Since most of the Arab countries are not on good terms with what is called “Israel” and since any form of cultural interaction is impossible , the Israeli band Orphaned Land have offered their latest album “The Never Ending Way Of ORwarriOR” for free download only in a limited list of Arab countries.
Now this appears to be a generous act and an act of brotherhood. It is also explained that it’s a way to breach the wall between us and build the bridges. From another point of view, one can understand that this is a mere publicity strategy. “The band has a bigger goal” to unite the people of the region and form the similar musical heritage. Again, as far as the label cares, that will only increase sales.
We all know that any album Israeli “Orphaned Land” or other can be found on the internet for high quality download without the generous offer of the band. So why do we need the band link? Downloading from other pages is illegal? Well not in our countries!
Again it’s true that alot of Arabs like Orphaned Land’s music but the majority never checked the “lyrics”. We still get the album and highly rate it based on music only and in a lot of cases we never check the lyrics or translate what is “Hebrew”. (The album was in our top albums of 2010 on Lebmetal.com)
Not to forget that many tunes are taken from local Arab tunes. For example, the famous “Nora El Nora” is actually an Arabic song called “Samra ya Samra” composed by famous Karim Mahmoud (1922-1995) (Website Link). Still we didn’t make a deal out of it, did we?
Now to a certain amount this article will be considered as an attack on Orphaned Land’s music. No! We just want a better “real” explanation.
