Saudi Arabia

Rodney Anonymous vs. the World

by Rodney Anonymous

(CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Artists: Various

Album: Arabia: The Greatest Songs Ever

Country of Origin: Saudi Arabia

Aid or Invade would like to take a moment to congratulate the Saudi Arabian legal system (the Greatest Legal System Ever) for its recent "get tough" policy on rape. Well, not rape, exactly, more like rape victims.

In October of 2006, a young woman who had been raped by seven men was sentenced to prison and 90 lashes for the unspeakable crime of being alone with a man who was not related to her (the woman had gone to a male friend's car to retrieve a picture of herself). When her lawyer filed an appeal and publicly commented on the harshness of the sentence, her prison time was increased and the number of lashes was upped to 200. Hey, at least she didn't name her teddy bear "Muhammad" (the Greatest Name for a Teddy Bear Ever).

As we learned long ago, world music is a bottomless pit of irony, so no one's eyebrows should be raised upon learning that this collection of Arabic songs was released by Petrol Records. But are the good folks at Petrol right? Are these, indeed, the Greatest Arabian Songs Ever? No. These are actually the Greatest Arabian Songs That Make the Greatest Background Music for Parties Ever. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Although it's unlikely this compilation will make you seek out CDs by the individual artists (with the possible exceptions of Al-Yaman and Emil Zrihan), this is still a decent collection of head-bobbing, hip-shaking, finger cymbal-clanging, oud-plucking Arabic proto-rock. This is also the Greatest Background Music For Cooking Dinner to Ever (which might help explain why the liner notes include recipes for kafta and houmous — seriously, they're really there).

Verdict:

To the victor goes the spoils, and America's crazed religious fanatics (the Greatest Religious Fanatics Ever) are rapidly losing crazy points to their delusional Middle Eastern Fundamentalists brethren. This is why our streets are overrun with young women accompanied by men who are not related to them, and why delinquents are free to name their stuffed animals after Jesus Christ.

(r_anonymous@citypaper.net)