With Just A Hint Of Mayhem

Music reviews, gig reviews, fun trivia and extra added random stuff!

Eurovision Song Contest 2011 May 14, 2011

Filed under: News,Observation — justwilliam1959 @ 10:29 pm
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So here we are again at the most important annual event on the European Music Calendar, the Eurovision Song Contest. OK I was only joking right! I intend to give you a brief opinion on each country’s performance, if I can be bothered to watch the whole thing of course! I am also typing this real-time in case you wondered. Germany won last year, so who will it be this year? Blue? Jedward? I bloody hope not! Check out the official Eurovision 2011 site by clicking here. You can also check out my post on last years contest by clicking here.

Finland – Blander than James Blunt

Bosnia & Herzegovina – Dull and it looked like Catweazle was in the band. What was Harry Enfield‘s Kevin doing dancing around the stage with a trumpet? ‘It’s just SO UNFAIR!’

Denmark – looked like rockers, but clearly they couldn’t rock their way out of a paper record sleeve

Lithuania – Typical Eurovision ballad. Why was she signing for the deaf? Would being deaf be an advantage when watching this show? Anyway the song is the opposite of a Chinese Takeaway meal, you certainly won’t want more of this dirge after half an hour.

Hungary – aaah some Eurodisco at last! But why didn’t her dressmaker finish the dress? Some of the dancers appeared to be wearing illuminated hoodies, so does that mean you could get an electronic ASBO? Either way they certainly wouldn’t be allowed to visit my local corner shop.

Ireland – It’s bloody Jedward, are we in a parallel universe? Surprisingly good graphics and shoulder pads borrowed from Dynasty. It pains me to say it of these two talented twats but I think this damned shite could win. It has everything but talent.

Sweden – well it’s hardly Abba is it? But it has a hook and an 80s disco beat. If you name your song ‘Popular’ though is that going to be a help or a hindrance? Personally I can see the irony in a song with that title finishing last with nul points.

Estonia – well it has to be said that for a fashion student, that is an awful dress. The dancers are like the people who failed the Zombie auditions for Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video. As for her song I think it has created a new music genre; Dull Disco!

Greece – at the risk of sounding xenophobic what was that guy doing between the singers parts? Kebab Rap? Catwoman says the set looks like they’re about to be beamed up.

Russia – by far the best of the night so far on both the singing and dancing fronts. Apart from the spelling of the singer’s name on the back of their leather jackets.

France – apparently this is the favourite. The singer is supposedly the youngest professional tenor in the world at just 21. Not my favourite style of music but he is damned good. This really would be an interesting winner. As left field as Finland’s Lordi a few years ago.

Italy – If Jamie Cullum were Italian he’d be this bloke, only slightly better. Another left field option though, jazziest song of the night so far. Top marks to Italy and France for daring to be different.

Switzerland – a bit of a light almost reggae style beat going on with this one. Apparently she was discovered busking. Not a bad song overall apart from being a little heavy on the na na na na na’s but she certainly has the looks to be a star.

United Kingdom – this is it, it’s Blue. A pretty good performance, although a long way from being a great song. But it does sound like something that would go down well all over Europe. Did Simon Webbe forget to pack his shirt?

Blue had bet their shirts on winning Eurovision

Moldova – possibly the worst of the night so far. A poor Beastie Boys tribute band with added brass, unicycles, monocles and the worst hats ever seen in Eurovision. How did this get through the semi finals?

Germany – It’s Lena back to defend her title. She won with “Satellite” last year. I can’t see her being back next year personally. She has a distinctive voice but a really undistinctive (is that a word, probably not?) song.

Romania – the lead singer of this band is actually English. A pretty good song to boot as well.

Austria -well this one really is crap from a Celine Dion wannabe

Azerbaijan – the best thing I could say about this one is that it’s harmless, inoffensive and forgettable.

Slovenia – nice looking girl, not sure about the leather fingerless mitts though or the dress. In my opinion this is very much a mid table song; not a big winner and not a big loser.

Iceland – reminiscent of songs that won in the 70s. Is it me or does it have a whiff of Brotherhood Of Man’s “Save Your Kisses For Me”. Catwoman likes it though.

Spain – they say that the winner more often comes from the last five performances. If that’s the case this year this might be the one. Poppy, good beat, easy on the ear and very good Eurovision song. It looks like they’ll do better than the UK in Eurovision as well as the football world cup.

Ukraine – accompanied by a sand painter who won Ukraine’s Got Talent. He is good though, but what does he add to the song? As for the singer, why was she wearing dead chicken epaulettes. The artist was better!

Serbia – It’s like Eastern Europes version of Ready Steady Go, where is Cathy McGowan when you need her. But one of the best songs of the night, a really cool 60s vibe to it. Sign them up for the next Austin Powers movie!

Georgia – the rockiest song of the night, just not really a very good song the singer has a great voice though. But crap rap and the outfits looked like cast offs from the Tron movie.

As I said earlier I am typing this real time, so before all the scoring starts here is my prediction for the top 3. I would be very surprised if I am even close to being correct, but here goes anyway 1 – Spain, 2 – Russia, 3 – Serbia. Check the real results below.

And the winner is……….. <drum roll> ………………… Azerbaijan, definitely not one of my favourites. Italy were second and Sweden third. So none of my predictions were correct as I suspected. The UK finished in the top half of the table picking up a few votes from most countries. We were however just behind Ireland’s Jedward. Switzerland came last!

Take a look below at the video for the winning song “Running Scared” from Ell & Nikki

 

Eurovision Song Contest 2010 May 30, 2010

Filed under: Review — justwilliam1959 @ 8:12 am
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The UK entry in this years contest was a song written by Mike Stock and Pete Waterman off of Stock Aitken Waterman. It was performed by 19-year-old Josh Dubovie and it is called “That Sounds Good To Me“. But clearly it didn’t sound good to the rest of Europe as for the third time in eight years we came last. OK I know all the conspiracies about neighbourly voting with the Balkan States voting for each other just like the Scandinavians. But really how good was our song? In my opinion it was ok and Josh’s performance was very good. But as the Catwoman said to me during the show “you could almost imagine Kylie singing that a few years ago” It is that which is probably the crux of another UK failure, the song was 80s cheesy disco and very dated.

Still at least it was better than the atrocious and out of tune nul points performance of Jemini back in 2003. The sad thing is that wherever we finish we will always be in the next years contest in the final. Germany, Spain and France will be too. Simply because it is those four countries that fund the whole shebang. Read about the whole thing on the beeb by clicking here

My personal favourites last night were Iceland and Turkey. Kind of Euro Dance and slightly rockier respectively. When Lena sang the German winning entry, “Satellite” I did say somewhat prophetically (or more like a lucky bloody guess) that this one is the winner. It was probably helped by the fact that it has been heard all over Europe already, but it’s not a bad song. Although I do find some of her English enunciation a little strange. But then coming from someone like me who speaks just one language (unless bollocks, bullshit and double dutch count) that’s a bit rich. So congratulations to Lena for achieving Germany’s second win. The first was with Nicole’s “A Little Peace” back in 1982.

Can we learn from Germany? They won in 1982 with Nicole and this year with Lena. So next year perhaps the UK's entry should be sung by Doris, Ethel or Chardonnay!

There were some rather strange moments last night. The Spanish performance was interrupted by a random guy in a stupid hat jumping on the stage and dancing. Personally I didn’t think he looked out-of-place among the toy-like dancers providing a backdrop to a dreadful song. Sung by someone who looked like a reincarnated Leo Sayer. Then there was Armenia who sang a song about apricot stones, what was that all about then? Well apricot stones obviously, but I mean why? Apparently the apricot is their national fruit. Then there was the Belarus entry “Butterflies”. Graham Norton had said before their appearance that the dresses they were wearing would be hotly desired by every little girl in Europe aged under 10. I didn’t understand why until partway through the song when they transformed into dresses with added butterfly wings. They also nearly managed to finish below us but picked up some massive votes towards the end.

wtf?

So let us now ponder on what the UK will do next? Personally I think we should ask Muse and Radiohead to combine for next years entry. It might not win but it would be credible and blow everyone else away! How else will we add to that illustrious list of previous UK winners Sandie Shaw, Lulu, Brotherhood Of Man, Bucks Fizz and Katrina & The Waves? Let us also hope that this has no similarity with the result of the impending World Cup in South Africa!

You can find the official Eurovision site here

And you can find the Wikipedia take on Eurovision here

 

“And we know we shall win as we are confident in the victory” April 13, 2010

Filed under: Trivia — justwilliam1959 @ 5:56 pm
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I was saddened and angered by the news I read today that Somali militants have banned the playing of music from the country’s airwaves. Well technically the transition government only control a small part of the capital Mogadishu so it is actually the work of the militants that run the rest of the country. There has not been a functioning government in the state since 1991. The militants have closed down five BBC radio relay stations in the south of the country, so now there are just two FM transmitters left in the transition government and UN controlled part of Mogadishu. Is there anything we can do about it? I don’t know, but I doubt it. The waters off Somalia are already full of proper pirates so the chances of setting up a pirate radio station off shore seems unlikely. Can we write to our politicians? Well sure you can, but certainly in the UK at the moment the self-regarding parasites are so far up their own sphincters with the General Election and new ways to fiddle their expenses that they won’t be bothered by something so trifling as this. But if you do believe there is something we could do then please get in touch. If anyone from Somalia is actually reading this I would love to hear from you. You can read the BBC report on this story by clicking here 

The ban on music radio in Somalia has led to the discovery and use of many innovative living instruments. I'm not quite sure where you blow on this one though!

This whole sorry episode got me thinking about songs that have been banned from airplay in the UK, so that, my dear readers is what this post is all about! 

One of the biggest en masse bans occurred just after 9/11 back in 2001. A Programme Director at one of the Clear Channel Radio Stations produced a list of songs that he felt might be in bad taste after the events of 2001. It was allegedly meant as a guideline and supposedly received no corporate backing. I kind of see where this person was coming from with some of the choices (although I do not agree at all) but how the hell did the following make it on to the list? 

“Ob La Di Ob La Da” – Beatles 

“What A Wonderful World” – Louis Armstrong 

“99 red Balloons” – Nena 

Alice In Chains, the Beatles and Metallica have four entries each while AC/ DC are way out in front with six. It seems that almost any song mentioning planes, fire, death, bombs, New York or the middle east was included. Click here to see the whole list. The BBC actually preceded this during the Gulf War of 1991. This list included Abba’s “Waterloo” and also the instruction that Massive Attack would be referred to as Massive during the conflict. Click here to see the BBC’s Gulf War banned list and many other lists referenced in this post 

The BBC has quite a long history of banning songs for various reasons and here is just a small selection along with the reasons they received a beeb ban! 

“Je T’Aime” – Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg. Obviously the powers that be at the BBC back in 1969 understood french far better than I did then or even do today. personally I think there would have only been a tiny minority of people in the UK in 1969 who would have understood the lyrics anyway. It allegedly wasn’t helped though by the inclusion in the lyric of Serge’s desire to “entre te reins” which I’m told means between the kidneys, or in English probably ‘up the bum’ 

“The Day After You” – Blow Monkeys (supported by Curtis Mayfield). This was banned for being anti Margaret Thatcher. Since when was that a crime? I always have been and always will be. If you feel the same maybe you should also check out Elvis Costello’s “Tramp The Dirt Down” 

“Tribute To Buddy Holly” – Mike Berry and the Outlaws. This was a Joe Meek production from 1961 and was banned for being a morbid celebration of a dead teen idol 

“Cover Of The Rolling Stone” – Dr Hook and the Medicine Show. Obviously the BBC were not going to advertise an American publication, which in those days was almost impossible to get in this country anyway. The band tried to help by recording a new version of the song which replaced Rolling Stone with Radio Times, which was and still is a BBC published TV and Radio listings magazine (other listing magazines are available!) 

Many other songs, especially more recently have been banned for including swearing. The earliest of these that I am aware of is John Lennon’s “Working Class Hero” in 1970. John Lydon (formerly known as Johnny Rotten remains the only person to have sneaked the ‘C’ word into a song and had it played though. Listen to the Sex Pistols “Pretty Vacant” again and hear how he pronounces ‘vacant’ in the chorus. I understand that this was deliberate. Nice one Mr Lydon 😉 

I could go on and on with this post but I will draw it to a close, but I would like to hear your stories of banned songs wherever you are. Personally I think the world would be a nicer place if the likes of Boyzone, Westlife, Robbie Williams and anyone who wins X Factor were to be banned from getting any airplay ever! 

I will finish with a story about Michael Logan who recently received an ASBO for singing Bob Marley songs outside his home in the UK from 8 a.m until midnight. (Click here for the link to the story from the Manchester Evening News) Now I don’t condone that sort of thing but it does give me a great excuse to end with a Bob Marley song! This is Bob with a great live segue of “War/ No More Trouble”

Did you know that the lyrics to Marley’s “War” were the words of a speech made by Haile Selassie?