Too much music, too little time! :D

Hi all, I just heard this on TV, washing the dishes and thinking: I love that song! This is Madonna’s “crazy for you”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOyxeUtm8sA

I used to love Madonna back in the day, but got a little tired of her ubiquitous stay on the radio, but I have to say that some of her songs I’ll never get tired of, like “Crazy for you”, “True blue”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb8akXtOCaI

and “Take a bow”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o58oCyj4VUg

Aside from my old LP’s, I particularly enjoy this CD I have, called “Something to remember”:

http://www.amazon.com/Something-Remember-Madonna/dp/B000002N3J/ref=...

Some people have commented that it’s “mellow Madonna” and I guess it is. I just really like this middle range of her voice and the songs are enjoyable to listen to and sing along. Don’t get me wrong, I do like her higher range and think she actually has a beautiful voice and doesn’t get enough credit for it. I think that aside for the above mentioned, my favourite song of hers is a song she wrote for her daughter, it’s called “Little star”:

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

This is my favourite version of it. I really don’t care for the album version. I first heard her sing this on Oprah, while she was promoting “Evita”, very nice interview. That’s it for now. Thank you for reading, sincerely, Sylvie <3

Hi all, well, I did a little research on Mel Tormé and his Wikipedia page title had the accent, so I’ll assume it belongs there. They have it spelled both ways on his page. I found out he was Russian/Juish and his birth name was Torma, imagine that... XD He wrote the music to “The Christmas song”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQmB15ZdB9s

His idol was Ella Fitzgerald, which is pretty evident in their singing style. He hated his nickname of “the velvet fog”. Also, Harry Anderson, the judge in TV’s “Night Court”  was a real life fan of his and even delivered his eulogy at his funeral in 1999. Useless trivia there... Anyway, I really got into his singing style, though he has an interesting phrasing. Listen to his version of “I’ve got you under my skin”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNGlJxA2I4M

Now, this is what I meant by Michael Bublé sounding a lot like him. Here’s Mel singing “That’s all”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhrPxmZsJuU&list=PL15E1FBDA5FCB2775

and here’s Michael Bublé:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whFrPpPeED4

Pretty close in style if you asked me, though noone’s asking me… Going back to Ella, here’s my favourite song of hers. It’s called: “I love you Porgy”,:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNUCIb6aPmE

There’s something so beautifully effortless about her voice and the pacing of this rendition, it brought tears to my eyes the first time I heard it. The song, believe it or not, was originally from an opera, “Porgy and Bess”. The same opera that contains “Summertime”. Here’s Ella’s version with Louis in 1957, from the jazz version of “Porgy & Bess”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDF4_qVgbFU

I love the entire CD. I even have a “Porgy & Bess” with Ray Charles and Cleo Lane, on a 1976 LP. Here’s their “Summertime”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9R68akOBhc

Interesting, isn’t it? I first heard the jazz version so imagine my surprise when I heard “Summertime” in operatic version on classical radio!  Now it’s one of my favourite operas. BTW, while searching, I found Whitney Houston’s “I loves you Porgy”, yes, with an “S”, as in the opera:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmXBXqtWXf4

It’s actually a medley of “I loves you Porgy/And I’m telling you I’m not going/I have nothing” in 1994. To be honest, I wasn’t crazy about her “I loves you Porgy”, but her “And I’m telling you” gave me goosebumps! My favourite “And I’m telling you” I think will always be Jennifer Hudson’s, though I do enjoy Jennifer Holliday’s original. Here’s miss hudson’s solo version from the “Dreamgirls” soundtrack:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsiSRSgqE4E

Whew, one of the most powerful songs in the world, ever! Now here’s an unforgettable duet of the 2 jennifers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c27SQwnZshs

Ah man, if that doesn’t give you goosebumps, check your pulse! Lol All right peops, that’s enough for today. Thank you so much if you’re still reading! XD sincerely, Sylvie <3

Hi all, today, I'm posting a guilty pleasure... :D It's one of those songs that's so bad, it's good! lol It's labeled as: "Le rapperur Chic, le boyfriend":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNx8Pfr-vHI

I heard this on the radio this morning, in a competition to vote for the worst song! :D It's got a good workout beat, if anything. Thanks for reading, sincerely, Sylvie <3

Hi all, well I just had to listen to my Fitz & the Tantrums compilation today and I realized I forgot to include this guy in my post: it’s the song “Perkiomen”, which is a Hall & Oates song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4tPC1hmH4E

It’s the Daryl with F&T version. Also, I’m sorry I omitted to mention that the “Ooh baby baby” with Daryl and Smokey Robinson was from “Live from Daryl’s house”, episode 22. You can watch the full episode here:

http://www.livefromdarylshouse.com/currentep.html?ep_id=23

That’s it for today. Thank you for reading, sincerely, Sylvie <3

Hi everyone, today, I want to talk to you about this sweet little group my daughter introduced me to. She had a sample CD from work and brought it home. They’re called Fitz & the Tantrums and they have a feel-good throwback soul sound. I believe this was their first single,

Fitz & the Tantrums “Money grabber”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk4oRiFNEN4

In case anyone is interested, this is off their first album “Picking up the pieces” and they've just released a second album I have yet to hear. As soon as I heard the first few bars, I told my daughter that this sounded like a  rarety I have from Daryl Hall’s 60's band before he joined John Oates. The group was called the Temptones, inspired by the Temptations, of course. Here are Fitz & the Tantrums with Daryl Hall, during a webisode of “Live from Daryl’s house”:

“Moneygrabber” with Daryl Hall:

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

Now if you’d like to hear what the Temptones sounded like:

The Temptones “Girl I love you”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvjIt3hQdck

The Temptones “Goodbye”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvU8sCabWg4

All I can say after that one is “Ooh baby baby”!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gpv7Se-Ohuo

That one was part of webisode 22 ofLFDH, my favourite one by lightyears... I have goosebumps just listening to it...  Ahh, so many great performances from that show...

“She’s gone” with Rob Thomas:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hApQJ_n447A

“I can’t go for that” with Cee-Lo Green:

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

“So close” with Jason Mraz:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATmrCaMcpM8

“Adult education” with Neon Trees:

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

“animal” also with Neon Trees:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WygV4RYyYkU

and here’s apparently Daryl’s favourite song in the world: "Never Found a Girl" Daryl Hall, Booker T. Jones, Mayer Hawthorne :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h984Ipdrhac&list=PLEFB860F5487EF8B5

That’s another one in the same vein as the earlier songs. These are just off the top of my head... For those who don’t know, “Live from Daryl’s house” is a monthly webcast where Daryl actually invites both well-known and up and coming artists and they sing both Hall & Oates/Daryl Hall

songs and the artist songs together. They had a shortened version of the show on TV here for a while, but don’t know where it disappeared to.

The web site is simply:

livefromdarylshouse.com

Anyway, Hall & Oates are  in my tip top list of fave artists, love them to pieces, saw them  4 times live and own pretty much all their music on LP and CD. I can’t say enough good about their music and musicianship and couldn’t begin to list my favourites. Anyway, to close up this soulful post, here’s a terrific British artist I discovered shopping one day. His name is Jamie Lidell. This song is called “Another day”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89Qa5rNAeEs

This one is very Al Green inspired and it’s called “Green light”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZvZtnnAUYw&list=PLF1C1B7788071EB05

This one is called “Where’d you go”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQRLWw_vYm0

and this last one sounds very much James Brown inspired to me and it’s called “Out of my system”:

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

When I first heard him I thought he kind of sounded like Taylor Hicks and with his musical feel, I just had to go out and buy his album. BTW, all these songs are off his album “Jim”. Wow, this is too much fun... lol Hope you enjoy some of these at least half as much as I do. Thank you very much for reading, sincerely, Sylvie <3

Hi all, here are a few songs that came across in conversation with my daughter during the weekend... First, BT’s “Never gonna come back down”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8Q8_d-5SsU

That’s a song we both discovered on a compilation of hers from a few years back and I just loved the beat of it. Now the next 2 are from a band called Remy Zero, mostly known for the theme to the TV series “Smallville”. The first song came from the opening credits of “Can’t hardly wait”.

Remy Zero “Prophecy”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TKLTUP_tZ0&list=PL8C4176B44DD0F5E6

The second one is from one of their albums. I just love the feel of this song and this guy’s voice.

Remy Zero “Life in rain”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxqr85V72T4

Again, a contribution from my daughter’s CD library. Hope you enjoy, thanks for reading, sincerely, Sylvie <3

Hi all, my daughter just sent me this:

http://youtu.be/voCzJ4oIbWQ

and this one’s for my mom today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd5X2sqXE3c

Happy mother’s day mom, Love, Sylvie <3

Hi all, well today I picked one of my homemade compilations at random and heard a bunch of fun songs I hadn’t heard in a pretty long time. I realized for some reason, that I had quite a few Canadian artists on it, so I thought I’d do a Canadian special today eh... XP All right, here’s a song I never heard on the radio, but picked off another random  store compilation. It’s called “Darker side of blue” by Tal Bachman:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puEV8hrcqag

He’s mostly known for his song: “She’s so high”:

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

I like his voice, it’s kind of sweet... All right, here are a few more. Speaking of “More”, here’s the j. Englishman song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOcrG4hdqVE

Yes I know, he doesn’t put capitol letters on his name: maybe it’s a Canadian artist thing like k.d. lang, I don’t know... lol Anyway, now here’s Edwin’s song “Hang ten”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nvc-iluMeGw

Those were 2 of my daughter’s fave songs I really loved. The Edwin song has a cool rock summer vibe to it and j’s song’s 2 parts have a very cool feel to them and is something else at high volume! Lol

All right, my favourite silly song from the Barenakedladies: “If I had a million dollars”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHacDYj8KZM

It’s just a fun silly song to sing... :D All right, now here’s a much darker one. This song is sad in so many ways, but I love singing it, thinking I’ll never be that sad... It’s a bonus, untitled song on her “Jagged little pill” CD:

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

Frankly, I think I love all the singles off that album: Alanis has a great tone, just not always crazy on how she uses her voice. Now on a much cheerier note, here’s a song from the first incarnation of a duo called Sky. The song is called “Love song”, but technically, it’s not really... :D Well, the music is pleasant and I’m sure to non English speakers, it sounds like a love song... :D It's a cute little pop song with great harmonies:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4CwBqzyGCI

Aww, I just read a comment that this guy met his wife to this song and they named their daughter Sky, how sweet! Well, I guess that’ll be all for today’s Canadian music excursion. I might elaborate on Jacksoul at some point, but not sure I'd go into Bryan Adams, because I think he's in a class by himself and wouldn't know what to pick as faves. I still want to review Michael Bublé’s latest CD at some point and go into a Canadian oldies exploration, some other time. This was fun though, hope you enjoy and thanks for reading, sincerely, Sylvie :D 

Hi all, today, I want to share a song I heard on the radio this morning. It’s called “Respire” by Jonas & the Massive Attraction:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNx39oJ068E

It’s starts in French, but it’s in Frenglish, which seems to be the trend these days on my pop French radio. Anyway, I’ve been following the lead singer Jonas Tomalty’s career for years now. In 2004, he opened for Van Halen on their North American tour and he’s been in several bands since he came to my attention with the band Rubberman. Here’s their most successful single called “More than I can chew”:

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

It’s too bad YouTube doesn’t have my favourite song “Come deceiving” though. Now here’s Jonas’ version of Stevie Nicks’ “Edge of Seventeen”:

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

Ooh I love his voice, but man is he abusing it! He’s a Montreal-based rocker and he has such a beautiful tone, but God only knows how long he’ll be able to go on singing this way... Well anyway, hope you enjoy these. Thanks for reading and listening, sincerely, Sylvie <3