7 May 2024 - Teya & Salena - Who The Hell Is Edgar?

Meet Austria's 2023 Eurovision entry.  Teya and Salena are separate Austrian musical artists - both quite talented.  They met on the TV show Starmania 21, which is a music competiton in Austria.

This ended up being a hit song in many countries, and the 15th place finisher in Eurovision.  It is the biggest hit to date by either artist, and they've gone on to continue to record and release singles together.  

By the way, the titular "Edgar" is Edgar Allen Poe, who has possessed the songwriters, these women, along with their producers, Ronald Janeček and Pele Loriano.  The song was written during the last hour of a songwriting camp in 2022, and was always intended for Eurovision... for Salena to sing solo.  It just worked better with both of them.

Just have fun with it.

Eurovision is, of course, about the performance, and this is their performance. Again, it's a fun, goofy song.

Of course they continue to play the song, like during this charity play in Austria.

They've even done a stropped down - I refuse to call it "acoustic" - version of the song.

6 May 2024 - The Darling Buds - If I Said

I was REALLY SCARED we wouldn't have something to continue this.  I mean, it's going to have to end someday, right?  The Darling Buds only released so much music.  

This is not the year it ends.  But I scared you, didn't I?

There have been rumours of new Darling Buds music coming soon.  I will let you know if I see it anytime soon, but we won't post it here until next May 6th.  We have to conserve our Darling Buds, you know. 

3 May 2024 - Manel - Per la bona gent

Manel are a Spanish band.

But that ain't Spanish that they are singing.

You see, Manel are from Barcelona, in Catalonia, in the north of Spain.   The native language there, banned for so many years by Francisco Franco, who ruled Spain from the end of the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s until 1975, is Catalan.  

Manel are a band who perform in Catalan.  

This song was the title song from the 5th album, released in 2019.  They use a sample from the song "Alenar" by Maria del Mar Bonet, a Majorcan singer who stood in defiance of Franco by singing in Catalan in the late 1960 - the native language of Majorca, strangely enough, is a dialect of Catalan as well. 

If this is the first time you've heard Catalan, it may sound a little strange, like someone is pronouncing Spanish with extra h's.  It is a beautiful language and this song is a banger.

 

The song is just as cool live, if not cooler.

2 May 2024 - Daoko × Kenshi Yonezu - 打上花火 (Fireworks)

Daoko is a young Japanese singer and rapper who first hit the scene in 2012, at age 15, when she uploaded her songs on the video streaming site called Nico Nico Douga at the time (now it's NicoNico). 

This single, a collaboration with Kenshi Yonezu, who wrote the song.  Featured on her 2017 album, Thank You Blue as well as the anime Fireworks, Should We See It From The Side or The Bottom, it would go on to top the Japan Hot 100.  It would go on to be the 3rd biggest hit on the 2017 Billboard Japan year-end chart.

Here's where it gets crazy.

It would also go on to be the 4th biggest hit on the 2018 Billboard Japan year-end chart.

It would also go on to be the 21th biggest hit on the 2019 Billboard Japan year-end chart.

OK, so now I'm done.

No, wait. It was the 75th biggest hit on the same chart in 2020.

In an all-time hit chart released in 2022, it was the 13th biggest Billboard Japan hit of all time.

The song is sad and beautiful at the same time, and was heralded for that dichotomy.  The video is, well, anime.

Daoko isn't an anime, though.  She's a real person, who really performs live, as she did in 2018.

1 May 2024 - Jennifer Rostock - K.B.A.G.

The Bundesvision Song Contest is a German competition between the 16 states of Germany that is loosely based on Eurovision's concept.  

In 2008, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern band Jennifer Rostock didn't win, but they did get noticed and a record deal followed.

Oh, we should probably address this for our non-German readers.  Jennifer Rostock is a band, fronted by Jennifer Weist.  The name came from an earlier studio misunderstanding, where notes to the band were directed at Jennifer, and since they didn't know her name, but only that the band was from the coast, they just put the only coastal town they knew, Rostock - which was not where the band was from, but close enough, I guess? - and the screwed-up name stuck.

The band rocked hard and they continue to rock hard.  This single, from 2014, is a great example of that.

They rock just as hard live.

30 April 2024 - Danna - ATARI

I am absolutely on an Élite kick lately.  

It doesn't hurt that the actress who played Lu - Mexican singer/actress Danna Paola - in seasons 1-3 of the show released a single last Tuesday... and that it's a banger.  The second single from her new album, Childstar, it's already got a LOT of views and listens on your favorite streaming platform.  Co-written and co-produced by the now-mononymous Danna (with a large team), it's a fun and sexy song.  

Even you English speakers will recognize a few of the words.  

The song's title is a reference to the popular Atari 2600 VCS, the first mass-market home video game systems with interchangable cartridges - you know, you can play with her like an Atari.... I guess.

It's also really easy to dance to. 

29 April 2024 - Louane - Donne-moi ton cœur

I've featured Louane on this blog before.  More than once.  

The French hitmaker has a lot of great singles to choose from, including this 2020 single, written and produced by Wolfgvng and Damso, the latter of whom Louane met at a music festival, where they bonded and decided to work together.  The song is a slow electronic love song, whose title literally translates to "Give me your heart". 

The song would go on to be a hit in Belgium and Switzerland, and a minor hit in France.

In addition to her excellent pop vocals, Louane is a pretty good pianist, and she does an acoustic version of this song, which is slower and more heartfelt.

It's beautiful.

It also wasn't a one-off, as she also did this version live, on French television.

That doesn't mean she doesn't perform the original live.... or that it isn't differently beautiful.