Archive for June 2012

New material by the Eurovision Class of 2012: Ivi, Tooji, Soluna and Sinplus

June 30, 2012 Cyprus, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland No comments

Earlier in the week we featured the new single of the Greek Eurovision representative on our website. Yet Eleftheria is not the only of this years Eurovision class to release new material. Let’s have a look at the new singles of Soluna Samay, Tooji, Sinplus and Ivi Adamou.

Soluna Samay – Come Again (The Quetzal)

The 21 year old who represented Denmark at Eurovision has come up with a Latin-flavored uptempo summer track called ‘Come Again (The Quetzal)’. The chorus itself sounds like Samay has been inspired by the Maltese Eurovision entry of this year, while the verses sound very ‘Should’ve Known Better’. This folky, latin-influenced track suits her rather beautifully.

‘Come Again’ (The Quetzal) is out now via i-Tunes. Listen to it below

Tooji – If it Wasn’t For You

Tooji  who represented Norway at Eurovision, might not have had the best of birthday’s, coming last in the final in Baku. Yet winning the national selection has given him the opportunity to kick start his career. With new single ‘If It Wasn’t For You’ Tooji takes a step back and goes for a beat heavy mid tempo ballad which not only sounds current, but showcases a new side of the former model/tv veejay.

Tooji’s ‘If It Wasn’t For You’ is available now on itunes. Listen to it below

Sinplus – Do You Wanna Dance

Brothers Ivan & Gabriel Broggini, represented Switzerland as Sinplus at this years Eurovision but failed to qualify for the grand final with their rock track ‘Unbreakable’. Though dissapointment was huge for the guys, they did get a record company out of their adventure and have since released their debut album ‘Disinformation’. The second single taken from that album, is ‘Do You Wanna Dance’ continues into their rock style.

‘Do You Wanna Dance’ is now available on itunes. Listen to it below

Ivi Adamou – Madness ft TU/ Avra (ft. Pink Noisy)

The Cypriot beauty managed to get Cyprus out of the semi after a few tough years, and continued to have one of the bigger successes internationally with her hit single ‘La La Love’. Adamou is currently the only artist who has two new singles out. The first one ‘Madness’ ft TU which is in English and the dance track ‘Avra’ ft Pink Noisy. It’s not yet known whether both singles will be launched internationally. Videos for both tracks are expected soon.

Listen to ‘Madness’ and ‘Avra’ Below

Aiden Grimshaw reveals new single ‘Curtain Call’ Listen here

June 30, 2012 UK 2 comments

Aiden Grimshaw, in a previous life X Factor participant, has revealed his second single ‘Curtain Call’ on BBC Radio 1 yesterday afternoon. The singer made his appearance during Scott Mils radioshow, to unveil the track.

‘Curtain Call’ is the second single taken from the singer’s debut album ‘Misty Eye’. The new single has a release date for August 12, while the full album will be out one week later, on August 20. The new Moby-inspired track succeeds ‘Is This Love’, the singer’s debut single which made its debut on number 35 in the official UK charts.

It’s a very interesting track as its completely different from the lead single; Much more mid-tempo, and fascinating in a Moby way. If you remember the haunting vocals during ‘Mad World’ in Aiden’s X Factor past, then ‘Curtain Call’ is something you’ll very much enjoy. Interesting is that the actual chorus is sung by Labrinth’s sister Sherelle, which is clever and very refreshing. Excellent choice!

‘Curtain Call’ is out on August 12. ‘Misty Eye’, the debut album, is out via RCA records on August 20.

‘Get Rich in Vegas’ video for A Friend in London Released: Watch here

June 30, 2012 Denmark No comments

It’s been a top year for Danish band A Friend in London so far. Not only have they been supporting New Kids On The Block and Backstreet Boys on their tour, but they’ve also released their brand new single ‘Get Rich in Vegas’ which we reviewed a good month ago here.

AFIL fans will however be pleased to know that the band have now also released a video for their latest single. And it’s become a beautiful ode to their fans who’ve been attending and supporting them during their tours. The video sees the guys performing in several concert halls, chilling out in their AFIL tour bus, and playing basket ball. The Schou-lovers, will also be very pleased and won’t want to miss this video as lead singer Tim obviously has his top off in few of the stills.

So with no further ado, here’s the video for ‘Get Rich in Vegas’ which is out now!

Album Review: ‘Become the One You Love’ by Artmagic

June 29, 2012 Album Review No comments

What happens when you put two extremely talented individuals together? Magic! Richard Oakes, guitarist from Suede and Sean McGhee, the well known producer ( Imogen Heap, Alanis Morrisette,Robyn ) are Artmagic. And that’s exactly what they have done with their debut album ‘Become The One You Love’, making magic.

‘Become the One You Love’ consists of 11 mid tempo tracks, each strongly individual and empowering.  There’s a clear division between the songs some are rather relaxing and chilled such as album opener ‘The Choice’ which is accompanied by piano and tracks like ‘Half Of You’ while others like ‘Down the River’ and ‘You’ are equipped by electric guitars sounding very edgy and much more up tempo. Their amazing single ‘Forever in Negative’, featured on the album, is a regular  on BBC 6 Music receiving full support. The album has been described as ‘Excellent, classy grown up music…truly beautiful’ which only adds to Art Magic being a top of the bill act!

The album itself has been something the guys had never done before.  Talking about that process Sean explains ”Richard and I have enjoyed a great freedom because there was no giant organization to please, only ourselves, so we could do whatever we wanted. But we’ve tried to make melodic, accessible music that appeals on a mainstream level, so the album has several big open doors people can walk through. ‘Beauty’ is another key word for Artmagic. Even when the music is hard and troubled, we didn’t want to be too thorny and spiky.”

‘Become the One You Love’ is the result of an amazing collaboration between Richard and Sean. The dreamy atmospheric guitar-pop they provide on this album is just simply too good to resist. The track ‘A Homecoming’ represents this description beautifully. If you can imagine sincere lyrics, rich layers of music, and a dreamy atmosphere than you won’t disagree on ‘Become The One You Love’ as a must-buy album.

‘Become the One You Love’ by Art Magic is available on July 2nd.  Watch the video for current single ‘Forever in Negative’ below.

ESC 2013: is Nuša Derenda Slovenia’s hope for this Eurovision 2013?

June 29, 2012 Eurovision, Slovenia No comments

With the 2012 edition only just over, the first rumors and gossip for Eurovision 2013 have begun. While the focus has mainly been on host country Sweden, who’s been revealing more details about their host city bids, and their production team, the Slovenian broadcaster RTVSLO has apparently approached superstar and 2001 representativeNuša Derenda to represent them again at the forthcoming event..

Derenda, born Anuška Žnideršič, has been one of the countries most popular singers since she released her first single in 1999. In 2001, she was approached by the Slovenian broadcaster to represent her Slovenia at the Eurovision Song Contest in Copenhagen, Denmark, with the song ‘Energy’, achieving a high respectable 7th place. To date it’s still Slovenia’s best result in the competition.

Whether Nuša Derenda will actually be picked as the Slovenian representative is yet to be seen. If she does, she’ll be succeeding Eva Boto, who represented the country this year with the ballad ‘Verjamen’ but failed to qualify for the grand final.

To be continued…

Watch Nuša Derenda’s 2001 entry ‘Energy’ below

Album Review: ‘Electroshock’ by Kate Ryan

June 28, 2012 Album Review, Belgium 3 comments

Belgian dance diva, Kate Ryan has officially presented her new album Electroshock to the press last Monday. ‘Electroshock’ contains 14 new tracks, all of them mainly in English, is the singers final full studio album.

If the alarm bells start ringing of Kate withdrawing from the music scene, let us tell you, Belgian’s finest dance export is not leaving the music industry but is well aware of the growing popularity of services like Spotify and iTunes where fans buy the songs they like rather than purchasing the full album.

The album, which was originally expected in September last year, has been well worth the wait. As the queen of dance, with a huge popularity scale in Europe, Kate’s transformed ‘Electroshock’ in the party album for this summer, with an incredible amount of songs which could well turn out to be big smash hits all over Europe.

Opening the album is ‘Lovelife’,  the first single featuring a sample of Liquido’s ‘Narcotic’, released in 2011, which is followed by the beat-heavy dance track ‘believer’. The latter has a very international sound which shows the first glimpse of a return to the top of the dance charts throughout Europe.

Electroshock has so far seen three single releases. All three tracks have made the final cut of the album, also ‘Broken’ which was released towards the end of last year.  The track features British rapper Narco and follows last year’s trend of producers and singers collaborating with artists from the rapper world. Though its intentions were noble, Narco doesn’t really own his part in the song and in all honesty ‘Broken’ would have been better off as a Kate only track. Good news for the fans though, Kate allows everybody to download her version for free as a big thank you. Also current single ‘Robots’  is featured and comes closest ,alongside’ Leave it Alone’, to her previous work from the ‘Alive’-era.

Overall ‘Electroshock’ is a very solid, international sounding album which exposures some jams, similar to Goldfrapp. ‘Walk To The Beat’, ‘One More Time’ and ‘Everytime’ are the perfect examples of that comparison. Those three tracks do not only sound perfect for international recognition but proof Kate is much more than the ‘lady from the French covers’ and more than worth her title of Eurodance queen. ‘Madness’, is probably the most laid back track from the album and its Electro R&B midtempo arrangement is simply astonishing

And just when you think it couldn’t get any better, Kate does provide us with French lyrics as she’s gearing up her schlager duet ‘Little Braveheart’ with former Swedish  Eurovision winner Charlotte Perelli. Both ladies have a Eurovision past, and this cheeky, uptempo track wouldn’t have been misplaced for a second try at Eurovision itself, which Kate confirmed she would be more than happy to take on. The best is saved for last however with ‘Run Away’. The track, which is produced by the man behind Avicii, Tim Berg, is a cracker of a tune which complements two of the biggest stars on the scene, and is bound to conquer the world. Kudos!

As a final studio album, Kate has outdone herself again. ‘Electroshock’ is the biggest dance album of 2012!

‘Electroshock’ is out now in Belgium and is scheduled to be released in several European countries over the next few days. The album can also be bought through the official Kate Ryan website.

Listen to ‘Little Braveheart’ below

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