Desert Roses 3

1. Walk Like an Egyptian, with Hakim and featuring Cleopatra. Now Walk Like an Egyptian is one of my favorite songs. I even have an anime music video that uses a punk-rock version of the song with Azamanga Daioh. So I turn this track on and find it's absolutely hilarious.

To hear this song sung in this manner is just so incredibly funny. Now Hakim just happens to be an Egyptian (and one of the biggest Egyptian pop stars that exists.) Cleopatra is a 20-year-old Celtic singer from Ireland (and supposedly traces her ancestry back to Cleopatra and an Egyptian expedition that landed in Ireland, got shipwrecked, and blended into the population.)

Anyhow, this is a really good, really funny song for anyone who likes the original version.

2. Hanina with Steve Stevens, featuring Faudel. Faudel works with Algerian music and Steve Stevens worked with Billy Idol.

I love this song. The tune itself is really good and there is some really good guitar playing along with the singing.

3. Ajaja with Ramses. Ramses is Puerto Rican and is working on mixing Latin beats with Arabic music. Add to that Rap. The result is a song that I hope was not meant seriously to be good; in fact, it's so awfully bad that it is hilariously good. He provided the backing track to Walk Like an Egyptian which helps explain why that track was so funny.

4. Un Ange En Paix with Amina, featuring Zohar. Amina is French; Zohar is a British group with their "spiritual heart" in the Mediterranean area.

This one is plain bad for several reasons. First, too much is blended in the song. There's sort of a forties-type French singing (maybe even an earlier style) ; there's electronic music which resembles the sound of whales and there's also an accordion. The mix just doesn't work.

5. El Wala Wala by Hakim. This one makes up for the last one. It's a good song without anything odd or weird thrown in.

6. Zazarkhatri by Cheb Mami, who is the man who sing with Sting on the song Desert Rose. He has an extremely clear voice, sort of like the type of voice that Roy Orbinson had. It's a good song with sort of a Latin/Arabic beat.

7. Elli Tmanetoh (Galactic Mix) by Nawal Al Zoghbi. A fantastic singer (whose last name sometimes is spelled Zughbi). Very pop-music style and it works very well for her. This is a good song by her, but not quite as good as some others I've heard of hers.

8. Begharamak Masloube by Woroud. She's got a really good voice and this is a very good song, one of the best ones on the CD.

9. Niloufareh Bahar by Andy. Latin beat plus Arabic style and a good voice. Really, really good song. Very good, happy-sounding song.

10. Mahbug by Turbo Tabla. Very heavy use of drums in this song. It would be a really, really, really good song if the flute had been given a variety of music to play instead of repeating the same theme over and over almost endlessly. It ruins an otherwise great track.

11. Akadt Aalik Gualbi by Cheb Nasro. Really good sound, big-band style, good voice, good backing music.

12. Who's the Fairest by Shani. A woman from Arkansas singing Arabic music. Slightly Arabic musical background, English singing, not a bad song but not something I'd classify as Arabic.

13. Saraab by Simon Shaheen. Very slow song, much more Arabic sounding then several of the other cuts.

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