Irish Bands

I mentioned recently that U2 are better than ever.

And I mentioned previously that Westside are a brilliant Irish band.

And I mentioned that I love The Script.

Well now I have a few more bands to add to the roll of honour. All of the links below are to performances on "The Late Late Show".

The first is The Coronas. Here is a link to them performing "Just Like That".

And here are Kodaline performing "High Hopes" live and acoustic:

And I couldn't finish this post without a link to Hozier performing "Take me to Church"live and acoustic.

An amazing  time for Irish music indeed.

U2 - At the height of their powers

It's kind of embarrassing as an Irish man not to be crazy about U2.

Don't get me wrong: I have always like some of their music, and admired what they have achieved. But I wasn't as mad about them as I knew I should be.

Especially as a fellow northsider!

But their new stuff has reached a new level. And their unplugged performances have been just amazing. Here are a few links:
The Miracle of Joey Ramone
Song for Someone 

And here is an unplugged rendition of "Every Breaking Wave" which I think is a fabulous song:

Dan Fogelberg - Same Old Lang Syne - Truth or Fiction?

I mentioned in a recent post that the fabulous "Same Old Lang Syne" by Dan Fogelberg was based on a true story.

Here's a link to an article about  Jill Greulich (née Anderson) who was the second player in that short Christmas Eve drama.

She tells that most (but not all)  of the details were true.

Dan Fogelberg - Same Old Lang Syne

I heard "Same Old Lang Syne"on the radio this morning. I guess I should have expected it - it being New Year's Eve and all.

I mentioned it in a previous posting as being the best "story song" ever. It is a fabulous song.

You can find the following information about the song on Dan's website:

• It's based on a real event
• It took him over a year to write the song
• The melody has references to Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture". 

 Last time I mentioned it, I included a link to a live performance on YouTube. Here is a different live performance:

Christmas Shoes

I'm sure I would never have heard the song "Christmas Shoes" were it not for Christmas FM.

And even there, people are understandably reluctant to play it!

However it is a guilty pleasure.

Here's a link to a YouTube video where I won't add insult to injury by making you watch the video where people act out the song. In this version you can see "NewSong" performing the song, although there are clips from the movie of the same name starring Rob Lowe.

And here's evidence that I heard the song on Christmas FM earlier this evening:

Jools Holland

On Saturday morning my wife informed me that we have been offered 2 tickets for "Jools Holland & His Rhythm And Blues Orchestra Tour" in the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre.

Now I like and admire Jools Holland from seeing him on TV, but I didn't associate Rhythm And Blues with being my type of music.

How wrong I was! We had a fantastic night. Jools Holland was excellent. His "orchestra" was excellent. His singers were excellent. The music was outstanding.

As well as being a superb pianist, Jools is not a half bad singer!

High point of the night were the performance by Ruby Turner. Here's a sample of Jools and Ruby (and a cast of thousands) blasting out a song:

Glen Campbell

I mentioned that Glen Campbell's Wichita Lineman is one of my all-time favourite songs in a previous posting.

I happened upon this nice video today which talks about his career and his Alzheimer's condition.

The part I didn't realise was this:

In 1963 alone,  Campbell performed on nearly 600 cuts for other artists. He played guitar for Frank Sinatra on "Strangers in the Nigh"; for The Monkees on "I'm a Believer"; and for The Beach Boys on many of their recordings. And when Brian Wilson took time off from the band, Campbell filled in for six months.

You can watch the piece here:

"When Doves Cry" by Prince is 30 years old

The fabulous "When Doves Cry" was released by Prince on May 16th 1984.

The track is taken from "Purple Rain" which is one of my two favourite albums of all time.

Purple Rain the album was released on June 25th. Purple Rain the movie was released on July 27th in the USA and on August 31st here in Ireland.

I had seen a feature on Prince on some TV programme (I think it was on BBC 2) before any of this happened and I was really looking forward to the movie release. But when I first heard "Doves Cry" I was completely blown away. It truly is a work of genius.

There is some interesting background information on the album here.

Worst Christmas Song Lyrics

I have been listening to lots of Christmas songs on Christmas FM.

And I have managed to spot the worst ever Christmas lyric.

It is in "Little Saint Nick" by the Beach Boys.

Here is the line:

"Christmas comes this time each year"

Unbelievable. Unforgivable.

Royalties from Christmas Songs

In 2011 I named my top 3 Christmas songs (here).

In 2012 I named my fourth favourite (here).

On his radio show this morning, Ray D'Arcy mentioned how much money Christmas hits were making for their composers every year. Mind boggling!

Some stats are available here.

Here is a list of how much money the top songs have generated so far THIS YEAR:

"Merry Xmas Everybody", Slade - £526,494
"Fairytale Of New York", The Pogues - £397178
"All I Want For Christmas Is You", Mariah Carey - £357431
"Last Christmas", Wham! - £310,148
"Mistletoe and Wine", Cliff Richard - £101,187
"Do They Know It's Christmas?", Band Aid - £80,233
"Merry Christmas Everyone", Shakin' Stevens - £55,344
"2000 Miles", The Pretenders - £46,624
"Stay Another Day", East 17 - £31,073
"Stop The Cavalry", Jona Lewie - £13,617

So get your thinking hat on, get in front of the piano, and see what you can come up with!

Pompeii by Bastille

Pompeii by Bastille is one of the best songs this year.

I always assume (from the rich sound) that a lot of production had gone into it.

I was surprised, therefore, to find how very good this acoustic version is.

Just four guys and one guitar (oh, and a guitar case!)

Alison Moyet touring in Ireland (and Europe and the UK)

Alison Moyet is playing in Cork this evening, in Belfast tomorrow, and in Dublin the day after that.

But her website indicated that all of these three places are in the "UK".

I wrote to the webmaster about it. I made three suggestions:

1. Put Ireland in a category of its own
2. Put us in with Europe
3. Change the "UK" category to "UK and Ireland".

He very kindly apologised, selected the third option, and fixed it in a flash.

It problem may seem minor to some, but I think its important to get these things right.

The photo below shows how it used to look. The new version is here as I write.

Gabrielle - Twitter

Gabrielle is on Twitter as GabrielleUK.

Here is what she tweeted just after the new version of Dreams was played for the first time on BBC 1Xtra at 8PM this evening:

Gabrielle - Dreams

Just listened to the new version of Dreams by Gabrielle.

It was played by MistaJam on BBC Radio 1Xtra for the first time just after 8PM.

In fact he played it twice.

She teamed up with Naughty Boy for this version. It is beautiful.

And Gabrielle's voice is as beautiful as ever.

Her new album will be out in November.

Johnny Cash - Hurt

I was never a huge Johnny Cash fan, but I challenge anyone to watch this video and not be moved by it.

The song was written by Trent Reznor and released by Nine Inch Nails in 1994.

Johnny released it in 2002. Johnny's wife, June Carter Cash, appears in the video. They married way back in 1968. He passed away in 2003, 4 months after her.

It's amazing when a song, a singer, a life, a relationship, and a video can come together to create something so perfect.

Glen Campbell - Wichita Lineman

Wichita Lineman was written in 1968 and released by Glen Campbell in the same year.

I have always loved it. It's a song about love, and loneliness, and phone lines!

The lyrics are quite strange. Some of them really are about phone lines, like this one:

And if it snows that stretch down south won't ever stand the strain.

I saw an interview with Glen some time ago where they spoke about the impact that Alzheimer's disease is having on him. It was very moving, of course, but it was amazing to see that (at least at that time) this horrible disease had left his music alone.

Billy Idol - Eyes Without a Face

I happened to hear "Eyes without a face" on the radio a few weeks ago.

What a fantastic song. I have no idea how many times I have listened to it since then. I have played it on Grooveshark. I have watched/listened to it on YouTube.

Here's a link to Steve Stevens talking about how he came up with the chord structure (starts at 1:15).

Included below is a video of Billy and Steve performing it live in Chicago in 2006.

They've still got it! And Billy still has the snarl!

Next Big Irish Band - Keywest

Before I finish up this series of postings with a musical theme, I have to mention the most exciting musical event of the Christmas period for me.

As a family we were in Dublin city centre on the Thursday before Christmas Day.

We wandered on to Grafton Street and we stopped to join a large crowd listening to a band busking on the street.

Turned out they were Keywest and they are absolutely brilliant!

They played the X Factor song "Impossible" and, even though Andy was only learning the lyrics and had to read them from a sheet of paper, their on-the-street version was much better than James Arthur's in-the-studio version.

They are going to be HUGE!

Here are some links:

Website
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube Channel

Here is a video showing what they can do on a cold day in a street in Galway:

Greatest Pop Song

I blogged previously about my two favourite albums ever. And I have blogged about my favourite Christmas songs.

But I don't think I would be able to name my all-time favourite song. Far too many to choose from.

But I realised (when I heard it on the radio recently) that I can easily name the best Pop song ever!

It is Billie Jean by Michael Jackson. It's just amazing. Michael wrote the song and he and Quincy Jones produced it. Whatever about his private life, the man was a musical genius!

And of course when it was released in 1982 it was accompanied by an outstanding (for the time) video:

Popular Music - Q102

Judging by the series of posting I am writing, I must have listened to a lot of music/radio over the last few months. And not just Christmas FM either!

For example, I found myself listening to Q102 one evening, and I discovered that my musical tastes are not as unusual as I imagined. In fact, during an evening of listing to Q102 in the background, I heard many of my favourite songs!

My musical taste therefore might be classified as "middle of the road". Basically I like Pop Music. Nothing to be ashamed of, is it?!

You can see more about Q102 here.

And you can listen live here. I'm listening to it right now and it's great.