Too much music, too little time! :D

Hi everyone, I'm finally going to post about a song I've been hearing for some weeks now. My son told me he loved it and has performed it in a school event. I knew of the group through my eldest, but can't say they retained my attention, through no fault of their own. I kept telling myself I should look it up to hear the original, but I finally got the opportunity thanks to David Letterman, 2 nights ago. So, in honor of a late night TV host icon's retirement, here is the original song by the Foo Fighters “Everlong”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBG7P-K-r1Y

This one is for my son: Foo Fighters “everlong” acoustic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eO_15bcZTq8

 ...and this one is for Dave:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrVjOUIoo6Q

I know most people have to retire sometime, but I had a tug watching the show and remembering most of the segments they showed. I really liked Dave and his show and I wish him that his retirement is all he wants it to be. Thanks for reading and listening, sincerely, Sylvie <3

Hi everyone, I heard through the grapevine that one of my recent favourite singers was having technical difficulties lately, so decided to check it out. It turns out that singer Sam Smith posted this on his official samsmithworld.com “News” page:

“DEAR ALL

Dear all: I am very upset to announce I have been battling to get my vocal cords better the last 10 days but unfortunately they haven’t recovered and I am going to need surgery. I’m so gutted to be missing all the shows and events I was meant to be playing at. The doctors say I will be back in 6-8 weeks and I cannot wait to sing for you all soon.”

He’s apparently had some vocal chord haemorrhaging, yikes! Poor kid: just before his birthday on May 19! Well anyway, according to this January 2015 Maclean.ca article:

http://www.macleans.ca/culture/arts/the-interview-sam-smith-on-why-...

...he’s trying to take care of himself, but I’m wondering whether he has a vocal coach, though he says he does exercises. OK  so, reading his news page, I came across this duet he did recently with John Legend of his song “Lay me down”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvJX7OgPYww

I haven’t checked out the details, but I read this was performed at a Comic Relief benefit for Red Noze Day 2015 and I got this from the YouTube page:

-------

Red Nose Day is coming to the US on NBC on May 21 - follow @rednosedayus on Twitter or visit http://po.st/RNDUS

 for details. Well if you’ve been following this blog, you know I can rarely resist going walkabout on YouTube, so here are a few cover treats I picked up. First, Sam’s version of “My funny Valentine”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze6lKEyErX8

Then  Sam’s acoustic version of Whitney Houston’s “How will I know”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYCecXMpAng

...and last but not least,  a goosebump-inducing  version of Bruno Mars’ song “When I was your man”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZIrzWcoCoU

Ooh mercy, he sings it as if he wrote it! Of course,  this is a great song musically, but Sam’s phrasing and modulation is really something else, though I do love Bruno’s version also. Well folks, that’s it for now. Thanks for reading and listening, sincerely, Sylvie <3 

Hi everyone, I have a fun and interesting new song and artist I’ve just discovered this morning. Her name is Elle King and her infectious song is called “Ex’s and oh’s”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv1gBViFIX4

At first, from listening to just this song, I’d say she sounds like she most likely has Adele, Amy Winehouse with an impish quality to her voice and the music definitely has Black Keys influences. I looked her up on Wiki and found out she was Rob Schneider’s daughter and has had an interesting musical journey. She also plays the banjo and has had  country and blue grass in her background too, which is reflected in the music variety on her debut album “Love stuff”. Speaking of banjo, another song I heard this morning on the radio was the new Mumford & Sons song. It sounds very different from their banjo-infused songs from their previous album and I personally appreciate it much more. So, the  new song is called: “Believe”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW6SkvErFEE

So, there you go. A few months back, my French NRJ station started  saying they were aiming to get more rock contents and frankly, their idea of “more rock” might not be the consensus, but I’m guessing they meant no more candy-pop and more music of this calibre, so I’m all for it. Thanks for reading and listening, sincerely, Sylvie :D

Hi everyone, I want to share a couple of new discoveries today. The first one was the buzz on my French pop/rock station last month and is in French. That station’s “Le Buzz” promotes new young artists and isn’t always my cup of tea, but this guy’s song is pretty interesting. His name is Claude Bégin and his song is “Avant de disparaître” meaning “Before disappearing”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IcgepuTZnU

It’s young and fresh and interesting. Today’s discovery is a new to me group called Walk The Moon. The song I heard is called “Shut up and dance”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbcCG7PkI18

They’re also young, fresh and interesting. I guess I would put them in the same category as the Madden Brothers I’ve mentioned on this blog before, though they’re edgier. They have an interesting rhythmic sound,  but what caught my ear is that there’s something so evocative of the 80’s in their music. The excerpts on Amazon are terrific and so are the samples I collected from YouTube. It’s strange to think I’m actually enjoying contemporary pop music and it’s refreshing from today’s candy-pop. Hope you enjoy! Thanks for reading and listening, sincerely, Sylvie :D

Hi everyone, it feels like years since  I’ve been here... Here comes the sun, to-do-do do and I say: it’s all right... XD I guess I hadn’t found anything noteworthy recently, but today, I have. I’ve just heard for the first time, this new to me artist called James Bay. When I heard the name while half asleep this morning, I thought: “nah, can’t be that!”, but indeed, it is. Searching for his name on my Canadian library site, guess what else I found? Nothing British, I’ll tell you that!  Back to our program, this young man is of the new crop of interesting British singer/songwriters and is linked by Amazon to George Ezra, whom I’ve mentioned before on this blog. So the song I’ve heard is called:   “Hold back the river”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqiH0ZSkM9I

I’ve also discovered, from the same CD,this  also beautiful ballad called “Let it go”, which has no link to the Disney “Frozen” version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsPq9mzFNGY

For some reason, since the emergence of Adele, British music seemingly has been revived from a long deep sleep, with a new breath of energy. Then again, maybe North America is just now starting to catch up, who knows. In any case, James’ album “Chaos and the calm” released last month sounds pretty good from the Amazon samples. From the first listen, although he sounds like he sticks to the good recipe of vocal purity and thoughtful lyrics, there seems to be some musical variety to keep you interested. Another project to look into. In any case, hope you enjoy the song. Thanks for reading and listening, sincerely, Sylvie <3

Hi everyone, well it’s been a while and I did feel like posting a few things during my absence, but nothing  really compelling enough to force you to listen: that’s all changed today! :D My daughter told me last week that Josh Groban was coming out with a new album and I remarked that, as my husband says, it seems that every time we think he’d be due to release something, he does! All right, this has been  a long time coming, with a voice tailor made for this repertoire, the album called: “Stages”, full of Broadway musical tunes! Here is the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoTUqE5M1d4

I picked up the track listing on another video and here it is:

1. Pure Imagination – Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory

2. What I Did For Love – A Chorus Line

3. Bring Him Home – Les Miserables

4. Le Temps Des Cathédrals – Notre-Dame de Paris

5. All I Ask of You (w/ Kelly Clarkson) – The Phantom of the Opera

6. Try to Remember – The Fantasticks

7. Over the Rainbow – The Wizard of Oz

8. Children Will Listen/Not While I’m Around – Into the Woods/Sweeny Todd

9. You’ll Never Walk Alone – Carousel

10. Old Devil Moon (w/Chris Botti) – Finian’s Rainbow

11. Finishing the Hat – Sunday in the Park with George

12. If I Loved You – Carousel (w/ Audra McDonald)

13. Anthem – Chess

14. Gold Can Turn to Sand – Kristina Fran Duvemala (Deluxe Edition)

15. Empty Chairs at Empty Tables – Les Miserables (Deluxe Edition)

16. If I Can’t Love Her – Beauty and the Beast (Target exclusive track)

17. Dulcinea – Man of La Mancha (Target exclusive track)

Of course, the JG machine always does this: releasing at least 3 versions that are impossible to skip over, so I’m sure there’ll be lots of on-line and cross-border shopping for this one. I’m happy to say that I’m looking forward to discovering 7 out of 17 tracks, which I may not recognize the title but may know already. I won’t even research them, I’ll just wait for the surprise. :D That’s it for now, thanks for reading and listening, sincerely, Sylvie <3

Hi everyone, well apparently, wonders will never cease: I don’t think I ever foresaw being able to truly appreciate music from bands I don’t have an instant attraction for, but you never know. I’ve been meaning to post this piece for a while, but it wasn’t on YouTube yet. I discovered the duo 2CELLOS a couple of months back and realized they had an upcoming CD, so had to check it out. Included on their CD is a Radiohead cover. Aside from the popular “High and dry”, which I was told was on an early album, I’ve never really cared to deepen my knowledge of their music, having tried to listen to one of their (now forgotten) albums a few years back. My son is a huge fan, so I was curious to hear the 2CELLOS version of their song first. Here it is, the piece called “Street spirit (fade out)”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQEH3QukgBw

That is seriously gorgeous! So indeed, I had to take the plunge and listen to the original and I did love it too! Here’s Radiohead’s version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrTB-iiecqk

Since what I’ve heard of them is a bit too much “ out there” for me, I doubt I’ll become a fan anytime soon, but there is definitely melodic value here and it just goes to show you should always keep your mind and ears open. Thanks for reading and listening, sincerely, Sylvie <3

Hi everyone, well today’s entry will be the result of yet another award show, the big one: the Academy awards. One of the great things about Oscar-nominated songs is that they often are solid inspirational songs and of course, this year’s nominees are. The first one, which was I think an obvious choice, is John Legend’s “Glory” from the movie “Selma”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEFRPLM0nEA

This video is very nice and it’s a great song, but the Oscar performance with the choir was very powerful. My second choice was also a great performance. I loved the song, even before I knew it was yet another bull’s-eye hit by none other than our Michael’s long-time friend, Diane Warren. Here is Rita Ora  with “Grateful”, from the movie “Beyond the lights”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMxL3_P9eNE

The soundtrack sounds interesting, so I just might check it out. That’s it for now, thanks for reading and listening, sincerely, Sylvie <3

Hi everyone, boy did I get a whiplash flashback this morning! I heard this song on the radio, which I probably haven’t heard in at least 30 years. I’ll tell ya, it’s scary to realize you remember something that happened 30 years ago so clearly... Funny enough, this reminds me of something Michael Jackson said in an interview once. He said that if we didn’t look at numbers and didn’t know how old we were, we’d just act the way our heart feels: a thought for the day! :D Anyway, I just heard a clip of this song, but listening to it again, I forgot how cute this song was so, here it is, Randy Newman’s “Short people”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX6I2NrguAs

There’s a certain quality to Randy’s voice I never fully grasped before hearing the songs he sang for the “Toy story” movies. Well anyway, hope you enjoy this blast from the past. Thanks for reading and listening, sincerely, Sylvie <3