Calypso Heat
Various Artists
Victory
OK, if you’re like most North Americans, when you think of calypso you probably think of “Come Mistah tally-mon, tally me banana…” I know I do. Thus I half-expected this collection to have songs where the melody was carried by steel drums, with maybe a guitar in the background somewhere.
Silly me. Nowadays calypso has full bands, and often if there’s steel drums, they’re buried in the mix, and the melody is carried by a horn section. Clearly there’s been a lot of cross-pollinating going on down in the Caribbean since Mr. Belafonte’s day. This has a lot of pop and Latin music influence, and in fact reminds me a lot of Baha Men when they’re not pretending to be a rap band. Good party music for poolside.
Victory World: http://www.victoryworld.com
