J is for Jet-set music

These days, you don't just travel to see the world; you travel to hear the sounds of your hotel. Well, you do if you're a Prada-wearing, Cosmopolitan-drinking globetrotter. Here's the pick of the vibes you'll hear at the world's jet-set hot spots.

H?tel Costes Quatre (Wagram Records)
Madonna bought 150 copies of the last Costes compilation, assembled by St?phane Pompougnac, resident DJ at the A-list magnet Hotel Costes in Paris. When he's not in France, Pompougnac (Son vrai nom? Bah, ouai!) plays his tasteful, grown-up house music at parties for starry copines such as Cameron Diaz and Milla Jovovich. Volume 4 comes complete with two handy fold-out pictures of angsty models. Listen to this in the stretch Renault on the way to Charles de Gaulle.

Island Outpost 4 (Polygram)
Island Outpost is the Caribbean resort chain (Jake's, Strawberry Hill, Pink Sands) owned by Chris Blackwell, producer of Bob Marley and the man behind Island Records. As you'd expect from a man with music in his blood, the sounds here are impeccable: gentle samba, lilting Latin American piano, Spanish and Portuguese voices as crisp as cut apples. Let down only by the cover, which is a turkey. Listen to this while feasting on jerk chicken in a Jamaican bar.

Arabesque Zoudge 2 (React Records)
Is this the sound of the bedouin crossing a vast wadi on their camels in search of a tagine or two at their local oasis? Not really. It's the sound of an overpriced basement bar off Regent Street. However, Momo's souk chic never looked or sounded better than in this exquisitely presented collection of North African-influenced beats. It's rai, fly, and easy on the eye. Listen to this as the Pyramids come into view.

Lebensart Music 2 (Edel Records)
Wallpaper* magazine comes to life on this Teutonic selection put together by the designhotels group (marketing machine to the world's contemporary hotels). Billed as 'a smooth breeze of decadent songs for modern people', what you get are 13 antiseptic if perfectly pleasant computer tunes, livened up with a bit of Moby and some Mancunian trip-hop. Listen to this on a Lufthansa flight from Copenhagen to D?sseldorf.

Buddha-Bar III (George V)
The Buddha Bar in Paris is the epitome of jet-set hang-outs, with top-drawer music to match. The graffiti-montage booklet in this double-album features love-you-mmwah scrawls from J-Lo, Victoria and David, Sean Connery, Wesley Snipes and Catherine Zeta Jones. Musically, it's Brick Lane meets the Edgware Road at Massive Attack's office party, as resident DJ Ravin mixes muezzin wailing, wild Middle Eastern strings and a dash of sub-continental mysticism. CD 1 is called 'Dream', CD 2 'Joy'. Intense, or what? Listen to this as your lover's gin palace slips into the port of Tangier.

A-Z travel guide for 2002