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The Best of Polish Smooth Jazz...Ever!

Recycling Records

Posted: Wednesday, September 03, 2008
By: Amy Mauk
Flash Animator / Motion Graphics Slave

Recycling Records has presented the world with an album of mash-ups and covers of pop hits done by anonymous artists, but the attempted comedy of the concept of this compilation may be lost on non-Polish listeners. Even Polish listeners may find the "cover" element hard to decipher, as liberties have even been taken with song titles. Thus, The Best of Polish Smooth Jazz...Ever! ends up having to be taken at face value, and the face isn't particularly pretty. "Typ Nieprzytomny" and "To Wszystko!" are ear-shredding distortion festivals that will be difficult to handle for anyone with the ability to hear treble, while "Paro Star Trek" has a driving techno beat that brings to mind the AT&T "techno twins" commercial. "Marchewka," "Dada," and "Kochać Whiskacze" have the distinction of being reasonably pleasant, but this is mainly just relative; if put between better songs, the somewhat amusing guitar line of "Kochać Whiskacze" wouldn't be nearly as interesting. Most of the other songs on the album are repetitive bits of experimental noise that only deliver on the "noise" part of the label. Rather than experimenting, the artists seem to be aimlessly amusing themselves, with the idea of making something that anyone else would want to sit through being a distant afterthought. This may be a bit of fun for anyone who finds melody, chorus, and rhythm a little too bourgeois, but everyone else should stay far, far away.