#i know she was a french singer but I think she also sang in italian and was famous here

[mchiti]

“He’s coming. Benji the interista”

he’s so hyped 😭😭😭😭

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2005 - Number 49 - Marjorie - "Casting"

It's that rarest of events - a French national final. I haven't checked the numbers, but if I had to guess which regular Eurovision country had the fewest national finals since 1992, I'd guess France. I think this is only the third one I've covered - and it's only got five entries.

The format was a little bit weird too. In Un candidat pour l'Eurovision 2005, each singer got to duet with another singer in the first round before going it alone with their actual competing song.

One of those competitors was Marjorie Galluccio - who is a bit of a mystery. I can only find out a few things about her life and career prior to 2005. She had competed in an Italian competition called La Regina della canzone in 1998, she's also opened for Claude Barzotti in 2001. Claude was a singer and song-writer who seem to dabble in ill-advised subjects for musicals (i.e. immigration), judged amateur singing contests and wrote Belgium's 1992 Eurovision entry Nous, on veux des violins (20th place)

What is more interesting about Casting is not who sang it but who wrote it. Emma Daumas was hot in 2005. Apart from the winner of this national final, she is the only person associated with any of the songs to have their own Wikipedia page. After finishing runner-up on the second series of Star Academy in 2002, she released her first album the next year. In 2004 her single Tu seras was released and instantly became a huge hit, especially in Francophone communities around the world. This led to a massive world tour later the same year.

In 2005 she recorded with Hanson and later with Swedish group Eskobar. The single with the latter You Got Me/Sous tes mains became very popular on French radio. She also wrote Casting. It's a bit of a measure of this French national final that she wasn't singing it.

It's a slightly confrontational song. Aggressively fed up. Determined to push the world away, and maybe someone in particular. Marjorie adds to that with a strong if slightly strident, discordant and accented voice that's singing but only just. There's a lot of plosive action on her besoins. Emphasised neediness, possibly even petulance.

It's a simple thing underneath that, just guitar and a grinding rhythm section that Marjorie both feels the need to race ahead of points, then fails to keep up with at others, as she tries to fit all of her posturing words in. So as singing, it's not quite all there, but in terms of vocal performance, it's on point.

It's a pout of a song and Marjorie can pout.

It finished last. Of the five songs, this is the one the French public and judges liked least, and maybe that's down to the nature of the song. Maybe the performance (try as I might - I couldn't find any visuals for this). The final results weren't released - only the order of finishing, so I don't know how this did in general, but I'd guess that even it what seems a weak year for France at Eurovision, this was not what anyone was looking for.

I can't help but admire it for its in-your-face attitude.

Marjorie disappeared once more after this, and possibly shifted into film-making. There are a couple of short films with her as a director out there. Emma went from strength to strength with seven albums at least twenty singles, other compositions including music for contemporary arts performances. She's written fiction and in a rare move away from non-English language Disney dubbing, she was Princess Mindy in the French dub of The SpongeBob Movie.

To relive Emma's summer of 2005, here's top radio-play single of that year with Eskobar - You Got Me.

[opera-ghosts]

Madame TAMAKI Miura, the only Madame Butterfly whom one might call “to the manner born” in a racial sense, since the charming little prima donna is a Japanese artist, gave the writer many study and interpretation hints by which the student might profit, when he visited her at her apartments in the Hotel Ansonia in New York. First of all she made clear that there is a vast difference between native Japanese singing and the occidental art song as it is cultivated by a Japanese artist singer.

REAL JAPANESE SONG

“Real Japanese song is beautiful—if you have a Japanese soul with which to understand it. But I am afraid that if you have not, then it is apt to mean nothing at allto you. There is a great difference between the art songs of the native Japanese professional singers and the simple little folk songs which Japanese girls sing to their samisens or guitars. 'The professional singing is all very artificial, and when a professional street singer or a singer on the Japanese stage in Tokio, ' is singing an air she will roll her eyes and twist her neck, and use the Japanese grand theatrical manner to drag up notes from her body, such as an old bullfrog might sing, in a hoarse and hollow voice. ‘This shows she is a real virtuoso. But there is nothing theatrical in the little folk songs, and even if you are not Japanese you can enjoy them, for the melodies are always plaintive and appealing, and the girls’ voices, though they are always pitched in a high register, are usually very sweet and delicate. Of course, the Imperial Academy of Music in Tokio, where I studied, had excellent teachers, who developed the voice along the best European traditional lines. “At the Imperial Academy I studied, with Professor Junker, foundation exercises, Concone, German and Italian songs; and coloratura and French songs with Madame Petzold, a Norwegian. Signor Salcoli, an Italian operatic © tenor, was the first to coach me in ‘Cavalleria Rusticana. Then, too, while I was in Tokio, Madame Loudon, the wife of the Dutch ambassa- dor, a very fine singer and artist, coached me in the part of Euridyce in Gluck’s ‘Orfeo’—a réle I have always been fond of, because I made my operatic début with it in Tokio.“Later I studied with Sir Henry Wood in London, and [I still like to remember that I made my London début in Albert Hall singing ‘Caro nome’ from ‘Rigoletto,’ at the same concert in which Adelina Patti made her last public appear- ance, before the King and Queen of England. Patti was charming to me, and she took the pains to give me a special lesson in singing ‘Home, Sweet Home,’ which I still sing as she taught me. I then spent some time with Madame Albani, in London—a wonderful teacher—studying opera roles and Irish and Scotch songs with her. It was she who coached me in the first Madame Butterfly which I sang in London. I have also studied with Moranzoni, Jachiya, Madame Viafora—a very fine teacher—and Strani, here in the United States; and at present am taking les- sons from Aldo Franchetti, who has done a great deal for my voice. No, I do not think I have suffered from having a number of teachers; each one of them has taught me things worth knowing.

[grelleswife]

1 to 20 for that reaper oc of yours Giuseppa Ricci >:3

Thank you for asking! >w<

1. What is their gender?

cis woman 2. What is their sexuality?

bisexual 3. What is the meaning behind their name? Do they have any nicknames?

As far as I can recall, I didn't put a whole lot of thought into her name; it's just what "felt right" for her. Her first name, Giuseppa, means "the Lord increases" or "the Lord adds," while her surname, Ricci, is derived from the Italian adjective riccio, or "curly." Pretty ironic, since Giuseppa was never particularly devout, and her hair is straight unless she goes at it with a curling iron! She doesn't really have any nicknames. 4. Do they have any siblings? How many? Are they older or younger? Which sibling are they closest with?

She had two older brothers and a younger sister, though I don't "know" her well enough to say what her relationship with them was like. All three of them perished after Giuseppa's father got on the wrong side of a mafia boss, who ordered that he and his family be killed. 5. What's their relationship with their parents like? What about other relatives?

Giuseppa was only around 3-4 when her parents were murdered, so her memories of them are few and far between. :( However, she was taken in by cousins on her mother's side of the family, some of whom happened to be involved with the underworld, and who trained her to become a deadly, capable assassin. But these relatives also recognized her musical gifts and ensured that she received lessons from a very young age, which allowed her to pursue a successful career in opera as an adult. 6. What would they give their life for?

Her loved ones, and her art. 7. Are they in a romantic relationship? With whom? How did they meet?

Yes! She's currently dating Miss Grelle. They met through happenstance. Due to her skill set, Giuseppa assumed that she would be assigned to collections, and was outraged and deeply offended upon learning that women were generally relegated to office/secretarial positions. She barged into William's office to give him a piece of her mind (broke his paperweight, into the bargain) around the same time that Grelle was walking by with a stack of paperwork. Always one to enjoy workplace drama, Grelle hovered by William's door, eavesdropping...only to have the hotheaded Italian reaper crash into her when Giuseppa stormed out in a fury, sending both of them and Grelle's paperwork toppling to the floor. Giuseppa was profusely apologetic, but Grelle didn't mind--she was too busy being distracted by how gorgeous this woman was. XD Grelle impulsively offered to serve as Giuseppa's mentor ("I'm the only lady in collections, dear Will, so who better than me to show her the ropes?") William, thoroughly stressed and fed-up by this point, caved to Giuseppa's demands and said that he supposed exceptions could be made. He didn't want to risk further enraging a diva! 8. What do they believe will happen to them after they die? Does this belief scare them?

Although nominally Catholic, Giuseppa didn't put much stock in religion when she was human; witnessing corruption within the Church and seeing more of the dark side of humanity than the average person made her skeptical. She wasn't sure what, if anything, lay beyond the grave, so she focused on living life to the fullest while she could. Of course, once she became a reaper, those beliefs changed. She hadn't expected turning into a goddess, but there were certainly worse fates...though she could have done without the ridiculous workload. 9. What is their favorite color? Favorite animal?

Red and gold! She loves tropical birds because of their bright plumage. However, after she and Grelle wind up getting some pet ferrets (it's a long story), those cute little critters become her new faves. 10. What are some of their talents/skills?

Singing (she's a soprano), acting, dancing, lockpicking, climbing, killing (knives are her preferred weapon, but she also has an extensive knowledge of poisons) 11. If they could make a mark on history, what would they like it to be?

Giuseppa's aspirations aren't quite that lofty, but she would like to be remembered as one of the greatest sopranos of her time. 12. How old are they? When is their birthday?

She was 25 at the time of her death. I'm not sure what her exact birthday is, but she's an Aries, so sometime in March or April. 13. What do they do for fun?

Go shopping or to the beach, karaoke (or just singing in general), have a spa day 14. What is their favorite food? How often do they get to eat it?

Pasta alla norma (ingredients include tomatoes, eggplant, garlic, basil, and ricotta salata). Grelle eventually learns how to make it for her, so Giuseppa gets to eat it pretty regularly! She also adores cannolis. 15. What was something their parents taught them?

N/A, since she lost them so early. 16. Are they religious?

As mentioned above, she was raised Catholic, but Giuseppa focused on the beautiful music rather than the doctrine (she sang in the choir) 17. Where were they born?

Sicily 18. What languages can they speak? Where did they learn these languages?

Italian, English, French, and German 19. What is their occupation?

When she was human, opera singer and professional freelance assassin. Back when I first created Giuseppa, I envisioned her as a mafia hitwoman, but I recently decided to change this part of her backstory since mafiosi are such unsavory characters. As a reaper, she works in collections. 20. Do they have any titles? How did they earn them?

Hmm...none that I can think of! But she's regarded as one of dispatch's best soul-collectors. Not many death gods can keep up with Grelle like she can!

[mexicaneurolover]

Eurovision 2016 my top 42

Hello and welcome to another episode of this ESC top series, as I go back to May 10, 12 and 14, 2016, when the 61st edition of the contest was held in Stockholm, Sweden, after Måns Zelmerlöw’s victory in Vienna last year. 42 countries took part, while Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Croatia returned to the contest, Portugal withdrew and Romania was disqualified because of a debt after they submitted a song. This year we saw the voting system change, now the jury votes and the televote are added separately to make the final result, and I must say this was a brilliant idea because it makes the contest way more exciting. The contest was won by Ukraine and Jamala with the song 1944, making this their second victory overall in the contest. Also this year is so special for me because it was the first year I saw the contest live in YouTube and it was the first one where I got involved with the fandom, and now this contest has a special place in my heart. And now, let’s review the songs in this amazing ESC year. 

1st Place: FRANCE/Amir-J’ai cherché (Real Placing: 6th-257 points) 

Oh sweet sweet Amir Hotdad, this song is perfect, I love him so much, and his voice is so beautiful, the music is amazing and the lyrics are perfect, and this was my winner back then and my love for this song grows with every listen because it’s very awesome, and it was so close for a top 5 result. YOUUUUUU 

2nd Place: UKRAINE/Jamala-1944 (Real Placing: 1st-534 points) 

At first I didn’t like this song, but it slowly and steady grew on me, and in the day of the second semifinal I fell in love with it, Jamala has such an amazing voice, the song is so sad, but powerful and the music is so perfect, and when it was the final I was thinking on a possible Ukrainian victory and it happened, and i was so happy for her, I think this is a 100% deserved winner and now I listen to Jamala in a daily basis because she’s so awesome. 

3rd Place: RUSSIA/Sergey Lazarev-You are the only one (Real Placing: 3rd-491 points) 

Another hot and handsome man, he’s like a dream... and the song IS SUCH AN AMAZING ONE, the music is epic, he has an amazing voice and the performance, THAT BLOODY PERFORMANCE IS PERFECT, I was rooting so hard for this one in 2016 and I was sad because he lost, despite winning the televote, I’m so in love with this song and I hope he returns for revenge. 

4th Place: ARMENIA/Iveta Mukuchyan-LoveWave (Real Placing: 7th-249 points)  

Another song that captured me when it was released, her voice is so stunning, she’s so beautiful, the music is very dark but it’s epic, and the performance is so perfect, I loved the lighting and the whole package is stunning. I also love the music before the chorus. Such a stunning entry. 

5th Place: BELGIUM/Laura Tesoro-What’s the pressure (Real Placing: 10th-181 points) 

Yeees this is a very good song as well, this always put a smile on my face, she has a lot of charisma, the music has a retro vibe which is lovely and her voice is so cool, also the performance is amazing and it’s perfect. I LOVE THIS SONG SO MUCH. 

6th Place: BULGARIA/Poli Genova-If love was a crime (Real Placing: 4th-307 points) 

POLIIIIII YOU’RE BACK, and with a very beautiful song, I love the music so much, her voice is stunning, she’s so cute and the message of the song is perfect, I always dance to this song and the chorus is so amazing, of course this was a powerful return, and what a result she had: a top 5 result, and I was so happy for her. 

7th Place: CZECH REPUBLIC/Gabriela Gunčíková-I stand (Real Placing: 25th-41 points) 

Awwww the first time they were in the final and they scored 0 points with the televote, which is a bit unfair because this is a very good ballad, she has an amazing voice, the performance was cute, maybe the number 2 position wasn’t the best idea for this song but still I like it so much, and I screamed when I saw they were going to the final. 

8th Place: MOLDOVA/Lidia Isac-Falling stars (Real Placing: 17th SF1-33 points)

I know this might be an unpopular opinion, but this is one of my guiltiest pleasures ever, I love the music, her voice is a bit flat but still is good, and the song is cute, maybe the performance was a bit boring, and this needed a brighter background, anyway this is a very good song and I love it so much. 

9th Place: AUSTRALIA/Dami Im-Sound of silence (Real Placing: 2nd-511 points) 

The runner up from the night, and I think it was a very good result for them, Dami’s voice is perfect, the performance was flawless, the song is so good, the music, the lyrics are fine and I was a bit shocked when I saw that she wasn’t going to win the whole thing. It would’ve been an amazing winner. 

10th Place: SPAIN/Barei-Say yay! (Real Placing: 22nd-77 points)  

Another song I can’t understand how it finished so low, the arena was on fire, the music is so good, she has an amazing voice and it’s a very catchy song, maybe the performance wasn’t the best one for this song, it was a bit lame, but still I always dance to this song and it’s one of Spain’s best recent entries. 

11th Place: AUSTRIA/Zoë-Loin d’ici (Real Placing: 13th-151 points)

I loved this song from the beginning, it has a French vibe that makes this so enjoyable, her voice is so sweet, the music is perfect, the staging was awesome and she looked like a princess on that stage. I was so happy when I saw her qualifying and getting in the televote top 10, a very deserved result. 

12th Place: GERMANY/Jamie-Lee-Ghost (Real Placing: 26th-11 points/last) 

Why this song came last in the final? I never saw it coming, the music is so mysterious, her voice was a bit shaky that night but I still think this entry is so good and deserved much more on the final, maybe her clothes were the problem here. 

13th Place: LATVIA/Justs-Heartbeat (Real Placing: 15th-132 points) 

So many hot guys this year, and Justs is not the exception, the song is so modern and perfect, the music is so amazing, his voice is so special, mostly in the chorus, the performance is amazing and I’m in love with his voice. I think this deserved a higher place on that night. 

14th Place: CYPRUS/Minus One-Alter ego (Real Placing: 21st-96 points) 

YEEEEES ROCK, this is a very powerful rock song, I love the main singer’s voice and he’s handsome, the performance is a bit weird, and full of light and cages, but still it’s according to the lyrics of the song, and I love the music so much, and I think I’ve heard this before somewhere, still I like this song so much. 

15th Place: BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA/Dalal & Deen feat. Ana Rucner and Jala-Ljubav je (Real Placing: 11th SF1-104 points) 

Seriously they couldn’t find a group name? This entry is pure epicness, and I fell in love with this song when it came out, and I thought they could be in the final, and I was shocked when they didn’t reach it. They sang it so well, the music is beautiful, maybe the problem here was the staging but this is a very good song. I think this song deserved so much the final.  

16th Place: ISRAEL/Hovi Star-Made of stars (Real Placing: 14th-135 points)

When this song came out I hated it so much, then the revamp came and this was miles better and it had a magical feeling to it, he has such a charming voice and the music is perfect, and I loved it when I saw the live performance, it was so beautiful and I was happy for him when he reached the final. A very beautiful song. 

17th Place: THE NETHERLANDS/Douwe Bob-Slow down (Real Placing: 11th-153 points) 

I love this entry because it has a country feeling to it and it’s very pleasant, his voice is so cool, the staging is so perfect for this song and he’s so cute on stage, that pause at the middle confused me so much but now I find it so lovely. Overall this entry is so good and I’m glad it finished so high on the night. 

18th Place: SERBIA/Sanja Vučić ZAA-Goodbye (Shelter) (Real Placing: 18th-115 points) 

Wow, the lyrics here are so strong, her voice is very good and the music inspires me so much, the only thing i didn’t like here was her dress, it was horrible, anyway this song is amazing and she defended it so well, and I thought she would’ve been top 10 because of that performance. 

19th Place: LITHUANIA/Donny Montell-I’ve been waiting for this night (Real Placing: 9th-200 points) 

Oh hey Donny, this song at first had me in a neutral status, but it grew slowly on me and I liked it so much at the end, and the fact he came 9th was so amazing because it was the second top 10 result for Lithuania, and his voice is as good as in 2012, and the performance is beautiful. 

20th Place: FYR MACEDONIA/Kaliopi-Dona (Real Placing: 11th SF2-88 points)

Queen Kaliopi is back, and sadly she didn’t reach the final that year, and it’s  a shame because the song is very good, it’s a very nice rock ballad and reminds me of the 80′s songs, her voice is as strong and powerful as she was in 2012, the staging wasn’t so good but she’s so stunning. She deserved so much more that night. 

21st Place: HUNGARY/Freddie-Pioneer (Real Placing: 19th-108 points) 

Hello handsome Freddie, this song is very very good, the music is so epic, his voice is raspy and I find it interesting, the performance is so powerful and he is amazing on stage, and I’m always distracted because he’s so handsome. 

22nd Place: ITALY/Francesca Michielin-No degree of separation (Real Placing: 16th-124 points)

Another lovely Italian song, her voice is so sweet, and she reminds me of Laura Pausini so much, the staging is so colorful, is like a garden on stage, the music is very lovely and yeah, I like this song, maybe the running order killed it a little. 

23rd Place: BELARUS/Ivan-Help you fly (Real Placing: 12th SF2-84 points) 

This song has a lot of power, and the music is the best part of this song, his voice is good and the performance is so cool, and when he said he was going to be naked surrounded by wolves I was like what? I like this song so much, it’s very nice. 

24th Place: NORWAY/Agnete-Icebreaker (Real Placing: 13th SF2-63 points)

The song with 3 songs in it, this is a very nice one, she has a nice voice and the music is so good, the performance is very icy and she looked so nervous on stage, and I was surprised when she didn’t reach the final, I was so convinced about it. 

25th Place: GREECE/Argo-Utopian land (Real Placing: 16th SF1-44 points)

This is historic, the first ever non qualification of Greece, and I can see why this failed to impress somebody, but I enjoy this song because it has a lot of Greek elements to it and they make this song so nice, it’s a guilty pleasure. Maybe they had a lot of confidence when they selected this song.  

26th Place: SAN MARINO/Serhat-I didn’t know (Real Placing: 12th SF1-68 points) 

Disco daddy Serhat is here bringing a nice song, I remember this was originally a ballad, but then the disco version came and this is epic, the music is so retro, his voice is so deep and causes me eargasms and he’s such a gentleman on stage. This is one of my biggest guilty pleasures, and the fact he was so high in the semi says something about this. 

27th Place: AZERBAIJAN/Samra-Miracle (Real Placing: 17th-117 points) 

This song is good, it’s very radio friendly, but I think it’s a bit dull and the performance was a bit disappointing, as well as her voice, she was a bit off key in the chorus, the music is powerful. This entry had a lot of potential, but it was a bit overshadowed for other pop songs that were better than this one. 

28th Place: UNITED KINGDOM/Joe & Jake-You’re not alone (Real Placing: 24th-62 points) 

This entry isn’t so bad, they sing okay, the music is lovely and it’s a cute song, but sadly this is a bit flat in a quite strong field of songs, still I think it’s a very good song and the performance is so nice. 

29th Place: CROATIA/Nina Krajlić-Lighthouse (Real Placing: 23rd-73 points) 

This song was one of my personal favorites before the contest, the music is beautiful, the lyrics are nice and it was so promising, but then the live version came with that horrible dress and a shaky voice so I can understand how this scored so badly in the night. 

30th Place: FINLAND/Sandhja-Sing it away (Real Placing: 15th SF1-51 points)  

Oh this song is very good, on studio, live it was a mess because she sang a bit off key, the music is so uplifting and the lyrics are so carefree. IMO the Finnish song that year should’ve been No Fear by Saara Aalto, but who knows the result she would’ve had. 

31st Place: GEORGIA/Nika Kocharov & Young Georgian Lolitaz-Midnight gold (Real Placing: 20th-104 points) 

When I saw the name of the group I was like “oh a Japanese themed band” but then I realized it wasn’t the case. This song is weird, but the best part of this one is the last part when everything is like psychedelic. Such an interesting choice. 

32nd Place: ALBANIA/Eneda Tarifa-Fairytale (Real Placing: 16th SF2-45 points) 

Speaking of ruined songs, this song when it was in Albanian and it was the FiK version it was very good, but the revamp came and it was a hot mess, the song lost it’s charm and the performance was so stiff, and I was sad about it because she has a strong voice. 

33rd Place: IRELAND/Nicky Byrne-Sunlight (Real Placing: 15th SF2-46 points)

When this song was released, it was my favorite song at that date, and I thought this had a chance of reaching the final, but then the live performance came and it was quite a mess, and that background was depressive. Still this is a very enjoyable song. 

34th Place: SLOVENIA/ManuElla-Blue and red (Real Placing: 14th SF2-57 points) 

This is like a Taylor Swift song, and she looks a lot like her, her voice is good and the music is pleasant, I must say that this song is nice but nothing special. Still the performance is very good and she knew how to defend her song. 

35th Place: SWITZERLAND/Rykka-The last of our kind (Real Placing: 18th SF2-28 points) 

This song is good, nothing out of the ordinary but I liked the NF performance more than the ESC performance, here she’s only doing squats throughout all the songs and it looked very cheap so I can understand how this song failed to impress somebody. 

36th Place: MALTA/Ira Losco-Walk on water (Real Placing: 12th-153 points)

This song is good, the music is nice and she has such a strong voice, sadly I find it a bit flat and boring at some point. I must admit that I liked Chameleon more than this song, and her 2002 entry was miles better than this song. 

37th Place: ICELAND/Greta Salóme-Hear them calling (Real Placing: 14th SF1-51 points)  

Another song I couldn’t understand the hype around it, the best thing of this song is the chorus, but at the same time almost all the song is the chorus repeated many many times in different ways, her voice is good and the performance was great, so I thought this would’ve reach the final, but it didn’t so I was kinda happy, still I don’t hate the song as I did back in 2016. 

38th Place: MONTENEGRO/Highway-The real thing (Real Placing: 13th SF1-60 points) 

Since the first time I listened to this entry, I never understood it, the music has a lot of changes that I always find hard to process, they aren’t bad singers but this song isn’t my cup of tea. 

39th Place: DENMARK/Lighthouse X-Soldiers of love (Real Placing: 17th SF2-34 points) 

Hmmmm, this song is nice but it’s a bit flat, and it’s a shame because this song had a lot of potential. The music is okay, it’s like a song from a 90′s boyband but they don’t sing so well. Also the performance was a bit of a letdown, which was a bit sad. 

40th Place: POLAND/Michał Szpak-Color of your life (Real Placing: 8th-229 points) 

Another song that many people like, but for me it’s a very boring song, his voice is nice, I love his jacket but still this isn’t very special for me, I try to like it but no, nothing happens. Also I was surprised when I saw the televote result, it was shocking. 

41st Place: ESTONIA/Jüri Pootsman-Play (Real Placing: 18th SF1-24 points)  

Ummmm this song isn’t my cup of tea but I thought it was going to be in the final, but when I saw that performance I was bored by it, the song isn’t so special, his voice is awesome but no, I don’t like this song like most of people do. 

42nd Place: SWEDEN/Frans-If I were sorry (Real Placing: 5th-261 points)

NO NO NO NO NO, this song isn’t good, he’s talking and it makes the song so boring, I thought this song wasn’t a top 10 contender and when I saw it finished 5th I was so angry. IMO one of the worst songs from Sweden, that years Mello had way better songs. 

[blue-collects-things]

The Losers Club + Singing

Warnings: Swearing (shocker), very brief mentions of Bev’s asshole father being an asshole, light homophobia and racism

Requested: Not implicitly

Author’s Note: This got real long so I’m just going to put it under the cut (like usual) but I really enjoyed writing this! I’m working on part 4 of YWISC, I promise, but until then, take these peace offering headcanons. *shoves this post towards you and runs*

((i’m so excited for this one!!))

🎶 ben 🎶

ben only sings if he’s 100% certain he’s alone

he won’t even sing in front of his mother, that’s how embarrassed he is

one time, bev caught him singing new kids on the block and he was red for a solid 20 minutes

she subtly drops hints around the other losers for a while just to see how red ben could get

his voice is decent, but there are songs he can totally nail if he tries and it sounds amazing

when he was little he was in his church’s children’s choir

he secretly wants to be able to serenade bev like in all the musicals his aunt is so fond of

he was dared once to sing karaoke at the restaurant the losers went to

he absolutely refused to go onto the stage alone

so mike went with him and didn’t take it seriously

ben thought it was hilarious so he went along with it and just sang

when he gets his own car at the end of sophomore year, he turns up the music he listens to as loud as it can go while he sings

only if he’s alone, of course

when he’s with his friends, he lets them pick so he doesn’t have to hear the comments about his music tastes

he likes to sing in different languages because it presents a challenge and he wants to be fluent in a ton of different language

like honestly, he gets super into k-pop when it becomes popular

but his favorite languages to sing in are italian and french because they sound pretty (romance languages ya know)

when he gets into a new band, he gets into a new band and learns literally every word to every song even if it’s not his favorite

🎶 bev 🎶

bev can’t sing for shit but that doesn’t stop her

the boys: please stop, i beg of you

bev: la la la i can’t fucking hear you

however ~however~ she can rap like nobody’s business

when hamilton comes out, she knows that shit better than lin-manuel miranda himself

she can do the entirety of guns and ships in her sleep

when her and richie go smoking, they open all the doors of richie’s car and turn up their music full blast

they scream all the lyrics and dissolve into fits of giggles

bev is actually a little self-conscious about her voice

her father always made her sing with him when she was little

and he would say shit like “mmm could be better” or “wow that was awful”

it actually hurts a little when the boys make fun of her but they always reassure her they’re joking

when she goes to concerts, she all but screams the words to the songs and the people around her are doing the same thing so she feels right at home

beverly fucking marsh, ladies and gents, gets up on stage during the high school talent show with one of the choirs every single year and raps while they sing

everyone looks forward to it

freshman year, she did the rap parts of Magic

sophomore year, she did the rap parts of Stereo Hearts

junior year, she did the whole song from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

senior year, she did the rap parts of Alexander Hamilton

when she graduates from college with her education degree, the first teaching job she gets, she helps her kids learn the material through rap

all the kids love her because she makes learning fun and easy to remember

when she and ben go to homecoming together their junior year, she sings softly under her breath to one of the slow songs

and she’s actually trying

like she practiced

and ben is beyond impressed

“wow, bev, that’s beautiful”

and she blushes but won’t say anything

at the graduation party, she and the losers have, she gets a little tipsy after the adults leave and sings the highest, loudest song she can

it sounds phenomenal

the guys are flabbergasted

richie: we should get you drunk more often, bevvie. you could win tv show contests with that voice.

bev: shut the fuck up, trashmouth.

when she has her first kid, she takes three vocal lessons so she can sing lullabies to them

because she wants them to her voice

she gets super sappy when the baby smiles after she sings

she may or may not have cried

🎶 bill  🎶

how does one describe the singing voice william “big bill” denbrough

the answer is: you can’t, you tried, you failed

when he sings, he shouts

like there is very little musicality when he tries to sing

he gives bev a run for her money when they go to concerts

he’s the type of person who, because he is a writer, writes his own songs

and they’re really good, but he can’t sing them correctly

when georgie was little, he would always want bill to sing him to sleep at night and his parents don’t get it because bill’s voice isn’t soothing or sleep-inducing in any way

at church, his parents have to quiet him down because the picky old ladies look scandalized he’s singing so loudly during mass

georgie just grabs his hand and sings loudly with him bc big brother idolization, ya know?

(he may or may not stick his tongue out at the old women when his parents aren’t looking to stick up for his brother)

he never stutters when he sings and richie thinks this helps him learn to speak without stuttering

stan starts picking up on it and will quietly sing with bill when he feels overwhelmed and can’t get his words out

bill is amazing at lip-syncing 

the losers will all be listening to music and suddenly they look at bill who’s like in the zone and mouthing every word

then a cyndi lauper song comes on and if you didn’t know any better, it would seem like her voice was coming out of his mouth

it freaks mike out

bill auditions for a musical (the first and last) in college and the people listening to him are like “why is he screaming at us?” and defer him to stage crew where he finds out he can wield a nail gun like nobody’s business

he wants to privately serenade stan on one of their dates and has richie help him prep for it

richie teaches him simple chords on his guitar and lets bill borrow it for the evening, coaching him to sing softly

bill sings “i’m yours” and stan is smiling so widely his cheeks hurt but he can’t stop

“did you like it?” bill asks when he’s done, not looking up

“like it? i love it!” stan just snuggles up next to him for the rest of their date (and bill thanks richie a million times later)

when he works out, he always listens to music and can be heard trying to sing along under his breath (and failing) by all the employees and other patrons

when he leaves whistling whatever he had just been listening to, the poor woman next to him sighs in relief

🎶 eddie 🎶

eddie’s voice is unnaturally high for a boy but he loves it anyway (think mitch from pentatonix)

he joined as many school choirs as he could during middle and high school and totally was captain of the tenor 1s in his senior year

unironically calls the other tenor 1s his children

dude has the range of a opera singer

it’s more comfortable to sing in the higher end of his range but he can do the equivalent of a singing death drop and slide all the way from a b5 to a g3

always gets the solos when competing because he has such an impressive range

starts an a cappella group his freshman year of high school and convinces stan to join (we’ll talk more about that later)

they get so good, they start to do travel competitions

it’s probably the most diverse group at derry high because literally everyone that has a good voice is welcome to audition

a kid named taylor helps eddie arrange music and choreography even though they’re in a wheelchair

sings duets with his mom in the car because it’s the only time that they seem to get along without arguing

their go-to song is “halo” by beyonce

eddie’s mom is so highkey proud of her son and his abilities that most of the time she’ll just sit back and listen while one of them is driving until eddie says “ it’s supposed to be a duet, mom”

loves to vibrato it up because he’s super dramatic when he sings literally anything

he gets teased because singing and dancing in organized choirs is “gay” according to the bowers gang

ok one time, bowers made fun of him and the rest of the tenors and eddie just straight up decked him before calmly getting on the bus to go wherever they were competing

the tenors (and the bases) were like “shit dude you okay?”

and eddie says “no one makes fun of my kids” while shaking out his hand

and the tenors kind of crowd around him for a hug because they love their mom captain

he sings the national anthem a lot at high school games but one time, he was invited to sing it at a red sox game in boston and he freaked out

richie: you’ve sung this shit like a million times. all that’s changed is the number of people listening to your beautiful voice. now go out there and make hot baseball players fall in love with you.

eddie: *blushing* shut the fuck up.

sings lullabies to literally everyone and it soothes them so much

richie is falling asleep on his lap? lullaby

stan is having an anxiety attack? lullaby

bill is freaking about his stutter? lullaby

mike is overwhelmed by the amount of work on his plate? lullaby

ben has a nightmare? lullaby

bev is crying about her father? lullaby

needless to say it works wonders

🎶 mike 🎶

has such a low voice and it drives everyone nuts

he has all the girls (and some guys- mostly richie) salivating after him when he sings once at a high school talent show 

can harmonize with anything like a song will just be on the radio and he’ll drop in a perfect lower harmony that just works

cantors at mass on sundays sometimes and usually sings with the choir

he has a real knack for the baptist religious music and his voice is just perfect for it

his college did a production of “the drowsy chaperone” (A/N: great show) and when he tried out in a spur of the moment decision, he got the part of george

he killed it

also, he learned a tap number with the actor who played robert and the losers were thoroughly impressed

ben: i didn’t know he could move like that

bev: *shouting* that’s my son!

stan: *mortified* shh!

when mike becomes the derry librarian, he starts a story time for the little kids and when there’s music in the books, he’ll sing

a little girl only comes on days when he sings and that amuses him to no end

he plays classical music through the loudspeakers when he closes up the library because it gets lonely, you know, and tries to sing all the instrumental parts with his voice

he does the best with cello parts

one time, someone came in late and he didn’t even realize it and they started to clap

he now locks the door before he starts to clean up

LOVES karaoke and always drags his friends to bars and forces them to sing with him

tries out once for a really prestigious travel choir who do lots of shows in europe because they were looking for a bass

the snooty old man in charge of auditioning says “we don’t take your kind here”

and stan is livid when mike tells him about it

stan: hypothetically, if you told me their names and i went to their houses, what would happen if i killed them?

richie: jesus, stanny, remind me not to get on your bad side.

sings with eddie at ben and bev’s wedding and makes them cry tears of joy while they’re doing their first dance

mike’s twin daughters maisie and charlotte clearly have the same vocal skills as their dad and they sing together while they get ready for school

mike’s wife, louisa, has plenty of videos on her phone of them trying to sing around their toothbrushes

🎶 richie 🎶

richie tozier, my friends, is a wonder when it comes to singing

typically, he doesn’t try too hard and goofs off with silly songs

sings shit like “never gonna give you up” and “barbie girl” unironically

stan is neverendingly exhausted by it

stan: anything but blue again, please

when he applies himself, he drives people wild with his raspy, amazing voice

and by people, i mean eddie

he taught himself to play guitar when he was 12 and then when nobody would sing with him, he did it himself

in a stroke of bad decision making on the school faculty’s part, they allowed him to be the announcer at a football game and he sings all the announcements- all of them

richie: *singing* number 27 (bill) looking feisty tonight

richie: *still singing* when will the quarterback (mike) love me?

principal: that is quite enough

richie: *singing some more* you can’t do that (whole stadium claps)

every once in a while (quite often) when richie stayed over at the denbroughs, georgie would ask him to sing with his brother so that his lullaby could be a duet

for just a year and one year only, richie is in eddie’s a cappella group

he gets lovingly kicked out because he distracts not only eddie but a lot of the others in the group because he’s a really great singer when he tries

but he helped make a killer arrangement of feel again that they still use to compete even after eddie graduates

is actually very knowledgeable about music theory because it was always part of the youtube videos he watched when he was learning guitar

richie: you know, i think this would sound better with a major third chord instead of this minor seventh

mike: what

richie: what

mike: i have no damn idea what you just said

joins a band as lead singer and guitarist when he gets to college and gets really popular locally because of his “just got out of someone else’s bed” voice

you know those songs bill writes? yeah half of them are with help from richie

they start a youtube channel anonymously and sing them as duets with richie’s soft guitar music (think jem and the holograms)

they have a really niche cult following, some of whom try to figure out who they are, but mostly just to enjoy the music

georgie claims it’s his influence from lullaby time when he was younger (and the boys humor him)

🎶 stan 🎶

woo boy, where to even begin with stan?

he never sings in public and the times that he does sing are so few and far between it’s like a cryptid sighting

bev: i once heard stan singing in the shower after we all went swimming in the quarry

the rest of the losers: bullSHIT

but ~buuuuuUUuUUUtttt~ this boy has the voice of a god and he uses it like a weapon

stan: *doesn’t want to do something*

stan: *singing* billy, you know how much i love you right?

bill: *totally taken aback* not fair

he once sang in the talent show because it was his senior year (and he lost a bet to richie)

he decided to sing a sappy love song that was popular and the whole auditorium was so stunned it took them a full thirty seconds to give him a standing ovation once he finished

this boy is the only person in the losers club who can do any p!atd song, like any of them, and do an accurate impression of brenden urie

it’s a little scary how close their voices sound

his mother teaches him the hebrew prayers they sing during shabbat and sometimes the losers will catch him singing them when he’s not paying attention

he got tipsy once while he was out with bev and eddie and sang a super raunchy song on stage during a karaoke night and totally crushed the hell out of it

nobody believes that this happened

not even stan supposedly

bev and eddie: i swear on my life

mike: over my dead body did this happen

ben: yeah no way

stan: *winks at bev and eddie*

when he and bill move in together, stan will sing to bill when he thinks bill is asleep

stan will run his fingers through bill’s hair and sing something like blackbird and bill is just... goosebumps everywhere

stan sometimes knows bill is awake by the way his breathing hitches and keeps going because bill is the only person he trusts to be totally unafraid in front of

he can hit high notes like nobody’s business but only if he’s taken a shot of hard liquor recently

at the graduation party, he and eddie got into a high-note-off

a video exists somewhere on ben’s phone of the two just going at it

richie can be heard in the background just losing his fucking mind

stan never accepts solos when he’s part of eddie’s a cappella group and nobody understand why (again voice of a god)

there was a competition when eddie was getting over laryngitis and the only person who knew his solos were (drum roll, please) stan!

needless to say, they blew the judges away and won first place

~ ~ ~

There you are! I hope you enjoyed this little treat while I work on part 4 of you were in screaming color (which I have recently edited chapter 1 of and put it on ao3 here). Got a request? Submit one here. See my masterlist here.

[annacalvi-no-more-words]

ANNA CALVI INTERVIEW: ‘Rock ‘n’ roll isn’t over – male rockers are’ - 12.08.2018

DAILY TELEGRAPH - Text By Neil McCormick - Photos by Rii Schroer

Five years after the 37-year-old British singer-songwriter’s second album of noirish art rock earned her a second successive Mercury Prize nomination, Anna Calvi is back with a third album.“I have long felt frustrated at the limitations of what a woman is allowed to be, on a very basic level,” says Calvi. 

“Perfect, smiling, accommodating. Why do I have to live up to these ideals because of my anatomy?” Fierce and sensual, timely in its grappling with gender stereotypes and female visibility, it is her most striking work to date. She called it Hunter, she tells me, because “I like the idea of a woman going into the world and just taking what she wants”.

The evening before we meet, Calvi is onstage in the West End nightclub Heaven, dressed in a black designer suit, wielding a red Stratocaster guitar, goading and provoking the audience.She sinks to her knees as she plays, then on to her back, abandoning herself to the strange sounds erupting from her instrument.Anna Calvi: ‘It just has to come out like this hurricane’

During a virtuoso rendition of gender-bending anthem Don’t Beat the Girl Out of My Boy, she releases an operatic wail that convulses her whole body. It is the mesmerising, powerful performance of a woman in her rock’n’roll element.

The next day, in the shabby south London offices of independent record company Domino, Calvi seems an entirely different creature: petite, demure and self-contained. Her speaking voice is high and soft. “I was very quiet as a child,” she says “and I really liked that the guitar could be my voice instead of me.” 

When I ask if her raucous performance style has helped banish her essential shyness, she laughs. “I’ve been waiting for years for that to happen,” she says. “But maybe that’s a good thing. Being introverted means that you have all this energy that’s building and building, like it’s a ball of fire and you don’t know how to release it. Then it just has to come out like this hurricane. For me, that is what being creative is.”

Calvi was obsessed with music from a very young age, yet struggled to identify any female role models. “If you are a woman wanting to find yourself in music, you have to project yourself on to the male story,” she says. “It’s the same for films, books, art, the same for any kind of culture. Women have been made invisible.” 

While writing her latest set of songs, Calvi imagined that her listener was her younger self, being confronted “with a more realistic depiction of the multifaceted woman, the animalistic, primal woman, the messy woman, the queer woman, the woman seeking pleasure without any shame.”

Calvi talks quietly but passionately, in long, carefully articulated sentences. She says that the period since her last album – One Breath, in 2013 – involved a lengthy process of self-examination. “So much of our gender is performed, I feel, it’s very limiting for both sexes,” she says. “As a woman, you’re made to feel your appearance is what you are. It’s what you look like [that counts] and not what you do.

 “And for men, to always be strong, to not be vulnerable or show emotions or talk about how you feel, is such an unrealistic expectation of a human being. It’s literally the opposite of what being human is.”

Calvi’s self-titled 2011 debut contained a track titled I’ll Be Your Man. Her new album opens with As a Man, in which she sings “If I was a man in all but my body/ Oh would I now understand you completely?/ If I was walking and talking as a man.”

“I never felt completely comfortable with being a girl,” she admits. “I found puberty really hard, having a woman’s body suddenly impose itself. As I grew up I came to accept it – I don’t feel trans – but at different times I feel more masculine or more feminine. My sense of identity is quite fluid. Maybe the answer is just not to have labels.”

Calvi was born in Twickenham, to an English mother and Italian father, both of whom are therapists. Her first instrument was violin, and she graduated in 2003 from the University of Southampton with a degree in music. Her inner rocker, though, had been unleashed years earlier when, at the age of eight, she saw footage of Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock, giving a performance that just “looked and sounded like freedom”. She also cites the Belgian-born jazz composer Django Reinhardt – “who taught me about arpeggios” – and West African music, “which taught me about sweet picking”. 

Anna Calvi: 'Maybe the answer is just not to have labels.’

Until recently, there have been few prominent female guitarists in popular music, something Calvi blames on cultural stereotypes. “I don’t think the guitar is a gendered instrument,” she says. “It’s like cooking – it’s about taste. It’s not like you need giant muscles to whip an egg.” Indeed, she goes so far as to propose that the future of rock will be female. “There is all this talk about the death of rock and the end of the guitar. What I think is dead is this kind of very one-toned thing of straight white men in bands singing about f—ing girls. “A lot of the guitarists making waves now are female and that may be partly because there isn’t a history of the female guitar hero, so there is something fresh that twists and subverts the story. I like to see women playing guitar. Courtney Barnett and St Vincent are doing really interesting things.”

 The real watershed moment will only come, she says, “when we don’t use the term ‘female artist’ anymore. Because women are a gender, they’re not a genre.”

In pop terms, Calvi was a late developer – she didn’t release a solo record until her 30s. She had “a phobia” about her voice and didn’t sing at all until her 20s when a fascination with Maria Callas helped her to develop a powerful, almost operatic, range. “Now, my guitar and my voice both speak for me, and on Hunter they are trying to express a sense of freedom and wildness and something visceral, this idea of breaking through any kind of restraint.”

At school, she wondered whether she was gay, but thought perhaps her feelings related to “having no boys around”. Then, at university in Southampton she had “a few boyfriends” followed by her “first experience with a woman”. It was a confusing time. “We were literally the only queer people that I had ever seen, just me and my partner in the whole college, that was it. I wish I could have experienced those feelings without questioning what it means. And worrying that it [was] wrong, and feeling shame, and dealing with all these external forces that aren’t actually to do with the relationship.” 

She has never hidden her sexuality but admits to “feeling nervous” before her first album came out. “I felt it was incredibly queer and I just didn’t want to be defined in that way. But to my surprise, no one seemed to pick up that all my songs were about women.” 

One Breath was written just as an eight-year relationship was coming to an end. “I was hiding behind the lyrics a little, I didn’t want to talk about our break-up, which isn’t really the best thing when you are trying to write songs. But this time I was like: have it all!”

 While working on Hunter, Calvi began a new relationship with a French woman, living in Paris and Strasbourg. (They are now in Clapham, south London.) “It was a new beginning, in all kinds of ways. After a really long relationship, you have to kind of rebuild yourself. The music came through that.”

The album is peppered with images of Eden and Paradise. “I was trying to find a way of being happy after a trauma,” says Calvi. “Eden represents the idea of utopian love.” She laughs, as if she finds this thought inherently ridiculous. “In a way, belief in love is belief in God. It’s very optimistic to imagine that somebody can save you from yourself, but we all believe it and I find that tragically beautiful, because I believe it too. When I see my girlfriend, just seeing her makes me feel more hopeful about things, but the truth is, everything gets worse and we die.”

Calvi’s best songs strike an unusual balance between opposing qualities, plucking something life-affirming out of cynicism, nihilism and fatalism. Those opposites are also evident in Calvi herself; so quiet and intense offstage, so wild and free onstage. 

“Maybe this is a bit fatalistic but I always think ‘if this is the last thing I ever do, the last record I ever make, the last performance I ever play, how do I want to go out? How do I want to leave it?’” she says. “There is a bit in Don’t Beat the Girl Out of My Boy that I have to sing very high and very loud and I can’t do that without completely surrendering myself, where there is absolutely no space left to think or be anything other than that note.

 “And that is what I want music to be. It is really liberating and exhausting. And a bit worrying. After I sang it the first time, I thought, ‘S—, now I have to do that every night. What will be left of my body and mind by the end of this?’”

[janiedean]

stevetomjohn(.)tumblr(.)com/post/125974550995/so-i-just-saw-an-article-today-on-npr-about-how stevetomjohn(.)tumblr(.)com/post/124713803865/operainthearchives-fizzylimon What do think about this? Because while I agree that opera companies should avoid blackface and stereotypical portayal of non-Western cultures, I think that color-blind casting is the better choice, not only for the quality of the performance (more people to choose from, more chances to get the better voice for the role) part 1

But also for the minorities involved: if an opera house decides to include e.g. Aida in their season and they can choose from X sopranos among which one is a black woman, they’re going to put her in Aida, while the white women will have more choice (so, type-casting). Also, if the ethnicity of characters like Otello is important to the point of requiring a black man singing his part, you have to select the rest of the cast accordingly, so the other roles can be played only by white part or white-passing singers? (Not considering that if you find a black tenor who can play Otello well, you can’t still put him in every single Otello performance, you’re going to wreck his voice on the top of not giving him the opportunity of a satifying and wide repoertoire). I believe that there’s a racism problem even in the opera world, but I think that people should advocate to a more equal selection in all roles, not just the ones with POC.

........ good fucking grief.

okay, first thing of all, this person is completely living in a fantasy world if he thinks that people will stop performing both otello and/or aida based on the lead characters’s ethnicity. period. especially aida which is an extremely popular opera, and I don’t even like it personally, it’s one of the few verdi operas I’m very meh on, but like...... opera theaters need revenue because they’re almost always in the red not in the green, and popular verdi operas are sure revenue 100%, and if people think theaters won’t perform aida out of political correctness ESPECIALLY when it’s full of stuff singers die to do they’re delusional. period. and as far as othello is concerned is absolutely a demanding role (and not just verdi - rossini’s never gets performed because you need three tenors and there’s one singer in the world - gregory kunde - who can sing both verdi and rossini’s role, says all) and if you send people who can’t sing it properly to do it, you ruin their voice. and assuming that you can’t stage one of verdi’s best operas which is also a revenue and which bass singers die to perform in (IAGO’S PART GUYS) out of that is also equally idiotic. never mind that saying that those parts never went to black singers is ridiculous because I didn’t dream up leontyne price singing aida AND IT WAS IN WHAT THE SIXTIES OR THE SEVENTIES I mean let’s be real. it’s not that opera companies don’t employ poc singers on purpose, it’s that it’s not a given they’ll find poc singers with the right skills. also otello is not a role that young singers usually take on so you’d need to have someone who’s had a long career or at least enough to let their voice mature.

NOW, with that stated, I 100% agree with you and pretty much with what the person who was not OP was saying (admittedly I was rolling my eyes so much at halfway through that I skimmed but I think I got the gist), but the point is: we should avoid blackface - I mean, we all know othello’s supposed to be black even if he’s not we can play along without putting make-up on the singer -, we should do accurate productions (though I mean, I think they were complaining about butterfly or smth and like I hate puccini so I’m not an expert but at some point I found out that he actually did extensive research and the japanese back in the day loved it and I’m pretty sure that a while ago in italy they had a japanese director do the opera with japanese singers and so on and they perform it in japan so.... IT’S DOABLE AND IT’S NOT INHERENTLY RACIST even if to me the plot of that opera is atrocious but to each their own) and we definitely should have more nonwhite/poc singers in the opera world (though I mean if you watch videos of those singing competitions like that one in wales or that bi-yearly one in germany most of the singers are poc, a while ago I was wasting time on youtube and found out some a++++ five south-african singers both male and female who were amazing and I think a couple won so things are changing albeit slowly), but solving the problem by not doing blind casting is ridiculous because at that point it means that if you do idk l’italiana in algeri the poc singer can only be mustafa or his right hand man... and.... that’d be kind of sterotypical since it’s not like roles for poc people in opera were ALWAYS non-stereotypical. like, if we take just mozart, we could have poc playing just... mitridate, I suppose, MAYBE, the bad guys in serraglio and MAAAYBE sarastro in the magic flute?? MAYBE? ah, no, and monostatos. I mean, that’s not.... much of a repertoire??? (also I personally dislike productions where monostatos is suddenly ‘ugly’ and not black because I thought that the point was showing that others saw him as a monster and he had feelings too but NEVER MIND) instead last time I watched it from the ROH papageno was an absolutely handsome and charming half-caribbean guy who also sang amazingly

and that’s for mozart, but idk for rossini you’d just have the turkish/algerians from italiana and turco in italia or the people from semiramide, but semiramide is hard af to sing and you should find an all-around appropriate cast TWICE because you’d need the secondary company as you pointed out. and I mean I just saw that one of my fave bass singers who is russian is up to play assur at the MET, now he can’t do that because assur was persian and he’s russian?? samuel ramey’s career then would have been dead from the beginning because he played both assur and attila and he certainly wasn’t a hun? I mean, where do you actually find a race-appropriate attila anyway since it could be anyone from a russian to a mongolian at this point? like, if you don’t do blind casting you’re also confining POCs to roles that might or might not be stereotypical and leave most to the white people in question and honestly..... why? I’ve seen excellent chinese and korean singers around, and especially when there’s no ethnicity required (in theory) then just cast whoever. but as you said then if you do otello then the only black singer can be otello and everyone else can’t? I can’t have a chinese iago then, even if the chinese singer has the perfect voice for it? and like, juan diego flòrez couldn’t have played ANY role he ever was famous for because he’s peruvian and no one in operas is peruvian??? kathleen battle who is/was (I think she’s retired) one of my favorite sopranos is black and she played adina and rosina and susanna and a bunch of main leads back in the 80s, she shouldn’t have because sure as fuck l’elisir d’amore’s protagonist wasn’t black? come on.

like, the point is that you have to make sure more people have access to opera so more people want to become opera singers so you have more variety when you choose/audition and you can also do accurate casting when it’s required (ie aida), but you also can’t limit the singers. I mean, doing aida for sopranos is very good on a CV, if you get cast for it you shouldn’t take it because you’re not historically accurate? so we can’t have a chinese aida? or a mexican aida? why not? and maybe a black singer wants to do aida but also might want to play other parts? leontyne price or kathleen battle or pretty yende (just the first three coming to mind but there’s a lot more around) didn’t just play POC roles and I doubt they hate it. like, what that OP doesn’t get is that opera is also about what you get to sing, not the goddamned plot, because half of the opera plots in existence are hardly high literature. I mean, any soprano wants to sing violetta from la traviata because it looks great on your CV and is basically the top notch you can get with that work, no one gives a fuck what color violetta is. and there’s been non-white violettas for that matter. any bass wants to sing iago because it’s a good part, any tenor wants to play calaf  regardless of where he comes from because if you sing all’alba vincerò properly you bring the house down and same for rigoletto/the duke of mantua, and any baritone wants a shot at un ballo in maschera because that’s the only opera where he does encores and not the tenor XDD like ffs one of my favorite tenors who isn’t really a big bane is half french and half vietnamese and I saw him live once and fell in love TM and he was playing... don ottavio? IN PRAGUE? I mean don ottavio is spanish, not french-vietnamese, and no one cared? like the point is that you should have operas where everyone can sing and that are done respectfully and preferably with appropriate singers if  there’s the availability and if they have the right voice and it’s valid for every opera - I mean I’d totally be okay with an italiana in algeri where mustafa is white and lindoro is black WHO CARES [actually I saw one where mustafa was italian and lindoro was chinese soooo] -, not where you gatekeep what operas get to be sung by whom. idk according to this person polish singers can’t sing eugene onegin because it’s all russians?? srsly??

and other than that, OP knows kind of fucking nothing about what they’re talking about because:

if he wants canon lead poc roles for men there’s not just verdi’s othello, there’s rossini’s othello, then there’s assur from semiramide and actually all of semiramide as stated above should have a persian cast, there’s selim from rossini’s turco in italia and mustafa/haly from l’italiana who are algerian, there’s she sultan and osmin from mozart’s abduction from the serraglio (osmin mostly has an a++++ part), monostatos from magic flute (kinda stereotypical tho but I think a good direction could make it work very well), maometto II/mohamed II from rossini’s maometto II/le siege de corinthe (same opera different language), the pharaoh and his son from ALL the goddamned operas about moses that have ever been written first and foremost rossini’s mosè in egitto and the french version, plus verdi’s nabucco also has persians vs jewish people so I mean ALSO THE JEWISH PEOPLE FROM NABUCCO AND MOSE’ and so on if you consider jewish people poc, THEN there’s the fucking tenor from LOMBARDI ALLA PRIMA CROCIATA who’s **pagan**/muslim so definitely poc in theory and I’m not counting puccini bc I hate puccini but in theory turandot is all pocs, ALL OF THEM, and butterfly is all japanese and one american (WOW NOW ALL THE AMERICANS CAN ONLY SING PINKERTON I AM SAD FOR YOU AMERICAN TENORS), and ah yeah attila from verdi’s same-title opera is obviously hun.

if he wants canon lead poc female roles as stated above: FUCKING TURANDOT, semiramide plus retinue, elvira from italiana in algeri might not be lead but she’s important af, both female leads in nabucco, ulrica from un ballo in maschera (where it was actually a plot point that she was discriminated because she was black and characters in-verse pointed out it was shitty), if you want to go all the way then il trovatore has supposed to have an entire choir of roma travelers + azucena (and azucena is terrible but people would pay to sing her role BECAUSE IT’S A GOOD ROLE, and btw the last leonora I saw live was... japanese I think), zaida from turco in italia, ZELMIRA from rossini’s zelmira actually EVERYONE IS POC IN THERE TOO same as aureliano in palmira excluding the romans and ah yeah there’s also rossini’s ciro in babilonia where again it’s all poc technically. ah and cleopatra from haendel’s julius caesar I guess, if you assume she’s dark skinned, but julius caesar is one of those things I never could watch entirely without sleeping so idek but I mean...

I mean, I’m fairly sure that I didn’t even get all of them and half of those roles could absolutely be played by black people - algerians aren’t necessarily light-skinned and egyptians aren’t either - and anyway ULRICA WAS SUPPOSED TO BE BLACK EXPLICITLY but if we can’t find a black ulrica then we don’t do il ballo in maschera anymore when the main three roles are not hers?? I mean seriously let’s be real, taking operas out of performance for etnical correctness is unfeasible.

but again, OP other than not knowing the above obviously has only ever heard of extremely famous shit because if you say the only roles for black men and women are othello and aida you haven’t even scratched the surface just as verdi is concerned never mind everyone else in opera history.

obviously it’d be lovely to have all those roles sung by ethnically-accurate people but opera never was about accuracy in any way shape or form so maybe we should make sure everyone gets to sing everything according to their vocal abilities. maybe.

also it also depends on where the hell you are because of course a theater in the US will have more choice of poc singers and one in italy less, and still with that I’ve seen plenty of poc singers just at the rome theater never mind others. times are changing in the good direction already, let’s just keep on going that way maybe?

[erintheamericanlondoner]

In the Spotlight

Hello Readers! I wrote a story called In the Spotlight. It is about a girl who is a pop star, but she is lonely. She flies to New York for her tour and meets Blake a musician who performs on the street with his friend Noah. Critisim is welcome, but please no hate

Chapter 1

My name is Brenna Young and I am one of the world’s major popstars. I discovered when I was 18 with my covers on YouTube, that was right after my parents died in a car accident. Flash forward 5 years later and I’m now one of the most popular artists right now. I am currently at Diamond records in Los Angeles recording a new song. The song comes to an end, and I hear my record producer, Marc, yell cut. “That was great, Brenna.” said Marc. “Thanks.” I said, removing the headphones. I step out of the studio. I’m wearing a silver, sleeveless, metallic crop top with light ripped skinny jeans and my white flat converse sneakers. My dark brown hair falls to my shoulders as I take down my bun. “Okay, we need to get you back home to prepare for tour.” says my manager, Joan.  Joan has her auburn hair in a tight bun which shows off her fair skinned face. She also wears black glasses over her green eyes. “I need to prepare mentally and physically.” I said. I went outside and saw security guard, Gary, standing next to a Mercedes car. “After you.” said Gary, as he opened the door for me. Gary may be my security guard, but he is a sweetheart and gentlemen.He’d only be rough when he needs to be.Gary is bald, light skinned, and has dark eyes. He pretty much only wears black. When I sat down, my pomeranian dog, Buttercup, hopped out of my bag and onto my lap. “Aww, Buttercup, you can’t go 5 minutes without missing me can you.” I said. Buttercup continued to lick my face. “Do you want me to walk you up?” asked Gary, when we got to my apartment. “No, I’m good.” I said. “Okay.” said Gary. “See you tomorrow morning.” I said. I know what you are thinking, why does a mega popstar like Brenna Young, live in an apartment still. Honestly, I don’t know. I guess I’m just sentimental. When Buttercup and I get into my apartment, I go fill up his food bowl. “Buttercup, I think you are the only real friend I have.” I said. He barks excitedly at me. Truth be told, I’m pretty lonely. When I became famous, my friends sort of abandoned me. They hated that every time they hung out with me we would have to face the paparazzi. I went into my bedroom and pulled out my suitcase and pulled pretty much everything from my closet. Then I shoved it all into my suitcase. “Okay, now to mentally prepare for the tour.” I said. I went into the bathroom and started a bath. I grabbed a face mask from the closet, as well as bath salts and bath bombs, and anything else that could relax me. I grabbed my phone and played some relaxing music. After a few hours of soaking in the bathtub. I got out and got dressed in pajamas. I ordered pizza and opened a bottle of wine. “Nothing like a bit of alcohol and junk food to prepare for tour, right Buttercup?” I said. Buttercup just looked at me. “Don’t give me that look, if you were human, you would drink too.” I said. The first place we were going to stop for tour is New York City. Afterward, I went to my room and hopped in bed. I woke up the next morning at 4:00 am. Gary was coming to pick me up at 5:00. I put on a Rolling Stones T-shirt with a zip-up hoodie and sweatpants with my black high top converse. I wore my hair up in a messy bun. I put my sunglasses in my pocket. After, I went to pack Buttercup’s bag. Then I fed Buttercup. Then I heard knocking at my door. “You ready to go, Brenna?” asked Gary. “Yep.” I said as I yawned. I Put Buttercup in my bag and walked with Gary down to the Mercedes. I slept all the way to the airport. Joan was already there when we got there. “C’mon let’s go, we’ve got a plane to catch.” said Joan. I put on my earbuds as I followed her inside. I pulled out my phone and played the song I Want You to Want Me by Cheap Trick. We got to our gate at 6:30 and we boarded at 7:30. Of course, we had first-class tickets. I pretty much slept the entire time. Buttercup also slept pretty much the whole time on my lap. “When we land, we are going immediately to the venue.” said Joan. “Ok.” I said as I stretched my arms. Buttercup did the same. Just as Joan said we went straight from the airport to the venue. When we got there, I went straight on stage for rehearsals. Rehearsals lasted for 2 hours. After that, I went to the makeshift recording booth. There I spent 2 more hours recording new songs. “Great, we’ll need you to come in tomorrow at 9 to finish up recording.” Marc said. “So after that is my schedule free?” I asked. “Yes, you can go explore the city only if you wear a disguise, it will keep fans away.” said Joan. “Okay, great.” I said. Then before I knew it, it was time to perform the first show of the tour. After the show, I went back to my hotel room to shower. Once I was out, I heard someone knocking on my door. Whoever was knocking left before I got there. When I turned, I noticed a note on my door. I read the note, it was a scary note. I could feel my breathing getting heaving and my heart was pounding. I started shaking and sweating. I ran downstairs to where Gary was. “Gary, I just got this scary note.” I said He took the note and read it. “Okay, I’ll let Joan know and we can get more guards.” He said. I hugged him. “Thanks, Gary.” I said. 

Chapter 2 

After I finished recording the next day, I put on a disguise and went out to explore New York. I explored all around. Then I saw a guy getting ready to perform. So I stayed and watched him. He was playing Sweet Child O’ Mine by Guns’N’Roses on his guitar, he was accompanied by a drummer. When he started to sing he sounded great. The drummer looked like he was having a great time. Not also did the lead singer/guitarist sound good, he looked good too. He had brown, messy, and curly hair. He had brown eyes, and light skin. He was wearing a black leather jacket over a t-shirt with jeans. When he was ready to sing the next verse after the second guitar solo, I started to sing it instead. He looked shocked at first. He looked back towards his drummer who shrugged his shoulders. He looked back towards me and smiled. Then he joined me when the chorus started. Our eyes were locked on each other as we sang. Buttercup was chasing his tail, which was his way of dancing. By the time we finished singing the song, my cover had been blown. “We need to run.” I said. “Follow me.” said the singer. He leads me through alleyways and streets, then we went into a building and into an elevator. “My name is Blake, by the way.” he said, panting. “I’m Brenna, but I’m guessing you already know that.” I said, removing my disguise. “Yeah, I kinda figured that out.” said Blake. “By the way, where are we?” I asked. “We’re at my apartment.” Blake said. “You sounded amazing out there.” I said. “You too.” he replied. We walked out of an elevator straight into Blake’s apartment. “Welcome to Casa del Blake.” He said. I laughed. His apartment was a beautiful small loft. “ It’s beautiful, but how can you afford it?” I asked. He raised his eyebrow. “Sorry, didn’t mean to judge, guess I don’t know what you do for a day job.” I said. He laughed. “I perform with my friend in a band at a bar.” he said. “Obviously, you’ve been living the fairy tale life for too long now.” he said. I frowned. “Actually, I have found this life to be pretty lonely.” I said. “Well you’re not alone now.” he said taking my hand. We stared at each other for a while. “My dad actually left me this place.” Blake said, he sounded morose. “Is your dad-”  “He’s dead. He got very sick.” said Blake before I could finish. “I’m so sorry.” I said. “No need to focus on the sad, c’mon let’s dance.” he said. He went over to a pile of records and put one on. The song Karma Chameleon by Culture Club started playing. Then, he jumped on his couch. He stood on the arm of the couch and lip sang with the song. He jumped off the couch and took my hand, then we both started dancing and singing like idiots. I smiled, and not one of my fake smiles. It was a real smile. I hadn’t had a real smile on my face in a long time. We danced for hours. Before we knew it, it was dark. “Do you want something to eat?” asked Blake. “What have you got?” I asked. He grabbed a bottle of wine and two wine glasses. He filled them both up. After that, he went to the elevator which had opened. “My specialty, pizza, mon amie.” he said. I laughed. “Well, your specialty is not Italian, because you just spoke French.” I said as I siped from my glass. He set the pizza on the bar and we ate, drank, and laughed for what felt like hours. “Hey, there is something I’d like to do.” he said as he picked up his acoustic guitar. “Come with me.”  he said. I followed him to his deck. He sat down in a chair and I sat down in the other chair. “My dad’s favorite song was Forever by the Beach Boys.” He said. “He would sing it whenever he had to leave for long periods of time.”.  He looked down as he frowned. “He sang to my mom and me when he died.” Blake said. He looked at me. “Will you sing it with me?” asked. “Of course.” I said. He looked at the star-filled night sky and he started playing the opening chords of the song. By the time we finished singing the song, our eyes were locked on each other. Other people who lived in the neighboring buildings applauded our performance. “Shoot.” I said as I remembered I had a flight tomorrow morning. “What is it?” asked Blake. “I just remembered I leave for France tomorrow.” I said. “So this is all we have?” asked Blake. I could tell he was heartbroken. “I’m sorry.” I said. Then my phone rang. It was Joan calling. “I need to take this, it’s my manager.” I said. Blake nodded. “What.” I said on the phone, shocked. I hung up and smiled. I turned to Blake. “Geez, don’t look so happy about this being our last night.” Blake said. “Actually, my manager said we’re going to be in New York for 3 more days.” I said. “I’m going to perform at the Rockefeller Christmas tree lighting.” I said. All of a sudden Blake’s frown turned into a smile. “I guess the universe wants us to be together.” he said. I laughed. “Can I stay here tonight?” I asked. “Yep.” said Blake. “Let’s celebrate.” he said as he put another record on. This time the song was Take on Me by A-HA. We danced and sang the whole night.  

Chapter 3   

The next morning while I was in bed I put my earbuds on and listened to Space age Love Song by A Flock of Seagulls. “Great song.” said Blake sleepily. He only had one bed so we slept in the same bed. I smiled as I got up to go to the elevator. I asked Gary to bring some clothes and my personal hygiene stuff. Later, Blake showed me all sorts of touristy stuff. He also showed me some of his favorite places. As the song said, we were falling in love. He took me Ice skating in Central Park and we were dancing like maniacs to the music playing. It was the best 2 days of my life. I had never been happier. We were laughing and smiling the whole time. We were hanging out in his apartment with his friend Noah, who was the drummer playing with Blake when we first met. “That was crazy unexpected when you started singing.” said Noah. Noah looked a lot like Blake except his skin and hair were lighter.  “I love Sweet Child ‘O Mine, that’s why I did it.” I said. “I’ve had so much fun, even if we’ve spent most of the time dancing like maniacs.” I said to Blake. “Oh no, you’re not dancing are you?” Noah said. “What’s wrong with dancing?” I asked. “Nothing, It’s just he’s a bad dancer.” said Noah. “He is not.” I said. Blake laughed. “She must be a bad dancer too.” Noah said. “I won’t argue with that.” I said. “She’s not a bad dancer.” said Blake. “Let’s show him.” said Blake, going over to his record player. “No, no, no.” said Noah. I walked over to Blake. Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing started to play and Blake and I started to dance like maniacs. “Oh my gosh, you are both terrible.” Noah said, jokingly. Blake and I laughed. “My eyes, It hurts to watch.” Noah said, jokingly. “Ok, I need to get out of here, this dancing is just too bad.” said Noah as he walked to the elevator. “See ya dude.” Blake said as we continued dancing. After Noah left, we collapsed to the floor in fits of laughter. “I’m sorry, we’ll hardly see each other tomorrow.” I said. Blake looked at me, confused. “What do you mean?” he asked. It was my turn to look confused. “Did I not tell you, I’ll be busy with rehearsals all day tomorrow, then I have to perform, and after the performance, I have to leave to get to France.” I said. “Why don’t you stay here, you said you aren’t happy with your career anyway.” he said. “If I stayed, I would disappoint millions of fans, and not mention ruin my career.” I said. “Why would that matter if you’re not happy?” asked Blake. “Because it was hard to get where I am now.” I said, starting to get upset. “You don’t think I know that, I’ve been trying to break into this business since high school.” Blake said. “I perform for drunkards.” Blake said, angrily slamming his fists on the bar counter. “You don’t get it, It’s hard to break into this business, but it is so easy to lose it all.” I said, starting to cry. “I was in a bad place, before this job.” I said. “It made me happy.” I said. “But now it’s not, you should be doing what makes you happy.” Blake said. “You don’t get it, music makes me happy.” I said. “I’m just going to stay at my hotel tonight, don’t bother coming to watch me perform.” I said. I walked to the elevator and left. When I got in, I slid down against the wall to the floor and cried. Blake grabbed his acoustic guitar and went out on his deck and started playing The Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel. 

Chapter 4 

I was in hair and makeup getting ready for the show. When I was done, I went back to my room to get my bag. I found another scary note on my door. I ran downstairs. “Gary, I found another scary note.” I said. “Okay, I’ll handle this, don’t worry.” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. I felt much better after that. I went on stage to perform in the freezing cold snow. After the show, I had to immediately leave to fly to France. As I left, I saw Blake, we locked eyes, but we didn’t talk to each other. Before I knew it, I was in Paris, France. I was in the city of love, and the one person I loved was thousands of miles away. 

Meanwhile…

“Dude, I really messed up.” Blake said. Blake and Noah were sitting at the bar drinking in between songs. “You really love her, don’t you?” asked Noah, as he took a sip of his drink. “I do.” Blake said. He looked at Noah. “What do you think I should do?” asked Blake. Noah turned and looked at Blake. “You know what you need to do.” Noah said. 

Back in Paris…

 I was standing at the top of the Eiffel Tower and looking out over Paris. I started to cry a little. Paris was my parent’s favorite city. When I envisioned myself finally visiting Paris, I imagined I’d be with someone I loved. “What’s wrong Brenna?” asked Gary. “Nothing, I just wish I was here with someone who loves me.” I said. “But, you are here with someone who loves you.” said Gary. I looked at him confused. “I love you and Joan loves you.” Gary said. “So in a way, you are here with people who love you.” said Gary. “That’s true, you’re the best security guard I’ve ever had and Joan is like a mother to me.” I said, hugging Gary. “You miss that young man you met, don’t you? What was his name again?” asked Gary. I laughed. “His name is Blake, and yes I miss him.” I said. “We better get back to the hotel, you have a show in 4 hours.” said Gary. When we got to the hotel, I went to take a shower. After, I heard hard knocking on my door, like in New York. I answered the door, but whoever was knocking was gone. There was a note attached to my door. This time it was a death threat. My breathing went heavy, my heart was pounding and I was shaking. I was having a panic attack. I’ve had them before, but I’ve never told anyone about them. I went over to my computer and went on to Skype and pressed Blake’s name to chat with him. When he popped up on the screen, he looked concerned. “Are you okay, Brenna?” Blake asked. I couldn’t talk, so I shook my head. It didn’t take long for him to figure out I was having a panic attack. “It’s okay. Try thinking about when we were dancing like maniacs.” He said. My breathing slowly went back to normal. “It’s okay, just breathe.” Blake said. “Now tell me, what’s going on, why were you freaking out?” he asked. “I received a death threat.” I said. “Did you tell Gary?” asked Blake. “No.” I said. “Nobody knows that I have panic attacks.” I said. “Tell Gary and Joan, they’re there to protect you.” He said. I felt better already. “Thanks.” I said. “No problem.” He said. “I better go.” I said. “See you later.” Blake said. Then I hung up. I went downstairs to find Gary. I showed him the note and told him and Joan about my panic attacks. “We’ll make sure security is on high alert.” said Joan. Gary nodded. “Now go get ready for your show.” Joan said.

 Chapter 5 

I performed three of my songs, then when I was about to play another, my band started to play the opening chords of Sweet Child O’ Mine by Guns ‘N’ Roses. I was confused. “What are you doing?” I asked my guitarist, as I covered my mic. He didn’t answer, he just looked smugly at me. When I turned back to the audience, I heard a familiar voice start singing the first verse. Before I knew it, Blake was on stage with me. I looked towards Joan and Gary and they were both smiling. During the guitar solo between the second to last and last verse, we talked. “I’m so sorry about our argument, you were right this career is easy to lose.” said Blake. “I’m sorry too, You’re right too, I shouldn’t be doing something that makes me miserable.” I said. “What are you going to do?” said Blake. “I don’t know.” I said. “Want to dance?” asked Blake. I nodded. Blake turned to the audience. “Everybody, tweet your videos to Noah_Pently.” He said. “And tag us, BlakeEdwards and BrennaYoungOfficial.” he said. “Noah is going to hate you.” I said. Then we started dancing like maniacs. After the song ended, Blake kissed me, waved to the audience, and walked off stage. I performed 2 more songs, then things went bad. Blake noticed someone in the audience raise a gun towards the stage. The person shot the gun in my direction. “BRENNA, WATCH OUT!” shouted Blake as he ran in front of me. The two bullets that were shot hit him. Gary and the security guards went to catch the shooter. “BLAKE!” I shouted I bent down to the ground next to Blake. Paramedics came on stage as the band walked off. The paramedics took Blake to the ambulance to get him to the hospital. Joan, Gary, and I waited in the emergency room waiting room. “He’s good, I’ll have to see if I can get him signed to your record label.” Joan said. “Really?” I said. She nodded. I hugged her. The doctor came out. “He’s lucky the bullets missed his heart. He should be fine.” He said. “Can I go see him?” I asked. “Yes, but he has not awoken yet.” said the doctor. I nodded and went into the elevator to go to his room. “Could you guys wait out here, I want to be with him alone.” I said to Joan and Gary. They looked at each other and nodded. I walked into the room. Even after getting shot and losing a lot of blood, Blake still looks great. His phone was on the cabinet next to his bed. I picked it up and called Noah. “What’s up?” asked Noah. “Noah, it’s me, Brenna.” I said. “Blake was shot at my concert saving my life.” I said. There was a long silence. “Noah, are you okay?” I asked. “Is Blake okay?” he asked, somberly. “Yeah, The doctor said he should be fine, also that he was lucky that the bullets missed his heart.” I said. I could tell this information relieved Noah. “You know, he really likes you.” he said. “I know, I really like him too.” I said. “Joan said she wants to try to sign you guys.” I said. “That’s awesome.” said Noah, happily. “Well, thanks for telling me about Blake and everything, see you later, I guess.” He said. “Bye.” I said. After I hung up, I put Blake’s phone back on the cabinet, I put my phone next to his. Then, the door opened. A man in black with his face covered entered. “I told you to stop this tour and never perform again.” He said. My heart started pounding. “You, you sent me all those scary letters.” I said. “And you didn’t listen.” the man said. Buttercup ran in front of me and barked and growled at the man. The man kicked Buttercup out of the way against the wall. “Buttercup!” I said. The man pulled out a pocket knife. “This time you have no one to protect you, you are alone.” The man said. “She is not alone.” Gary said. The other guards went and subdued the man and took him out of the room. “Gary.” I said, hugging him. “Are you okay?” he asked. “I’m fine, but how did you know something was going on?” I asked. “You called me.” he said. “No, I didn’t.” I said. I looked over towards Buttercup. “I think I see what happened.” I said. Gary looked at me. “When the attacker kicked Buttercup into the wall, the force must have knocked my phone off the cabinet and Buttercup’s paw clicked your number.” I said. I picked Buttercup up. “I can get him to a vet if you want.” said Gary. I nodded as I handed him Buttercup. Then it was just me and Blake again. 

Chapter 6

 I was sitting on the edge of his bed when Forever by the Beach Boys started playing over the speakers. I sang along to it as I remembered what Blake told me about how this was dad’s favorite and how his father sang when he died. When the last verse came, Blake started singing too. I hugged him. “Ow.” he said. I was sitting on the edge of his bed when Forever by the Beach Boys started playing over the speakers. I sang along to it as I remembered what Blake told me about how this was dad’s favorite and how his father sang when he died. When the last verse came, Blake started singing too. I hugged him. “Ow.” he said. “Sorry.” I said. “I’m glad you’re okay.” I said. Then I kissed him. “By the way, Joan wants to sign you to my record label.” I said. “What, that’s awesome.” Blake said. We talked until the nurse kicked me out.  The next day, Joan called a meeting. “Gary, have you talked with the rest of security?” Joan asked. “Yes, I have.” he said. “Joan, I think I need to take a break from music for a while, just until I can decide that it is truly what I want to do.” I said. “Are you sure?” she asked. “Yes, but I can finish the tour if you want me to.” I said. “Well I talked about it with higher ups, and we have decided to delay the rest of the tour until next year.” said Joan. “So it’s back home then.” I said. Joan nodded. When the meeting was over I met up with Blake at a cute cafe, now that he was out of the hospital. “So the tour will continue next year?” he asked, going for a drink of his coffee. “Yes, so I guess it’s back to L.A for me.” I said. He put his cup down. “Why don’t you move in with me.” he said. “You said you were lonely anyway.” he said. “Then I guess it’s back to New York.” I said. He smiled. “I love you.” he said. I kissed him on the cheek. Epilogue

 Blake and I had just finished moving my things in his loft. He had gone back out again, while I finished unpacking. “Okay, so I might have done something crazy.” He said. “Like what?” I asked. “I figured you wouldn’t be giving Buttercup your full attention anymore, so I got him a friend.” he said. “A lady friend.” he said. He opened up a cage and another pomeranian the same color as Buttercup walked out. She looked different from Buttercup. “I named her Peanut.” Blake said. “ Peanut Buttercup, funny.” I said. Immediately, Peanut and Buttercup got along well. “At this rate, we’ll end up with pomeranian puppies.” Blake said. “Aww, that would be so cute.” I said. Blake walked over to his record player and pulled out a record. It was Just What I Needed by The Cars. “M’lady?” asked Blake as he held his hand out to me. I smiled and took his hand and we danced the whole night through. 

The End

[texastheband]

The Best Little Sex Bomb In Texas

Interview by Miranda Sawyer, Photography by Wayne Maser Taken from British GQ - January 2004

There are many reasons to like Sharleen Spiteri. She's broken her nose four times. She once painted a mural of Che Guevara that covered her dad's garage wall. She understands that sexiness is more than "tits and arse. Well, straightforward tits and arse, anyway". She owns the original Blondie Parallel Lines mini-dress, given to her personally by Debbie Harry. She has a voice that can sound as heartworn as Dusty Springfield, as bed-borne as Chrissie Hynde. Her favourite term of abuse is "complete fanny". And, unlike most women, she looks fab in mens clothing. Actually, she's the type of insouciant beauty that would look good in a black sack; which is lucky, as that's what she appears to be wearing. We're in J Sheekey's restaurant in Covent Garden. Sharleen's just come from Top Of The Pops, where she and her band, Texas, performed their recent single, "Carnival Girl", with Ragga MC, Kardinal Offishall. She's still wearing her telly outfit: a black all-in-one, though she's swapped her take-your-eye-out stilettos for take-your-knee-out bower boots. Her hair is blunt-cut and tickles her eyelashes. She is small, dark-eyed, full-mouthed, French-looking; sultry, like her photos, but not sulky. In fact, Sharleen doesn’t stop chatting, in her throaty Glaswegian tones, about any topic you care to bring up: films, food, fashion, stripping... There's been a suggestion that she and I, as thirtysomething bonnes viveuses, would like to spend the evening in a strip club. But the only one that Sharleen will even consider checking out is a hardcore gay men's kit-off night in a notorious East End pub.

"You'll not drag me to any of that Spearmint-Rhino-Peter-Stringfellow naff old rubbish," she roars. "We'll go to Amateur Night at the White Swan. There's £1.ooo for the best act!" She announces this to me, but also to the J Sheekey waiting staff too, who clearly know and like her. "You'd better tell me all about it," says one to her, conspiratorially. "I want size, technique, all the details..." Sharleen is good at making friends: whether stars (Madonna, Stella, Gwyneth), or us lesser mortals. She's fearless, unsnobbish company, with a lewd anecdote or two up her sack-sleeve, and, unlike many famous people, she knows how to listen. She'd have made a great hairdresser. "I was a great hairdresser!" she laughs. "My tips were wicked! And people told me everything - I got loads of scandal, stuff about wife-swapping circles. But what I was really known for was when people brought in pictures of celebrities and said, 'That's the way I want my hair'. I'd put my hand over the celebrity's face and say, 'Is that really what you want? Cos we don't do faces in here, we just do hair."' She tells it like it is, does Shar. Ask her whether Texas is a democracy, and she says: "No way. Texas is me and Johnny (McElhone). The band formed around that, we write the songs together and the rest of the band either gets that or gets out. And they're totally fine with me getting all the attention. They're happy getting the money and none of the grief." The tuneful pop-rock band that is Texas formed in Glasgow in 1986, when 18-year-old Sharleen, a hairdresser and art student, met Johnny McElhone. Johnny, then 23, had played bass in Altered Images (he joined when he was just 15: his parents had to sign his contract for him), and later, in Hipsway. On a whim he asked Sharleen if she wanted to sing for a new band he was putting together. The audition was arranged, "but I never turned up", says Shar. "I thought he was sleazing me." Luckily, Johnny, who wasn't, called again. This time Sharleen went along, sang Culture Club's "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me", and Texas were formed. The first song Johnny and Sharleen wrote together was "I Don't Want A Lover". In between spoonfulls of potted shrimp, Sharleen explains that she'd never thought of herself as a singer, because every Spiteri sang. Her father's family is Italian, her mother's French, and at reunions, every family member would have to perform a song, wether they wanted to or not. "But I never got attention, because my cousins did the crowd-pleasers", she sniffs. "Never a dry eye in the house when they sang." Sharleen didn't approve of such obvious tactics, and when Texas got a record contract, she was prickly with it, insisting on always being pictured with a member of the band or with her guitar, never being interviewed separately, dressing mannishly, not smiling. Her idols were Chrissie Hynde, Patti Smith, Siouxsie Sioux. It was the late Eighties. She was Scottish. She was serious. In 1989, "I Don't Want A Lover" went Top ten in the UK, and Texas' first LP Southside, sold 1.3m copies. But the two follow-ups, Mothers Heaven and Ricks Road, didn't do so well, and around 1995, the band went into crisis mode. "We were nothing in Britain," says Sharleen, "but, because we were successful everywhere else, the record company were tiptoe-ing round us. I knew I wasnae important: I felt like screaming, 'Stop wrapping me in cotton wool!' Also, in Glasgow, everyone knew us, we were big fish in a small pond. I'd rather be a small fish in a big pond. The whole atmosphere was making me claustrophobic. So I moved to Paris." Paris proved "un tonique" for our Texan trouper. Sharleen wrote "Say What You Want" on a Paris rooftop, drinking a large glass of red wine. She met fashion journalist Ashley Heath, her partner, at a party. (They bonded over an argument about music.) Being away from home, and being able cope with that, boosted her confidence. Though you wouldn't think it now, Sharleen was "very, very, quiet" at school: not quite the ugly mate, but the one that boys approached, not to ask out, but to ask if her friend would go out with them. "The whole time I just thought, `What the fuck am I doing here?"' She left at 15: she has no contact with any former classmates. Anyway, in 1996, the Shiny! Sexy! New! Texas appeared, with Sharleen very much to the fore. For the first time, she had the self-assurance to use her languidly erotic looks. In videos, she rolled around in sea shallows, and made fully-clothed love to some lucky model. In pictures, she pulled at her hair and bit her lip. She was incredible sexy, but not straightforwardly so; what she was, was cool. It irritates Sharleen when people think that this was somehow acquired illegally: that her chic was painted on late, without serving her dues, manipulated by the boyfriend or her record company. As she points out, she found her feet first in fashion and art, and her hairdressing skills took her on shoots around the world. Sharleen does have that fashion instinct: she loves seeking out new designers and musicians, collaborating with them before they get too well-known. "But everyone gets to know about them in no time at all now!" she laughs. "You know, there is no story behind how I got cool. Of course I'm trying to be cool. Everyone is. And I always was cool: at least I thought so. Even in 1989, when I was wearing a biker jacket and jeans, trying to be more androgynous than everybody else, referencing the Clash, I thought I was dead, dead trendy. I did it myself. I didnt even have a stylist until [the band's fifth album] The Hush."

And of course, she could have done Miss Wet T-shirt until she dissolved and it wouldn't have made any difference if Texas hadn't come up with the songs. But they did: White On Blonde was a Number One, four-million-selling smash, that produced four Top Ten singles ("Say What You Want", "Halo", "Black Eyed Boy" and "Put Your Arms Around Me") and earned Sharleen and Johnny an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Song Collection. The band's next two LPs, The Hush (1999), and The Greatest Hits (2000), also stormed the charts. Texas have now sold 20m records worldwide. Weirdly, though, it wasn't until 2001, when the band took another break, that Sharleen truly came to mainstream attention. Over the last few years, Sharleen Spiteri has moved from being the hip bird out of Texas to becoming Heat fodder. Blame that heady contemporary combination of famous friends, and getting pregnant. Still, the interest took her by surprise. "You expect to have your photo taken if you're at a fashion show, or coming out of a posh restaurant," she says. ": when you're struggling with your shopping, looking like a whale? Cheers. Being pregnant is really the best time to be papped, you know." She's squared up to paparazzi in the past, slamming her car into reverse and almost driving into a following photographer, then getting out and ranting at him through the window. "The whole time I was having a go, he and his mate wouldn't look at me, they just looked straight ahead. The before he drove off, he said, `See that car on the other side of the road? He's following you too."' Still, she managed to avoid an embarrassing picture when, at eight months pregnant, she locked herself out of her house near Regent' Park and had to hoik herself and her bags over the iron gates: "Now, that really would have been a horrendous sight." One shot that everyone did see was of Sharleen's friend, Arsenal's Thierry Henry. On 10 September 2002, the day after Sharleen's daughter, Misty Kid, was born, Arsenal played Manchester City; Henry scored the winner and ripped off his shirt to reveal a slogan that read, "For the new born Kid". "That could have cost TT 30 grand," grins Sharpen. Luckily they decided not to fine him." "TT" often pops over for a chat. Does Sharpen ever feel weird when famous people come round? Only once," she muses, "when Debbie Harry came over, and was sitting in my kitchen eating dinner, being so nice. She was such an idol of mine when I was young. But otherwise, it's only when it freaks someone else out. I don't divide my friends into celebrities and non-celebrities, don't think like that. So they mix up in my house, and it's only when a friend phones up the next day and goes, `That was some evening!' that I think about it."

Still, I think it's important to Sharleen to be accepted by credible famous people, because she's spent so long having her band dismissed by snotty critics. Despite her own hipster kudos, despite the band's collaborations with the Wu-Tang Clan, Rae and Christian, and now Kardinal Offishall, Texas' music has often been labelled "safe", or naff". Having TT and Debbie et al onside shows that she is cool and that, allied with her immense songwriting success, means she can cheerfully say, "Sod the lot of you". The girl is fashion-conscious, she wants respect: you can't blame her. Anyhow, celebrity fact alert! Coldplay's frontman Chris Martin now lives in Sharleen's old flat: "We call it the House of Hits," she grins. And there are more of those coming: Texas' latest album, Careful What You Wish For, is Peppered with potential hits that play to the band's proven strengths: catchy, dreamy tunes, evocative guitars and Sharleen's gorgeous voice. The new single, "I'll See It Through", has all this in spades, and sounds like Dusty Springfield singing Burt Bacharach. But there are plenty of other singles there: "Telephone X", a Blondie-style stomp; "And I Dream", which recalls the exuberance of Madonna's "Ray Of Light"; the title track, a hand-clapping singalong. After 16 years in the business, it's obvious that the girl knows what she's doing. Unfortunately, after three hours at Sheekey's, I'm not sure that I do. The wine has gone down very easily, the conversation hasn't stopped. We've discussed DIY - Sharleen's great at it, especially shelves; underwear - "I am very particular about my knickers"; scars - Sharleen has five: forehead, hand, left eye, both knees; the hyperactivity of parents - her retired merchant seaman father does the lights for Texas' live show; the madness of boyfriends - Heath initially told his mum and dad that Sharpen worked in Glasgow Airport, but forgot to tell her: "I couldn't work out why his mum kept asking me about Duty Free." Misty Kid gets a few mentions: she's a climber, like her mum; stubborn, like both her parents. We spend quite some time talking about song-writing. Sharleen starts a new notebook for each Texas album and fills it with ideas and lyrics. Sometimes she only needs one, sometimes three. Careful What You Wish For was a two-notebook LP. She has no formula for writing, and she'll always sacrifice a word for a melody.

But, well, bollocks to such serious talk! It's stripper-time! Off we go in search of a place where pecs are expected and the knackers hang free. The White Swan is legendary as being the place where Michael Barrymore came out; it's an old-school gay man's pub, rather than a metrosexual bar. Its Amateur Night has gained a bit of a reputation recently, as a night of laughter and never forgetting. We pull up outside and skip to the door. There's a sign that says "Men Only Tonight", but we are undeterred; after all, Sharleen is a "dykon'' in a boiler suit, and my shoes are certainly sensible. But a big, bald man stops us at entry. "No women," he says, shortly. Sharpen argues; her female friends have been in before. No luck. We try chatting up some arriving punters, to no avail. Sharleen doesn't resort to "do you know who I am?", but you'd think they would: she played the London Astoria's self-explanatory G-A-Y a week-and-a-half ago, and was recently featured in gay magazine Boyz. She tries again. The big, bald man says bigly, baldly: "Go away." Curses! Thwarted. "Goes to show that you can be as famous as you like and it's not a passport to everywhere," shrugs Sharpen. "Shall we go back to mine? I'll get my boyfriend to strip." We do; he, thankfully, doesn't. And, chat-chat-chatting in her big comfy kitchen, the plasma screen playing MTV with the sound down, Misty's toys strewn across the floor, you understand why Sharpen attracts cool people. It's hardly sensational but, the simple facts are: Sharpen Spiteri is talented, hilarious, and the sexiest night out you can have when everyone keeps their clothes on.

[mrsrcbinscn]

BDRPWriMo Task #6 - 10 Short-Short Stories

Task #6: Write ten short-short stories of no more than a paragraph long.

Franny Robinson’s musical influences; ten interview quotes about other musicians and singers that she says inspire her work

i. Jenny Lewis

“I dunno, there’s just-” Robinson paused and with her palms flat up, made claws with her hands as she searched for the words. “-something so honest about Jenny. I had the honor of performing with her once and I was just in awe. I think I have a little bit of a crush on her. I was first introduced to her work in 2001 by a great friend of mine from college, Dani Weiss [currently a member of the American-Canadian newgrass band The Weepy Willows]. We were...going on a little trip -

Q: Acid or shrooms?

“My husband is sitting right there, oh god. Acid. In moderation, I think things like that can be worthwhile experiences. In moderation. We were doing acid in her apartment and listenin’ to music and she [Weiss] put on their album Take Offs and Landings. I was real into it from Go Ahead [the first track]. Which. I always liked chill music when I dropped acid, anything too loud and busy made me anxious. And when the followup, The Execution of All Things came out, it was like - I was like - just like, ‘damn, this woman is amazing.’ Her songwriting ability is just phenomenal and her voice- I feel like I’m sittin’ across from her and she’s tellin’ me stories. There’s- again, the only thing I can think of is this honesty about her.”

ii. Hizuru

“Japan actually has a vibrant history with jazz music, so I’m familiar with a lot of Japanese jazz and have had the honor of working with many talented Japanese jazz musicians. I don’t know very much about Hizuru, actually, other than I love them. I have been experimenting with incorporating traditional Cambodian music with, you know, jazz and other western styles of music. That part of my culture is very important to me, so I want - I want to show the world how beautiful instruments like tro and chapei are. Anyway- I was struggling with a balance of sounds when in 2017 I stumbled upon a Hizuru song called - oh, god, I don’t speak Japanese, so I’ll probably butcher this. The song is called Ushiwakamaru. It is an instrumental piece, as is the entire self-titled album, and the blend of traditional Japanese music and modern jazz on that entire album is perfection. I hope they come out with more soon, I am hungry for more, truly.”

iii. Ella Fitzgerald 

Q: Of the early jazz vocalists, who inspires you the most?

“Oh my god, Ella Fitzgerald. Well - mm, no, absolutely her, no question. I am by no means implying I live up to her standard, in fact I never will, but I have channeled her. Especially in my earlier work when I was a bit more concerned with going what jazz fans want, expect, and love versus taking lessons from those who came before me and building on that with my own ideas, my own voice. If that makes sense? She was classic. It’s Only A Paper Moon was, I think, the first jazz song I heard when I was little. Or, it was the first that really struck me. [laughs] My oldest brother used his birthday money to buy an Ella Fitzgerald album for me on vinyl so I would stop running around the house singing the only lyrics I remembered. I think it was like [singing]- Say, its only a paper moon, sailing over a cardboard sea...and I forgot the rest so I could just repeat cardboard sea like three times.”

iv. Patsy Cline

“I’m from Georgia,” laughs Robinson, running a hand through her hair as she pulls her feet up under her on the chaise lounge in her Swynlake home. “Like, out in the country in Georgia. You couldn’t grow up there in the eighties and not have known who Patsy Cline and Dolly Parton were. Dolly was more, like, relevant and current, but Patsy’s a classic. And as a woman whose natural register is lower myself, I really appreciated being able to sing along decently well without much effort. We don’t - we don’t get to see alto voices in popular music a lot. Pop, even the jazz music that gets a following outside of hardcore jazz fans. Hitting the craziest high notes does seem to be a current trend across the genre spectrum.”

When asked if that was a bad thing, Robinson simply shook her head. “I don’t think it;s positive or negative one way or the other. It’s just an observation.”

v. Ahmad Jamal

“I mean, if you want to talk jazz pianists, you can’t not talk about Ahmad Jamal. On Green Dolphin Street? Autumn Rain? F---, man, leaving him out is criminal. He’s been in the game for five decades, that’s longer than I’ve been alive. I only hope to be on his level. Like, I hear words from his piano. I understand what I’m supposed to be feeling, thinking, or seeing when I listen to his work. And with instrumental music, that’s a challenge. Classical? I struggle to listen to classical music. I think it’s beautiful, and I really respect classical musicians, but unless I’m explicitly aware of what picture this piece is supposed to paint in my head, when I tell a classical expert what a piece makes me feel, they’re usually like ‘ACTUALLY...’

vi. Édith Piaf 

“My father - well, he’s technically my stepfather,” Robinson said, scowling at the word like it was a swear. “But, he adopted me when he married my mother, and my biological father may as well have been a sperm donor. Anyway. My father is from Switzerland, and they have four official languages there. He speaks them all, plus English, plus he learned to speak Khmer when he married my mother. He’s so cool, my dad. He’s from a Francophone-Italophone Swiss family, so I grew up listening to a lot of old French, Italian, and some German music from him. I still don’t speak German and Italian though, [laughs] sorry Dad.”

“We listened to Édith Piaf a lot together. I was very protective of my mother as a child, you know how kids of single moms are? My mom was my superhero and I was used to American men thinking they had a right to touch her because she was just a poor foreign woman who owned a restaurant. So when my future dad started hanging around, I hated him. But he was determined to make me like him so I’d let him marry my mother, and he’d take me for ice cream and play Édith Piaf cassettes in the car. He’d tell me about what the love songs meant, and didn’t tell me about the songs that weren’t, and told me the love songs are how he felt about my mother. He was like, ‘Dara-’ my legal first name is Darareaksmey, it’s Khmer. My parents usually calls me ‘Dara.’ ‘Dara, if you let me, I’ll be good to your mother, and to you.’ I eventually got tired of him begging me to marry my mom so I let him. [laughs]

I asked if she ever regretted giving him her blessing.

“No, never. He’s my dad, and the two boys he brought into the marriage are my older brothers. I’m my Swiss grandparents’ only granddaughter, so they spoiled me even from Switzerland. No, we’re family.”

vii. Dolores O'Riordan

Interview date, 26th of January, 2018

Q: Let’s talk about something I just found out about you from your Twitter feed the other day.

A: Oh, no, should I tell my husband to cover his ears?

Q: No, it’s rated H for Husband. 

A: Excellent.

Q: You’re a huge fan of Dolores O’Riordan. Which, I wouldn’t have guessed. But on the day the tragic news of her passing broke, you Tweeted out a tribute to her including ffive meet and greet pictures of the two of you together- the first, correct me if I’m wrong, is from 1994?

A: Yes, yes I had actually seen then the year prior, when I was thirteen, but ‘94 was the first time I could afford a backstage package with my babysitting money. The other four are from 1999, 2002, 2010, and 2016. I loved The Cranberries, they were the first concert I dragged my husband to when we were dating.

Q: Safe to say you’ve been a hardcore fan for-

A: Two and a half decades, yeah. Yeah, The Cranberries are one of my all time favorites. Dolores O’Riordan’s voice was...everything.

Q: You’re a jazz artist, primarily. What’s consistently drawn you to The Cranberries?

A: [laughs] Other than being a teenager in the 90′s? I mean, her voice. She changed the game for what it meant to be a female vocalist in rock music. And up until my second year at NYU, I wasn’t sure where I was going with music. I loved rock, I loved jazz, I was into R&B, I loved bluegrass. I sang in several bands in high school and college, and The Cranberries were usually on the setlist. Her voice was amazing. I idolized her as a young vocalist, even if I ended up gravitating toward a different genre.

Q: You uploaded a cover of Dreams with Irish alt-rock singer and guitarist Padraig Chen, and Irish indie musician Siobhán Walsh as well. How did that collaboration come about?

A: Padraig’s been a friend of mine for a long time; we met through a mutual friend who is also an Asian-diaspora musician in the UK and Ireland and it was a match made in music heaven. We’ve collaborated a lot. Siobhán is a friend of Pat’s, and we all looked up to Dolores, so we just got together and made our little tribute to her.

viii. Badi Assad

“I was first introduced to bossa nova...probably during my sophomore year of college. Her voice is like butter, but frankly, that’s not the most interesting thing about her. She combines traditional jazz, bossa nova, other Latin music elements, and traditional Middle Eastern sounds. Anything that is a marriage of different tastes and cultures is interesting to me, and when its done as well as she does it? Forget it. She is one of the best jazz and jazz-adjacent guitarists out there today. I really admire her. I hope to perform with her one day, it’s genuinely a dream of mine.”

ix. Ros Serey Sothea

“One of my most unexpected musical influences...well, I don’t - I don’t think she’s so much unexpected, as any of my following outside of my small Cambodian or Khmer-American following won’t have ever heard of. Ros Serey Sothea is one of the most important singer in Khmer popular music history, she’s called the Golden Voice. My mother would sing her songs to me as a child, whichever of them she could remember. Under the Khmer Rogue, which my mother survived, something like 90% of Cambodia’s artists, dancers, musicians, and singers died or were executed. She was one of them. And my mother’s favorite singer. Most of the master recordings from her and other singers like Pen Ran and Sinn Sisamouth were destroyed by the Khmer Rogue, so whatever recordings we do have of Khmer rock and roll from that era are so, so vital to preserve and keep record of. Even though I am a jazz music educator, at my lower level, more generic classes where I have the wiggle room to do so, I talk about Khmer music of the 60s and early 70s for a class because I feel so strongly about the legacy of this music.”

“I went on a tangent,” Robinson said apologetically. “Where was I? Oh, Ros Serey Sothea. Right, so her voice was just-” Robinson put her arms out to her side and swayed to the imaginary music in her head. “-you could just kind groove like this to only her voice, nothing else needed. Her voice danced on top of the backing band. My mother managed to get her hands on some records, her siblings who remained in Cambodia sent some to us and her other siblings who were resettled, in the mid-eighties. So, I was six or seven before I heard my first Khmer song from a record player or a cassette instead of my mother’s voice, even though she’d been singing to me since I was born. These songs are still incredibly important to Cambodians today, and diaspora as well.”

I asked her if that had anything to do with the semi-viral success of her recent  cover of 70′s singer Sieng Vannthy’s ‘Console Me’. 

“Oh, for sure.” Robinson said.  "It’s the first time I professionally recorded a song in Khmer, a lot of people were surprised I spoke the language.”

x. Dolly Parton

“Okay, Dolly probably has less of an influence on my music than my persona, I’ll be honest. But her music means so much to me. At my wedding, during toasts, my mother mortified me by throwin’ in video footage of my first ever live performance from ‘89. Little nine-year-old Franny was on stage in little secondhand cowboy boots, this horribly 80s lookin’ frilly dress, my hair in little twin braids, singin’ and dancin’ to Why’d You Come In Here Lookin’ Like That. To this day, my husband still brings that up.”

Q: How do you mean Dolly Parton influenced your persona?

“Great question. So, our origins are similar. Kind of. She grew up poor one of twelve children, I grew up poor, one of three. My family eventually was lucky enough to make it out of the poverty I was born into but we were still always poor, you know? Like. I remember my mom rationing her food so I could eat enough until that stopped when I was about seven and my mom didn’t have to make a meal for herself last two meals.  And we’re both from the American South.”

“I grew up on Dolly. She’s the queen of our people [laughs] and I’m not even being facetious. We love her. Can’t get enough of her. And I include myself in that; Dolly Parton is an icon. She is unashamed of who she is and where she comes from, which really struck a chord with me. As the American-born daughter of a refugee, I was always caught between two cultures. Am I Cambodian, am I American? Which can I claim? My mother taught to me my Cambodian culture, our Vietnamese friends taught me about Vietnamese culture, but my white father was from Switzerland so I didn’t learn to be American until school. That’s when I started droppin’ my G’s, sayin’ y’all and ain’t, and asking my parents to make grits for breakfast when they’d never eaten them before in their immigrant lives. I wanted so badly to just be seen as American, to be seen as just a girl from Georgia. If it weren’t for my mother refusing to let me speak English to her at home I would have lost my Khmer. She spoke English just fine, but English was for Out There.”

“My mom taught me to be proudly Cambodian, but I’m not just Cambodian, right? I mean, I’m biracial, sure. But more importantly, I’m bi-cultural. I’m not just Cambodian, I’m American - Southern, if we wanna get real specific. Both of my cultures are vibrant, and beautiful, and are equally important to me. My mom taught me not to be ashamed to be the daughter of a refugee - she didn’t get into specifics until I was older, but she was always made it clear she had Been Through Some Shit and could handle anything. Even now, when I go through something difficult I just tell myself, ‘Mom survived genocide, you can do whatever this is.’ I knew how to be proudly Cambodian, I knew how to wear traditional dress to nice events, and wear Khmer wedding clothes for my wedding instead of a white dress. But I didn’t know how to embrace this other part of myself - because wasn’t raised in the default Middle America. Even my American side is a type of odd culture, isn’t it?

Dolly Parton taught me not to be ashamed of the other half of where I came from. She is unapologetic about bein’ who she is. She is proud of where she came from. And I want to be the Dolly Parton of my rural Georgia town. My identities as Cambodian and Georgian are more important to be than my identity as, like, an American person in general. I want people to think, ‘that’s a Georgia woman’ when they think of me, just like you look at Dolly and say ‘that’s a Appalachian girl’ before you just go ‘oh, she’s American.’

[hetmusic]

TMR TALKS TO...WWWATER | The Most Radicalist

In this interview feature, we get to know the most radicalist up and coming stars on the planet.     This time we speak with Belgian wunderkind WWWater. Early last year, Belgian-French artist Charlotte Adigéry caught our attention with a new project - WWWater. A musical lifetime thanks to her family meant that performing and singing was nothing new to the artist, and after forming a band and contributing to many others, the path was well underway for the young talent. It wasn’t until a magical encounter with a waterfall in Martinique (a place that forms part of Adigéry’s familial heritage), that WWWater as we know it emerged. There’s no doubt a spiritual, otherworldly quality to the genreless sound in tracks like ‘Pink Letters’ and ‘WWWater’, from the artist’s debut EP, La Falaise. More recently, Charlotte Adigéry has been on tour with the fantastical Glasgow band Young Fathers, performing a couple of her old tracks, but mostly treating audiences to new sounds in a high-octane, punk showcase. Anyone who’s seen WWWater live will have had their appetites whet for the next load of music, sure to be even more creative and true to the heart and soul of this effervescent musician.

TMR: Hey Charlotte, how are you? You’re currently on tour supporting Young Fathers, how has the experience been so far? Hiya! Couldn’t be better! I have been living on a cloud since the tour with Young Fathers. The band and crew received us so well and they apparently picked us to do the support very thoughtfully. It’s been a match made in heaven and I’m very grateful to be part of this adventure. And the UK audience is a dream. Such warmth and support... TMR: There’s a shared sparsity, hidden depth and spiritual presence in both yours and Young Fathers' music, but where does this sound originate for you? Happy that state comes across in our music as well! I found that music helps me tune into what matters most for me, being only here and now and connecting with people beyond the ego. That’s where I go to when I’m on stage, it’s easier for me to channel into that on stage than anywhere else actually. I try to stay as self-unaware as possible so I can tune into where making music comes from for me. From a gut-feeling. Plus the stories in my music are mostly autobiographical concepts that I explore; call it soul-searching, for lack of a better word. TMR: Speaking of origins, some listeners may have first come across you via Soulwax’s Belgica, which featured your track ‘The Best Thing’. How did that collaboration come about? Felix van Groeningen, the director of Belgica asked Stephen and David Dewaele to make the soundtrack to the film. During that time they were looking for someone to interpret one of their songs in the film, so I was supposed to lipsync a Microkorg-sung lead vocal. I was already super excited to feature in the film without any real musical contribution, but then Felix decided he wanted a more vulnerable, emotional ending so he asked Stephen and David to write a song that would fit the new ending. The brothers asked me because they’d heard from people that I was a good singer (their words!) and so we tried out some things and I ended up interpreting their song. TMR: Had you been making music for a while prior for that? How did you first get into making music? Yes, I had. When I was 18 I started a band with some friends and family, it was funky pop and we spent infinite hours in the cellar of my cousin’s house to rehearse. I always felt the music-virus but when I started with this band, I felt it was something that was going to stay for life. My mom sings as well so I always loved singing, it was like another way of communicating between us. We sang and danced a lot at home. She learned me how to sing in harmony for example... After my first band I started to say 'yes' to everybody who needed a singer in their band. I did reggae, blues, dance, and so on… Until I ended up singing with two popular Belgian acts and I felt like I had my own story to tell. That’s how WWWater was born. TMR: Like yourself, Soulwax is a Belgian based project, who are some of your other favourite acts from the country? Soulwax is absolutely amazing, we had the honour to do some support shows for them with my DEEWEE release (made with Bolis Pupul). I’ve seen the show quite a bit but I still cannot sit/stand still whenever they’re playing. They transcend any geographical border, they make universal music. I really love ALL the artists they collaborate with on DEEWEE, as for my compatriots Boris Pupul, Asa Moto and The Future Sound of Antwerp are masterpieces waiting to be discovered by the masses. I love Hong Kong Dong for their playfulness and exquisite taste. I love Hiatus, a hardcore band from Liège, I love Joy Wellboy, The Germans, Raketkanon, Tristan, Beraadgeslagen and... so many more. TMR: Belgium has such a rich and varied music scene, what do you think the secret is there? Belgium is a rather new country, they were part of The Netherlands until 1839, so I feel like we are still in the creation of a national identity. You could compare musical Belgium to a studious and curious 20-year old…  There’s a certain playful exploration in the musical landscape of Belgium, but it’s hard to speak about a Belgian sound. We still need to grow out of making what already exists. And tell our own story. Ours can be as exciting! Jacques Brel was well aware of that! I also feel like there’s a place for all kinds of arts in Belgium. Art seems fairly democratic, from my perspective. We have cultural centers in every town and village, music contests, a LOT of festivals and you can study arts for free! But we’re still working on including the ‘new Belgians’ in that landscape… Although a lot of platforms try their best to do so. TMR: Although of Belgian nationality, you also have Martinique and Guadeloupe heritage. Do you also take inspiration from these cultures in your songwriting? I actually have the French identity but always lived in Belgium, yes. I do, more and more. These two countries have such a rich musical identity. We have Zouk, Biguine, lent Kompa from the Haitians etc. We suffered the same history as the Afro-Americans, which a lot of today’s music comes from. It is such a rich source of inspiration and I’ve inherited that gut-related connection to music from my family. We spent hours singing and dancing together, my aunts encouraging the younger cousins to perform for them, to Shabba Ranks and Edith Piaf. TMR: Your first single under WWWater was the prayer-like, alternative dance track ‘WWWater’. How was the initial reception of the debut? I tried not to get too self-conscious again about how people would receive it. It was my first EP and I feel like I’m learning so much about myself and my musical identity by putting myself out there and playing live, so I see the first EP as a first little chapter in a long story. The music I make now has evolved a lot, it’s rougher, dirtier and has new dimensions to it. I hope people liked the EP off course but I mostly hope they keep their ears open for what’s coming next. TMR: Following on from that, we had ‘Pink Letters’, a gentler song with an important message as portrayed in the music video. Does living in the present and cherishing your friends and family help to keep you grounded? Yes! Friendship, love and self-love keep me grounded. TMR: Both of those tracks feature on your debut EP, La Falaise, released last September. Have any of the EP songs become your favourite to play live? ‘Mine Yours’ and ‘WWWater’ still make a lot of sense to me. ‘Mine Yours’ sounds innate and natural. ‘WWWater’ contains all the elements I was exploring at that time. The samples, the simple but effective voices. We only play those two live now, all the other songs are new. TMR: Where your sound is arguably most different is on ‘Mine Yours’, with those electronic and vocal loops, soothing guitars frets and your pure voice, What does this song mean to you? I felt so free of any inspirational blockage when I made that song. I didn’t have any intentions making it, I was just having fun and I realise that that’s when my music sounds best. The lyrics tell the story of an Italian couple who immigrated to Belgium to work in the coal mines (+/- 250,000 Italians did immigrate to Belgium after WWII to work in the coal and steel industry.) They worked so hard to have a new and better life, that they lost the most precious they shared. TMR: It’s almost been half a year since the EP, so what’s next for WWWater? We’re going to release a single marking the new sound and dimensions of WWWater in May. Then we’re going to focus on our live shows and make the best show we can for the festivals. After summer I’m going to start writing the album. See how far I get by myself!

http://www.themostradicalist.com/features/tmr-talks-to-wwwater/

[illneverrecover]

the biggest tag ever

@joz-stankovich tagged me in this because they are so sweet and kind, bless.

THE LAST:

1. DRINK:  water, I’m lame. 2. PHONE CALL:  today at work, I call patients all day long. Last personal call was to the doc for my kid. 3. TEXT MESSAGE: my last text was to a group text with my husband and our two friends - “We still bringing yeungling to Denver though, right??” (We leave for Denver Comic Con on Thursday morning and Yeungling is a good ass beer, ok???) 4. SONG YOU LISTENED TO:  Black Sheep  - Metric 5. TIME YOU CRIED: Oh god, probably two days ago or so? HAVE YOU: -6. DATED SOMEONE TWICE:  yes, then I married him, so it worked out alright. 7. KISSED SOMEONE AND REGRETTED IT: eh, not really?  8. BEEN CHEATED ON: yes 9. LOST SOMEONE SPECIAL: Yeah - my husband’s granny passed away last year, and we were super close. She always supported us even when we were young and dumb, and inspired me to become a nurse so she is missed immensely. 10. BEEN DEPRESSED: yes 11. GOTTEN DRUNK AND THROWN UP: ugh yes, though its been quite some time since that’s happened (thank god)

LIST 3 FAVORITE COLORS:

12-14: purple, black, red

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU:

15. MADE NEW FRIENDS: Yes! I’ve made so many awesome friends through tumblr and mystic messenger, it’s kind of crazy and I love it. 16. FALLEN OUT OF LOVE: no 17. LAUGHED UNTIL YOU CRIED: Yes, so many times, most recently yesterday. My husband took me on a date to celebrate our dating anniversary (13 years we’ve been together, wtf) and was being stupid in Target and I couldn’t handle it 18. FOUND OUT SOMEONE WAS TALKING ABOUT YOU: yeah, but that stuff doesn’t really bother me. 19. MET SOMEONE WHO CHANGED YOU: Yes - in the last year, I met my daughter, and she’s changed me the most. 20. FOUND OUT WHO YOUR FRIENDS ARE: I mean, I’ve always known. There are a few people I’m not as close with but I wouldn’t say we aren’t still friends. Life happens. 21. KISSED SOMEONE ON YOUR FACEBOOK LIST: Yes, I kiss my husband daily (I can almost hear @feelsgood-anon saying GAAAAAAAAY) 

GENERAL:

22. HOW MANY OF YOUR FACEBOOK FRIENDS DO YOU KNOW IN REAL LIFE:  All of them. I don’t use FB as much as I used to but I keep it pretty private. 23. DO YOU HAVE ANY PETS: a cat Harlow, and two corgis - Eevee & Winry. 24. DO YOU WANT TO CHANGE YOUR NAME:  I’ve never been a huge fan of my name but I’m used to it, I don’t even know what I would change it to. 25. WHAT DID YOU DO FOR YOUR LAST BIRTHDAY: Every year for my birthday, God blesses me with a new Star Wars movie (seriously, they either come out near or on my birthday - December 15th) so it usually evolves going to see those. Last year we saw Rouge One & I also did a Krampus Pub Crawl and it was awesome. 26. WHAT TIME DID YOU WAKE UP: 11:30 pm, 12:40 am, 1:30 am, 4:00 am, and then for good at 6:33 am (thanks a lot, tiny human). 27. WHAT WERE YOU DOING AT MIDNIGHT LAST NIGHT: Sleeping, I’m an old ass woman. 28. NAME SOMETHING YOU CAN’T WAIT FOR: I’m so excited for Denver Comic Con this weekend! A week away from work in a different city, dressing up and nerding out with my friends. It’s gonna be dope. 29. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU SAW YOUR MOM: December. I live across the country from my family. 30. WHAT IS ONE THING YOU WISH YOU COULD CHANGE IN YOUR LIFE: Oh god, I’m really not sure? I wish I could spend more time doing things that I love and figuring out myself, I guess. 31. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING RIGHT NOW: I am watching The Bachelorette because I have a trash kink and I enjoy screaming about it weekly with @zombolouge 32. HAVE YOU EVER TALKED TO A PERSON NAMED TOM: My first crush was on a kid named Tommy if that counts. 33. SOMETHING THAT IS GETTING ON YOUR NERVES: Work being stupid. 34. MOST VISITED WEBSITE: Tumblr, AO3, my email, reddit. 35. MOLE/S: I don’t have any, just some freckles. 36. MARK/S: I have a scar from an ice skate (lmao true story) on my wrist, two surgical scars (one on each wrist) from my carpal tunnel surgery, a c-section scar, a scar on my knee from a door jam, and numerous tattoos and piercings. 37. CHILDHOOD DREAM: A singer who ONLY sang slow songs. Obviously. 38. HAIRCOLOR: Right now, it’s bright red again (yaaaassss). Naturally, I’m poop brown. 39. LONG OR SHORT HAIR: In general, or mine? Mine’s medium ish I guess. 40. DO YOU HAVE A CRUSH ON SOMEONE: Saeyoung, Jumin, Zen, Masamune, & @serensama 41. WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF: I like to think I’m funny and I’m fun to be around? Physically probably my eyes. 42. PIERCINGS: my ears & my nose. 43. BLOODTYPE: B+!!! 44. NICKNAME: Jackie is a nickname, haha. My real name is Jacqueline. Other than that? Jack, Kiki, JG, Nurse, Hey you, Have you ever seen that show Nurse Jackie?, Babe, Mama, Babes, other inappropriate names my husband gives me. 45. RELATIONSHIP STATUS: married 46. ZODIAC: Sagittarius & Dragon 47. PRONOUNS: she/her 48. FAVORITE TV SHOW: I recently just finished The Handmaids Tale, Seraph of the End, and American Gods, they were awesome. Game of Thrones, Westworld, Stranger Things, and so many anime that I probably shouldn’t list.

49. TATTOOS: I have 7 - a huge shoulder/back lace piece, a sugar skull & French phrase on my back, a sparrow on my chest, a tree of life on my hip, a shooting star on left foot, and a phrase in Italian on my right foot. I need mooooooreeee 50. RIGHT OR LEFT HAND: right 51. SURGERY: bilateral carpal tunnel surgery bc I’m an old ass birch, c-section, wisdom teeth removal. 52. HAIR DYED IN DIFFERENT COLOR: My hair has been every color, haha. I’ve been dying it since I was 13. Brown, Blonde, Red, Pink, Purple, Blue, Orange/copper, combinations of all of those. 53. SPORT: I like watching football, hockey & baseball 55. VACATION: I’ve been on a bunch throughout my life all over, though my most recent favorite was my trip to Mexico with husband & friends after his most recent deployment. 56. PAIR OF TRAINERS: I legit couldn’t think what trainers were?? why am I so stupid??? Probably my grey chucks.

MORE GENERAL:

57. EATING: dick. I mean... what? 58. DRINKING: nothing, currently. 59. I’M ABOUT TO: fart around on tumblr, catch up on AO3 61. WAITING FOR: Wednesday to be over with, so I can get ready for my long weekend and Denver! 62. WANT: uhhhh a million dollars? not to work tomorrow?  A PONY. 

63. GET MARRIED: I already did, hopefully won’t need to do that again 64. CAREER: I am a Registered Nurse & BSN and I currently work in a Gastroenterology & Hepatology clinic.

WHICH IS BETTER

65. HUGS OR KISSES: I love hugs but there is just something special about kisses. 66. LIPS OR EYES: eyes 67. SHORTER OR TALLER: I’m pretty fucking short, so I need someone taller to reach all of the things. 68. OLDER OR YOUNGER: eh, I don’t really care. 70. NICE ARMS OR NICE STOMACH: oooooh arms 71. SENSITIVE OR LOUD: I like both. 72. HOOK UP OR RELATIONSHIP: I’m a relationship kinda gal. 73. TROUBLEMAKER OR HESITANT: I’m a well known troublemaker, woops.

HAVE YOU EVER:

74. KISSED A STRANGER: No. Well, kind of? I kissed a girl who I didn’t realize I knew but apparently we went to high school together. 75. DRANK HARD LIQUOR: of course, probably more than I should. 76. LOST GLASSES/CONTACT LENSES: Not my glasses but I’ve totally lost contacts and it suuuucks 77. TURNED SOMEONE DOWN: yup 78. SEX IN THE FIRST DATE: No 79. BROKEN SOMEONE’S HEART: Yes, though it was never intentional :/ 80. HAD YOUR HEART BROKEN: yes. 81. BEEN ARRESTED: nooooo 82. CRIED WHEN SOMEONE DIED: of course 83. FALLEN FOR A FRIEND: yes, this is how most of my relationships started.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN:

84. YOURSELF: on occasion 85. MIRACLES: sometimes 86. LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT: No. I like the idea? But not realistically. 87. SANTA CLAUS: No, though my dad had us fooled FOR YEARS. He even got us gold buttons with the initials ‘SC’ on them and said they were from Santa. He was a sneaky bastard. 88. KISS IN THE FIRST DATE: sure? I haven’t been on a date with not my husband since I was 15 soooooo 89. ANGELS: Of course, it’s the only way I can describe some of the cherubs I’ve met through here.

OTHER:

90. CURRENT BEST FRIENDS NAME: I have many different people that I would consider my best friends that I talk to daily, but if I had to pick one, It’d be my husband probably - Aulin. 91. EYE COLOR: green! 92. FAVORITE MOVIE: Too many to name, once again (i’m awful at picking favorites) but Howl’s Moving Castle & The Princess Brides are two classics.

This thing is a BEAST so I won’t tag anyone - if you are interesting in doing this, consider this your tag! 

[sunwisher-blog]

Celine Dion – Power of the Dream

Celine Dion – Power of the Dream

Call 1-855-637-4055 for our Psychic line as low as 66¢/min lyrics: Deep within each heart There lies a magic spark That lights the fire of our imagination And since the dawn of man The strength of just ‘I can’ Has brought together people of all nations There’s nothin’ ordinary in the living of each day There’s a special part everyone of us will play Feel the flame forever burn Teaching lessons we must learn To bring us closer to the power of the dream As the world gives us it’s best To stand apart from all the rest It is the power of the dream that brings us here Your mind will take you far the rest is just your heart you’ll find your fate is all your own creation And every boy and girl as they come into this world Bring the gift of hope and inspiration The world unites in hope and peace We pray that it will always be It is the power of the dream that brings us here There’s so much strength in all of us Every woman,child,and man It’s the moment that you think you can’t you’ll discover that you can The power of the dream Faith in things unseen Courage to embrace your fears No matter where you are To reach for your own star To realize the power of the dream To realize the power of the dream….. About Celine Dion: Céline Marie Claudette Dion, was born in 1968, the youngest of 14 children. Early in childhood, she sang with her siblings in a small club owned by her parents. From these early experiences, Celine Dion gained the know-how to performing live. At the age of 12, Dion composed a song in her native French and sent it to a record company, where it garnered the attention of René Angélil, a respected manager and her future husband. Angélil believed in Céline so much that he actually mortgaged his house in order to finance her debut album. Already very popular and successful internationally, Céline Dion burst onto the U.S. stage when she recorded the theme song to Disney’s hit Beauty and the Beast (1991). In 1990 she released the English-language album Unison, establishing herself as a viable pop artist in North America and other English-speaking areas of the world. Céline Dion‘s music has been influenced by genres ranging from rock and R&B to gospel and classical. Her main singing languages are French and English, but she also sings in Spanish, Italian, German, Latin, Japanese and Mandarine Chinese. While her releases have often received mixed critical reception, she is renowned for her technically skilled and powerful vocals. About Power of the Dream By Celine Dion: “The Power of the Dream” was written and produced by David Foster, Linda Thompson, and Babyface for the opening ceremonies of the 1996 Summer Olympics. Dion performed it in front of more than 100,000 people, in addition to over three and a half billion television viewers. She gave away the money she received for the occasion, to support Canadian athletes. Dion’s status on the world stage was further solidified when she was asked to perform “The Power of the Dream” at the opening ceremonies of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. About Other Songs By Celine Dion: “I’m Alive” is an uplifting midtempo song, where Celine Dion declares she is alive, fulfilled as a mother, and “in love.” It became a worldwide hit, hitting top 10 in many countries. It was certified platinum in Belgium (50,000) and gold in France (250,000). The album À l’Olympia (meaning At the Olympia) was recorded on September 28 and 29, 1994, during two sold-out concerts at the Paris Olympia. Among songs from singer’s previous French album Dion chante Plamondon, Céline Dion performed also “Calling You,” (Academy Award nominated song from Bagdad Café), “Quand on n’a que l’amour” (originally by Jacques Brel), and a medley of songs from the Starmania musical, including two songs unavailable on Dion previous releases. Click here to return to positive music list Read the full article

[mexicaneurolover]

Eurovision 2017 my top 42

Hello, and welcome to another episode of this ESC tops series, as I go back to May 9, 11 and 13, 2017, when the 62nd edition of the contest was held in Kiev, Ukraine, the second time the contest was held in this country. 42 countries took part this year, while Romania and Portugal returned to the competition, Bosnia and Herzegovina withdrew and Russia, which originally selected a song, withdrew because of problems with a travel ban because she visited Crimea without permission, so there were some problems with her, and they decided not to participate, and that singer was Julia Samoylova, with a nice song but I think they only delayed the thing that was going to happen in 2018... Anyway, the contest was won by Portugal and Salvador Sobral with the song Amar pelos dois, which marked the first time they won the contest after 53 years of their debut. And now, let’s review the songs. 

1st Place: PORTUGAL/Salvador Sobral-Amar pelos dois (Real Placing: 1st-758 points) 

THIS IS A MAGICAL SONG, this entry is full of melancholy and his voice is so beautiful, the music is stunning and simple and the lyrics are so sad, I usually don’t cry while listening to a song but this always makes me cry, the day of the semi I was so astonished by this song, and I thought this was the best entry Portugal ever sent to the contest and this was an opportunity for them to take their first ever win, AND IT HAPPENED BY A LANDSLIDE, a very beautiful song and a very deserving victory. 

2nd Place: BELGIUM/Blanche-City lights (Real Placing: 4th-363 points) 

This entry is pure perfection, the music is so hypnotic, the lyrics are good, and I completely adore her voice, because it’s very deep, I thought this was going to flop but it did so well and I was happy. The performance is simple but it was what this song needed, also the music video is perfect. I love Blanche so much and it’s one of my fave singers ever. 

3rd Place: ITALY/Francesco Gabbani-Occidentali’s karma (Real Placing: 6th-334 points) 

I remember being crazy about this song when it won San Remo, I love his voice, it’s so raspy, also he’s handsome and the music is so happy and positive, the lyrics are so genius as well, so I thought this was going to be a runaway winner, but the final performance was a bit empty, so I think this was the reason why it finished below the expected, still it’s one of my favorite Italian entries ever. NAMASTE. 

4th Place: BULGARIA/Kristian Kostov-Beautiful mess (Real Placing: 2nd-615 points) 

When I first heard this song I wasn’t amazed by this, but then it started to grow on me and I had this on my fave list, also I thought this was going to win the whole thing, the music is so nice, his voice is stunning and I loved the staging, a very well deserved 2nd place, and an excellent result for a country I never thought before 2016 was going to reach the top 3. I LOVE THIS. 

5th Place: MOLDOVA/Sunstroke Project-Hey, mamma! (Real Placing: 3rd-374 points) 

THEY’RE BACK WITH AN AMAZING ENTRY, this is very nice, I love the music so much, they are wonderful on stage, the performance was so memorable and it’s one of those entries you can’t resist to dance along with it. Also, EPIC SAX GUY again made me feel so happy, a very deserved 3rd place and I was happy for them because they gave Moldova their best result ever. 

6th Place: FYR MACEDONIA/Jana Burčeska-Dance alone (Real Placing: 15th SF2-69 points)  

Another one of the biggest robberies in the contest, the music here was so retro and beautiful, I loved her voice because she’s so sweet and maybe the performance was so flat and the running order didn’t help either, but still this entry is an absolute banger and it surely deserved a place in the final. PLEASE GIVE FYROM A DECENT STAGING. 

7th Place: SWITZERLAND/Timebelle-Apollo (Real Placing: 12th SF2-97 points) 

I’m so sad about this song, I was rooting so hard for this one since they won the NF and I was so sure they were going to reach the final, the music is lovely, her voice is beautiful and despite the performance, this song has a lot of potential, and I was so angry when this wasn’t in the final, and I must admit this remains one of the biggest robberies ever in the contest. I’LL FOLLOW YOU APOLLO. 

8th Place: SWEDEN/Robin Bengtsson-I can’t go on (Real Placing: 5th-344 points) 

Hey Robin, this song was my fave in Melodifestivalen 2017 and I was so happy when it won, this has an amazing feeling to it and the performance is so good and nice, also he has a very good voice and I’m so in love with him, of course this song deserved the top 5, it’s so cool and slick. 

9th Place: AZERBAIJAN/Dihaj-Skeletons (Real Placing: 14th-120 points) 

This entry is mysterious, dark and i like it so much, I remember waking up and listening to this song for the first time, and I fell in love with the song, at the contest the performance was a bit weird but interesting, and she had a nice voice, I thought this was top 10 material but it failed, and I was a bit disappointed, but I’ll always enjoy this song.  

10th Place: FRANCE/Alma-Requiem (Real Placing: 12th-135 points) 

Wooooo France serving quality two years in a row, this is a perfect French entry for me, she’s so cute, the music has a very special touch and she has a lovely voice, and I fell in love with the performance, but I was so sad about the result because I think this song deserved so much more. 

11th Place: BELARUS/Naviband-Story of my life (Real Placing: 17th-83 points) 

Another beautiful and cheerful song, this entry always take my problems away and replace them with happiness. This is a very beautiful song, they are amazing on stage and this is in Belarusian, a first in the contest and I was so glad they didn’t change it into English. A pretty song from a lovely duo. 

12th Place: ROMANIA/Ilinca & Alex Florea-Yodel it! (Real Placing: 7th-282 points) 

OH THIS SONG IS SO UPLIFTING AND CRAZY AT THE SAME TIME, I remember my best friend and me were crazy about this entry. The music is so good and I love how this song goes to rap from yodel, her voice is so special and I also love his voice, this entry always makes me feel so happy and free. 

13th Place: UNITED KINGDOM/Lucie Jones-Never give up on you (Real Placing: 15th-111 points) 

Why this scored so low with the televote? This was amazing, her voice was flawless, the performance was so beautiful and she’s so stunning, the music was miles better in the new version and I thought this would end in the top 10, because it deserved it, and it was such an improvement compared to later years. 

14th Place: NORWAY/JOWST-Grab the moment (Real Placing: 10th-158 points) 

At first I was cold about this song, but one day I saw it was a very good one, it’s so modern and cool, and Aleksander’s voice is very nice, and I loved the performance so much, it’s so crazy and purple. A very fresh entry and it was a deserved result for them. 

15th Place: CYPRUS/Hovig-Gravity (Real Placing: 21st-68 points) 

This entry is very good, even if it reminds me of another song, but still, Hovig has a nice and stunning voice and the performance is so perfect and wonderful. The music also is nice and pleasant to listen, and I think this deserved a higher score because he did an amazing job. 

16th Place: AUSTRIA/Nathan Trent-Running on air (Real Placing: 16th-93 points)

Seriously 0 points from the televote? THIS IS A VERY LOVELY SONG. He’s such a cutie, the music is so uplifting and the lyrics are beautiful, maybe his voice was shaky but this wasn’t so bad. I loved the staging because it was gorgeous and yeah, this is a cute song as well. 

17th Place: UKRAINE/O.Torvald-Time (Real Placing: 24th-36 points)  

The only rock song that year, and it’s a very nice one, the music is so epic, and the lead singer has an amazing voice, and I laughed so hard at the giant head in the middle of the stage. I love this entry so much and I was so sad when I saw the low result for this song. 

18th Place: HUNGARY/Joci Pápai-Origo (Real Placing: 8th-200 points)  

This entry is like a trip to another dimension lead by a singer with a very beautiful voice, the performance with the dancer is very magical and the music is stunning, I love the chorus because it’s very catchy and I love this entry so much, it’s beautiful. 

19th Place: IRELAND/Brendan Murray-Dying to try (Real Placing: 13th SF2-86 points) 

Another Irish ballad with a singer that has a very special voice, when I first heard this song, I was amazed by it, the music is cute, the lyrics are nice, and the performance on the semi was flawless, and I loved the hot-air balloon, it was a nice detail. I must admit that I thought this song was called Trying to die so I always sang it like that. 

20th Place: GERMANY/Levina-Perfect life (Real Placing: 25th-6 points) 

FINALLY THEY DIDN’T COME LAST! And this is a very lovely song, the music is lovely even if it’s like a song that everybody knows about and the performance was pretty, I loved the staging, her voice was a bit shaky and that ruined this for me, and thank God this finished above Spain. 

21st Place: ALBANIA/Lindita-World (Real Placing: 14th SF1-76 points) 

I was so meh about this song before the contest began, even if I enjoyed the revamp I thought this was so average and flat, but then she released all the power she had in her voice and I was like whoa, and I love the loooong note so much, and I ended up enjoying this entry. 

22nd Place: GREECE/Demy-This is love (Real Placing: 19th-77 points) 

Awww also I was rooting for this song back then, I loved this so much and I was pleased with the lyrics change, they suited the song better, and I loved the music so much, also she’s so beautiful and the performance was lovely, sadly her live voice wasn’t so good and that ruined the song for me, still I like this. 

23rd Place: ISRAEL/IMRI-I feel alive (Real Placing: 23rd-39 points) 

Can I saw how hot this guy is, I FEEL SO ATTRACTED TO HIM, and this song was one of my pre contest favorites, and I thought this was going to do very well, but then I realized that he was so nervous and his voice was a bit bad in the final, and also he performed first which was a disadvantage. Still I love this in studio. 

24th Place: GEORGIA/Tamara Gachechiladze-Keep the faith (Real Placing: 11th SF1-99 points)  

YEEES GIRL, her voice is so powerful and stunning, the music is so epic and I loved the performance so much, she looked like a diva on stage, and I thought this song was going to qualify, even at first I didn’t like the original arrangement, the revamp made this better. A very nice entry indeed. 

25th Place: FINLAND/Norma John-Blackbird (Real Placing: 12th SF1-92 points) 

JUSTICE FOR FINLAND, this song is so beautiful, the music is so dark and charming, her voice is awesome and I loved the performance so much, and I remember crying because they didn’t reach the final, and i still don’t know why this failed to qualify, it’s one of the best Finnish songs of the decade. 

26th Place: MALTA/Claudia Faniello-Breathlessly (Real Placing: 16th SF2-55 points) 

Awww I must admit that this song is very lovely and I liked it since day one, her voice is so amazing and she sang it with a lot of feeling, but the staging was so bad and it ruined the song, anyway I love how this song builds up until the climax. She’s so gorgeous and she did it on the millionth time she tried to represent Malta. 

27th Place: ESTONIA/Koit Toome & Laura-Verona (Real Placing: 14th SF2-85 points)  

One of my biggest shocks that year, even if the song wasn’t very special for me, I thought this had a chance to reach the final because the music is very good and I loved the studio version, sadly live they were lack of chemistry, their didn’t sound so well, which is weird because they are amazing singers, and the performance was a bit dull, also what’s with his staring? 

28th Place: CZECH REPUBLIC/Martina Bárta-My turn (Real Placing: 13th SF1-83 points) 

Awwww this song is so lovely as well, her voice is amazing and the music is very cute, I always liked this song and I must say is a guilty pleasure as well, even I knew it didn’t had a chance to reach the final, the performance is very horrible because of that suit, but her voice was on point. One day I’ll audition for a talent show with this song. 

29th Place: SAN MARINO/Valentina Monetta & Jimmie Wilson-Spirit of the night (Real Placing: 18th SF2-1 point/last) 

I admit this is a very unpopular opinion, but I’M SO CRAZY ABOUT THIS SONG, the music is so retro and it’s lovely, they are amazing singers and I love their voices so much, also extra points for queen Valentina, sadly this performance was so flat and I was so sad about it. JUSTICE FOR VALENTINA. 

30th Place: THE NETHERLANDS/O’G3NE-Lights and shadows (Real Placing: 11th-150 points) 

The three girls with perfect harmonies, seriously, I had eargasms every time I heard this song, they sing like angels, the song is very cute and I love the fact it was dedicated to their mother is so lovely, it’s an average song but it’s so amazing, I like it. 

31st Place: LATVIA/Triana Park-Line (Real Placing: 18th SF1-21 points/last)

This song was one of my favorites before the contest began, and I was 100% sure this was going into the final, the music is perfect, and I loved the song so much, but then the live performance came, her voice wasn’t so pleasant, and the performance was so weird, but this coming last in the semi was so unexpected, still I enjoy the studio version. 

32nd Place: CROATIA/Jacques Houdek-My friend (Real Placing: 13th-128 points) 

When I first listened to this song I was like WTH IS THIS SONG, then the live version came and he has an amazing voice but the song isn’t my cup of tea, it has a lot of elements going on and it’s a bit weird, and when I saw it qualifying I was a bit angry, but I enjoy his voice. 

33rd Place: MONTENEGRO/Slavko Kalezić-Space (Real Placing: 16th SF1-56 points) 

Oh this song is so epic, the music is everything here, the performance was a bit flat and his voice was a bit off key that night, but still this song is quite nice, even if I find it a bit weird somehow. A good song but it was ruined by him. 

34th Place: AUSTRALIA/Isaiah-Don’t come easy (Real Placing: 9th-173 points) 

This entry isn’t that bad but it’s a but mediocre, his voice at first was so good but then the last part came and everything was a chaos, and I can’t forgive him the thing he did in the semi, I was scared. The staging was also bad and I can understand the low televote result. 

35th Place: LITHUANIA/Fusedmarc-Rain of revolution (Real Placing: 17th SF2-42 points) 

This entry is a very weird one, the music is so crazy, the staging is weird and her voice is so interesting and peculiar, but still I find this entry amusing and it’s a bit of a guilty pleasure, even if this never had actually a chance. YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH.  

36th Place: ARMENIA/Artsvik-Fly with me (Real Placing: 18th-79 points) 

This song has a very charming music and the performance is stunning, and she has a very nice voice, but still I think something is missing on this entry, and at the same time I feel so bored in this song, the only part I like it’s the last part because it’s more interesting. 

37th Place: SLOVENIA/Omar Naber-On my way (Real Placing: 17th SF1-36 points) 

This song before the revamp was my last, then it climbed a little bit but I still find this a very boring song, it’s quite forgettable but I thought this had a chance because of the juries, the staging and his voice, which is so awesome, not one of the most memorable Slovenian entries. 

38th Place: POLAND/Kasia Mos-Flashlight (Real Placing: 22nd-64 points)

This song in the studio version is amazing, but here I find her voice so annoying and all over the place, the music is so dark and beautiful, and I don’t hate this song as I did back that year, the performance was also a bit disappointing. 

39th Place: SERBIA/Tijana Bogićević-In too deep (Real Placing: 11th SF2-98 points) 

Ummmmm this isn’t a bad song, but I still think it’s a flat and uninteresting song, I was expecting more of her vocals, but that night she sounded a bit shaky, the music isn’t anything special and I don’t like the chorus, also the performance was boring. 

40th Place: SPAIN/Manel Navarro-Do it for your lover (Real Placing: 26th-5 points/last) 

Behold the famous gallo of Manel, this entry is so uninteresting, and he tried so hard to give a chill boy vibe, his voice is so bad, the music is boring and IMO this is the worst song Spain has ever sent to the contest (I’m still watching you Antonio Carbonell). JUSTICE FOR CONTIGO AND MIRELA. 

41st Place: ICELAND/Svala-Paper (Real Placing: 15th SF1-60 points) 

Speaking of dull songs, I never understood the hype around this song, she has an amazing voice but this song is so boring, the music sounds the same throughout the song and the performance was so flat. Not a very memorable song. 

42nd Place: DENMARK/Anja-Where I am (Real Placing: 20th-77 points) 

I usually love this kind of songs because it’s one of my fave genres, but this entry is so unpleasant for me, I don’t like her voice so much because I think she’s screaming so much, the music is also flat and I always try to like this entry but I hate it more with every listen. 

[usstatesofsong]

Countdown to #Eurovision: Yearly Reviews - 1983

We’re approximately three months away from the next edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, and while we’re waiting for more of the 2017 songs to be released before reviewing them (as we did last year), we’re going to revisit Eurovision song contests from the past and rank our favorites in each contest.

Admittedly, it was grand to know that Germany finally won a contest, after so many successful tries in the past. And this was right around the time that German music was becoming more global, too. The broadcaster sent us packing to Munich, deep in the comfortable Bavarian southlands. What they served up for us, however, became one of two of my most favorite contests – not necessarily because of the music and how fantastically 80’s the contest suddenly became, but because of how it was presented. There’s about one contest per decade where things just don’t pan out, really, and this was the 80′s example.

Marlene Charell, who admittedly did pretty good as a presenter, gave explanation to everything in three different languages – even the voting – and so the contest lasted over three hours. The voting section itself was an hour long. Just painful! Maybe the Germans were trying to show “modern” but this staging is also quite odd – it’s a backdrop of metal bars. That’s it. Sometimes they glow up and stuff… but it does kind of look like everyone’s performing in front of a big electric heater. It’s quirky, and I’ll get into some specifics as we march into the songs themselves. Awkwardly missing from the contest in 1983 were Ireland, who were on strike at the time. Returning to the contest, however, are France, Greece, and Italy. In the Italian and French cases, apparently they decided that being pro-Euro was more important than the musical quality. Bravo!

(Click the titles of the songs below to watch the full-length video tracks.)

1.  FRANCE – Guy Bonnet, “Vivre” (8th place, 56 pts)

For the longest time, with this contest, I had a hard time having any comments or reaction to this song. First off, you may have noticed that France was absent from ’82 – this was at the decision of the broadcaster, and a very unpopular one, so they came back! (Bonne idée.) This song has grown on me over time; it’s a very dark and brooding ballad, and the key strength here is Guy’s vocals. I also really enjoy how the song ‘ends’ on a big, powerful note. This song doesn’t stand out in terms of craziness, but it is one of the better-performed and better-written ballads of the evening.

2. NORWAY – Jahn Teigen & Anita Skorgan, “Do Re Mi” (T-9th place, 53 pts)

Gah! They’re back again! Two years in a row? And they brought Johannes Skorgan with them as conductor – but not really, because Marlene screwed up the announcement of the entry, much to the giggling of the commentators and Sigurd Jansen himself. Well, I give Jahn credit for really going for it. Well, upon first listen you may think you’re listening to some kind of child rhyme. Over time it evolved into what I felt was a really strong pop entry. Schlager and folksy, definitely two of Norway’s strongest suits! And Jahn doesn’t have to hold a microphone this time! Speaking of which, I really do enjoy the key change about two minutes in – this gives the song leverage and power; I take it a bit more seriously. I often go between really liking this song to being too embarrassed to admit getting any enjoyment from this. I suppose it’s generally a cute entry.

3. UNITED KINGDOM – Sweet Dreams, “I’m Never Giving Up” (6th place, 79 pts)

Alright, friends and family. Now we get into the true meat of this contest, and why I love 1983 so dearly. The German efficiency takes another hit – not having the camera on the performers as they start singing?? Okay, I guess I’ll forgive this, too. Britain decided to return to what seemed like a working formula – groups doing dance routines in unique, colorful outfits – and I like this song much more than Bardo. I’m not crazy about the opening “wooahhs” from the three, but the rest of the tune turns it up to a full 10 volume. Their dance routine with the stools is fun to watch, too! And the German audience absolutely erupts in applause at the end of the song – now we’re getting started, huh? Good entry. Very 80’s. Me likey. Poor girl on the right in the yellow has to hold that pose with her foot on the stool at the end of the song, and all it wants to do is slide away… don’t fall!

4. SWEDEN – Carola Häggkvist, “Främling” (3rd place, 126 pts)

Alright, so before she won the 1991 edition of the contest – another crazy edition that I can’t wait to review, and before she triumphantly returned in 2006, Carola participated in the somewhat crazy 1983 contest. German efficieny takes another mighty blow – they forget to turn her microphone on at first, so you don’t hear the first word she sings – the title of the song, Framling. This, my friends, is Sweden’s best entry of the decade. Maybe you can argue 1989 or 1984, but the vocal abilities of Carola at this young age are without fault. I was flabbergasted the first time I watched this performance. She makes it look so easy, and has so much fun while singing it. I don’t understand the outfit and giraffe shirt thing, but that’s literally the only fault I have for this magic. I’ve heard some criticize the song itself, as though it’s two songs combined into one. But I don’t care. It’s a fun pop-disco throwback.

5. ITALY – Riccardo Fogli, “Per Lucia” (T-11th place, 41 pts)

Okay, I know I said we were getting into the true meat of the contest, but I guess I forgot this song existed for a second. There are a couple real knockers coming up, and that is why Italy may become a victim of receiving no points from me despite making the smart choice of returning to the contest. I don’t know, we’ll see. Bienvenuti, Italia! Riccardo is a bit full of himself for this performance, but he performs it perfectly well – no notes out of tune, again! It’s just so hidden; stripped down and flat. There’s nothing to denote it, and that a Eurovision Song Contest winner does not make.

6. TURKEY - Çetin Alp & the Short Waves, “Opera” (T-19th place, 0 pts)

WELL now, Turkey, why must you do anything normal? This is a noteworthy spectacle, folks; a highlight moment in Eurovision history. If you’re reading this, stop everything you’re doing and just watch this. You’ll not regret it. Again, they always seemed to be about 5 years behind the rest of Europe in terms of music – and that applies to this Eurovision entry. It would have worked well in 1978; not in 1983, when the rest of the entries were taken so much more seriously? Or maybe 1980, when there were like two or three countries singing about entertainment industries?  Okay, whatever. Cetin Alp yodels his way to nul points in 1983, and I can’t be bothered to award any pity points to make up for this trash. As someone in the comments section of Youtube put it, “Unlike Spain’s misunderstood entry, I can’t find any redeeming qualities about this one.” C’mon, Turkey, catch up already.

7. SPAIN – Remedios Amaya, "¿Quién maneja mi barca?" (T-19th place, 0 pts)

Okay, folks. I have two guilty pleasures from 1983, and this is one of them. This got me into appreciating underrated songs for what they brought to the overall lore of Eurovision. This is another really stripped-down entry, and the German orchestra really botched the composition of this entry. But miss Remedios, prancing and pointing around the stage in “her grandfather’s bathrobe” and in bare feet, looking (and, yes, sometimes sounding) like she is in pain – it makes me enjoy the exotic and ethnic sounds of European music. How does she not run out of breath?? This song has that kind of bizarre mix from that time period of the 1980’s where, regardless of genre, the music relied so heavily on synthesizers and drum machines. I love this song more than most people do, and I don’t care. Spain will not be getting nul points from me!

8. SWITZERLAND – Mariella Farre, “Io cosi non ci sto” (15th place, 28 pts)

Isn’t it kind of funny that Switzerland, having the German language advantage, sent a song in Italian to the contest? There are things to admire about this, and things to criticize. Although I like the structure of the song and although I like Mariella’s voice, I think she over-sang at times and this is what killed her score. Also she starts begging to the camera like she’s really creating a moment, which irks me a bit; it comes off as fake. Not much else to say about this one. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good song! But there are so many good songs in 1983’s contest.

9. FINLAND - Ami Aspezzzund (I mean, Aspelund), “Fantasiaa” (T-11th place, 41 pts)

Conducted by Ossi Roonie! At least, according to Marlene. C’mon, miss Charrell, you have plenty of time to learn these pronunciations. This is another one where I was thinking that I would struggle to find something good to say about it. Well, I give Finland credit – they sent something with a true 80’s feel to the contest, that would win appeal when compared to their last few entries. I loved sister Monica’s rendition of Lapponia from 1977, however, so it’s put under unfair comparison. The backup singers here don’t help much when Ami isn’t singing over them, and I don’t know what to call that tutu thing Ami has around her waist. So, again: good, but not great.

10. GREECE - Christie Stassinopoulou, “Mou les” (14th place, 32 pts)

Here’s another one that I would categorize with France – initially, on first listen, this did nothing for me. But with more opportunities to appreciate the tune, it brings a flowery and happy atmosphere to the contest. I love the flute and guitar elements. There’s this bizarre break into a jazz bit about 1:40 into the song, including a predecessor saxophone player mess-up to 1991 (again). Christie’s voice is decent enough, but this song gets lost among the rest on the night.

11. NETHERLANDS – Bernadette, “Sing me a song” (7th place, 66 pts)

For a song sung (see what I did there?) partially in English, at least for the title’s sake, it is a weird four words to write a tune around. It’s another cute, sweet little pop song, and from what I remember of the national selection performance, Bernadette has greatly improved. But I have to put this in the  category of “better after multiple listens,” as it could be grating for the English listeners. But I think I’ll be finally throwing the Netherlands a few points when it’s all said and done.

12. YUGOSLAVIA – Daniel, “Džuli” (4th place, 125 pts)

Daniel’s “Julie” is their best entry of the decade. Unabashedly, there’s no way you can listen to this song without tapping your feet, or enjoying the squealing happiness of the female backup singers. It’s hilarious that you can sometimes hear them over the track, but… it’s also just heart-warming! They’re so excited to be on stage! I can see where some might not enjoy Daniel’s croons and falsetto moments, but they fit the song so well. The flashing of the background heater bars adds energy to the tune. And this might be the closest than everyone may come to actually ‘dancing’ on the night. You’ll see what I mean soon. This song is sung in Croatian, so it’ll be Croatia that’ll get the points.

13. CYPRUS - Stavros & Constantina, “I agapi akoma zi” (16th place, 26 pts)

Love is still alive, love is still alive, yes, yes, yes. I find it a bit awkward watching Stavros and Constantina strumming along to guitars that make no sound. Constantina’s voice is decent enough, and Stavros is… well, tolerable. But there’s not enough here to save this song. I think it would have done well in a different year, but there’s just so much more awesomeness and contemporary music in this contest that this song feels ten years too late.

14. GERMANY – Hoffmann & Hoffmann, “Rücksicht” (5th place, 94 pts)

I really enjoy this song, vocally and instrumentally. Visually, too – it does seem that the German broadcaster knew how to stage their act well. And I want to play bass guitar like that guy does on the left, swaying back and forth like a nerdy German mofo. Without knowing the words, I can sing along to it, and the boingy sounds of the synthesizer during the chorus itches my 1980’s fancy. There’s some sad news to this act’s story; the lead singer in blue would take his own life in the year following the contest, leaving his brother to try and find success on his own. He’d try to enter a few more national selections, but to no avail. I get the feeling that the brother had some inner demons to settle. Anyhow, this has a powerful but warm drive to it, and it yet again serves as a great example that you don’t need to be dancing and prancing about the stage to score highly. Not sure about those one-piece color jumpsuits, though.

15.  DENMARK – Gry Johansen, “Kloden drejer” (17th place, 16 pts)

I think this song was thought of more highly prior to the performance given here during the contest, and again, I think the German orchestra may have funked this one up a little past repair. But, most importantly, Gry is out of tune too much. She screws up one of the shuffle dance moves halfway through the song. There is a bit of a dirty little pleasure I have for this song; it has a very non-Scandinavian feel – more like Caribbean, to be brutally honest. The “skrimp” (as Terry Wogan calls it) is amazing, and it has one of the best beats of any song in the contest. So just remember, guys: “Clothes in dryer! Eating butter up pineleaf! Mid-skull murders! Sven upon a school!”

16. ISRAEL – Ofra Haza, “Hi” (2nd place, 136 pts)

Gee wiz, light yellow was a popular color in 1983, huh? Last year, I was impressed by the vivacity and performance of “Hora” from Avi Toledano. He came back the following year to compose “Hi,” and it brings just as much vivacity and excitement as ’82. This finished so well because it deserved to. And if you’re like me, Eurovision fans have a certain soft spot for the Israeli dance entries. Definitely deserving to be toward the top.

17. PORTUGAL – Armando Gama, “Esta balada que te dou” (13th place, 33 pts)

I feel like I’ve been imported back to the lovely days of the 1970’s and the American piano-ballads of Billy Joel and Elton John, complete with an electric guitar breakdown prior to the bridge! There’s a soft and assuring composition to this song, and it’s hard to find a fault with this tune. It’s also a bit hard to put a finger on why this didn’t score well with juries or why I can’t rank it any higher. Maybe because it just doesn’t have that je ne sais quoi quality to it?

18. AUSTRIA – Westend, “Hurricane” (T-9th place, 53 pts)

Well, if you finished the meat a little while ago, let’s begin the dessert. This is another stroke of 1980’s fabulousness – I can’t believe the stark contrast in entries between 1982 and 1983; it’s astounding to me how invested everyone suddenly became in the synthesizer. This is a fun entry to watch. If you like Human League and Pointer Sisters, or anything related to New Wave, this one’s for you. This song is miles above whatever junk Austria had sent the year prior. Those clothes should stay in 1983, though… once again, the Austrians are contenders for Worst Dressed. Luckily the male dancer was able to fit behind the singer by ducking down awkwardly… did you catch that?

19. BELGIUM – Pas De Deux, “Rendez-vous” (18th place, 13 pts)

I don’t care what Wogan’s thoughts were on this song – whether you categorize it as crypto-punk or just bizarre-weird post contemporary 80’s indie pop, or whether the composer is ‘somewhat demented’ – whatever. I don’t care if you think this is one of the worst Eurovision entries. This song is amazing to me. What was Belgium thinking, exactly? Isn’t that the beauty of the whole thing? They say the same line over and over again, so really the singers are just ancillary – focus on just the composition, and the driving brass section and drums. It’s awesome! I want to be in a jazz band or a high-school band and have the kids go after this. If you were going to fully utilize the instruments that the orchestra had to offer, this was how to do it. I love it!

20. LUXEMBOURG - Corinne Hermès - Si la vie est cadeau (1st place, 142 pts)

Well, we all know the results by now. Does this song hold up? I certainly think so – it’s not my choice for the douze points from 1983, but Corinne’s vocals blow everyone else out the door, and that’s why I think it won. They just pierce you, directly in the heart. This simple ballad, in comparison to these days of the contest, was a thing of pure velocity and power back in the early 1980s. And for many years, the balladeers who would win the contest were often compared to Corinne.

Yeah, yeah, yeah - so how about it? Which one was your favorite from ’83? I’m sorry, but I find it impossible to not have any favorites from the ’83 contest, as there was a little something for everyone. For me, this was a hard one to narrow down to a top ten – my order kept changing, and I’m still leaving favorites out. Anyway, I’ve ranked them below, and I’m rewarding a 12 to the home country for not completely isolating themselves from the musical trends of 1983 but also keeping it different from the rest of the pack – and not too different, either. Perhaps the winner, as luck would have it, has a great shot when they perform last. Would that streak hold up?

My votes:

12 – Germany 10 – Israel 8 – Sweden 7 – Belgium 6 – Spain 5 – Luxembourg 4 – Yugoslavia (Croatia) 3 – United Kingdom 2 – Austria 1 – Netherlands

The “Big Fat 0” award: Turkey Honorable Mention: Norway Worst Dressed: Austria

And here is the overall count of points thus far: 1st – 38 – Germany (1982, 1983) 2nd – 24 - Belgium 3rd – 20 – Israel 4th – 19 – Portugal 5th – 18 – Greece (1981) 13 - Luxembourg 13 – Ireland (1980) 12 - Spain 11 – Denmark 11 – Norway 11 – United Kingdom 10 – France 10 – Sweden 7 – Cyprus 5 – Turkey 4 - Croatia 3 – Finland 2 – Austria 1 – Netherlands 

-50SS