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Here is the german entry for Eurovision 2009: Oscar Loya ft Alex C - Miss Kiss Kiss Bang. Unfortunately, so far I could not trace a video so you have to do with this one.
The song is nice, a bit in the same style as two years ago but I doubt this song will take any high rankings. But decide for yourself:
A hug.
Today, a week ago I had one of the most beautiful moments of my life: I was at the Mamma Mia musical in London, they sang my absolute favorite song of all time "Dancing Queen" and I was there with my Jelle and Dani and Sera and then my beloved lilbro Dani and I started singing out loud this wonderful song together! I was soooo happy and it's a very precious memory now, one I will cherish for all time.
Thank you Dani, Jelle and Sera for making this such a wonderful moment, I owe you my deepest thanks. A million kisses to you.
I love you guys. Happy Valentine's day.
May I introduce to you Holland's Eurovision songfestival entry for this year in Moscow: "Shine" performed by the Toppers! I saw sunday night's finals live on tv and this year the Netherlands opted for a different decision making progress than the previous years. The artists are long known (I think since end of last year already) and tonight the winning song was chosen which they will perform in Moscow. A jury of 5 professionals gave their votes for six different songs that the toppers presented in a live show on tv and besides the professional jury the audience at home had the possibility to vote too! One third of the votes was given by the professionals, the rest by the audience. For the professionals, the song "Shine" was number 2 while the audience put it on number one so with all votes combined "Shine" became the winning song.
The three men who will perform at Moscow are very popular artists in the Netherlands. The "Toppers" as they call themselves are together since a few years and easily fill the Amsterdam Arena or similar big arenas for several days for extremely popular sing-a-long concerts. Shortly after they had been announced to be the artists for the dutch entry for Eurovision last year, one of their original members (Gerard Joling) decided to quit and for him a new member joined the Toppers (Jeroen van der Boom). Originally consisting of two gay members, now only one is left: Gordon! He is also the one who was very eager to get to the contest for his home country. He and Gerard Joling became immensely popular on tv as two very queer, very gay, very funny singers/entertainers with their own reallife soap, the Toppers concerts and many other tv shows they present with more or less huge success. Rene Froger is the third member, a very popular singer. After Joling left the group they brought in newcomer Jeroen van der Boom.
I like the chosen song, it was Jelle's and mine favorite too. It's a nice, happy, singable song. It's for sure not the winning entry, it's not eastern european enough I think... ;-) But still, I typical, yet nice eurovision song with a twist... though a little something is missing but in general it's a nice and worthy song for the contest. 'Nough talking, now listen to it:
Grand Prix hugs (in Germany the Eurovision Songfestival is known as the "Grand Prix")!
Today, I would like you to listen to the title song of a dutch movie. It's in dutch cinemas at the moment though I haven't seen it as the plot did not look very appealing to me.
The other day when Dani, Sera and I were at Sera's house before we would go over to Dani's place and while Sera was getting ready, Dani and I listened to some music on Sera's iPod. Suddenly Dani played a piece of music that I knew for so long and didn't know what it was. So immediately I got excited because I wanted to know what it is but when Dani told me what Sera's iPod claimed it was I knew it wasn't the right title. But god bless modern technology: I asked Dani to use his iPhone's smart app Shazam (which Jelle recommended to him, just for the record... :-D ) to listen to the music (and occasionally lilbros do obey their bigbros wishes) and within a few seconds it returned the answer and I finally was able to download this wonderful piece of music! I think I know it from my childhood as the opening tune to some famous Radio Luxemburg show (back then, RTL was a very popular radio station in the Cologne/Rhineland area but broadcasting on FM from Luxemburg, it even had cult status especially amongst the younger audience - at that time, Germany did not know any private radio or tv but only public stations so RTL was a popular alternative to the dominant public Cologne based WDR).
So thank you so much Sera for bringing back this wonderful tune and with it some great childhood memories. May I present it to you? Here it is:
Barry White's Love Unlimited Orchestra - Love's theme
If you want to know more about the song, there's even some wikipedia info on it! So much for the seventies, welcome back to 2008!
Kisses to Sera and Dani, hugs to you all. ;-)
Actually I should have included the following videos already in the previous post as they would have completed it, but anyway, here's the more of "Hacer por hacer":
Okay, this morning I discovered on iTunes this year's Symphonica in Rosso's anthem, a duet sung by Lionel Ritchie and Trijntje Oosterhuis, one of my most favorite female singers! I love the song and there is no real video yet as the concert is only in September but for the time being here's the song so you can at least listen to it. It's composed by John Ewbank and I'm pretty sure it's going to be a hit in Holland. I simply fall for this kind of music... ;-)
Lately I figured out how to connect my stereo set to the Airport Express so I can play iTunes directly on my stereo (mind you, it's still not working wirelessly but at least I can use it now... sigh). Since then I enjoy listening to my favorite music via stereo which of course is a much more pleasant experience.
Not a new fact but something I again realized is the fact that music and emotion are closely connected. The songs I'm listening to at the moment are kind of soothing to my ear and soul. I feel comforted. For some reason I'm a bit sad since yesterday which I cannot explain. It feels good though to listen to the music which sort of feels like someone is gently fondling my head and body. Obviously it's something I long to receive and don't get, maybe that's why I'm sad. I have a wonderful collection of music that's romantic enough to make me feel good and dream away. ;-) As a kid I listen to the radio very often, nowadays I don't anymore. So new music rarely gets my attention. But luckily I have three people that have a big influence in my music taste.
First of all there's Jelle naturally who regularly lets me know one or the other song he heard on the radio (at work) and that's obviously a popular song at that moment - so he's kinda keeping me up to date. We also have a similar music taste and share quite some artists and songs we like. The one song I associate the most with Jelle is one he presented to me right in the beginning of our relationship. It's sung by Paul de Leeuw, a very popular gay dutch tv host and it's called "Ik heb je lief", which translates into "I love you". It's very dear to me listening to it and makes me happy.
Then there is Timo. Timo and I don't have a big common music taste. We both love eurovision songs but that's about it, with a few exceptions. His music taste is completely different from mine. But the one thing Timo does is to introduce me to music he likes and that in turn introduces me to new and to me unknown artists and songs. Sometimes I discover marvels and can add new artists and songs to my library.
Last but not least there is Dani. My lilbro probably has the biggest influence on my music taste at the moment. We have a very similar music taste and he opened a whole new world of fantastic spanish pop music to me. We both love film music (the soundtracks) and he regularly introduces me to new music of which he knows I am going to like it. After all, we are almost brothers... ;-) I'd love to sing along the songs which mostly is not possible yet as I don't know spanish yet and in contrast to him I cannot memorize all the lyrics that easily. But it's great fun and I enjoy it a lot when he sings as I think he has a wonderful voice that I like to listen to. Dani even managed to dedicate a song to me which every time I listen to it makes me cry. This only proves how close music and emotion are I think.
Now that I've listened a while to music while writing this post I can notice that my mood improved a little. It's really amazing what effect a few notes, in the right order played on the right instruments can have on your soul. I really admire people who have the ability of playing any kind of instrument. It must be such a gift to be able to produce music that will be so important for a multitude of reasons to others. Interestingly, I am the kind of person that mainly listens to the music itself as I don't understand the lyrics in most cases. The lyrics of most of the spanish music I lately mostly listen to is unknown to me. Understandably Dani cannot translate each and every song to me (though he would love to, knowing him). I know some of them and the ones I know become even more interesting once you know what the song is about. But still the music alone is magic enough of most songs to have an effect on me, even without knowing the lyrics. Maybe because most music I listen to is not sung in german I tend to ignore the lyrics in the first instance. Even with english lyrics I can easily ignore them and purely enjoy the music itself. I also love soundtracks of movies which in most cases are instrumental and to me listening to the pure sound can usually carry me away into a different world.
Timo is busy lately and we seldom chat at the moment. I know the reason why and perfectly understand. Jörg is happily in love as is Mika and you figured it that love is all around... :-) There simply is no friend near me. Of course there is Jelle but it's the situation I was in when I started to change my life. It feels like only Jelle and me. The circle is round again. I guess I feel a bit lonely lately. Music then can be a good companion for a while. I know it will change again, some time. Until then, as I feel exhausted, I will flee into that wonderful world that music creates. I can feel the gentle fondle of your tunes, the happy swing of your melody, I'm dreaming away, I feel better already...
"When you need a healer for your pain
I will be there time and time again
When you need someone to love you
here I am"
Hugs to you all.
On another blog I found this video, I liked the music too! ;-)
David Guetta - Delirious.
Normally I don't tell much about my work. Today I will tell a little bit of what happened this week, things that stood out from the 'usual' and normally boring stuff.
After I watched the fantastic spanish movie "Mar Adentro" (the sea inside) I would like to draw your attention to the beautiful music that is part of the movie as well. Here is the end titles theme by Carlos Núñez, "Titulos Finales" - it's really fantastic beautiful music and can be downloaded on iTunes (which I did). I simply love it and the concert performance you can see in this video is simply amazing, just as fantastic as the original recording!
On sunday, I received a CD from my little brother as a present (which, after having returned home I already listened to and as Dani expected I love it!). He gave it to me in Amsterdam at the airport before we left with the aircraft to Frankfurt. On board of my return flight to Amsterdam I opened it. I could not wait to get home and listen to the song. I had to read the lyrics right there. There I sat, a whole business class row for my own. I read the lyrics of the song he dedicated to me. It touched me deeply and made me proud and happy. It brought tears to my eyes. But not because I was sad but because I was so happy. Because it means so much to me what he said to me, besides all the other things he always does for his bigbro.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart Dani.
Too bad but Hungary didn't make it in last night's second semi-final to the Eurovision song contest. Laugh at me but I like these kind of ballads and unfortunately they didn't make it. Instead, stupid songs like the finnish entry or that "pirate" song go to the final, I can't believe it...Also the beautiful swiss entry is not a finalist (though I must admit his singing and performance was terrible, but the song is great!)... sigh... At least some of my favorites made it to the final, amongst them Poland and Sweden, Norway, Ukraine is nice, Croatia. I now look forward to Saturday!
I'm not an expert and cannot make any predictions. My friend Timo predicted 15 of the 20 final entries for saturday, that's a pretty good score, isn't it? ;-)
How about you, who's your winner and what's your favorite song? That would be interesting to compare.
My favorite song is still Poland's "For Life" and Sweden's "Hero" (yeah, I know, I can't really decide - it's depending on my mood who's my favorite...) and my prediction for the winner is a simple gamble... hm... let's say... either Ukraine or Russia.
Oh well, I guess I am a bit of a romantic these days (no, actually always...). But I am in the mood for great music and lyrics and yet another song that really goes into my ear lately is that of the musical "Rent". It's one of many excellent pieces of music that Dani has recommended to me on my recent visit to him. Listen especially to the lyrics, I think they are really beautiful. At least I love them and the music is beautiful too.
