Playing for Change – Songs From Around the World

Feel-good albums are pretty few and far between in these days of Eminem’s Relapse and Green Day’s 21st Century Breakdown, so a chance to listen to “Playing For Change – Songs From Around The World” should be jumped upon by everyone, because it is happiness and good vibes perfectly captured in music form.

Mark Johnson, the founder of the Playing For Change initiative, says, “the act of playing music with people of different cultures, religions, economics and politics is a powerful statement. It shows that we can find ways of working together and sharing our experiences with one another in a positive way. Music has the power to break down the walls between cultures, to raise the level of human understanding.” With this in mind, he set about recording outdoor and busker musicians singing hit songs about friendship, love and coming together in hard times.

This makes “Playing For Change – Songs From Around The World” a truly international CD/DVD set, because musicians from various American cities, Italy, Russia, the Himalayas and South Africa are all captured right on the opening tracks, a rousing rendition of “Stand By Me”, and you can see their vastly contrasting environments captured in the montage video on the DVD too.

The only vaguely glitzy part of the CD comes when Bono lends his vocals to the track, “War/No More Trouble”, with the rocksteady-reggae vibe of this song being slightly more sombre than the other tracks, but having a star around luckily doesn’t distract from the message of the music here.

Another interesting musical point of view on this CD, is the addition of female vocals to their version of Peter Gabriel’s Apartheid protest song, “Biko”. The singers here give us a version that is more like a lullaby than Gabriel’s original protest, and it is truly enchanting.

The ten track CD is closed out with a soulful version of “A Change Is Gonna Come”, sung by the Playing For Change Band in New Orleans. It ends the music on an optimistic note, reminding people that this music should bring change, even if it just “raises the level of human understanding”.

Videos for five of the ten tracks can be seen on the DVD that comes with the CD, and they will have you just as enamored with the beauty of this project, as they give you the visuals of how music has united musicians across the globe.

This compilation is a soulful, feel-good collection that’ll brighten up anyone’s day, and is highly recommended.