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The new Mashrou ‘Leila: The Beirut School album has finally been released. After a 4 year wait, the largest Middle East complex returns with a celebration of the group’s 10 years. One problem: there is only one unreleased track on the album, Cavalry.
10 years together
The Mashrou’Leila make their return to the scene in style, paying homage to their 10 years of success. An album that contains all the most interesting tracks of this complex, a true legend of the present day. A real journey into the history of the band which has Cavalry as its final stages and a reinterpretation of Salam. A real tribute to all the fans who followed them from the first to the last day of this long ride to success.
Unfortunately, however, in addition to this the only positive note of the album is the upcoming European tour, which ended just a week ago after having touched several cities in Northern Europe. After 4 years of absence, something more was expected, especially for how everything was handled.
Little collectible
Let’s clarify right away: this type of commercial operations have been done for years and in any field of entertainment, the problem with this is that it has been poorly managed. In fact, it is not uncommon to come across “limited editions” or remastered that reproduce the same product but with some extras, in this case they are missing. We desperately tried to understand if there was a sort of limited edition but even on Amazon the possibility of a physical order of all sorts is lacking.
In a world where you can even listen to Bi Kidude with a few clicks, an album-compilation makes a bad impression and is a way to “do the 10-year concert”. Furthermore, without any extras, the album becomes completely unusable even for the future. Why should those who already have those songs buy them back or even replace those they already have? If there had been the classic “contentino” as the “behind the scenes”, the album would have at least had the collector’s appeal, so it is really insignificant.
Inexplicable
We have always been fans of Mashrou’Leila and for this reason we talk about it with extreme suffering. Cavalry promised a truly spectacular album, the 4 years of waiting and the anniversary had made us hope for a return in style, to do so they could also save themselves the effort. The thing that disappoints us even more is that it would have taken very little to do something beautiful, even without trying. Over the years, in fact, the group has not been stationary but has actually collaborated with several great Middle East and non-major artists, even managing to produce original and interesting pieces, it would have been enough to re-propose those.
By doing it every day, we realize very well that sometimes writing something interesting is a real undertaking; in 4 years of absence, however, something more was expected. As it is the album is a mere operation to make profit on their own anniversary. An operation that is not suited to the history of this group and from which we hope to be soon denied. What do you think about it? Did you like the “new” album?
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