Tag Archives: Music

Song of the day: Nouvelle Vague – Blue Monday

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Writing great, original songs is an amazing skill. The creative artist(s) at his/her/their peak. But making alternative versions of existing songs can lead to equally amazing results, especially if the new version is not simply a cover, aiming to replicate the original as closely as possible, but rather an individual interpretation.

In my experience, some of the best results are linked to a switch in genre between the original and the new version. Take for example Nouvelle Vague, a french band that has released some albums with bossa nova versions of new wave classics – some of them absolutely wonderful, like Blue Monday.

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Song of the day: Josh Rouse – Hollywood Base Player

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With some songs, everytime I hear them being played on the radio or presented to me by the coincidence of shuffle function on my iPod, I have no idea who the artist or band is, often no idea about the title of the song (until it pops up in the lyrics of course), but still they manage to bring about a positive vibe somewhere inside. And that’s really all that counts for me. Here’s one of them.

Song of the day: Belle & Sebastian – Step Into My Office, Baby

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220px-belle__sebastian_-_step_into_my_office_babyI never watch music videos. It’s only when I have selected a song as Song of the day that I start searching for a good way to include the song into a blogpost. Originally, the plan was to mainly use links from Soundcloud (as videos can be a distraction from the songs itself), but this soon turned out not to be a feasible option, as official versions of most songs are simply not on it, and the songs that are on it, often don’t stay on it – unlike for example video clips officially posted on YouTube or Vimeo. So I ended up posting links to videos most of the time.

A long intro to simply point out: the songs are not selected because of the videos. Just to make sure you don’t start thinking – as I now realize you might when taking a good look at the clips I have been posting – I am a sex maniac. On the other hand, this apparent correlation between good music and sex(ual undertones) in the videos accompanying them might be something worth looking into in more detail. So, while you are enjoying Step Into My Office, Baby by Belle & Sebastian, I will engage in some more YouTube exploration. To be continued.

Song of the day: Frank Sinatra – It Was A Very Good Year

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Given the fact that the previous post was a reference to Mad Men, and that I had already given a Twin Peaks quote ages ago, how long did you figure it would take before the Sopranos were brought up?

The song, originally released in 1961, was used in the opening scene of episode 1 of the second season. To fully appreciate the footage, the music (those enchanting violins!) and the lyrics, my advice would be to watch and/or listen at least twice – and then go off bingewatching at least one full season of Sopranos, obviously.

Song of the day: Sondre Lerche – Dead Passengers

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Not sure what it exactly is about this song from the Norwegian singer-songwriter Sondre Lerche that touches me so strongly. The violins? The angelic background vocals? The build up of the song itself? I honestly have no idea. But it does.

I bet a carpool karaoke video of me humming along he parts without lyrics would get a lot of shares on social media.

Song of the day: Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats – I Need Never Get Old

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A couple of months ago there was an announcement on the radio that Paul McCartney was going to perform in Belgium. A handful of seconds and mouseclicks later, a digital ticket was in my mailbox. The guy is 74 now – “will there be another chance after this?” is therefore a very valid question, certainly justifying the quick response time (also given the speed with which concerts sometimes get sold out these days).

The McCartney gig was at Rock Werchter, undisputedly the n°1 festival in Belgium in terms of alignment with my taste in music. So I was pretty confident that the day at the festival would bring me (as has been the case on previous occasions) some pleasant surprises. And it did: the live performance of Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats was amazing. I knew some of the songs as they had received some air time on radio, but the live set caused me to make the following mental note: “Tell my wife never to allow me to spend a summer without at least spending 1 day at a music festival”. Which fits it quite nicely with the song title here: ‘I Need Never Get Old”.

Song of the day: Bent Van Looy – Flowers and Balloons

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Bent Van Looy is the frontman of the Belgian band Das Pop. For personal reasons, I will always have an emotional connection with the band as they were the opening act of the 2001 edition of Rock Werchter, my favourite summer festival, on the day my ex-wife was moving out of the house. I decided to go to the festival that day, and was only truely hit by the realization of what was going on at the very moment that the band started playing one of their hits at the time: The Love Program (included as a bonus track below).

Van Looy released a solo album (Round The Bend) a couple of years ago and the opening song, Flowers ans Balloons, still finds exteme ways to touch me every time I hear it. No guitars, no drums, no horns – just a guy singing his song and playing his piano. Simple and honest, but above all magically wonderful.

Song of the day: The BPA featuring David Byrne and Dizzee Rascal – Toe Jam

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Earlier today, I happened to be alone in the house. As it often does, this mere fact caused the sound volume of the stereo to go up considerably – especially when the iTunes shuffle function decides to deliver a nice song I had kinda forgotten about.

In the evening, I then decided to promote that particular tune to Song of the day which brought a second dose of enjoyment, as I was not aware of the clip accompanying the song. I am well aware of it now, as I have had to watch several versions of it (quality assurance on this blog is extremely harsh when it comes to finding a good video).

Song of the day: Art of Noise – Paranoimia (feat. Max Headroom)

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Do you also have those fits of nostalgia where all you want to do for the next few minutes is freak out on a song from time of your musical awakening? In my case that happens to be the 80s – and as you will notice by clicking the Play button in the clip below, I just had one of those fits.

Song of the day: Fatboy Slim – Song for Shelter

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If you have less than half an hour to spend when you stumble upon this blogpost: bookmark it and come back when you do. The clip is over 11 minutes long and there’s a good chance that, if you take the time to watch it in full length, you will want to play it again. Not necessarily only to admire the young, almost naked bodies (of both girls and boys, so no one should feel left out) – this particular clip is a product of the content creation factory called Red Bull – as the music really has a kind of hypnotizing effect. If you don’t pick up that effect… it simply means you’ve not listened to it enough times.

fatboy_slim_-_halfway_between_the_gutter_and_the_starsTo enjoy Song for Shelter to the full extent, you should be familiar with the entire Fatboy Slim album Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars. The album contains some well known hits, such as Sunset (Bird of Prey) and Weapon of Choice (with a wonderful official video featuring Christopher Walken) and features this Song for Shelter as the closing song, with the final part of the song repeating musical elements from earlier parts of the album.