Opening Music

[Prussia]

I fell in love with the intro music to Civ 4 the moment I put the CD in to the drive for the first time, because I LOVE african choirs and basically choirs in general, if they are good.

Does anyone know the name of the two songs (The main menu and the intro, they're different) and what band performed them?

[Tattila the Hun]

The opening is "Baba Yetu", performed by Talisman. Words are along the lines of "Our Father, who art in Heaven..."

The second music is the original Civilization world creation music, it's been too long since I played Civ to remember, who made it...

[Prussia]

Thank you.

[eris]

Originally posted by Tattila the Hun
The opening is "Baba Yetu", performed by Talisman. Words are along the lines of "Our Father, who art in Heaven..."

The second music is the original Civilization world creation music, it's been too long since I played Civ to remember, who made it...

I hate to say this, since I am usually wrong on these boards, but I believe this description is backwards. Baba Yetu is the song played during the menu sequence. The other song is played during the opening movie.

Even after time after time of listening. I have yet to get tired of or even less enthused with Baba Yetu. That is amazing. I even stall between menu choices just to here more of it.

[LordShiva]

I thought it's by Christopher Tin?

[Prussia]

You're right, I think Tattila got them mixed up.

But it's not easy to pick a song that nobody will ever get tired of as long as they play the game, and I think Civ IV nailed it right on the head.

[Fosse]

A version of the movie music can be found on Christopher Tin's website. It's called "Coronation."

[molly bloom]

Re: Opening Music

Originally posted by Prussia
I fell in love with the intro music to Civ 4 the moment I put the CD in to the drive for the first time, because I LOVE african choirs and basically choirs in general, if they are good.

I'm wondering if you've already heard of this album, 'Missa Luba' by Les Troubadours du Roi Baudouin. It's a Catholic mass sung in Congolese style, and was used on the soundtrack of the film 'If...' by British director Lindsay Anderson.


If you like African choirs, I think you'd like this.

ON HEARING THE MISSA LUBA

. . .by Studs Terkel

The joyous voices of Congolese boys in praise of their grandfathers' gods as well as the Christian God. Never has a mass been sung in this manner. These young virtuosi feel so patently free. There is a reason. The ways of their ancestors were respected by this stranger, the white priest from Belgium. It is my understanding that Father Guido Haazen came to the Congo in the early Fifties. Unlike most missionaries, this one came to learn as well as teach.

Thus, in gathering 45 young boys together, in forming Les Troubadours du Roi Baudouin, he was teaching Christianity in the manner of The Carpenter. In loving his teen-aged black neighbors as himself, he, in effect, was saying: "I honor your ways and those of your fathers. If you learn this Christian mass, please sing it in the manner of your people, not my way but your way." (An assumption on my part, of course, the rapport between this one shepherd and his flock. I can come to no other conclusion on hearing this remarkable performance.)

http://www.people.virginia.edu/~pm9k/gifs/ZoForth/missaluba.html

[Glyndwr]

I don't know what to think about the Civ opening music. On one hand it's vaguely non-European, which is good because it introduces people to something they've never actually considered before.

On the other hand, it's not authentic in any sense and if anything, it's new age. Most people wouldn't know this and they think this is what African music is about (let alone that it's not all acapella choirs). I'm an immensely sad and stuck-up person when it comes to 'World Music' and I know that real African choirs are far better than the sort of rubbish we usually hear, and I'm often tempted to class Baba Yetu into 'that sort of rubbish' simply because they missed an opportunity to spread some wonderful music.

The most ubiquitous African acapella choir is Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and they certainly deserve the fame they've received (even if it took their apperance on Paul Simon's Graceland to get it). Prussia, if you like choral music then I would recommend Ladysmith Black Mambazo as a fantastic start.

[padillah]

Originally posted by Glyndwr
I'm an immensely sad and stuck-up person when it comes to 'World Music' and I know that real African choirs are far better than the sort of rubbish we usually hear, and I'm often tempted to class Baba Yetu into 'that sort of rubbish' simply because they missed an opportunity to spread some wonderful music.

You'd have to be in quite a state to qualify Baba Yetu as 'rubbish'. Admittedly there are other and better African chorales but that does not make this performance rubbish. There are other levels of quality besides perfect.

I think the departure from the Anglo-European base was daring enough for the platform it was being released on. Remember this is intro music to a video game not some movie producer trying to change the world opinion. It is sufficiently comfortable to make people listen and sufficiently good as to make people investigate more (as the OP is doing). Or would you rather he not have been introduced to it at all? In defference to a nice safe Mozart or Tchaikovsky.

I have heard many African choirs that sounded great to the trained ear (maybe 'experienced ear' is better). They are also songs I listen to by myself because they are too 'weird' for most of my friends to like. But, I'm secure enough to understand that not everybody likes the same kind of stuff (Britney Spears not withstanding).

One of the hardest things to understand when picking music is to remember the target audience. Heck I've been in the middle of a recording session and called in a friend of mine because I didn't like the type of music the artist was recording so I needed a sympathetic target audience.

I think this song was a great middle ground between differing yet safe enough that your friends don't laugh at you for listening. It has the simple begining and the majestic sweeps that make a person think 'rise of civilisation'.

It is a fine choice for it's target audience, not rubbish at all.

Tom P.

[Prussia]

Agreed with Padillah, and thank you molly for the recommendation.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Prussia
Agreed with Padillah, and thank you molly for the recommendation.

I can also recommend the soundtrack to 'The Last Temptation of Christ' and the accompanying album 'Passion Sources' if you're looking for good examples of distinctively African singing.

Baaba Maal performs the Muslim call to prayer which makes an excellent piece of music if you're playing as Mali:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000000HNZ/103-7234322-5703064?v=glance&n=5174

I'd also recommend 'Soro' by Salif Keita and 'Djam Leelii' by Baaba Maal and Mansour Seck; and 'Songhai'

'Djam Leelii' :

http://www.sternsmusic.com/disk_info/yoffcd0001

'Songhai' :

The strings of the African kora join those of the Spanish guitar, the palm-clapping, the cajón (box-drum)… in this record born from the meeting between Ketama, the legendary musician from Mali Toumani Diabate and the cantaor José Soto. They are joined by the English double-bass player Danny Thompson, and this is how this work arises, the fruit of the incredible ease with which flamenco can absorb and merge will all kinds of music. It is indispensable as proof that flamenco evolves and doesn't have any frontiers.

Mali vocalists join the group on the anthemic 'Mani Mani Kuru' and the quiet 'Africa' .

http://www.esflamenco.com/product/en55973545.html

[Dauphin]

Fanfare of the Common Man by Aaron Copeland, if memory serves. At least Civ1 opening was that.

[Glyndwr]

Oh no, don't get me wrong. I don't mind Baba Yetu at all - it's just instinct for me to disregard it in favour of something more .. authentic?

Baaba Maal performs the Muslim call to prayer which makes an excellent piece of music if you're playing as Mali:

I love Baaba Maal's music, and if you're interested in the fusion of acoustic guitar and kora, then I cannot recommend anything more than 'In the Heart of the Moon' by Ali Farka Touré and Toumani Diabaté. It's a wonderful album even though Ali steps back and lets the kora shine a little too often.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Glyndwr
Oh no, don't get me wrong. I don't mind Baba Yetu at all - it's just instinct for me to disregard it in favour of something more .. authentic?



I love Baaba Maal's music, and if you're interested in the fusion of acoustic guitar and kora, then I cannot recommend anything more than 'In the Heart of the Moon' by Ali Farka Touré and Toumani Diabaté. It's a wonderful album even though Ali steps back and lets the kora shine a little too often.

I like Toumani Diabate's music very much, have done ever since I heard 'Kaira'.

I recently bought Toumani Diabate's Symmetric Orchestra: 'Boulevard de L'Independance' & Diabate's collaboration with Taj Mahal, 'Kulanjan' at the Wembley Record Fair- a great place to purchase a very diverse range of music very cheaply.

But this new album, recorded at around the same time as In the Heart of the Moon at the Hotel Mandé in Bamako features a completely different side to the kora man — a ballsey Diabaté showing humour and a lightness, as well as the obvious and abundant musical talent, which is a real pleasure. Diabaté and his kora are accompanied by a whole host of wonderful musicians who hail from all over West Africa to form the Symmetric Orchestra — a living breathing band who play weekly at Diabaté’s club, the Hogon, in Mali’s capital Bamako.

http://www.fly.co.uk/fly/archives/2006/03/toumani_diabates_symmetric_orchestra_boulevard_de_lindependence.html