irishtimes.com:Top of the popes

The Pope has a new album out for Christmas. One that he speaks and sing on. Perhaps this is a smart way to expand the Pope's popularity and broaden his image....I guess.

I don't know. Seems like a weird move by such a conservative Pope.

Bring back JP II.

From today's Irish Times:

Top of the popes; Pope cuts new CD for Christmas

ARTS:TAKE SOME Gregorian chant, add in the sumptuous strings of the
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, top it off with the voice of Pope
Benedict XVI, mix the whole thing up in the historic studios of
London's Abbey Road, and what do you have? A Christmas chart-topper?
With its suspiciously New Age, sumptuously melodic feel, the Pope's new
record, Alma Mater, might indeed do well, writes PADDY AGNEWin Rome

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2009/1112/1224258652585.html

Colin Barlow, president of Geffen Records UK, at the launch in the Vatican on Tuesday, is making no predictions right now, but he does expect this record to sell “quite a lot of copies”. He thinks that in this time of recession times, Alma Mater offers a message of hope and inspiration.

So what is going on? Has this rather crusty, Teutonic old Pope decided to go funky? Well, no, not quite. What we have here are eight tracks which cleverly interweave Gregorian chant with rich modern orchestration, topped off by the Pope, who speaks on seven of the tracks and sings on the other. On track one, Sancta Dei Genitrix, the Pope himself explains just what this record is all about, saying: “Faith is love, and for that reason it creates poetry and music. Faith is joy because it creates beauty. The great cathedrals of the world are not medieval monuments but rather houses of the living where we meet God and we meet one another. Great music, like Gregorian chant or Mozart, is not something of the past for the Church, but rather something living which is an expression of the vitality of the liturgy of our faith.”