There are plenty of people who, if they see a compilation at a Starbucks counter, have thoughts to themselves along these lines: what kind of person buys a Starbucks compilation; if I were putting together such a compilation, I certainly would/wouldn't include x but would surely have more y; but I wouldn't put together such a compilation, because I know an assload more about music than any of these suit-wearin' types who select stuff like this for the poor deprived noobs whose taste will never equal mine, no matter how hard they study or how much they buy; they cannot catch up with me; I know all kinds of shit; also, wtf is going on with that cover design; I knew Photoshop better than that when I was still connected to my mother by the umbilical cord.

These people, among whose ranks I bet I would/will totally count myself if/when Starbucks comes out with a "soothing sounds of doom metal" disc, tend always to have a point underneath their snobby posturing, though the point is kind of a stupid one. Primers are boring once you're already educated in a subject. Some point-of-purchase Best of Freak Folk isn't going to probably do much for you if you've been Devendra's roadie since Oh Me Oh My.

So, right. If you are an expert, entry-level's gonna look kinda dumb, and because experts always butt heads, you're going to disagree with another expert's choices, and in the field of Thinking Wise Things About Music, everybody with a high-speed connection is an expert by age fourteen. I say all this by way of telling you that I do not know anything at all about Indian popular music - when I listen to Indian music at all, it's usually devotional music from the early 16th century, and the last time I listened to any Bollywood stuff was when the Luaka Bop compilation Dance Raja Dance came out - and to further tell you that, pace my relative ignorance in the field, this Putomayo compilation India is 100%-awesome-zero-duds-play-twice-in-a-row great. Where will you see this comp? At the checkout counter at Whole Foods. Are you too cool to dig that? Do your thing, I have nothing but love for you, on another day I'm your brother in the cause. On the other hand, do you want to hear a ten-track mix that is so completely chilled and mellow that you seriously for-real actually-did-this put the whole damn thing on repeat because it is exactly the thing for a cool evening in the living room? Then you must cop this, because I am telling you, every song is good and the sequence is killer-mix-tape fantastic.