We all love our holiday traditions, including our favorite seasonal songs, whether you're a classicist or a "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer"-ist. This year, why not add a global dimension to your holiday listening traditions by embracing some international music customs? We've assembled an extensive guide to the best international and Latin holiday albums, including Christmas-, Hanukkah- and solstice-friendly music from Ireland, Cuba, Jamaica, Eastern Europe and more. So start listening and find some new ways to (musically) say Merry Christmas! Feliz Navidad! Nollaig Shona Dhaoibh! Ah Freilichen Chanukah! Happy holidays!Listen now:
International and Latin Holiday Albums Roundup
1. The ChieftainsThe Bells of Dublin
This 1991 album still stands as an unlikely holiday classic — unlikely because only a handful of the usual suspects make it on here. Yes, you'll hear "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," "O Holy Night" and a healthy heap of other traditional tunes, but the bulk of The Bells of Dublin plumbs deep into the season, featuring Breton and French carols alongside the odd, Elvis Costello-sung "St. Stephen's Day Murders." The sprawling album commences with the chiming bells of Dublin's Christchurch Cathedral, and they appear throughout. Jackson Browne, Rickie Lee Jones, Marianne Faithfull and many others guest. [Sarah Bardeen]
Not to toot our own horn or anything, but we think Rhapsody's World Roundups are pretty exciting. It's just so rewarding and exhilarating to take this kind of whirlwind trip around the world of global music, digging into all the fantastic and often under-the-radar new albums that have come out in the last couple months. Our Top Ten this time out, for instance, spans critically acclaimed African desert blues, almost-lost Afro-funk nuggets from Benin, shiver-inducing flamenco, neo-folkloric Mexican alt-rock and Brazilian-zydeco/Western swing/New Orleans jazz mashups. And that's just the first half! Get soundtrekking!
Although Halloween as we know it in the United States isn't celebrated to the same degree in the rest of the world, the holiday is starting to gain ground in Latin America, with kids dressing up and trick-or-treating everywhere from Colombia to Mexico. And why not? A strong foundation for the holiday already exists. First and foremost, there's Dia de los Muertos, in which families and friends gather to commemorate departed loved ones with eating, drinking, music and general fiesta-making. It's a joyous occasion, of course, but still one in which the ghosts or souls of the departed are said to walk the earth again.
When 
With its roots in Indian films of the 1950s and '60s, Indian film music is the sound of playback singers (something akin to voiceover artists) reinforcing pivotal scenes — and revealing hidden emotions and future plot developments. The tradition is based in classical and folk performance wherein theater, dance and song coexist seamlessly, but for the last several decades, Bollywood soundtracks have also contributed heavily to India's pop music culture, spawning big stars and hit songs. Film music, in other words, is a vital part of daily life in India and a powerful vehicle for cultural expression. But especially in today's Bollywood, where composers and singers create music under intense time pressure, creating a flurry of pop tunes that come and go within a matter of weeks, Indian film music can be overwhelming. So we assembled this brief introduction to the vast, varied and exciting world of Bollywood, breaking down the industry's biggest stars and hottest composers in both the classic (1930s-1960s) and contemporary era in this handy-dandy extensive (yet still drop-in-the-bucket) annotated 
Psychedelic rock has always been pretty global by definition, in a misty, crystalline, incense-and-peppermints kind of way. In its '60s and '70s heyday, the influences of psychedelia — drugs, sitars, mysterious religions, political ideologies — traveled along a crisscrossing bohemian circuit of exotic locales from India to Morocco to Guatemala. At the same time, local musicians in each of those places and many more joined the trip themselves. Psychedelic artists like Ethiopia's 
This edition of the World Roundup underscores just how vast and wide-ranging the music under the ambiguous umbrella term "world" can be, and at the same time, what beautiful common ground exists there. Afropop, Balkan brass, Brazilian tropicália, Haitian-Cuban choral folk music, East African dub, globe-trotting electro-funk ... you'll find all that and more below. But even this disparate range shares an investment in and undying dedication to the groove, whether it inspires a meditative trance or rocking-out jam-band exuberance. So sit back and let it all sink in.
Welcome to 
The much-lauded second album by 
By 1998, 
We must admit that Tuesday is our favorite day of the week here at Rhapsody: that's when new releases come out. Thankfully, the next three months of Tuesdays look absolutely glorious, full of fresh music from ukulele-brandishing rockers, electronic pioneers, strident country hit makers, unabashed pop divas, unrepentant metalheads, CCM luminaries, contenders for Best Rapper Alive honors, soul superstars and, of course, Lady Gaga. Here's the best of what's to come.
So many great new releases have come through the various channels of world and Latin in the short time 2011's been alive. So many, in fact, that we've pared them down to a Top 10 of the Year — so far. (And we didn't even quite manage to keep it to 10.) Now, that should tell you something about how this year's shaping up in the world of world and Latin. Saving the Latin pop for another time (or see our recent Latin-only 
All eyes are on Egypt as the citizens of that country have risen up to demand a regime change and a government that will justly meet the needs of the people. As the world watches with bated breath to see what will become of the days of protests, we're also learning a great deal about the rich and complicated cultural history of that country. That history includes a diverse musical culture, the influence of which extends across the 
Descendants of Africans who escaped slave ships and built communities with the local Arawakan population along the Caribbean coast of Central America, Garifuna musicians are heirs to one of the world's most distinctive and resilient cultures. So it only makes sense that the musics they play represent some of the globe's most joyous yet politically critical, unique yet inherently diasporic, prolifically traditional yet hybrid, adaptive and inventive: the percussive religious music, the acoustic guitar-driven paranda, the various permutations of the punta rock genre created by the late great savior of Garifuna music, 
The worlds of world and Latin music can be very disparate. But because there is some overlap (hence, the job title of yours truly), we've merged the two worlds (or perhaps more accurately, multiple worlds) temporarily to run through some of the year's most hotly anticipated albums. Just call it musical globalization! On this vast horizon, then, are Garifuna soul and Guadalajaran rock, Pitbull and Ladysmith Black Mambazo — and that's essentially just the first quarter of 2011. In short, the world(s) are looking pretty exciting this year.
If anything marked world music this year, it was the lack of any big, defining story. In recent years, there's usually been a movement of some kind: gypsy music, desert blues. But 2010 was a year of fragments. The stalwarts continued to release big, commercial albums: 
Finding an American equivalent to the Colombian pop star 
It was as if nobody wanted to admit it was 2010. MGMT released a paean to '60s psyche, Ariel Pink looked back at the '70s and '80s through rose-colored, lo-fi glasses and Broken Bells and Cee-Lo dipped their buckets in the ever-deepening well of '70s soul. LCD Soundsystem plundered '80s avant disco, while Robyn revisited the halcyon days of Swedish pop. On the other end, Janelle Monae peered into the future and saw messianic robots, while Flying Lotus crafted an album that mined the sublime amidst fractured electro future shock. The albums that strained for the zeitgeist -- Kanye West's angry, self-obsessed Fantasy and Arcade Fire's meditation on the mundane crunch of suburban life -- were the most emotionally desperate and revealing. There was more great music, as always, and we've compiled our top 50 albums right here.
Maybe it says something about 2010 that the year's most ubiquitous and demographic-defying song was a chirpy '70s soul retread entitled "F*ck You," or that Kanye West's "Power," the most ambitious pop single of the year, paraphrased a quote from Malcom X in an effort to deify hip-hop's reigning enfant terrible. It was that type of year, people, and the songs that we selected as our top 50 tracks are strange, funky, heartfelt and confrontational slices of magnificent pop music. Whether you agree or not, leave us a comment, and don't forget that you can listen to a playlist of all these tracks right 
When they started out, 
Call it Mexico's gangsta rap. The lyrics are violent, the language is littered with slang, and making paper is the order of the day — pretty much exclusively through drug smuggling. You can even hear the music shaking apart car trunks all over the United States, but that's where the comparisons between gangsta rap and Mexican narcocorridos end. Narcocorrido artists' instruments of choice aren't the sampler and mixing deck: think tuba and accordion, and the rhythmic up-and-down of a guitar. And while most gangsta rappers boast of their own exploits, narcocorrido singers detail the dramas of real-life drug kingpins in Mexico. And singing them can get you killed.
Earlier this year, 
The drone. It's a sustained note that hangs, while music happens (or doesn't happen) around it ... and when you start digging, you can find it everywhere: in 
The release of FaR*eAst Movement's 
Editor's Note: The news from Pakistan is bad. One-fifth of the country's landmass has been flooded and 20 million Pakistanis have been affected. To date, the international response has been, at best, tepid. Rhapsody has compiled a list of credible organizations working on the ground in Pakistan who can make a difference in the lives of people who've lost everything and are now threatened with homelessness, disease and (potentially) starvation. If you're moved to, please donate to one of the charities below. And read on to learn more about Pakistan's rich and enduring musical culture.
Ever wonder where 
What is the Latin Alternative Music Conference? It's the only gathering in the world dedicated solely to Latino artists who are making hip-hop, electronic music and indie rock, and it's happening in New York City between from July 6 through July 10. LAMC turns 11 years old this year — here's to staving off the adolescent blues with good music — and it's bringing an absolute boatload of excellent shows to New York City this week.
Sports fans the world over are obsessing over the World Cup right now (it's the quarter finals! yeah!), but over here at Rhapsody we're obsessing over something a little different: the World Cup opening celebration concert. We're wondering what it said (or at least wanted to say) about Africa. Yes, that's right. We're music nerds, and we care.
We aren't experts in futebol over here at Rhapsody, but we do pride ourselves on knowing good play — be it in music or on the soccer pitch. So as the world spends the next month in the grips of World Cup fever, we bring you our uniquely musical take on the game and its players. We've got a monster playlist of the 
Listen to all your favorite artists whenever and however you want with your Rhapsody subscription. If you don't have one, 
In the world of hip-hop, American or otherwise, female emcees are a rare breed. A quick glance at Rhapsody uncovers about five women among the top 100 hip-hop artists, and only a few of them are actual lyricists. (Hint: Not 
Spring has sprung and new albums seem to be sprouting up like dandelions in the lawn of, um, some tortured analogy. (Okay, let's leave analogies to the poets.) It's been a mixed season in the worldly realm, with
some false starts and some great surprises. Let's tour through them.
The music of the Chieftains is
yours to listen to whenever and however you want with your Rhapsody
subscription. 
Pantha Du Prince, the Juan MacLean and every other act mentioned in this article are yours to jam whenever and however you want with your Rhapsody subscription. 
Since a catastrophic earthquake struck Haiti on January 12, people around the world have mobilized, searching for ways to help this tiny nation in its time of need.
The news out of Haiti is bad, to put it mildly. International aid efforts are still only a trickle, hardly enough yet to help hundreds of thousands of people who have no shelter, no water, little food and a lot of death around them. The world is watching obsessively, visions of Katrina and the tsunami not exactly dancing in our heads. Get it right this time, we all seem to be silently imploring the powers that be. 
SoundTreks: A regular feature on the music the other 97 percent of the globe is listening to.
While our ongoing discussion has been focused on Western, primarily Caucasian musicians experimenting with African influences, it’s interesting to note a band in the unique position of 
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