MUSIC

Danish musician MØ teamed up with American indie band Foster the People to produce a new version of the singer’s song “Blur”, from her latest album “Forever Neverland”.

MØ is the stage name of Karen Marie Aagaard Ørsted Andersen, a musician and producer whose music has been defined “electro with guts”. Foster the People is an American indie band formed in Los Angeles in 2009.

The video of “Blur” has been directed by Lauren Sick. MØ sports a couple of pretty stylish outfits, those over the knee glitter boots can’t go unnoticed and I also love the chain belt. And the way MØ’s moves. The black dress with balloon tulle sleeves is cool, too, with its ’80s vibes. Mark Foster from Foster the People makes a printed unbuttoned shirt worn over a white tank look kind of cool.

The song of the week is “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Trevor Horn and Robbie Williams, which is a cover of a 1985 song by Tears for Fears.

Trevor Horn is an English musician, singer and producer who worked with musicians like Paul McCartney, Tom Jones, Pet Shop Boys, Grace Jones, Simple Minds, Genesis. He has already worked with Robbie Williams, which is one of my favorite singers, in 2009.

“Everybody Wants to Rule the World” has been used as soundtrack in many films and TV series and it’s among the most famous songs of the ’80s.

Since I’m kind of biased when it comes to Mark Ronson “Nothing Breaks Like a Heart”, is the song of the week. At first, I was a bit distracted by the video to appreciate the song, then I saw, and heard, Ronson and Cyrus performing live at The Graham Norton Show and I totally liked the country-pop song.

The video was directed by creative duo We Are From LA (they also directed “Happy” by Pharrell Williams) and shot in Kiev, on the New Darnytskyi Bridge. There’s a lot going on during Miley’s wild ride (as it’s described by the TV news) and the video is full of references to Cyrus’ career (like a miniature of her on a wrecking ball hanging from the rear-view mirror) but also to our society as we see children shooting, the NFL’s “take a knee”, priests in a strip club.

Ronson looks dapper as usual and Cyrus looks super stylish, I love her silver lamé minidress.

“How Soon Is Now?” by The Smiths. What a song, I like it so much! This song was released first in 1984 and then again, in 1985, as a single. It’s considered one of the most famous songs by The Smiths. I listened few days ago and I needed to share it here on the blog.

“Falling Down” is such a beautiful song and the fact that both Lil Peep and XXXTentacion tragically died before it was released makes it kind of melancholic. In case you don’t know, Lil Peep died of an accidental overdose in November, 2017  while XXXTentacion was shot dead during a robbery, last June. They were only 21 and 20 years old. And it’s so sad.

The two musicians didn’t recorded this song together, they never worked together while they were alive. The song was originally titled “Sunlight on Your Skin” and it was an unfinished song, result of a collaboration between Lil Peep and singer and rapper iLoveMakkonen. XXXTentacion recorded his verses as a tribute to Lil Peep.

I love rain and I love songs that talk about rain, or mention it. So, “come let’s watch the rain as it’s falling down” sounds so sweet, to me.

Few months ago I was browsing through Bloglovin’ and read a blog post about “The Handmaid’s Tales”, a TV series I will probably never watch, because of the dark plot that tragically doesn’t seem too unrealistic, nowadays. The post also told about the beautiful soundtrack of the series and “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane immediately caught my attention. I didn’t remember the last time I listened to it. Later, I found out it’s a song used in many TV series, like “Big Little Lies” and “Strange Things” (I haven’t watched many TV series, recently).

It’s great that old songs like “White Rabbit” (which was released in 1967) can reach young audience or people who are not into the band’s genre. Jefferson Airplane were a rock band formed in San Francisco and they are considered among the pioneers of psychedelic rock. You may know another of the band’s most famous songs, titled “Somebody To Love”.

Rolling Stone ranked “White Rabbit” among the 500 greatest songs of all time. I think it’s kind of mesmerizing, it’s hard to listen to it only once. I chose two videos for you, the first is audio only, in the second you can see the band playing but the quality of the sound is not good.

“Romantic” by Hooverphonic is a song that one of my favorite radios is regularly airing and I liked it at first listening. The Belgian band is back with a new singer, Luka Cruysberghs, and this new single. And a new album, “Looking For Stars”, that was released yesterday.

“Romantic” is actually about not being romantic, in fact Cruysberghs sings “don’t bribe with roses/don’t be such a poser” and “don’t be dramatic/’cause I’m not romantic”. What a beautiful song! I love its vintage vibes.

“High & Dry” by Radiohead is the song of the week because every time I listen to it I think it’s one of the most beautiful songs ever written, sang, played. The song is from the band’s second studio album, titled “The Bends”, released in 1995.

Radiohead shot two videos for “High & Dry”, one for the American market and this one, directed by David Mould, for the British and European market.

Virgin Radio Italy aired this song a couple of days ago and gosh… I love it so much! The instrumental part that starts at minute 2:50 is a masterpiece.

As often happens, musicians hate the songs that made them famous and that fans love so much. Thom Yorke, Radiohead’s singer and guitarist, stated he considers “High & Dry” a very bad song and he also hates “Creep”, maybe the band’s most famous song.

“Fireworks” by First Aid Kit is the song of the week. The Swedish duo, formed by sisters Klara and Johanna Söderberg, told that the song is about hopes, dreams and expectations and it was inspired by ’50s ballads but also has ’80s vibes.

The song is from “Ruins”, the duo’s forth studio album.

The video, directed by Mats Udd, is set during an ’80s prom. Söderbergs  stated that they’ve always loved the idea of American high school proms so they had a blast shooting the video, with retro clothes, make-up and hair.