free Design, for instance, is both name-checked by Stereolab and appears on the soundtrack to the musically hippest show on TV, "The Gilmore Girls."

But the styles differ as well. The music can be arch (Mike Flowers Pops), utterly sincere (Lisa Ono), or studiously bland -- or all three at once. Indeed, I think a musical line can be drawn around such disparate musicians and songwriters such as Burt Bacharach, Astrud Gilberto, Margo Guryan, Paul Williams, Michael Franks, Seawind, pre-Idlewild Everything But The Girl, The Style Council, and -- well, this odd CD I hold in my hands.

The poorly Photoshopped cover of Starbucks N.Y.C. New York Jazz has the Starbucks logo superimposed on a couple of jazz musicians, in turn superimposed on a city skyline that looks nothing like New York. In any case, it's the inside that counts: it's just about as pitch-perfect an encapsulation of that mood that I've heard, with the exception of the compilations that come out from Siesta. What's more, its illuminating detours into jazz and soul and rock make it an even better buy, tracing that bossa / cocktail / soft pop / late night mood down diverse avenues. (If I were to compare it to Philippine radio stations, it would be like a combination of CityLite 88.3, the Mellow Touch (circa 1976), and a dash of NU 107 thrown in.)

It begins appropriately with the Mike Flowers Pops cover of "Call Me," featured on the Austin Powers soundtrack, and goes on from there. There are real gems here: a drum-and-bass lounge version of Joe Jackson's "Steppin' Out," Elvis Costello singing "I'll Never Fall In Love Again" (an obvious lie, since he's engaged to Diana Krall), a Spanish-language version of Swing Out Sister's "You on My Mind," Ryo Kawasaki singing "Agua de Beber," the vocal version of Chuck Mangione's "Feels So Good," Malo's "Suavecito," David Bowie's chilly "Volare," from the Absolute Beginners soundtrack (though he should have listened to Alex Chilton to hear a fantastic, sloppy cover of the song.) And, like any proper homemade compilation, there's the touch of authenticity by the inclusion of some stinkers: Robbie Dupree's "Make It Easy On Yourself" (leave that one to Scott Walker next time), Sting's "How Insensitive," and a funk version of "Walk On By" by the terminally unfunky Christopher Cross (granted, though, he won a Grammy for a Bacharach song, so...).

I've Googled the title and its contents, and I've come up with no answers -- no tracklist, no discography, no playlist for a radio station. (CDDB recognized it, though, with the CD's typos intact.) I don't know how these bootleggers operate, but it's nice to think that someone -- with swanky, sophisticated, discerning musical taste -- burned some homemade mix CD and foisted it on an unsuspecting Filipino public. I'm glad I found it.

Posted by the wily filipino at June 16, 2003 02:10 AM