Is this our great achievement?

Despite being a little bit late in on the act,there's a bit of smug feeling going on here at WYM HQ.After an absence of nearly 3 years,Aleksander With (arguably Norway's best Idol winner) has returned with this pretty fab new single What's the Story? I know he'd been written off by some,destined to be another wasted talent like Kjartan Salvesen or Jonatan Cerrada maybe.But I knew he'd be back :) An album is soon to follow apparantly...

My time will come in 2010,when we'll meet again

I seem to be inundated with recommendations to German emo videos whenever I sign into youtube.You know,the sort with cliché black and white pictures of hearts and tears and sad people in eyeliner,combined with naff phrases like "I hate myself for what I did to you",finished off with an even naffer song which seems unfitting for the whole video.I don't know why I'm being recommended these- I've only ever watched one once,and that wasn't by choice.Anyway,it's probably a good thing,because I rediscovered a really good band in the "related videos" section.

I first found out about Echt before I moved to Germany,downloaded a few of their songs and thought nothing more of them.They seem to be pretty much the only band from Schleswig-Holstein who've had any degree of success.With the exception of Fettes Brot I suppose,who just about come under SH.But Echt are far better,because they come from Flensburg,which gives them an automatic cool status :) In unrelated facts- my (ex)-friend from Flensburg went to school with them,so I found out a while ago*.He didn't like their music though,said it's corny.Now I've actually bothered to read some of their lyrics,I see what he meant.But I still think they're rather good,in terms of musical sound :)

Echt's biggest song is Du trägst keine Liebe in Dir (You carry no love inside you),which I think is a cover- not sure who the original was by though.This is one of the songs I downloaded ages ago- it sounds a bit British indie to me,but from the 90s,when British indie was actually good.

Then there's Mein kleines Universum (My little universe),an album track from what I assume was their debut in the late 90s.I like it.Unsurprisingly,it's about having your own space,being in your own world where you don't need anyone or anything else.



But my favourite is 2010.It's cool and catchy and it mentions Neumünster.The video is a bit bizarre.I don't know when my time will come,but I'd prefer it didn't involve naked Germans,car trashing and breaking into my old school.Nice to hear the lovely northern accent again though...

ECHT - 2010 from Kim Frank on Vimeo.

* I still win though- I went to school with Lisa Andreas,remember her?

Observations

I'm off to Scotland with Keira for a few days as of Monday.We're staying in a super posh apartment (well,the one in the pictures is anyway) in Edinburgh complete with big telly and DVD player.Seeing as the weather up there isn't exactly tropical at the minute,I feel this could come in rather useful.So I unearthed my Chelsi and General Europop DVDs to take with me.I haven't seen any of the videos on them for over a year now,so thought I'd have a quick look.Seems I still find them as brilliant as ever,and I noticed that...


- Getting the FZ contestants to sing Kruto Ty Popal Na TV and all the variants at the beginning of every show just seems a bit...weird

- Chelsi should be bigger than Take That

- 2.58 onwards: why?



- Dima's ESC performance of Believe is truly awful.Not because of him but because of...everything.I thought maybe I was overreacting last year,but no,it's seriously bad

- No song written at any point in world history,and no song that is yet to be written will ever be as good as this

Tune into me

Guest DJ for Sounds of Europe maybe?



See 2.03- he'd fit right in,we're always murdering Dima Koldun songs in the studio :) Though we've never left the microphone on whilst doing it,unlike silly Dima.

I'm loving this song Nastroysa Na Menya,what with this and Chelsi's Tochka Vozrata- maybe the dry spell in Russian pop is over...

I wonder if we could get the management of our radio station to get us some glitzy headphones? Old ones with half the sponge hanging out just aren't as glamorous.

Nobody knows how long the road to happiness is

A year ago,when I left the UK,I pretty much gave up on Russian music.Dima K's songs were getting a bit boring and samey,Chelsi did the awful Mladhsaya Sestryonka,and I didn't know about BiS' album.More recently,I've sort of turned my back on pop altogether and have only really been listening to Scandinavian indie/classical music- which is pretty difficult to write about a lot of the time,hence the long blog break.But thanks to youtube and my new computer which refuses to ever sign me out of it,this was recommended to me yesterday.



I'm not too sure what Toska Vozrata means,but never mind.I think it's a great pop song,very summery with a singalong chorus.I'm rejoicing so much that they've gone back down the Stan Moey route and didn't stick with the Mladshaya Sestryonka stuff :)

Sometimes I've got nothing to say

Mew's new album was released today,the first in 4 years.I can't believe it's been that long since I discovered them in Rock Sound.I also can't believe I used to read Rock Sound,but there you go.Anyway,this album is called *deep breath*

"No More Stories Are Told Today, I'm Sorry They Washed Away, No More Stories The World Is Grey I'm Tired, Let's Wash Away"

Got that? Good.

Some people call Mew pretentious,and yes,I would normally think that too of any band that named their album that,and the songs on it had strange titles that seem to try to look cool.Such as "Cartoons and Macramé Wounds".I had to look up what Macramé means on Wikipedia- not something that I tend to like in a song title.It might also be seen as a bit odd to include a track (New Terrain) that sounds pretty unintelligible listened to normally,but is even harder to understand played backwards,when it becomes another song (Nervous).But anyway,I don't believe Mew are pretentious at all.I adore their music and image as bizarre as it may be.

Mew have had their pop moments (sort of) with songs such as Am I Wry?No and King Christian back in the early days of Half the World is Watching Me- an album which has been released 3 times.They've also had some downright sinister songs such as 156 and A Dark Design.These sort of songs tend to be both lyrically sinister,and have a whole new layer of darkness added thanks to Jonas' distinctive voice,a voice which you wouldn't expect to sing about death and self-harm.

The No More Stories album has a very different sound to the first 4 albums,especially the previous one- And The Glass Handed Kites.The music itself is a lot more cheerful and upbeat sounding on the whole,a bit more contemporary,and some may say you can hear influences from other bands and genres more on this album.Though I think Mew's "genre" is still up for debate.The whole thing though is still unmistakably Mew- there are unusual time signatures,the aforementioned backwards song,and cryptic lyrics.There are no big epic songs like Louise Louisa this time around,and actually I still can't really tell which song is which just from listening to it.I would say Repeaterbeater and Introducing Palace Players are the potential singles,but my favourite is right at the end.I mentioned Mew's lyrics usually being quite cryptic,which is another thing I love about them.But it's pretty clear what Reprise is all about.

I travel and travel,I'll never come home

So I came back to France today,to the super news (thanks to Laura at EuropeCrazy) that Polarkreis 18's debut Allein Allein will be released in the UK next month,and is being played on Radio 2! This,on top of the fact that there was loads of Europop on the music channels at home last week makes me really happy indeed.OK so it was only Agnes,Star Pilots and Kate Ryan on telly,but you can't be choosy.And then there's Teitur on Radio 2 the other week,and the World Service a few weeks before that...For me it shows progress for the music scene in the UK- a country who I've musically ignored for a good 3 years now being sick and tired of all the indie clones who've invaded the charts and sat there festering for far too long.Maybe it's now safe to put the radio on again and tune it to something other than Radio 4?

I realise that European music of any kind will never make the same impact as the aforementioned indie clones and the endless stream of American tripe in the UK,but still,it's an exciting prospect.And on a geeky note,not since The Rasmus released In the Shadows in 2004 have I been able to say "I knew about them ages ago!" So yes,three cheers for Europop :)

And speaking of Polarkreis 18,here's my other favourite song of theirs- Tourist.This is a bit different to the album version- Felix doesn't do the "Ich bin nicht hier,ich weiss nicht wo ich bin" bit normally.But it's good.His voice is magic.