One of my biggest sucesses in recent years is getting my parents to watch Eurovision a bit more seriously,particularly my mum who before 2007 pretty much never watched it.Anyway this year my dad was especially impressed with Romania's song and now he has Ovi's album.It's called This Gig Almost Got Me Killed,and though it's a bit 90s in parts,it's actually a pretty good album.My favourite song from it (apart from Playing With Fire of course) is Reason,and I just found this lovely live version of it from an NRK TV show.
Wednesday, 20 October 2010
Soundtrack of eternity,unendliche Sinfonie
Ooh I am liking this...
Not sure how long it will stay on youtube given the situation these days,so enjoy it while you can.This is the title track from Polarkreis' fourth album which will be out on 19th November apparently.It's not radically different from The Colour of Snow album (always a good thing),and although it's not as immediately catchy as Allein Allein or as dreamy as some,well MOST, of the other tracks on the album,I like it very much and look forward to hearing what else they've been up to in the last 2 years.Also loving the retro style video.Sehr cool.
Not sure how long it will stay on youtube given the situation these days,so enjoy it while you can.This is the title track from Polarkreis' fourth album which will be out on 19th November apparently.It's not radically different from The Colour of Snow album (always a good thing),and although it's not as immediately catchy as Allein Allein or as dreamy as some,well MOST, of the other tracks on the album,I like it very much and look forward to hearing what else they've been up to in the last 2 years.Also loving the retro style video.Sehr cool.
Wednesday, 25 August 2010
Livin la vida russkiy
World's Most Beautiful Man Aleksei Vorobyov has gone all Ricky Martin on us.In musical terms that is.
No idea what Bam Bam is about,but to be honest he could be singing about wicker conservatory furniture for all I care.It's just a nice catchy tune with a...charming video.Lyosha isn't the squeaky clean perfect Russian boy he was in New Russian Kalinka anymore.No,he's got chavvy friends,gets off with girls in nightclub toilets and he breaks things.He'd fit in so well in Gillingham,I want to organise a visa for him.
No idea what Bam Bam is about,but to be honest he could be singing about wicker conservatory furniture for all I care.It's just a nice catchy tune with a...charming video.Lyosha isn't the squeaky clean perfect Russian boy he was in New Russian Kalinka anymore.No,he's got chavvy friends,gets off with girls in nightclub toilets and he breaks things.He'd fit in so well in Gillingham,I want to organise a visa for him.
Saturday, 31 July 2010
Potential ESC entrants for Liechtenstein Part 1: Rääs
Yesterday I wondered aloud on this blog about the existence of the Liechtenstein music industry.Well it turns out there is one after all,and rather interesting it is too from what I've seen so far.So welcome to the first in a (probably very short) series of Potential ESC entrants for Liechtenstein.
Meet Rääs.
(from their website www.mundart.li)
How very reminiscent of Revolverheld's latest album cover (released a year after the picture of Rääs was taken).Who's copying who I wonder? :)
Anyway,Rääs are interesting because not only do they sing in German,they sing in the Liechtenstein dialect of German,which has more umlaut a's than you can shake a stick at.This alone would make them great candidates for ESC next year- there's not nearly enough dialects in the contest.
This is Bis du sälb (something like Be Yourself),and from what I can glean from the lyrics it's just about being responsible for sorting out your own problems.It contains good drums.
I take it that video is where the picture I posted comes from.Unless they were two separate occasions and there's just a lot more paint-flinging done in the Germanic countries than I ever realised.
Rock of course never does well at Eurovision,unless you're Turkish,in which case any old tat you send does well.So we wouldn't want Rääs to send something like that and end up doing a San Marino and bombing in their debut year.
So how about a good old ballad?
It's the paint again! Good Lord... Anyway,I think that song is lovely.But ballads are divisive at Eurovision.Maybe we want something a bit more mad?
Now I understand most of the words to this one.Balzers is the village in Liechtenstein where Rääs come from,and they're saying that they've been all round the world,but there's only one place they want to be.That being Balzers of course.This has Eurovision written all over it surely? It's a bit Ovo je Balkan but without the weird subplot about kissing,it's a better tune than Mama Corsica (a song that was also in a dialect AND finished 4th in 1993),and it isn't bland ethnopop like Hohrehronie.Sadly though,it is 3 years old so they wouldn't be able to use it next year.Maybe they can quickly knock one up about how great a capital city Vaduz is though and cobble together a Zauvijek Volim Te type video with lots of gratuitous shots of castles and flags waving in the breeze.
Come on 1FLTV,let me be your Eurovision consultant!
Meet Rääs.
(from their website www.mundart.li)
How very reminiscent of Revolverheld's latest album cover (released a year after the picture of Rääs was taken).Who's copying who I wonder? :)
Anyway,Rääs are interesting because not only do they sing in German,they sing in the Liechtenstein dialect of German,which has more umlaut a's than you can shake a stick at.This alone would make them great candidates for ESC next year- there's not nearly enough dialects in the contest.
This is Bis du sälb (something like Be Yourself),and from what I can glean from the lyrics it's just about being responsible for sorting out your own problems.It contains good drums.
I take it that video is where the picture I posted comes from.Unless they were two separate occasions and there's just a lot more paint-flinging done in the Germanic countries than I ever realised.
Rock of course never does well at Eurovision,unless you're Turkish,in which case any old tat you send does well.So we wouldn't want Rääs to send something like that and end up doing a San Marino and bombing in their debut year.
So how about a good old ballad?
It's the paint again! Good Lord... Anyway,I think that song is lovely.But ballads are divisive at Eurovision.Maybe we want something a bit more mad?
Now I understand most of the words to this one.Balzers is the village in Liechtenstein where Rääs come from,and they're saying that they've been all round the world,but there's only one place they want to be.That being Balzers of course.This has Eurovision written all over it surely? It's a bit Ovo je Balkan but without the weird subplot about kissing,it's a better tune than Mama Corsica (a song that was also in a dialect AND finished 4th in 1993),and it isn't bland ethnopop like Hohrehronie.Sadly though,it is 3 years old so they wouldn't be able to use it next year.Maybe they can quickly knock one up about how great a capital city Vaduz is though and cobble together a Zauvijek Volim Te type video with lots of gratuitous shots of castles and flags waving in the breeze.
Come on 1FLTV,let me be your Eurovision consultant!
Friday, 30 July 2010
My mind is always on your side
I'm going to Belgium next week.Ostend for a day anyway.Now I know there are a few good CD shops in Ostend,so I've been checking out the Belgian charts to get some ideas of what to buy over there.
Firstly I have to say how much I like Ultrapop.be, the chart website.There are Flemish and Walloon versions of course,and the chart helpfully points out which artists are Belgian (16 out of 50 ain't bad),and there are youtube links to every video.Good to see Jessy Matador and Tom Dice's Eurovision songs still doing well :) But at 17,one place above Me and My Guitar is Come Home by Amatorski.It's all slow and teams rather old-fashioned music with a very British indie vocal that wouldn't be out of place in one of those old annoying Orange adverts.Nothing annoying about this though,it's rather lovely in fact.It's in two sections,in the style of two letters- one written by the girl to (I presume) her soldier boyfriend,and one from him in reply.
Apparantly Come Home is part of a 4 track album,but there are a few other Amatorski songs on youtube.This one,Fading is my favourite.Its dreamy sound (with a slightly sinister undertone? I'm not sure yet) is like anything Sigur Rós or any number of Scandinavian indie artists would produce,which is perfectly fine by me :)
On the other end of the scale (and at number 26 in the charts) is She's Gone by a chap called Nelson who I know absolutely nothing about yet,other than that I love his voice.
P.S- Following the exciting news that Liechtenstein are likely to make their Eurovision debut next year,I think it's about time I had a look into their music industry.Early indications show that they don't actually have one,but that can't be so.If anyone has any tips for me,I'd be very grateful.
Firstly I have to say how much I like Ultrapop.be, the chart website.There are Flemish and Walloon versions of course,and the chart helpfully points out which artists are Belgian (16 out of 50 ain't bad),and there are youtube links to every video.Good to see Jessy Matador and Tom Dice's Eurovision songs still doing well :) But at 17,one place above Me and My Guitar is Come Home by Amatorski.It's all slow and teams rather old-fashioned music with a very British indie vocal that wouldn't be out of place in one of those old annoying Orange adverts.Nothing annoying about this though,it's rather lovely in fact.It's in two sections,in the style of two letters- one written by the girl to (I presume) her soldier boyfriend,and one from him in reply.
Apparantly Come Home is part of a 4 track album,but there are a few other Amatorski songs on youtube.This one,Fading is my favourite.Its dreamy sound (with a slightly sinister undertone? I'm not sure yet) is like anything Sigur Rós or any number of Scandinavian indie artists would produce,which is perfectly fine by me :)
On the other end of the scale (and at number 26 in the charts) is She's Gone by a chap called Nelson who I know absolutely nothing about yet,other than that I love his voice.
P.S- Following the exciting news that Liechtenstein are likely to make their Eurovision debut next year,I think it's about time I had a look into their music industry.Early indications show that they don't actually have one,but that can't be so.If anyone has any tips for me,I'd be very grateful.
Thursday, 15 July 2010
Promising news...
Rumours abound on esctoday.com erm,today that Mika might write the UK's 2011 Eurovision entry.I can't stand the man's music myself,but I'm pretty certain he'd do a fantastic job.No boring ballads or 80s Butlins pop anyway.In fact I think it could be rather Eurotastic.Will be interesting to see how it pans out.
Wednesday, 30 June 2010
Diaries at the ready
Eurovision 2011 will be the week beginning 9th May according to esctoday.com.I'd heard the rumours but I cannot believe that they're letting Lena represent them again.Satellite was a worthy winner this year,of that there is no doubt,and I'm glad Lena's getting publicity across Europe,but having her sing for Germany again next year is a ridiculous idea.I guess they're doing it because they don't want to stage the contest 2 years in a row (maybe she should sing My Lovely Horse just to make sure of it),but seriously.Germany has a massive wealth of musical talent so to just make the snap decision to have a singer whose "charm" actually wore off pretty much as soon as she won in Oslo is a pointless move which I'd be quite annoyed about if I was a German singer looking for the chance to publicise myself on the world's biggest musical stage.But what do I know.
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