Goran Bregovic's Karmen With A Happy End

Downloading music is great to try it out. I can't download indiscriminately because there's simply not enough time to listen to all of it. There's easy 3 days worth of music in my playlist and that's with trying to keep it to a minimum; I rarely spend 72 consecutive hours behind my computer. Sometimes, I like to listen to something that I know I like and I need to squeeze that in too. So before downloading I try to find out something about what I want to download and once listened to, I have to delete music I don't like immediately. Discipline! A nice side effect of my system is that there's often a week between downloading and hearing music, so occasionally I get a nice surprise.
Finding insightful information about this album proved difficult. I found that Goran Bregovic is a respected composer in some way and everything else sounded intriguing enough to give it at least a try, without telling me exactly what to expect. Upon hearing this album, I knew I was going to delete it straight away. Didn't take more than a few tracks to reach that conclusion. The difference between me and my computer is that I can forget to delete music but the computer remembers to play it when it's still in my playlist.
The second time this album came past I was able to distinguish separate songs, hear melodies and I started to see a bit of fun in it (note: this is my experience, it doesn't necessarily say something about the music). By the fifth time I got to the point where I decided to buy the CD.
"Karmen" is a reference to the opera Carmen by Bizet. You can find small traces of the opera in the melodies but it's certainly not opera in sound: I lack proper definition but 'Balkan' describes it best imho, or according to the booklet "A gypsy opera". It's got a story with a proper libretto and different roles with different singers. Everything but the actual text is in the booklet: story, English translation of the lyrics, artists, illustrations.
Conclusion: my ears needed training to get into this variant of non-western music but once that was established I found it very enjoyable to listen to this music. It's very energetic with lots of up-tempo pieces and horns but has slower and more emotional parts too. The package adds to the delight; this is not an album made on the spur of the moment. Give it a try (better two tries).
Mercury Universal, 2007

Goran Bregovic's Karmen With A Happy End