Borat [Original Soundtrack] [PA] by Original Soundtrack

Borat

Rarely have snippets of movie dialog been more welcome on a soundtrack than on this disc accompanying comedian Sacha Baron Cohen's mock-doc, in which the titular character exposes America's prejudiced underbelly on a cross-country trip. Each "dialoguing excerpt from movie film" plays like a tasty, fantastically offensive mini-comedy routine, and there's a pair of soon-to-be classic songs, "In My Country There Is Problem (Throw the Jew Down the Well)" and the karaoke-sounding "You Be My Wife." But while Borat has become Kazakhstan's best-known (if not actually real) export, be warned that are no tunes from that country on the soundtrack. Instead, the music selection consists of mostly upbeat, brassy tunes from the Balkans (not even in the vicinity of Kazakhstan, a Central Asian land) by the likes of Kocani Orkestar and Esma Redzepova (from Macedonia); Fanfare Ciocarlia, Stefan de la Barbulesti, and Mahala Rai Banda (from Romania); and the peripatetic Goran Bregovic (from Bosnia and Herzegovina). Best of the lot: Fanfare Ciocarlia's tuba-heavy take on "Born to Be Wild." --Elisabeth Vincentelli