England didn't qualify for Euro 2008.What a shame that is...Italy on the other hand had already qualified before tonight.And now they're gonna go to Austria and Switzerland next year and show the rest of Europe how football's meant to be played :) Forza Azzurri! Oh and congratulations to Russia as well :)
As busy as I am (I'm a third of the way through my ghastly Luxembourg essay now,hurrah),I just can't seem to stop blogging. Efterklang is the Danish word for remembrance (or reverberation).It's also the name of an amazingly cool band from Copenhagen,who make beautiful music like the stuff I'm posting today.Never let it be said that all I listen to is Europop,because that would be wrong.My other,possibly most favourite type of music is this- I don't know what you'd class it as,but the wonderful,ethereal...stuff that Scandinavians seem to do best.I first heard of Efterklang about 6 months ago,and I have a few of their songs,although to be honest,I haven't listened to them much,given the recent Russian pop frenzy and everything.Efterklang have their own sort of sound,but you can see similarities between them and Sigur Rós,Mew (one of my favourite bands,who I can't quite believe I've never written about before),a bit of Detektivbyrån and maybe even Mugison.This song- Mirador- is their most recent.The video is intriguing-although I call it trippy,it's quite pretty in an 80s European cartoon kind of way.Anyway,I love it,it's reminded me why I love Scandinavian music so much.
My Russian exam was shocking,I couldn't remember anything,I kept speaking with an Italian accent and said 'rain' about 86 times.Grr.Oh well,listening exam tomorrow,that should be better.Let's watch Chelsi as a form of revision.
Ugh,so much to do and so little time,as the naff cliché goes.This week I have a French exam,2 Russian ones,2 hours of Polish which is getting harder and harder,EXTRA German grammar lessons and my dissertation plan thing about national identity in Luxembourg to give in.But I'm not complaining.Really :) Anyway,the Russian music industry is still being very much celebrated in our house.This week,we're particularly loving what appears to be a new song by Dima Koldun (no surprise there).It's called Никогда (Never),and it's really nice.Keira describes it as 'festive,' which I don't think is quite the right word,but either way,my festive season would be made wonderful by the news that Dima's releasing an album soon.Who knows,maybe with all these songs that are appearing on youtube (Никогда, Я для Тебя, На Волне, Reality of Dreams...) an album might be happening in the near future?Probably not though.Maybe he should just come and do the Russian Winter Festival in London in January instead...
In other (Russian) news- I've been trying to get interested in this year's series of Fabrika Zvezd,but it's just not happening.However,I did come across this video the other day- Mmm,Chelsi...Чужая невеста was never my favourite song of theirs (I think it was the first one they sang together on Fabrika...),but,like so many other Russian songs,it's reminiscent of 90s pop,so I listen to it anyway.And I don't know if my sources are accurate or not,but it seems this Vlad Sokolovskiy guy who's singing with them here,is rather popular.Well,whether he wins Fabrika or not,he won't be as fabulous as Dima :) Anyway,he sings this rather well.And with hair like that,he could easily be a replacement for Roman if he was ever to leave the band :)
Just a quick post before I have to run off to linguistics.A while ago,Poster Girl mentioned the song 'This Is Life' which was done by all the contestants on last year's Norwegian Idol.Well this is a song done by all the contestants of last year's Fabrika Zvezd,it's the theme tune of the programme,but this version was a special one done for the birthday celebrations of the TV channel it was on.(I think).Either way,it's so damn catchy,it's quickly becoming one of the most played songs at Europop Mansions.Which is great for me and Keira,but something tells us our other housemate doesn't share the same enthusiasm for cheesy Russian pop...
In all the recent Chelsi frenzy,I feel like I've neglected Dima Koldun somewhat.After all,he's the one who I technically named this blog after.So here's his new song,which I shamefully only found out about last week.It's a bit different,quite un-pop really,unlike his recent fabulous song Na Volne.I love Dima's Russian songs,but it's nice to hear him singing in English for a change as well.And I quite like the words to this one. There's no proper video as yet,but as usual,there are many different versions with lots of lovely pictures.This is my favourite one.After about 5 pictures you'll see why :)
It's my birthday today,which I think is a good enough reason to put up a nice picture of Chelsi.They just love to take their clothes off :)Mmmmmmm..... Anyway,I've just Poster Girl has written about Romanian dance music lately,which is exactly what I've been meaning to do for a long time.Thanks to my lovely Romanian friend,I've got probably a few hundred Romanian songs on my computer,my favourite band being Akcent,who tried unsuccessfully to represent Romania at ESC in 2006 with the catchy Jokero.They're also,erm,responsible for the song Kylie,which seems to be pretty famous,and King of Disco,with fabulous lyrics previously never heard in a pop song- "I'm a young single man at the age 25 Ex-communist, I search American life". The song I'm posting today though catches the boys in a more sensitive and romantic mood.I'm not sure what the title means,but apparantly the song is all about having a soul mate waiting for you wherever you are in the world.Nice.
