This week's playlist: I sing now for all of you

Hold On - Lazee featuring Neverstore: I know I wasn't too kind to this band on this blog in the past, but with this song I take it all back. A fine fusion of rap, dance and indie/guitar style and the end result is quite mesmerising. Bring on the Swedish Invasion!

Untouched - The Veronicas: there's something quite addictive about this song - a UK top 10 hit in recent weeks although I've never heard it once on the radio. Girlie pop-rock it may be, but it has an edge and urgency about it which Kelly Clarkson & co. just don't have.

Fire - Kasabian: I still like this, and will need to get round to hearing that album in full!

Touch You Right Now - Basic Element: music to dance around the room to.

Skylark - Körsbär/Karlsson: unreleased but streaming over at their MySpace (www.myspace.com/korsbarkarlsson) this is an absolute treat. Jeppe has just the most beautiful voice and he sings like an angel.

Click/New In Town - Little Boots: I wanted to file her away in the hype-over-talent section but I've been pleasantly surprised by her poptastic debut album - review to follow here soon.

Album Review: "MZW" - Måns Zelmerlöw

Pop fame, I think you will agree, is fleeting. Even more fleeting is Idol contestant fame, but here’s one who has reversed the trend. Winning "Let’s Dance" also helped of course, combined with a crucial appearance at Melodifestivalen in 2007 and a return to the contest this year.

But Måns Zelmerlöw is more than just your average Idol/MF-contestant - he’s a man of many talents who is probably aware that his pop-fame won’t last, so he’s already diversifying into other areas where he can develop his career further - songwriting, musical theatre (a forthcoming stint in "Chicago" in London) and TV presenting ("Sommarkrysset")

But in the meantime, he’s still hot pop property and to prove it, here’s his second album.

"MZW" kicks off with "Hope and Glory", his Melodifestivalen 2009 entry which was (IMHO) cruelly robbed of a place in Moscow at the last minute. It’s dependable Fredrik Kempe schlager pop although is not really reflective of what’s to follow. There is a more contemporary sound on the album which at times verges upon the Ne-Yo/Chris Brown r’n’b pop style which has been popular over the last year or so. Let’s just say on first listen I was a bit worried about this, as "Freak Out" and "Find Love" seemed to go down that road, yet the difference is that these songs have grown on me over time in a way that those other examples of r’n’b pop could never do.

Although "One Minute More" and "Impossible" haven’t grown on me, I have to say :( these are probably my least favourite tracks on the album.

Surely "Rewind" will be a future (autumn) single with its "rewind/rewind/back to summertime" hook. It’s a very good example of contemporary pop which he does very well. "Forever" meanwhile immediately jumped out and was an early favourite - think catchy schlager-pop-meets-Basshunter (!). "Home" is another particular favourite of mine - it grabbed me from the beginning with its ‘Black and Gold’-style backing track and again it’s a very strong song indeed with hit potential.

"A Stranger Saved My Life" is also a rather nice ballad.

"Whole New World" has perhaps arguably some of the cheesiest, corniest lyrics of 2009 - "I’ll be wishing for a contribution, to my you-fund"; "There’s no kiss and make-up/well there’s some make-up but it’s on your skin"; "I reckon with time we’ll grow older too/but my wrinkles will look better with you". Yet despite all this it’s a warm and likeable track - I guess he wrote it for his girlfriend Marie Serneholt? (Who gets a dedication in the sleeve notes, by the way)

Current single "Hold On" closes the album - the lyrics are a little bit predictable in a ‘make the world a better place’ kind of way, but he manages to avoid being too sickly-sweet. I don’t understand how this was chosen as a single, though? Maybe it’s just to show another side of Måns I guess, but there are many other tracks which I’d have chosen over it.

Måns has also co-written all of the songs on the album and has been more involved in its creation this time - proving that he’s just not another pretty-boy pop singer. "MZW" is a very good album, but the whole is better than the sum of its parts, whereas his debut was the exact opposite for me. There is no "Cara Mia", "Brother Oh Brother" or "Work Of Art" which will be played to death on my iPod in the way that those tracks were, but don’t worry, I can still see myself playing this album for a long time to come.

(Apologies for the extreme lateness of my review of this CD - I bought it when I was over in Gothenburg in April!)

So what's been happening then?

• The fallout from Britain's Got Talent continues as the media is now giving us daily reports of Susan Boyle's meltdown on tour, resulting in her being unable to appear every night. I don't know whose idea it was for this lady to enter BGT in the first place - but whoever it was, they should share the blame for what has happened to her. Yes she has a very good singing voice, but it's very clear by now that the limelight is not the most appropriate place for her to be. For her own sake, she should take some time out, go home and chill with her cat. At which time the media should also leave her in peace.


• Wimbledon starts tomorrow, and as usual I won't be watching as I lost interest a long time ago, around the time of John McEnroe's retirement :( Anyway, expect Murray-mania, a bit like Henman all over again, the only difference being that Murray might have a realistic chance of winning.


• Summertime is in full swing, and despite our usual quota of rain I'd have to say that it's probably been better than the last couple of years. We should be booking my summer holiday within the next 4 weeks - we've made our decision about the destination. Can't reveal anything yet, but I'll tell you more when we're booked. (Clue: it's outwith our usual comfort zone!)


• It's Fete de la Musique in France today, which I always thought was a great idea - 21st June every year brings a national celebration of music across France. French TV usually broadcasts a big outdoor concert from Paris and this used to be televised on TV5 a few years ago then they stopped doing this for a couple of years. I checked TV5's website and it looks as if it's back on this year, so I'll set my video later tonight and will review the show on here in the next couple of weeks. This year's line-up of 30 French and international stars includes Calogero, Jason Mraz, Eros Ramazzotti, Milow, Christophe Willem, Seal, Alesha Dixon and James Morrison.


• Both Anders Lundin and Lotta Engberg are playing it down, but the Swedish tabloid press is enthusiastically talking-up the impending Allsång-war between "Lotta på Liseberg" (starting tomorrow night on TV4) and "Allsång på Skansen" (Tuesday on SVT1), Lotta is firing out of the blocks with Nanne Gronvall, Christer "I Love Yoo-rup" Sjogren and something which is more up my street - Brolle and Ola. As if that's not enough Swedish summer TV entertainment, "Sommarkrysset" is also back on TV4. Talking of Brolle, he appeared on last week's season-premiere of the show doing a tribute to Buddy Holly! Unfortunately - I've said this before and I'll say it again - TV4's webstream gives me internet-rage as it takes so long to get the video clips going (and this is with super-duper fast Broadband too!), unlike SVT Play which I never have any bother with. So get your act together TV4 because I want to watch Sommarkrysset and Lotta without any problems!!! Allsång kicks off its new season on Tuesday with special guests Tomas Ledin, Henrik Dorsin, Måns Zelmerlöw, Anna Maria Espinosa and Owe Thörnqvist. Not that we need a reason for a gratuitous pic of Måns of course....here he is in a publicity pic for this year's Allsång, picture courtesy of www.svt.se.

Album Review: "Cafeine" - Christophe Willem

Second album time for (arguably) the most inventive and original of France’s reality TV-created pop idols. "Inventaire", his debut, took us on a journey from the wonderful bright pop of "Elu Produit de L’annee", "Double Je" and "Kiss The Bride" to the quite-frankly-bonkers "La Tortue" and provided much to enjoy along the way.

To say that "Cafeine" is one of my most-awaited albums of 2009 is an understatement. My worry with most second albums is that they inevitably lead to disappointment, but this is still well worth a listen.

"Cafeine" is, if you’ll pardon the coffee-pun, less "instant" than Christophe’s debut, and you may not enjoy some, any, or all of it on your first hearing. First single "Berlin" for example struck me as a good but not great track on first listen, with its falsetto vocals over the bleeping electronic background. Several listens in and I’m now firmly hooked. It’s certainly a very "contemporary" sound as that electro-pop style is in fashion at the moment.

"L’Homme en Noir" is an atmospheric opening, and builds into a very ‘warm’ sound if you know what I mean. "Sensitized" is my favourite track from the album at the moment. A bi-lingual duet with Kylie Minogue, it’s a cover version of a song from her last album, which I wasn’t familiar with, but I was very familiar with the "Bonnie and Clyde" sample that the song is based around.
The frantic "La Demande" perhaps could have done with more of a tune, but "Entre Nous et Le Sol" redeems things, slows down the pace and again has a lovely atmospheric chillout vibe which kind-of reminds me of Etienne Daho, which is only a good thing.

The tempo’s slightly raised on "Plus Que Tout" which is a little mid-paced and r’n’b in places, but it has a decent pop chorus and probably wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Mans Zelmerlow’s new CD, for example.

Christophe indulges his slightly crazy side on "Coffee" which is one of the album’s most distinctive choruses and the whole thing is very addictive. A bit like coffee itself dare I say! And you won’t be able to get that "no you can’t stay for coffee" sample out of your head.

"Fragile" is a more traditional ballad, and he sings very well on it. Another very good track, and I’m not a fan of ballads.

"Trash" is like Christophe’s little musical tribute to Prince and the Revolution. A duet with Skye, it’s very catchy and danceable, and trash it most certainly isn’t. "Tu Te Fous de Nous" meanwhile relies a little too heavily on the electronic beats and is one of the poorer tracks.

"Heartbox" is another of my favourite tracks - I love the way Christophe switches between his native language and English. Like the wonderful "Kiss The Bride", this track is sung in English and has a very light, summery pop feel. The vocals are slightly reminiscent of George Michael and the only thing I don’t like about it is the dreaded autotune. :(

"Yaourt & Lavabo" is another atmospheric ballad although it’s not as good as "Fragile", needless to say I’ll probably change my mind! "Si Je Tombais" leaves the electronic sound behind and is just piano and vocals to bring the album to a graceful and dignified end.

Unless of course you’ve got the special edition of the album, which has alternative versions of "L’Homme en Noir", "Berlin" (including an English version no less, called "Lost In Berlin" - although I much prefer the French version). "La Demande", "Si Je Tombais"...worth getting if only to compare the different versions of the songs.

In typical second album style, there is nothing on it as good as the aforementioned classic trilogy of "Elu Produit"/"Double Je"/"Kiss The Bride". However, it’s bold, different and experimental and as French pop stars go, he certainly has a very distinctive musical style and you get the feeling that he makes the music that he wants to make, rather than what someone thinks he should make. Therefore if you’re looking for instant pop satisfaction you might be a little disappointed, but if you take the time to get to know this album, it will bring rewards.

Retro Saturday: Jim Diamond

Back to the 80s now with the theme tune to "Boon" which I watched occasionally, although I wasn't really a big big fan of. I did like the theme tune though which was "Hi Ho Silver" by Jim Diamond, very catchy choon. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBZSTrlcylU

Jim Diamond previously had hits with PHD - "I Won't Let You Down" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5prT2qiiWY which for some reason always reminds me of listening to Irish pirate radio stations in the mid 80s (!) and "I Should Have Known Better" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4A4UnFi2C8 all together now "I-yi-yi-yi-yi....."

Retro Saturday: Chaz Jankel/Quincy Jones

A bit of a shared-custody moment here, as I want to feature two versions of the same song. "Ai No Corrida", most recently covered by Uniting Nations a couple of years back, was originally recorded by Chaz Jankel, who was the musical director of Ian Dury's Blockheads - and who then went on to surprise us all with this disco classic. Find the extended version in all its glory at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwmuqmIiN90

It was Quincy Jones who went on to have the big hit version of course....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7Vi40fVC-0

Retro Saturday: Adeva

Anyone for a bit of house music from 1989? Why not!

I always liked Adeva's cover version of "Respect" which I used to dance around to 20 years ago, and wouldn't need much persuading to dance around to right now, if I'm honest.

Top stuff! Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t21dMFdA0NU

I'm back, y'all.....!

...and two days ahead of schedule too!

Yes I've missed blogging on here (although Planet Salem has maintained reasonably normal service!) anyway I've just been "spring cleaning" (ok then, "summer cleaning") at EuropeCrazy HQ, along with working my way through my backlog of CDs and DVDs - only to buy some more last weekend, I guess I'll never learn....!

So there are several album reviews, chart updates and random other things on the way, but it's that night of the week again so let's get Retro Saturday under way once more.

Summer in blog-land....

...so as Cliff Richard might have sung "no more blogging for a week or two". I've decided to take a little bit of time-out from doing this blog for a couple of weeks (unless there are some exciting, urgent updates about stuff which I need to write about).

For once I'm not going away, but I just need a bit of time to do some stuff at home and there's also a massive pile of CDs to listen to and DVDs and TV shows/films which I've taped off the telly, which I'm going to make an effort to catch up on, as staying in would appear to be the new going out as we're due a spell of horrible weather over the next few days. Unless we do get some good weather, in which case I'll be out and about!

I had planned the blog's "big relaunch" for when I returned from Dusseldorf but that never really happened, so I'm trying another relaunch date of Monday 22 June when this blog will be back with a few reviews and articles which I'll be working on during the blog-break.

I'll still be visiting all my blogging-friends and reading all your comments and emails though, you don't get rid of me that easily!! :))

See you on the 22nd!

Album Review: "Fairytales" - Alexander Rybak

So Alexander Rybak’s "Fairytale" got the biggest vote-total in Eurovision history just a few weeks ago and has gone on to become a massive international hit - even breaking into the UK top 10 for one glorious week.

But when it comes to a rush-released debut album, what can this young man from Norway bring to the table? Answer: his very own brand of fiddle-driven folk-pop which conjures up visions of nights by the fire in a little wooden house in the Norwegian countryside.

Certainly that’s the vision I got with the bouncy opening track "Roll With The Wind" and its catchy "i-yi-yi" hookline.

Admittedly most of the songs are variations on the title track - which of course is the album’s best song - I guess that’s why the album is called "Fairytales" hehe. :)))

The lyrics of "Funny Little World" may have spookily predicted his rise and rise to fame - "Suddenly I’m famous and people know my name/got a thousand girls just waiting..." Anyway this has a similar vibe to Jason Mraz’s "I’m Yours" going on, and it’s already topping the chart in Norway so I guess it’ll go across Europe as the follow-up single? It’s off the cheese scale, but it’s also extremely charming.

Across the length of an album Alexander’s voice, distinctive though it may be, can become a little annoying, and the boy-meets-girl lyrics often too simplistic, but on the whole this is a much more distinctive effort than something you’d expect from, say, an X Factor winner or here-today-gone-tomorrow Eurovision winner, with the usual cover versions of "I Believe I Can Fly" and "Unchained Melody" etc. So let’s be thankful that Alexander hasn’t gone down that road but instead created a very distinctive sound all his own - and he wrote most of the songs himself

On big hands-in-the-air ballad "Abandoned" and epic number "13 Horses", Alexander sounds as if he’s channelling A-ha at times, the latter is perhaps a more daring and mature glimpse of the performer this young man can become if he continues with his musical career. Instrumental "Songs From A Secret Garden" shows off his considerable ability as a violinist - and in a unique coincidence, is a cover version of a tune by Secret Garden, the last Norwegian act to win the Eurovision Song Contest.

But then something very strange happened. There is, inexplicably, a cover version of The Proclaimers "500 Miles" (It’s funny to hear a Norwegian singing a Scottish word like ‘haver’!) - this version is played so straight that it is completely absurd and he really should have left it alone. Anyway you can’t listen to this song without thinking of Brian Potter, Andy Pipkin, "Chaka Khan" and "Bobby Davro" :)

It may not be to everyone’s taste, but I found young Mr Rybak’s debut to be a simple and refreshing alternative to what’s around at the moment. I can imagine this having wide appeal across Europe: are we witnessing the birth of a new international star, or just a one-hit wonder? Only time will tell.

The Dusseldorf Diaries: Day 5: Friday 8 May 2009

And so to our final day in Dusseldorf.

As our flight’s not leaving until this evening it gave us the opportunity to spend some more time in some of our favourite Dusseldorf hangouts as well as exploring some other streets between the Altstadt and Konigsallee. On this holiday we haven’t covered almost every area of the city, the way we usually do, but it has been nice to slow down the pace.

We stroll down to the riverside and spend some time sitting watching the Rhine, which is a busy "working river" with all that container traffic making its way up and down this long waterway.

I don’t know how long spargel-season lasts, but almost every restaurant has some asparagus dish on the menu. (It was the same in Cologne yesterday). We have lunch at a little Italian restaurant down a side street off Berger Strasse, and I have an asparagus risotto, which is very nice indeed.

We walk from Heinrich Heine Allee to Konigsallee, where the mustard-jacket count dramatically increases. For men of a certain age and annual salary, beige/mustard is the new black. Olive green is big here too. And his and hers matching raincoats! Although the raincoats aren’t required today, as it’s another lovely day.

But all good things have to come to an end and it’s time to head back to the hotel, collect our luggage and take a taxi to the airport.

In a strange twist, whilst we were getting ready to take off, the skies became darker and the rain came on. It was as if Dusseldorf was saying goodbye to us, you’re going home, back to reality, back to swine flu and Susan Boyle, back to the cold rainy weather......now when’s our next holiday????

The Dusseldorf Diaries: Day 4 - Thursday 7 May 2009

Catch-up time this week on the blog so I thought it was time to finally finish off my holiday diary.

Thursday morning. The blue skies finally came to Dusseldorf. Not a cloud in the sky this morning and no sign of rain. Today’s weather forecast says 20 degrees. A very nice day for a trip out of town!

Before the holiday we had planned to return to Cologne - our 2006 summer holiday destination - as it is only 30 minutes by train from Dusseldorf. Now you know that there are many stereotypes about Germany and I like to hold the country up as an example of how a country should be run. The trains always run on time, for example. If a train is due to leave at 11.30 am, then it does, and not a minute later.

If we needed any proof that the world is in terminal decline, look no further than Dusseldorf train station this morning. The 11.30 am train to wherever-it-was via Cologne, was delayed, and it didn’t appear before 12.00 when we got on the next train which was going to Koblenz.

(A quick word about European trains, which are marvellous of course, but why do they persist on the first and second class system? I know we have it here too but it’s usually only one carriage, and not half a train like the ones we travelled on today)

Arriving in Cologne is a feast for the eyes - the first thing you see when you come out of the station is the massive Cologne Cathedral (part of it pictured above - I could never fit it all into one picture, it's so massive) which looks even bigger than I remember it from last time. We make our way down to the riverside (pictured below) and have lunch outdoors at one of our old faves, the Lowenbrau. It’s a warm, sunny day and I’ve got my shades on!

After lunch we walk along the river and up through the old town and then stop for coffee at Heumarkt (above) which has a very good selection of restaurants and cafes. Then up through the shopping area which is still as busy as ever. You can’t go to Cologne and not have a Kolsch - the legendary local beer which is to Cologne as Alt is to Dusseldorf. Stopped for a couple of beers at Fruh, which is a very famous brauhaus, which we missed out on three years ago. Local cuisine is also being served here - someone at a neighbouring table is having half a pig on his plate! Here's a picture of a Fruh Kolsch....

Standing room only on a packed (and too hot) train back to Dusseldorf and it looks as if they've enjoyed a nice sunny day too.

The good weather has brought the people out tonight, the beer terraces are all open - Uerige is particularly mobbed. Tonight we have an enjoyable meal at La Grappa on Berger Strasse then (quelle surprise) head round to Bolker Strasse to end the evening sitting outdoors at one of the bars, people-watching.

This week's playlist: visualise like it's '75 again

We Are The People - Empire of the Sun: I'm extremely delighted that this is now in the UK top 20 singles chart - some quality at last!!

Release Me - Agnes: talking of which, here's another song I like in the UK chart. It has really grown on me.

Bluest Eyes - Salem: "Astronaut" is still a consistent fixture in my home and on my iPod. This may be one of the lesser-known tracks, but it has a lot of depth and every time you listen to it you hear something new.

Sensitized - Christophe Willem and Kylie Minogue: I wasn't familiar with this track previously (it was on a Kylie album), although I was familiar with the "Bonnie and Clyde" sample. I'm working my way through Christophe's album at the moment and will eventually review it here someday!

We Don't Wanna Put In - Stefane & 3G: Disco-tastic and disqualified Georgian ESC entry. Still sounds great.

Hurtful - Erik Hassle: is it true that his album release has been delayed till August in Sweden? It's one of my most eagerly awaited albums of the year, if it's anywhere near as good as this song.

Nature's Law - Embrace: Something old (ish) which I put on my iPod and played a lot this week.

Take On Me - A-ha: for reasons only that we've been loving that Weebl and Bob "Paper" cartoon :)

Fire - Kasabian: New album out today - I must check it out.

Ayo Technology - Milow: Still a favourite, although I may now give it a rest for a while.

Allsång vs Allsång - let battle commence!

You know that summer has arrived when "Allsång på Skansen" hits Swedish TV screens (and the internet for all of us outwith Sweden!). But this year, things are going to be different. You wait for an Allsång and then two come along at once....

For this year, TV4 has declared ratings-war on SVT and is launching its very own "Allsång" -"Lotta på Liseberg" which will be broadcast every Monday night from Liseberg in Gothenburg and will be presented by Lotta Engberg. The series begins two weeks from tonight on Monday 22 June and features a cracking line-up of Swedish pop and schlager royalty, old and new...Lasse Berghagen, Charlotte Perrelli, Sven-Bertil Taube, Sanna Nielsen, Thorleifs, Kikki Danielsson, Niklas Strömstedt, Christer Sjögren, Ola Svensson, Bobbysocks (!!!), Jessica Andersson, Sarah Dawn Finer, Agnes, Sonja Aldén, Sven-Erik Magnusson, Shirley Clamp, Paul Potts (what's he doing here? I don't understand the international fascination with the man), Lasse Holm, Johan Palm, Nanne Grönwall, Scotts, Molly Sandén, Siw Malmqvist, Arja Saijonmaa, Sandra Dahlberg.

But most importantly, apart from all of them......Salem Al Fakir will be appearing on the show!!! (Needless to say I've decided this is my favourite Allsång already, although I always have problems watching TV4's webstream - SVT's is much better) anyway that news has completely brightened up my day.

No more info as yet about who will be appearing on which week, but there will be weekly musical themes on the TV4 show which should be fun. SVT meanwhile also announced their line-up for this year's "Allsång på Skansen" which begins the following evening, 23 June:

Week 1 - Tuesday 23 June
Tomas Ledin, Henrik Dorsin, Måns Zelmerlöw, Anna Maria Espinosa, Owe Thörnqvist

Week 2 - Tuesday 30 June
A Camp, Malena Ernman, Johan Palm, Lisa Ekdahl, Ann-Louise Hanson, Mia Skäringer, Klara Zimmergren

Week 3 - Tuesday 7 July
Caroline af Ugglas, John ME, Claes Eriksson, Anne-Lie Rydé, Lotta Ramel, Rolandz

Week 4 - Tuesday 14 July
Alexander Rybak, Elisabeth Andreassen, Larz-Kristerz, Pauline, Anna Book, Marcus Birro,

Week 5 - Tuesday 21 July
Lars Vegas Trio, Lili & Susie, Monica & Carl-Axel Dominique, Wille Crafoord, Magnus Carlsson, Jack Vreeswijk, Jonas Karlsson

Week 6 - Tuesday 28 July
H.E.A.T., Timo Räisänen, After Dark, Malena Tuvung, Per Myrberg

Week 7 - Tuesday 4 August
Björn Skifs, Allmänna Sången, Markus Krunegård, Bosse Larsson

Looking at this line up it's apparent that SVT is trying a mix of old favourites with newer acts, rather than just the tried and tested schlager-royalty. They did a similar thing last year and I didn't think it always worked, but needless to say I'll be watching every week. Week one looks like being my favourite - Tomas and Måns - but the other weeks might just offer some surprises. Whatever happens, the viewers will be the winners!

Yasmina....you're hired.

It was quite a strange experience to watch an episode of "The Apprentice" live tonight, as I usually videotape it before going out on Wednesday night and then watch it the next night although I know the result by that time so it spoils it a bit :( anyway it was an all-female final this year between tight-lipped grumpy restaurateur Yasmina (she looked completely different and more attractive on those very rare occasions when she smiled) and toothy tie-wearing fembot Kate, with the final task being to create a new brand of chocolates, both of which were either too expensive (Kate) or too substandard (Yasmina) that you wouldn't buy any of them if you were in the supermarket.

Above: Siralan and this year's candidates, including winner Yasmina (4th from left) and runner-up Kate (5th from left) - photo courtesy of Sky.com.

It was a very difficult decision for Siralan to make - he said they were the two best finalists in any series of "The Apprentice" to date - but in the end he chose Yasmina, which was quite a surprising result as we and many others thought Kate had it in the bag. There were few real characters in this series although James will be remembered for having his foot permanently in his mouth; Philip will be remembered for 'Pantsman' (and his romance with Kate); and Ben and Debra will be remembered for taking ambition and self-belief to a whole new level. Ever heard of humility, guys?

Anyway that's it for another series - and there will be one well-known face absent in the next one, as Siralan's sidekick Margaret is quitting the show. He'll need to look for an equally stony-faced replacement...

I like "The Apprentice" though, it's one of the few reality-shows which has had real staying power, when most of them are long past their sell-by date. Talking of which: Big Brother 10 began last week. Zzzzzzzz....

The Empire forges on...!

OK so regular readers will know just how much I love, love, love Empire of the Sun....isn't it amazing that "We Are The People" has finally done the impossible and broken into the UK top 30 singles chart! If you haven't seen/heard it yet then check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj_Nlm0871E&feature=related

Here is the video for "Standing On The Shore", which I probably love even more than "We Are The People" . A place in my end-of-year top 5 is guaranteed...!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDOIi27AgFk

Retro Saturday: Fiction Factory

The 80s: I have mixed feelings about this decade. On a life-level, it was probably a decade worth forgetting, but musically it was a little treasure trove if you looked beyond the top 40. Indeed you could say that most of my favourite music of the 1980s didn't get anywhere near the top 40.

Fiction Factory will probably be remembered as "one hit wonders" for "Feels Like Heaven" but being totally contradictory as always, I had more fond memories of "All Or Nothing" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RDr2LZeecQ which predictably didn't trouble the top 40, but that doesn't make it any less great.

Retro Saturday: Pop Will Eat Itself

Most of the time when I do Retro Saturday it's just completely random, based on some songs which pop into my head on a Saturday night....this week however is a little bit more 'planned' dare I say, as all the songs 'came to me in a vision' you might say, over the past week, usually at the strangest times e.g. when I'm walking home from work and I think....hmmmm that's a good one for Retro Saturday if I haven't used it already...

So here's another one from the early 90s which is turning out to be a very underrated musical time I guess. Pop Will Eat Itself was one of those bands which maybe suffered from a little too much media hype at the time, but even though I wasn't such a big fan I did like "X Y and Zee" so that's a good enough reason to feature it here tonight. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDkDvdogCXk

Retro Saturday: Greg Kihn Band

"Our love's in jeopardy....baby". We kick off tonight with a 1983 classic by the Greg Kihn Band, of whom I otherwise know virtually nothing about, apart from their tendency towards clever puns when thinking of album titles: Next Of Kihn / Rockihnroll / Kihntinued / Kihnspiracy /
Kihntagious / Citizen Kihn ....oh you get the idea.

Anyway here is "Jeopardy" which still sounds good, even 26 years on...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YQNK1KfQ7Y&feature=PlayList&p=7D8E7B86D91B5E2D&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=8

Swedish National Day

OK I'm not Swedish (wish I was) but I couldn't let today pass without mentioning that it is Swedish National Day today.

So if you're celebrating, partying, eating Swedish food, drinking Swedish drinks, listening to Swedish music, then...enjoy!

I'll probably watch SVT1's special show (broadcast at 8pm tonight) later on the internet. Erik Hassle will be one of the guests appearing so I'll try and catch him - I guess he'll be singing "Hurtful"?

This year's "Sommar i P1" speakers

Find the full list here at http://www.vt.se/kultur/artikel.aspx?articleid=4939492

This radio programme is a unique Swedish summer tradition, this year celebrating its 50th anniversary and it is usually a great honour to be selected to appear on it.

Among this year's illustrious line-up are the following musicians:

21.06.09 Tomas Ledin
30.06.09 Sofia Jannok
04.07.09 Lena Philipsson
26.07.09 Ola Salo
28.07.09 Arash
30.07.09 Laleh
05.08.09 Jerry Williams
12.08.09 Frida Hyvönen

The Dusseldorf Diaries: Day 3: Wednesday 6th May 2009

The weather is dull and overcast, but dry. Dusseldorf is the kind of city which gets up early - even at 8 am the trams are busy and all the business-types are on their way. The obvious impression I have is that Dusseldorf is very much a business city but it’s also built for fun!

Like every other country, Germany loves the movies. And Dusseldorf loves the movies so much that they’ve devoted a museum to it. The Film Museum, situated just behind the river, is spread over 4 floors and covers everything from a homage to famous directors, to costumes, awards, cinema designs, projectors, cameras and old-style film making techniques. Many of the exhibits are hands-on and my favourite interactive one was the ‘blue screen’ used in modern film-making where you can put yourself into any background...or make yourself disappear! The museum was perhaps a little too focused on the early days of film-making with little concession to the modern era, but its attention to detail was faultless. It’s a very good way to spend a couple of hours and I’d recommend it as one of the must-see visitor attractions in Dusseldorf.

A lovely lunch (and big portions) at the Libanon Restaurant - we’d never tried Lebanese cuisine before (I can’t remember anyway) and later in the afternoon we’d planned a two hour boat trip down the Rhine. The two hour trip wasn’t going ahead, but was cut to half an hour - I don't know if it was due to the overcast day or being out of season? It still managed to attract a few enthusiastic participants. I love taking these river cruises on holiday, but this was over all too soon. The trip went as far as the Media Harbour, that very trendy part of town with the distinctive architecture*/wonky buildings* delete where appropriate!!

Tonight ....oh you’ll never guess :) The answer is Bolker Strasse of course!! This time, the Santiago Restaurant was our destination. Tonight Barcelona put Chelsea out of the Champions League so needless to say the waiters were celebrating! (So were we, as we’re both Barca fans).

Have decided that in Dusseldorf, Wednesday night is possibly the new Friday or Saturday night, as the Altstadt is absolutely buzzing with life tonight. A brief word about the local lookers: faithful travelling companion’s head was swivelling for most of this week at the eye-candy, and your humble blogger had no complaints either about the guy-candy!! It was a particularly good night for "people watching" on Bolker Strasse tonight, need we say more :)

Bar-hopped for a while and didn't want to go home...but we had a big, busy day ahead on Thursday so it was back to the U-bahn just before midnight. Party animals hehe :))))

This week's playlist: that's the way it goes when you wanna be free

Roxy - Salem: the video's out, it's fab and funny - little Salem pumping iron with the muscle-men in Venice Beach! - and given the right promotion, this song could be a massive summer hit.

Ayo Technology - Milow: it may still seem a bit of a novelty, but it's different enough from the original to have taken on a life of its own.

Storm - Osmo Ikonen: discovered this on the 'Speakerbox' singer's MySpace over the past week....he's a very impressive soulful vocalist.

Haus am See - Peter Fox: a man inhabiting his very own, distinctive musical genre at the moment.

Fire - Kasabian: not quite earth shattering comeback, but a real grower nonetheless, and possibly the only band with the potential to save British guitar-music, assuming it's not too late?

When It Was Good - Flipsyde: still a cracker.

Love Is Noise - The Verve: for some strange reason my iPod keeps playing this on shuffle this week....I used to love this for a short time, then I got sick of it very quickly, but now it's ok again.

Release Me - Agnes: it's Swedish, it sounds good on the radio and it's in the charts!!

Love Child - Fibes, Oh Fibes!: one of the best pop singles of this year, and I'm eagerly anticipating their new album.

We Are The People - Empire of the Sun: hooray! This is in the UK top 30 singles this week, nice to see some total quality in the chart for a change. One of the best songs of this year, which will figure very highly in my end of year chart, that's for sure.

The Dusseldorf Diaries: Day 2: Tuesday 5 May 2009

Grey skies and light rain, but it couldn’t dampen our enthusiasm at the beginning of our first full day in Dusseldorf. Thankfully there was more clarity today and I was able to work out how the U-Bahn worked - or more precisely the ticket machine - and we were off to Konigsallee. Talk about ‘conspicuous consumption’ - I’ve never seen a city which flaunted its wealth so much!! We took the opportunity to ‘smell the money’ on our way through Sevens shopping mall as we headed to Saturn, the record shop-meets-electronic-gadget-paradise on the top floor. As mega-record-shops go, Saturn is a very wonderful place, as it’s filled with screens where you can listen to any track from any album stocked in this massive store. My two purchases today were "Stadtaffe" by Peter Fox (one of the biggest albums in Germany over recent months) and the latest instalment of "The Dome" which is like a German version of the "Now" compilation CDs. Faithful travelling companion bought the latest CD by Annett Louisan, whom he discovered on a previous trip to Germany.

Konigsallee doesn’t only have some big posh department/designer stores, it’s tree-lined with a little canal running through it...it could be Paris. The wealth-flaunting became a bit oppressive after a while, though, so it was back down to the more comfortable surroundings of the Altstadt and the area around it, where we felt more at home.

There is some lovely architecture in this city, and the building above was one of my particular favourites. It's probably a famous building, I don't know, but I just loved the bells.

As the day progressed, the rain became relentless, although not too heavy, but you have to admit that it’s no fun walking around in the rain after a while, especially when you don’t have the appropriate clothing. My cord jacket wasn’t the best thing to wear on a rainy day :(

A tried and trusted old favourite for lunch: Maredo on Bolker Strasse (pictured above). Maredo is a German restaurant chain specialising in South American cuisine. Cologne, Berlin and now Dusseldorf - we can’t get enough of the Maredo! Chicken Fuego is fab.

After lunch we headed down to the riverside, to see the Rhine in daylight (pictured above). Grey, rainy daylight, but daylight nonetheless....

More exploring, then a trip to a cafe and back to the hotel to dry off! Lots and lots of German TV channels to choose from on our hotel telly. Thankfully they also had MTV and Viva, the latter is a particular favourite of mine when I’m in Germany.

Night-time in Dusseldorf means....the Altstadt :D yes there’s a theme developing already...there’s a little offshoot of Bolker Strasse (I can’t remember the street name) which has a row of Spanish restaurants although these are out-of-bounds as very meaty/fishy. Berger Strasse provides a good selection of restaurants and we dined at one of them tonight and had a lovely meal.

What about the rain, I hear you ask? It got heavier. The one thing I wanted right now was....a waterproof jacket! Otherwise we are enjoying this holiday, and it’s Alt time once again ...

at Zum Schlussel, one of the best known brauhauses on Bolker Strasse...

and we had a nice time in this big old bar which provided an enjoyable (and rain-free) end to our day.

Måns to razzle-dazzle them in London....

Expressen previously mentioned last month that one of our favourite Swedish pop stars Måns Zelmerlöw is heading for London's West End ....now he has confirmed it himself. In an interview with Expressen, he revealed that he has landed the role of Billy Flynn (the leading man!) in the musical "Chicago".

No info yet on when he will be taking over the role (although I would imagine it would be some time next year?). He will be following in the footsteps of fellow Melodifestivalen 2009 finalist Nina Söderquist, who appeared on the London stage in the Monty Python musical "Spamalot"in 2008.

Congratulations to Måns, I'm sure he will do very well indeed. Give 'em the old razzle dazzle!!

Time for a "Swedish Invasion" update: Agnes entered the UK top 40 at no. 3 yesterday with "Release Me" - and it's no.1 on the UK iTunes chart, which Aftonbladet and Expressen couldn't resist mentioning on their showbiz pages today. I've never really been an Agnes fan in the past but this song has really grown on me now and I think it'll be around the charts for a long time.

Retro Saturday: Clubhouse

Into the 90s now with some rare but (of course) classic Euro-house, all the way from Italy if I remember correctly :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDIBmrElt9I : no video but you'll be too busy dancing around to notice.

Clubhouse were also the people behind "Light My Fire" from 1993, which was a great dance track and pretty special for me for a variety of reasons :))

Again no video but well worth a listen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IahDo3OCQDA

Unfortunately you can't now listen to this song without thinking of Boyzone dancing to it on the 'Late Late Show' : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr2ZKhV6eKc, which is probably one of the classic TV clips of the past 20 years. Utter comedy gold.

Retro Saturday: Marcel King

"Reach For Love": a forgotten classic from 1984 which may just have passed most people by, back then....but it got quite a bit of airplay on night-time Radio 1 and it held a lot of interest for us New Order fanatics at that time as it was produced by none other than Bernard Sumner. There's a brief clip (with some amazing break-dancing) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h7X3z8JghY

Fascinating fact: Marcel was also a member of 70s hitmakers Sweet Sensation who had a big hit with "Sad Sweet Dreamer".

Retro Saturday: Goodbye Mr Mackenzie

It's Friday night, but tonight, for blogging purposes, is Saturday, because tomorrow will be my Friday, if you see what I mean.

So with that in mind here's the first of my Retro Saturday songs for tonight....the eponymous (now there's a word) Goodbye Mr Mackenzie by ....Goodbye Mr Mackenzie. A forgotten 80s classic, find it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_2n0VZKUUQ I always thought they were quite a flamboyant and colourful band!

This band featured Shirley Manson in its line-up, who later went on to find worldwide fame as the singer in Garbage.

Album Review: "Big Science" - BWO

Confession time. I've never really seen BWO as an "albums band", more a "singles band" and consequently the only album of theirs that I've bothered with in the past has been (surprise surprise) "Pandemonium" - their wonderful greatest hits collection.

So I thought it was about time to put that right. On their latest album they don't really break new ground, although if it ain't broke there's no need to fix it!

"Right Here Right Now" is a very strong opener and it's no surprise that it's the new single. "Love Came Crashing Down" is more 'dramatic' and dare I say that it reminds me of "Everlasting Love" - not in terms of melody, but more in the syllable-structure if you catch my drift. (!)

Whilst we're playing 'name that tune', I'm not the first to mention the similarity between "Kings of Tomorrow" and Takida's massive radio-hit "Curly Sue" but I'll mention it anyway. As with "You're Not Alone" there are two versions of the song on the album and inevitably I prefer the dance-remix-versions of both songs at the end.

Most of the best tracks come in the first half of the album - the catchy "Burning Down The House" (with its 'let's go party like there's no tomorrow' line), "Rise To The Occasion" and my favourite track - the Europoptastic "Bite The Bullet".

I prefer BWO's uptempo numbers to their ballads - "In Too Deep" is OK, bears a little similarity to "Let It Rain" which I prefer if I'm honest. "Thunderbolt" is BWO on automatic pilot, "Rhythm of the Night" is OK, whilst "Sleeping In My Car" is probably my least favourite track on the album. "Shoot From The Heart" however impressed me with its killer chorus..

On the whole I really like this album - and it proves that BWO isn't just a singles band after all. I think this will probably end up in my top five albums of the year.

Osmo !

Regular readers will be aware of my undying love for Signmark featuring Osmo Ikonen's "Speakerbox" - a delicious combination of rap, sign language and soul vocals, which narrowly missed out at representing Finland at this year's ESC, although I doubt if it would have done much better than Waldo's People if I'm honest. (And once again, thanks to the legendary Keira who introduced me to this song in the first place).

What I really love about this song is the distinctive vocals on the chorus by Osmo Ikonen, so I thought I'd investigate further and get some more info about him.

Result!

It turns out that he is yet another one of these extremely talented European singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalists which are always very popular on this blog! He started playing classical cello when he was 6 years old but then moved on to piano, drums, guitar, bass and violin. Sounds like a Finnish version of Salem Al Fakir! You must check out his MySpace page www.myspace.com/osmosmusic where you can hear a selection of songs from his debut album "Stories From Within" which was released in 2008. He has a great soul voice and his music is very much in that retro-soul style too. The first song on his MySpace playlist, "Storm", is absolutely great.

The Square-Eyed Couch Potato: May 2009

I'm actually surprised that I have anything to write about at all, as there is nothing remotely decent on the box these days and don't even start me on "Britain's Got Talent" - am I the only person who doesn't "get" this show?

Another of Simon Cowell's long-running (and maybe past its sell-by date) shows is American Idol. I used to be a really big fan of this show but again I got bored with it after about 4 series. Nevertheless I couldn't resist sneaking a peek at the final, which was, in the words of Ryan Seacrest, "the guy next door versus the guyliner". The guy next door (Kris Allen) won: he's a handsome young man with boy-band appeal, but IMHO he lacked the charisma and originality of the very 'theatrical' Adam Lambert, who just screamed (literally) worldwide star. Much has been written elsewhere in blog-land and cyberspace so I don't have anything to add, except to say 'Adam woz robbed'.

I've even got round to watching a few films which have been on Sky Movies! I expected to hate "Juno" because it received so much praise and hype when it was released. However, I thought it was rather fab. This tale of teen pregnancy could have been a potential disaster but instead it was smart and funny with one of the best scripts in years.

A more conventional chick-flick was "27 Dresses" starring Grey's Anatomy's Katherine Heigl in the leading role. I'm not a girly-girl or a chick-flick fan but sometimes you just need some light, fluffy, undemanding and predictable viewing, and this fitted the bill.

Another pleasant surprise for me was "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" which I actually found quite funny, and as it did have Judd Apatow's name on the credits it wasn't exactly 'family viewing' so I knew what to expect. And Russell Brand was in it, playing, well, a version of Russell Brand.

Whilst many reality tv shows are ready for the dumper, "The Apprentice" is still going strong. It has nothing new to offer, but its got tons of car-crash-tv appeal and I just keep coming back for more. I don't envy 'Siralan' having to pick from this year's dismal bunch, whose egos are a long way from their talent: remember Harry Hill's "This week's Apprentice in a nutshell" :)

As usual I'm a bit late getting into something which is probably old news already, but I've just discovered "Flight of the Conchords" : season two is currently airing on BBC Four, and I liked it enough to go out and buy the season one box set. (More about this next time)

"Coronation Street" has been much improved of late - perhaps due to some really sharp, funny scripts, perhaps due to it being a Platt-free zone, I don't know why? - but what does it have to do to win Best Soap at the "British Soap Awards" which recently took place. Change its name to "Eastenders" perhaps?

A brief mention for "ER" which finishes for good, tomorrow night on More 4. I'll do another post about this later on, but in the meantime what I will say is that I've rather enjoyed the final series, with the guest appearances of old characters being done in a meaningful and not just a token way. All good things must come to an end though, and they are doing the right thing finishing it now. Hopefully all the loose ends will be tied up too and will it be too much to ask for a happy ending?

I'm bringing pastry back

Because special people deserve special things, I'm posting these tonight because they made my mum laugh for a long long time today - especially the first one. You won't be able to listen to "Take On Me" or "Sexyback" again in the same way.

Ladies and gentlemen I present Weebl and Bob!

"Paper"


"Pastry"

I’m bringing pastry back (yeah)
When I transport it I like to wear a hat (why?)
I not too sure, but it don’t look wack (word)
Where we going to hide this to protect from attack (hmmm)
Take it to the fridge!
Cos this pastry (a haa)
Will be the casing of a tasty pie (a haa)
I let you have some if you help me bake (ok)
Because I can’t read this recipe (you suck)
Look out for the walrus!
SMASH!!!!




"Pie"


Enjoy!!

The Düsseldorf Diaries: Day 1: Monday 4 May 2009

OK, not so much day 1 as night 1, as we didn't arrive till early evening.

One of the best things about flying into Düsseldorf International Airport (as opposed to Weeze, which is so far away that it's almost in another country) is that it's only a 15 minute, 16 euro taxi journey to the city centre, in one of those distinctive cream Mercedes cars.

After checking in at our hotel we headed out and our mission tonight was to discover the main selling point of Düsseldorf nightlife - the Altstadt, dubbed "the longest bar in the world" in reference to its numerous bars and restaurants.

We entered via Ratinger Strasse, at the beginning of the Altstadt and seemingly this is quite a popular street at weekends with the student set. Very quickly realise that unlike Cologne, Düsseldorf makes little concession to tourism and English-language menus are a rarity. Luckily, for me, faithful travelling companion has a very decent knowledge of German, and I had a dictionary and menu reader so all was well.

However, the other thing that became very apparent over the next few days was that red meat, pork and fish are the big attraction, and there is very little concession to vegetarians (or almost-vegetarians like myself, who only eat chicken). So it was pasta for me tonight at Brauerei Zur Uel (pictured above), the kind of typical German brauhaus which we'd expected from the city, and our first encounter with Alt.

There is only one beer in Düsseldorf, and that is Alt. It's a dark beer, served in small glasses which are just a little bit bigger than the Kolsch glasses from Cologne. Now I'm not a beer drinker, but I found Alt to be more drinkable than I had imagined.

After dinner we headed on down the winding streets as night fell, and it wasn't so long until we were in the most famous street in the Altstadt - Bolker Strasse, which was pretty busy for a Monday night. Yet despite the multitude of bars, the city is almost eerily quiet and peaceful. We explored further and wandered out to the riverside later on. The Rheinturm (a big tower) was illuminated in the darkness. The promenade in Düsseldorf has been developed with walkways, bars and restaurants and you can just imagine it being very lively in the long hot summer nights, but all was quiet on this dark May evening. Weather-wise it was a reasonably calm night, unlike the cold, windy weather we had left behind at home.

Arguably Düsseldorf's most famous bar is Uerige, which brews its own Alt, so we stopped off there before going home. I like the way the "kobes" (waiters) just come over with the beer trays and hand over the beer, marking each one ordered on the beer mat and then they are all added up when it's time to pay the bill.

Düsseldorf also has a U-bahn (underground) system but it had been a long day and I couldn't quite work it out, so we walked back to our hotel. My other immediate impression of Düsseldorf was that it was a very safe city - nothing happened to change my first impression, and never at any time did we feel unsafe.

The Swedish Invasion continues...and Rybak's in the UK top 10!

Star Pilots' fab "In The Heat Of The Night" has entered the UK singles chart at no. 21 this week, and it's also on BBC Radio 1's A-list playlist.

On Radio 1's B-list playlist is "Release Me" by Agnes, whilst "Hold On" by Lazee featuring Neverstore is in the 1-Upfront list.

Kleerup feat. Titiyo's "Longing For Lullabies" is on BBC Radio 2's A-list playlist this week (and yes I even saw the video on The Box last week!)

"Until I Die" has been confirmed as September's next UK single release - and not before time I say, as it's one rather amazing pop-dance record.

The Box and Smash Hits have always been supportive of Hard2Beat acts so it's no surprise really that they're backing Gathania's "Blame It On You". I wasn't really a fan of her when she was in Swedish Idol a couple of years ago but she does the dance-pop thing quite well and the more Swedish acts in the chart, the better!

Finally, a non-Swedish bit of news: for the first time in many many years, the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest enters the UK chart. Who'd have thought it? Alexander Rybak's "Fairytale" is no 10 this week - and it could have gone higher were it not for some iTunes mix-up during the week. It's not the only Eurovision song in our top 30 this week: the UK entry, Jade Ewen's "It's My Time" is no. 27.

Throw The Groove Down, R.I.P.

Some very sad news this week as one of my favourite blogging friends Acer Ben has decided to call it a day and has closed down his blog Throw The Groove Down (formerly Pop Unlimited).

You can still visit his YouTube channel Pop Unlimited 2U which has lots of his trademark 90s dance and TOTP favourites.

(If you're reading this Acer Ben, I'd just like to wish you all the best with all your future adventures and hopefully one day you'll return to fill that void in blog-land which will be left behind with the loss of your fabulous blog).

This week's playlist: and with a little luck I'm gonna meet you on the dancefloor

Dance With Me - Zoli Adok: on record, this is just the most disco-tastic thing ever, which sadly didn't translate on stage to Eurovision final qualification for Hungary. Still love this song though.

The Highest Heights - Lovebugs: on record, this is just the most pop-rock-tastic thing ever, which sadly didn't translate on stage to Eurovision final qualification for Switzerland. Still love this song though.

Bistra Voda - Regina: I'm still surprised this didn't end up in a higher position on the scoreboard as I thought it was a cert for top 5. It's still standing up to repeated play, which is more than can be said for most of the songs that finished higher!

Let It Rock - Kevin Rudolf: for some strange reason I've developed an unhealthy obsession with this song since I came back from my recent holiday. Great rap/rock commercial crossover which I didn't appreciate much when it was in the charts. Better late than never I guess.

Rise to the Occasion/Bite the Bullet - BWO: I'm really loving their "Big Science" album at the moment and these are my two most played tracks from it this week!

We Made You - Eminem: another song which probably wore my resistance down on holiday, although it's a long way from classic Eminem, there are still some witty lyrics in there.

Gloria - Mando Diao: saw their video for this a couple of times on Viva when I was away. Very 'retro' in sound and vision, a band out of time (and I say that as a compliment).

Heartbreak Make Me A Dancer - Freemasons feat Sophie Ellis-Bextor: welcome back Sophie, no-one does posh dance music like you do, no one sings "daaaaancer" or "aaaaanswer" like you do.

Ayo Technology - Milow: still addictive. When is this going to be released in the UK? Anyone know? Or will it pass us by like most other big Euro-hits?

When It Was Good - Flipsyde: this will be one massive, massive hit record. It's not getting a mention yet in the UK new release schedule: will it be another Lady GaGa and we'll be the last to know?

Jai Ho - AR Rahman/Pussycat Dolls: this is turning out to be one of this year's more enduring pop hits. I never get tired of hearing it.

Christophe Willem album on the way...

Not long now till the release of "Cafeine" but you can get a little preview of some of the tracks in the meantime if you go to http://www.nrj.fr/op/christophe_willem_extraits_0509/ecoute1

Album Review: "Disco Defenders" - Alcazar

It's catch-up time now and over the coming weeks I'm going to post lots of album reviews, starting with the latest from Sweden's finest ambassadors of disco-pop, Alcazar. "Disco Defenders" was released back in March 2009.

This is Alcazar 3.0: their third line-up currently consists of the ever-present Andreas Lundstedt and Tess Merkel, and they were joined by Lina Hedlund in 2007. The cover is bold, flamboyant (and very pink!) and their mission remains the same - it's a party and everyone's invited!

The party kicks off with "We Keep On Rockin'", a song which I didn't really like to begin with but slowly grew on me and even made it into my top 50 songs of last year. "Burnin'" has Star Pilots written all over it. The highlight of the album IMHO is "Stay The Night", their Melodifestivalen 2009 entry, which was probably the most played song on the radio during my recent trip to Sweden so it'll always be very special for me!

"From Brazil With Love" has that once heard, never forgotten chorus, although it also has a strange familiarity about it as if we've heard it somewhere else before. My description of this song is schlager-carnival-pop, and it's very catchy indeed.

I wasn't really too excited about "Inhibitions" which is a more straightforward pop song perhaps more suited to a boy band/girl band than the discotastic Alcazar. As for "Harlem Nights" - disco goes jazz! You can just imagine them in a 1920s nightclub or something (!) it's a playful and fun diversion.

I was a bit disappointed by "Baby", the Pet Shop Boys song. It's all a bit....ordinary and mundane, compared to the fabulous "Love Life" from "Alcazarized" which is still one of their best songs. The party gets started again with "Jump Straight Into The Fire" which is more like the Alcazar we know and love, whilst "My My Me and Mine" is again a little bit Alcazar-by-numbers but I'm not really complaining. "Funkytown" didn't need remade, but if it has to happen then who better to do it than this band? They do a good enough job and don't really take it too far away from the original.

"Put The Top Down" is one of those 'let's get away from it all' songs with a very summery feeling to it, whilst "Thank You" is very reminiscent of Abba - quite ironic as Alcazar used to get compared to Abba quite a lot!

For me, "Disco Defenders" doesn't quite hit the dizzy heights of "Casino" or "Alcazarized" - there is no "Crying at the Discoteque" or "Not A Sinner Nor A Saint" for example. It's my own view that Alcazar's best days may be behind them but that's not to say this is a disappointing album, because it isn't. However when you set your standards so high it can get very hard to maintain them over the years and I think that's what has happened here.

On the plus side though, Alcazar remain committed to keeping disco alive - why else would they call their album "Disco Defenders"? - and we can't argue with them. They are still a very, very great pop group, but this is only a very good album rather than a great one.

Tomas Ledin on Nyhetsmorgon 23.05.09

He may be 57 years old now, but Tomas Ledin is still rockin' and rollin'. He appeared on Saturday's TV4 Nyhetsmorgon and sang "500 Dagar" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILyw-JfLCsY and "Att Inte Göra Någonting Alls" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1CT6PIGD_U

If I have a minor criticism it would be that his best days are probably behind him - his music has got a little formulaic in recent years and and he only seems to do two types of song now (the 'rocky' one and the 'soft-rock-acoustic' one) but he still has a very distinctive style and he's always a very popular live performer and will no doubt wow the Swedish crowds on his forthcoming summer tour. Here are a couple of screencaps from yesterday's TV performance.

Retro Saturday: Department S

I bought this single back in 1981, don't you know!

I loved "Is Vic There" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPWtQ1yp-bs and I hadn't heard it for a few years, until tonight. It may have been a little bit of a novelty song and a one-hit wonder, but you know something? It still sounds great.

Retro Saturday: The Knack

One of my favourite TV ads of the moment is the Oatibix ad with the three guys in the lorry singing along with "My Sharona" by The Knack. Here's the ad, if you haven't seen it yet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQsJedjVUkk

So that provides me with a very obvious/poor excuse to feature The Knack tonight on Retro Saturday. They were a U.S. powerpop band and I thought they had quite a good look going on. Here is "My Sharona" : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBvayBXKJj4

Retro Saturday: Frank Sidebottom

A bit of a comedy-crossover this one. A man with a papier-mache head he may be (when he's not being Chris Sievey) but a man of undeniable musical genius nonetheless :)

People of a certain age, who listened to certain radio shows/watched certain TV shows in the 1980s, may just get a little misty-eyed with nostalgia at "Match of the Day"....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS4kOmc81AA

A classic. You know it is, it really is.

Retro Saturday: Falco (revisited)

Yes I know we've had him on Retro Saturday before but I thought he was worth another mention. Recently, faithful travelling companion has been going through a bit of a Falco-phase, and this particular track quickly became a cult favourite for both of us - enjoy the mighty, and quite frankly bonkers, "Mutter, Der Mann Mit Dem Koks Ist Da":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgxQSWJpPB8

You will not be able to get that chorus out of your head....be very afraid!!

Retro Saturday: Basia

OK laugh at me if you want to, I don't care, but I always liked Matt Bianco ("Good Times" and "Say It's Not Too Late" are undervalued pop classics IMHO) anyway their ace card was the very distinctive voice of a young Polish lady named Basia (her full name is Basia Trzetrzelewska)

I liked the singles she subsequently made as a solo artist and wanted to give them a mention tonight. They were very smooth and sophisticated and jazzy in that 80s kid of way. A very good and underrated singer.

"Cruising for Bruising": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myknrlmt1Y4&feature=PlayList&p=E672F2138FC118EC&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=1

"Time and Tide": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xN1mfwY7gsQ

Another apology :(

Things continue to be very busy at EuropeCrazy HQ at the moment (decorating and spring-cleaning and a number of other time-consuming things) so there's not enough hours in the day to blog to a decent standard, blah blah blah.

So once again apologies for the lack of posts here - that very belated ESC review will be delivered in the next few days, and normal service should finally be resumed on Saturday 23rd May.

Victory for Norway!!

So Norway are the winners of the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest with "Fairytale", sung by Alexander Rybak. Once again the "pre-determined winner" actually goes ahead and wins the thing, as per "Molitva" (2007) and "Believe" (2008). I'm rather glad about this, if only for the reason that it wasn't one of the more-obvious-Eurovision-nations-of-recent-years running away with the whole thing.

When the results were coming in I was in the advance stages of a bottle of red wine so forgive me if my recollection is vague, but I distinctly remember yelling -with some delight - that Stian Barsnes Simonsen was giving the votes of the Norwegian jury (please please please give him the ESC presenting job next year NRK!!) - anyway my mum asked "who's Stian?" and I had to go into great detail about how he presented the final until 2007 and then he was replaced by the considerably less attractive Per Sundnes :( well you know the story....

Anyway I digress.

Well done to Russia for organising a massive extravaganza on a very grand scale. Tonight's final went very well indeed: presenters Ivan and Alsou were a vast improvement on the mega-shouty semi-final presenters.

Still trying to come to terms with the shock of Royaume-Uni not being in the bottom half of the scoreboard. I'm no fan of "It's My Time" but it was a job well done tonight. Therefore, my congratulations must go to Jade Ewen and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber: proof that effort does indeed bring rewards.

Full review here tomorrow: in the meantime here are the final results.

1. Norway 387
2. Iceland 218
3. Azerbaijan 207
4. Turkey 177
5. UK 173
6. Estonia 129
7. Greece 120
8. France 107
9. Bosnia-Herzegovina 106
10. Armenia 92
11. Russia 91
12. Ukraine 76
13. Denmark 74
14. Moldova
. Portugal 57
16. Israel 53
17. Albania 48
18. Croatia 45
19. Romania 40
20. Germany 35
21. Sweden 33
22. Malta 31
23. Lithuania 23
24. Spain 23
25. Finland 22

Anyway just after the final I got a text from faithful travelling companion - not an ESC fan, but making an exception this year once he knew Patricia Kaas was singing the French entry - and expressing considerable disgust that La Kaas was only 8th, 'amongst so much c**p' - of course I had to reassure him that this was actually a decent result by recent Eurovision standards :)

More to follow. It's been a long day though, involving retail therapy, decorating the EuropeCrazy HQ living room and finally Eurovision, so I'm off to get some well-earned rest. Back tomorrow afternoon - see ya then. :)

Spot the deliberate mistake :)

Eagle-eyed viewers will have noticed that I predicted one too many qualifiers for tonight's semi-final. I obviously didn't notice till tonight ha ha....

Anyway that aside, I'm drowning in a river of Alexander Rybak-esque self-satisfaction on realising that I got most of my predictions right, although that necessarily doesn't mean that they were my favourite songs.

Tonight's show was all "show" and some very poor vocal performances.

Even the favourites couldn't escape the curse: Alexander wasn't perfect - although he's still my tip to win - and Sakis was drowned out by his backing vocalists...and left me cold.

Elsewhere:

Serbia not qualifying - what a shock! Do people not like joke entries anymore? (They must do...Ukraine got through after all)

Ireland: what more do they have to do? That Pink/Kelly Clarkson/Avril Lavigne style is still very big in Europe - but Eurovision plays by some very different rules.

Slovakia/Slovenia/Latvia: some very painful moments tonight, maybe not in the class of Bulgaria 2009 but ran it pretty close.

Poland - this was a major surprise for me as it wasn't actually that bad.

Lithuania - strange song. Lots of words and not much of a tune, but the subtlety and the hand-on-fire gimmick must have been enough.

Estonia - A bewitching and subtle song sung by a captivating girl with fabulous hair. A very nice change from many of tonight's choreographed-to-death circus acts.

Denmark - one of my pre-contest favourites, but holding something back. Hopefully he will find the magic again in the final.

Hungary - On record this is fabulous, but tonight he fell victim to the off-key curse. I've got the Kleenex here Rachel, if you fancy sharing a box with me. Saturday night won't be the same without him. (Of course there is always Regina, singing, as my mum calls it, "the battle hymn of the republic" lol)

I still think Norway will win, which probably means they won't.

Oh, and I think Royaume-Uni might just spring a surprise: I may not particularly like the pile-of-mince that is "It's My Time" but the one thing you can say is that it has a memorable chorus. Which is more than can be said for many of this year's contenders.

Relaunch on the way (I promise)

Apologies as my big-blogging-frenzy hasn't quite materialised - things are very busy at the moment at EuropeCrazy HQ (combined with the distraction of Eurovision week!) so I haven't had much time to post, therefore it will probably the start of next week before I post the holiday diaries and the multiple album reviews.

Once again sorry folks :(

Eurovision Semi-Final 2: my foolish predictions

As I haven't heard all the songs from semi-final 2, there's a bit of guesswork involved this time!

Here's my predicted qualifiers for Saturday's final, as usual in no particular order.

Greece
Norway
Denmark
Serbia
Azerbaijan
Estonia
Ukraine
Netherlands
Albania
Ireland
Croatia

As I said....it's mostly guesswork...all will be revealed tomorrow night!

Eurovision Semi-Final Part 1: Quelle surprise (not)

Hey I'm getting quite good at this prediction thingy....

Only got a couple wrong and not too surprised:

1) Montenegro had a poor draw - we would liked to have seen that dancer again :O
2) Switzerland's vocals let them down.

Glad for Finland though - still a long way from the greatness of the recorded version, but they did enough I suppose....and glad for Iceland - she was very good tonight. Portugal was sweet and charming, whilst BiH only gave me minor goosebumps rather than major ones: methinks they were holding back tonight and going for the big one on Saturday.

Relief as Sweden got through...my mum still thinks "La Voix" is in with a good chance, but I'm still not sure. It's OK, but maybe I'm still a little bitter, as my repeated rants of "It should have been Hope and Glory" throughout the three minutes of "La Voix" might just have given my feelings away :)

My "they only have to turn up and they'll qualify" award goes yet again to the reigning champions - Turkey and Armenia, with Romania also firmly in that category. I've got my toilet breaks timed for Saturday...!

So we have to put ourselves through it all again on Thursday night, preferably with the volume down when those shouty, shouty, SHOUTY!!!! presenters are on, (worst presenters ever) and their interminable, embarrassing results act. BTW, did anyone else get the urge to shout "just push the f*****g button why don't you???" tonight? Thought so.

Eurovision: think I might be changing my mind and it's not even finished

Some observations:

Iceland - wow! Not only a cert to qualify, but on this performance, a real contender.

Switzerland: really disappointing vocals may have just killed it for them.

Turkey/Armenia/Romania: meh.

Bulgaria: still wiping the blood from my ears.

Eurovision Semi-Final 1: my foolish predictions

Here are the 10 countries which I think will qualify from tomorrow's first semi-final, in no particular order of course - nine of the songs with the most televotes will go through and the remaining finalist will be chosen by a jury. I'm not even going to predict which one that will be.

Montenegro
Sweden
Armenia
Switzerland (I admit this is more out of hope than expectation!)
Turkey
Iceland
Romania
Portugal
Malta
Bosnia & Herzegovina

You'll have noticed that I've missed out Finland - which may come as a shock as it's been one of my pre-contest favourites, but I now fear that it will suffer a "Vampires Come Alive" result, i.e. will fail to qualify. Hope I'm wrong though.

All will be revealed tomorrow night!!

(OK I'm slightly excited because I'll get to see both semi-finals and final live this year, but on the other hand I don't really care about it all as much as I used to, especially in a year as poor as this one.)

SVT's "Popcirkus" axed :(

If you remember I wrote a previous post in defence of Sveriges Television's much-criticised "Popcirkus" music series which aired in March/April 2009 : http://europecrazy.blogspot.com/2009/04/popcirkus-why-all-hatred.html

Anyway Aftonbladet now reports that SVT has now confirmed that the show won't be returning after all: http://www.aftonbladet.se/nojesbladet/tv/article5093567.ab

I'm very sad about this, as it was a very brave and bold experiment which deserved to be given another chance.

The EuropeCrazy Holiday Hit List: Dusseldorf 2009

It's not too different from home...

My playlist is based on watching Viva (thank goodness for this channel, as MTV Germany seems to be like our MTV, with constant reruns of 'The Hills' etc in favour of actual music)

Poker Face - Lady GaGa: the international nature of the pop hit these days means that you're never too far away from the GaGa....

Stadt - Cassandra Steen/Adel Tawil: I don't know anything about her, but he's the Ich & Ich/Prison Break theme guy with the very distinctive voice. This is quite a nice little mid-paced pop number.

Jai Ho (You Are My Destiny) - AR Rahman/Pussycat Dolls: it may be a Slumdog-rip-off, but it's arguably the best thing PCD have ever done.

Love Sex Magic - Ciara & Justin Timberlake: this is no favourite of mine by any means, as it's possibly the worst example of conveyer-belt r'n'b as I can think of - but I've mentioned it here purely because it was played to death....

Boom Boom Pow - Black Eyed Peas: as a former BEP fan (who even went to see them live a couple of years ago) I'm really disappointed in this - but I had to mention this here purely due to the amount of airplay this got on Viva.

Ayo Technology - Milow: there's no doubt that this is an inventive reinvention of the song - watch this become the next big pan-European hit - but the video is maybe just a bit unsettling at times.

Played to death category: Pink/Kelly Clarkson/Ashley Tisdale/Kid Cudi.

"Walking On Air" - Kerli: is this the same Kerli who did MF a few years ago? Estonian Kerli?

"We Made You" - Eminem: not quite past glories but it's good to have him back I guess.

"When It Was Good" - Flipsyde: I will stick my neck out and dare to suggest that this will be one of the biggest pan-European hits of the coming months. Watch this space.

EuropeCrazy Day!!

Hi folks....!

Yes I am back from Dusseldorf, and a rather fab short break it was too. The weather was variable - it started off dull, wet, windy and rainy (Tuesday afternoon probably the low point) then the rain went off and it was still a bit dull (but not cold) and then it came good on Thursday - the sun came out and summer arrived, and stayed till our flight left the runway on Friday night at which time the rain returned. By that time it didn't matter of course!

The inevitable travel diaries will follow over the next week - stay tuned.

Anyway today is "Europe Day" which rather appeals to me. This is a day of celebration of European unity - an event which is commemorated on the continent, but is sadly overlooked here in the Euro-sceptic UK, which views "Europe" as some dull political organisation foisting rules and regulations on us, rather than a varied and vibrant continent with so much to offer: places to visit, music to listen to, culture to absorb and lifestyles to envy. That was one of the reasons I started this blog in the first place: I am proud to be a citizen of Europe, and with that in mind I'd also like to declare today "EuropeCrazy Day" and officially relaunch this blog after a couple of months' reduced service (for reasons which regular readers will be well aware of!).

I thought I'd get a little celebration going here, so appropriately let's have something German - "Allein Allein" by Polarkreis 18, still getting lots of airplay and still very popular at EuropeCrazy HQ!

Holiday!!

Going to Dusseldorf tomorrow with faithful travelling companion. Reasonably organised, just a couple of last-minute bits of packing to do.

I'm still on this euphoric high, what with everything that happened in Gothenburg, and then my training course at work was a big success. A couple of amazing - although emotionally draining - weeks.

So now it's onto a more 'conventional' holiday, our annual spring break. I'm looking forward to returning to Germany again, and needless to say I'll post my travel diaries here.

After my return home I'm planning a bit of a relaunch for this blog: with things finally winding down over at Planet Salem I'll be able to devote more time to EuropeCrazy. This blog will be back on Saturday 9 May - appropriately Europe Day, so it will be 'EuropeCrazy Day' on here :)

In the meantime take care everyone...and I'll see you all back here next weekend!

Will you catch me when I fall?

The rehearsals for this year's Eurovision Song Contest have started in Moscow, with the first semi-final just over a week away. Of course regular readers of this blog will be aware that I've had some big important stuff occupying my time over recent weeks, meaning that this year's contest has probably passed me by - I only really followed Melodifestivalen in any detail, and haven't heard too many of this year's ESC entries so I'm a bit late to the party I guess :) anyway my favourites so far are still Finland, Denmark and Hungary, who knows, I may even find some other songs I like among the ones I haven't heard yet....

(I think "La Voix" is in with a good chance, but I still can't get the same enthusiasm for it as I would have for "Hope and Glory". Sverige should just have sent "Tingeliin" anyway!!)

Anyway one that I just recently came across is the Swiss entry, "The Highest Heights" by a band called Lovebugs. Possibly the most un-Eurovision song this year, it's different and contemporary and I really hope that it's enough to stand out within its semi-final. I can tell you that this will be one of the songs which will definitely have a post-Eurovision run on my iPod. Here's the official preview video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OE5Cww_Jx0

The problem I have with Eurovision is that it's just got too big, and so many of the entries from one year to the next are interchangeable same-old same-old "My Number One" ripoffs - and that song was one of my least favourite winners ever. No doubt this year will bring a new crop, many of which will inevitably pick up more votes than they deserve: I'm just so tired of that style of Eurovision song which seems to have taken over the contest in recent years.

When I come back from my holiday I'll have to do a crash-course in this year's ESC before the semi-finals kick off. According to what I've been reading on the web, Norway seems to be the "chosen one" this year...

Mylene Farmer's tour starts tonight in Nice!

Yes, the latest long-awaited tour by my favourite French musical icon is kicking off at the Palais Nikaia in Nice tonight. As Mylene herself continues to be a woman of mystery, giving absolutely nothing away, the web is awash with rumour and counter-rumour about the stage, the costumes, the setlist....all will be revealed after tonight.

One thing's for sure, she will certainly put on one spectacular live extravaganza, and I can't wait to see the live DVD, which is expected to be released towards the end of this year.

(In the meantime, if you were at the show and you read this blog, then please feel free to leave a comment!)

I'm tired of using technology

Just thought I'd check out the German singles chart before I head off to Dusseldorf on Monday.

Yep...it's same-old same-old with Lady GaGa at no. 1 with "Poker Face" and the chart doesn't really look too different from any other European chart, with perhaps the exception of Peter Fox, Silbermond, Polarkreis 18 (and I know they're not German, but it's nice to see that Mando Diao are still very popular indeed in Germany!).

One name which I have seen popping up in various European charts in recent weeks is Milow, whose unusual acoustic-style cover version of the 50 Cent/Justin Timberlake track (which coincidentally was out when I was previously in Germany) is currently at no. 2 in the German singles chart.

So I decided to find out more information about this artist, and he turns out to be a Belgian singer-songwriter (real name Jonathan Vandenbroeck) who has released two albums of acoustic pop - which may appeal to fans of Jason Mraz or James Morrison, for example - and if you want to hear more of his songs then go to his MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/milowbe