Lopez Blogs

I always have conflicting feelings about the intrusion social media has into the burgeoning careers of upcoming popstars. On the one hand, I can't imagine Wannabe by the Spice Girls would have been such a exhilarating blast of pop gumption had we charted every step of their journey to the pop charts. Then again, on the other hand it's a chance for people to get their music heard by a wider audience than ever before. Kyle Brylin is one such person who is seemingly charming his way across the internet, one person at a time, with his moreish pop gems like The Star, If They Only Knew and Discrepency. His latest single, Committed, is being unleashed across the world on iTunes today (and in the UK here). He once joked that he was raped by Britney Spears in 1999 and has yet to recover - this thumping synth stomper is further evidence of that... It's built around a propulsive drum beat, layered with ice cold synth riffs and a chorus built around the catchy refrain of "love or hate decide/where do you stand on me/for once be committed". Kyle imbues this tale of a frankly half arsed girlfriend/boyfriend/Australian with enough vigor and charisma that kind of makes me think a) I can actually see Britney launching into this after performing Hold It Against Me in concert and b) why is he wasting his time with this numpty? Surely he should dump the supermodel he's with and come home with me so we can discuss the influence of Max Martin on modern day pop?! Anyway, there's a bajillion and one mixes to choose from and just in case you want a visual, Kyle has done a nice promo piece to accompany the song. You should probably nip out and buy the tune now and then read on...

1. Let's get this out the way first - Kyle looks good in a shirt and tie. You know the way some people wear shirts that are far too big for them? No problem there with Kyle - nicely fitted and toning it down with a pair of trainers. I approve. Plus i love a guy straightening his tie like he means business. Which Kyle obviously does - he is so going to lay it on the line...
2. I like the black and white of the video. You may think it's just Kyle and the director (Robert Capria) going for arty, but as the chorus (and BOLD LETTERING) declares "love or hate", this is a black and white situation. It's one or the other. Just stop pussyfooting around (whatever that means) sort of thing. So actually the black and white of the video mirrors the internal conflict of the song. This is A-Level English stuff I'm writing here you know :P
3. The whirling chair stuff is impressive. However, this should only be attempted by professionals. I tried it at home whilst slightly tipsy on red wine and ambien on Saturday night. Not a good idea. Not only did i scuff our hardwood floor but I cannot do anything near resembling the splits and therefore damaged my little general somewhat. So in short, looks marvelous but not a practical dance routine for amateurs.
4. There are, however, lots of easy dance routines for people bought up on Steps videos. There is a nice pointing at when he sings "you" and a visual representation of standing with his fingers during the chorus refrain. Plus a sort of mild fist/finger pumping to "for once be committed". This is easily achievable even if you have two left feet. 
5. The second verse is basically an excuse for Kyle to show us what brilliant hair he has (he manages to make just got out of bed hair look quite cool, whereas when I get out of bed my hair does actually look like I just got out of bed, ie, shit) and what he can do with a couple of chairs. He would excel at props week on Dancing On Ice. 
6. For some reason I quite like it when Kyle sings "bitch". It just pleases me for no apparent reason and also makes me sing the movie version of Kyle's Mom's A Bitch from South Park. Parents of Kyles across the world must really hate that song...
7. During the middle 8 Kyle has a bit of a sit down. This is fair enough. it's probably well exhausting having amazing hair, looking good in a suit and dancing around like whirling dervish. 
8. In the final renditions of the chorus there are some nice vocal ad-libs that give the song a bit of depth while Kyle struts his stuff. There are also an inordinate amount of crotch shots as the chairs take centre stage. Please be aware that I am not criticising this at all :P
9. There are also two backflips (or one backflip shown twice?) towards the last half minute of the video. Perhaps it is this agility that helps Kyle do the splits without a groin strain earlier on? Perhaps if I exercised more than just lifting a Cadbury's Creme Egg to my mouth and took my Bikram Yoga class seriously I would be able to do this type of showmanship. Unrelated but important - at the end of the dance off in Grease (where Danny wins but with Cha Cha - the best dance at St Bernadettes, but with the worst reputation, etc) Vince Fontaine comes in at the end doing a massive flip. He lands but for a split second you can see the terror in his eyes thinking "dear jesus please don't make me do that again". Poor fella. Kyle can be his stunt double OR VINCE FONTAINE should they ever remake it!!
10. In essence, I fully approve of this video, the song and Kyle. Can we have an album now please - something between Eric Saade and Shayne Ward would be nice. Thanking you.

Right when I started to think that animated video is the only video-treatment we're gonna get for the latest Lykke Li's video "I Follow Rivers" Lykke has presented brand new video shot by Tarik Saleh inspired by Andrei Tarkovsky's movie "The Sacrifice" also made in Gotland with well-known in Sweden actor Fares Fares running away from Lykke through forests and snow fields to finish the chase in a deep romantic scene.
You can also check official very pleasant mix for this song - piano-based commercial dance track, quite universal to be welcome on club floors and everywhere else.

Have you alredy managed to fall for Erik Hassle for the latest 2 years? Ready for a new talented Mr. Hassle in Swedish music? Ladies and gentlemen, here's a fresh promising artist I'd like to present you - Simon Hassle.
Though you probably hear Simon's name first time, he already has heavy gospel/musical background performing in live shows across Sweden and being the youngest member of the very well known gospel chorus One Voice led by Gabriel Forss. Here we get debut single from Simon - "Now Is Here" recorded with Emanuel Olsson at Cosmos Studios.
"Now Is Here" is powerful piano-based song in a lighter Linkin Park style with epic sound, massive production and beautiful Simon's voice leaving no doubt that we're gonna hear more from this artist soon. Video for "Now is here" is mix of Simon shots and Chief Oren Lyons' "The Ice is Melting" speech on Millennium Peace Summit.

Watched very little over Christmas on terrestrial TV - thank goodness for DVDs and a backlog of recorded stuff - but made an exception for the revival of "UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS" (BBC1). I was a massive fan of the original during my childhood so it brought back some good memories to get back again to 165 Eaton Place, and in a nice touch Rose from the original series returned as housekeeper. And Newt from Hollyoaks even turned up as one of the 'downstairs' staff. Aww!

During my blog break I've had the opportunity to catch up on some movies.

As a child growing up in the 1970s, I remembered the names Baader-Meinhof always seemed to turn up on news bulletins, although I was too young to understand what it was all about. "THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX" (Sky Movies) didn't really provide too many answers, apart from going down the obvious route of "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". It was a good enough film, but a little disjointed and didn't really explain or give the back-stories on the main protagonists and their followers.


"UP IN THE AIR" (Sky Movies) was quite different from the usual modern film fare. It starred George Clooney as a man who spends his time going from one part of the country to the other, firing employees for other companies, only for him to find love and discover that no man is an island. Good film, although with a rather regretful ending.

"THE PROPOSAL" (Sky Movies) was a reasonable enough romcom, although it has to be said I'm no fan of that particular genre. It starred Sandra Bullock as a frozen-faced publishing executive being punted back to Canada because her visa was running out. Cue predictable green card scenario as she plans a fake marriage to her assistant. You can guess the rest. Yes I did say it was predictable, but it had some funny moments and wasn't too bad.




Matt Lucas also popped up in "ALICE IN WONDERLAND" (Sky Movies) which we weren't originally going to watch but had to check it out anyway. Two words: Johnny Depp. One of the things we love about Johnny - and there are many, many things we love about Johnny (!) - is that he's not afraid to take on movie projects which make him look totally ridiculous. Which, being the world's most beautiful man, is some achievement. The film itself was a colourful and reasonably accessible adventure, and better than we expected.

"GREY'S ANATOMY" (Living) is back for a seventh season, with its resident cast going through various stages of post-traumatic stress following the big dramatic shooting at the end of the last season. I won't give too much away for anyone except to say that one of the main characters got married...

"AWFULLY GOOD TV" (Channel 4) was, for once, a TV show which lived up to its title - where bad TV definitely made good TV, topped off with some devilishly deadpan voiceovers by David Walliams. A refreshing change from the usual clip shows with commentaries by Z-listers.

Although I usually make an exception for "THE MOST ANNOYING PEOPLE OF..." (BBC3) which is always an annual end-of-year must-see, thanks to its clever voiceovers by Richard Bacon and a slightly higher calibre of Z-listers offering their comments.

It was good to see Matt Lucas and David Walliams back on our screens. "COME FLY WITH ME" (BBC1) is a spoof of those old docusoaps "Airport" and "Airline". It's very funny, but lacking some of the more side-splitting moments of the heyday of "Little Britain", which was one of my favourite comedy series ever - but thankfully also lacking some of the more gross-out moments which eventually dragged that series down in its latter days. The high point of this new series remains the "Martin Clunes" song - they haven't topped that one yet. Series 1 has now ended, but the good news is that it's been recommissioned for a second series.

"THE SECRET MEDITERRANEAN WITH SIR TREVOR MCDONALD" (ITV) does what it says on the tin. The major surprise here being that there is finally something decent on ITV, and I never thought I'd see the day when those words would be uttered. So I guess we'd better make the most of it while we can. Basically it's Sir Trevor checking out some undiscovered stories from the countries which border the Mediterranean. It was a feast for the eyes and a very enjoyable series - I wonder if there will be more stories to tell?

After weeks of endless rumours mentioning everyone from Charlotte Church to Katherine Jenkins to Pixie Lott to someone-who-just-missed-out-on-X-Factor-boot-camp, the speculation about who would represent Royaume-Uni at the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest in Dusseldorf finally ended at midnight last night, when the BBC announced that our representatives would be the newly reformed boyband Blue.

Blue had a lot of hits back in the day - between 2001 and 2004 to be precise. I always liked them, and "All Rise" and "Fly By II" were, and still are, big favourites here at EuropeCrazy HQ.

Everyone wants to be in the best shape going to the highlights and looking stunning and sexy in front of millions of viewers so artists are working to get perfectly fit by any possible means.
Danny decided to reach success with a really hard training. You can follow his trip to the world of health here.

Guy is hardly breathing but we hope something will be left from him before his performance on MF. Though wait... He's looking more than alive, isn't he?

Sara Lumholdt has quite original way to keep her shape perfect - pole dance and what she makes with pole is just unbelievable! That what happens with A-Teens when they become A-Women, but we still love you little hot Sara! Though maybe we love you even more!

Participants who are already in a perfect shape are Love Generation! Girls are shooting video that will be used during their performance with the song "Dance Alone" and due to pics idea is going to turn to something stunning. At least catwoman suits already look gorgeous! Check for more pics here and here.

World known Swedish rock-band The Sounds that will be celebrating already 13th birthday this year is ready for a new album and the first taste is delivered with new single "Better Off Dead".
First The Sounds' album "Living in America" has become real sensation bringing loads of fame, awards in Sweden and international fan-base making big breakthrough in US touring afterwards with such a big bands like Foo Fighters, The Strokes, Angels & Airwaves, Panic! At The Disco, also No Doubt and Paramore lately. Second album produced by Jeff Saltzman (producer of The Killers' "Hot Fuss") established their name on a world rock-stage with loads celebrities calling themselves fans of The Sounds (Dave Grohl, Pharrell, Quentin Tarantino, Britney Spears, etc.). On March 29th we'll hear already fourth album "Something To Die For" and as innovative promo among fans The Sounds organized contest providing sheet music for the first single "Better Off Dead" and asking fans to create their own version of the song without listening to The Sounds' one with winner's version to appear as b-side of the single.
Right now we can already listen to The Sounds' version of "Better Off Dead" - stunning pop-rock track with electronic production and incredibly catchy chorus, the song seems to be sewed out of three parts - first radio pop-rock part, dance-insert in the middle and the final part bringing hard beat making the song in common quite original and delicious thing.
Tanx for the tip to wonderful #1 Hits From Another Planet blog.

If company wants to make huge new promo-anthem should it get some big songwriting team with famous artists and try to promote this song in their ads and other promo-presentation? Maybe but there's also another solution - take some big pop-hit coming out of homeland of that international company, change tune, involve new singers and connect it with their ideas in lyrics!
Oriflame steps into new year with new slogan "Make that change" and makes that change in probably the biggest Swedish pop-anthem of 2009 "Release Me" originally performed by Agnes, co-written by Agnes with Anders Hansson and Sharon Vaughn and produced by Anders Hansson and Le Kid members - Felix Persson and Märta Grauers. Unfortunately we don't know who is performer and who wrote new tune but we know that Felix was working on production and what about result? Result turned to be pretty amazing!
"Make That Change" has grown from one disco-anthem to another, I can't even say if it's better or worse, it's just different, new voice and new melody bring difference. New singer's vocal reminds a bit Charlotte Perrelli (at least in verses) so it's already a good sign, in common song smells a bit more schlagertastic with double-chorus and disco-anthem life-asserting lyrics, it even has key-change! Everything that you love in "Release me" is still there - strings, dance-hook and beautiful arrangement. On official soundcloud channel of Oriflame you can dowload "Make That Change" together with it's Spanish and Russian versions, corresponding karaoke-versions, instrumental, ringtone and even mix that's actually really good, check it under video.

Wanna get the latest singles from September and Petter ("Backsmälla"), Ulrik Munther ("Boys Don't Cry"), Tim Berg ("Seek Bromance (Avicii Vocal Edit)") and many-many other artists which you don't know yet but can discover yourself without my help?
echolize.com in collaboration with Universal Music provides ability to download this tracks absolutely for free, payment is just watching ads-video during download. So come here, register and get it all.
By the way nice reason to tip you with last year dance-sensation Tim Berg (or Tim Bergling as it's his original name). Tim is DJ from Stockholm that delivered one of the biggest export club-hits of Sweden "Seek Bromance" (obviously Swedish House Mafia influenced floorfiller) in 2010 initially releasing it as instrumental track but soon getting attention of international audience charting well in European charts and even getting into the bright spot of attention in UK pushing out afterwards vocal version of track and touring all over the world whole last year. You can check video for "Seek Bromance" right below.

SVT has presented new design of the stage today and you can already check it in 3D above. What can we say about that? Definitely it's a sort of stage that lets artist build his performance without limiting imagination and budgets and half-round decoration looks really nice. It's hard for now to call better than year but we'll hold our judgement before we'll see it in live action.

This year SVT will present snippets of the songs already by Thursdays in web-reports from rehearsals on Melodifestivalen site. First web-report will be shown at 21 by local time next Thursday already in 5 days.

We get more and more new pics in different stars blogs and in media by which we can realize that next year Melodifestivalen comparing with last year full of static performances with nothing but artist standing next to mic and singing some ballad this year will be full of dancing numbers.
For example above you can already see Jonas Matsson working on his performance with Rennie Mirro showing which schlager-poses should artist learn to become melamazing.

Dilba gets 7 dancers team and her manager Linda Sonnvik promises some truly great show. We hope it'll be amazing opening performance!

Will Le Kid stand in front of cameras with dead eyes and sleepy show? Nope!!! Le Kid are gonna DANCE!!!

Rickard Engfors is making some terrific show for Sebastian this year! It's gonna have LEDs with Sebastian's video behind, dancing girls and it's gonna be technical complicated. Don't know what it means but smells like excitement!

Jenny Silver who goes schlager this year seems like has moved from dark melancholic image and gets loads of dancers too. Rickard also works on her show and thinks to dress dancers like futuristic soldiers with bondage elements. Sounds like something incredible. Check more on his blog.

Danny keeps promoting his latest single "In Your Eyes" and presents brand new music video.
It's only week before Danny will be singing new song "In the Club" co-written by him with Figge and Peter Boström in the first semifinal of Melodifestivalen and the last number gives a hint that we can expect a lot from him. Danny was eagerly awaited solo at MF by many since 2007 when he successfully launched his career internationally so now here's a chance for him to show what he's really worth.
New released video for single "In Your Eyes" another time shows great ability of Danny to provide nice dance-show and idea to place Danny in some dark cold empty place with lighting manequens works really interesting and visually fresh. Check yourself!

Some covers are too stunning to leave them without mention in separate post!
Sanna Nielsen opens season of MF-covers revealing cover of her own "I'm In Love" single that she will perform in 2nd semifinal in Gothenburg on February 12th. And it's just brilliant with Sanna looking very Scarlett Johansson!
This year Sanna will celebrate 15 years of her music career with new album planned to be released on March 2nd. Very smart strategy to bring loads of schlager-hits to melofans already 2 weeks before MF-final. Here's the latest Sanna's single "Part Of Me" that we're also in love with.

Shirley's Angels have presented their official image and new Facebook page and what we can see is pretty stunning. Two vamp-ladies and Shirley as Queen bee make us forget about Shirley's unlucky attempt two years ago. It wasn't she! Someone has copied her image and was singing a ballad that real Shirley would never bring to schlager-competition. But in the final, yes, it was our Shirley that we love so much.

Hope two years of Shirley's work in shop will pay amazing show this year! Recently Shirley was invited to perform at World Aids Day and she's presented small movie from her tour live. It's in Swedish but it doesn't make it any less funny.

And the last but the most important! Wanna see what sort of choreography Shirley's gonna make in Linköping on February 19th? Check this video, she'll demonstrate it in the end!

Breaking news! The most beloved rock-group of Sweden Kent decided to collaborate with latest biggest breakthrough Erik Hassle.
When this Summer Kent finished their tour in support of latest album creative activity of frontman Jocke Berg was still on fire but as Kent needed some pause decision was to start working with some other artist and as Jocke really loved Erik's voice he contacted him and after approval from Erik's side they also invited Kent's bassist Martin Sköld and started recording in Martin's studio in Mariefred so "Mariefred Sessions" has become title of new recorded songs collection.
"Mariefred Sessions" that will see the light on March 23rd will include 6 new songs - "Sometimes When It Rains (Give Me Your Love)", "I´m Not an Island", "Stay Away", "Stains", "Arrows" and "Are You Leaving" that will be released as new Erik's single.
You can already check how it sounds in video below! As timer goes in reverse count check pieces of "Are You Leaving" at 7.22 and 4.49 and 0.26. Song perfectly mixes music of both Erik and Kent - it's touching melody-line in verse that you can expect from Erik but much more in aggressive dynamic electro-sound than's more usual for latest Kent's records and in chorus tune goes completely in Kent's style and Erik's vocal fits it 100%. Common impression? Smells like one of this year's best songs with tonnes of sales records and awards in the end of year. Check yourself!

Two sparkling yet tender heartfelt returns from acts you may remember from the annals (not "anals" as I mistakenly and quickly typed in an email at work last week) of pop...

Did you think the story around one of the best pop-singles of last year Ola's "All Over The World" is over?
Since 8 months after first song's release we can finally watch video for it that was shot both in New York and in Sweden.
Video is pretty qualitative work, with not so unique plot around friends gang wandering around NY, sitting on the rooftops with beautiful night city on the background and having wild parties. Very nice video to pack this brilliant single with and send it all over the world.
Don't forget to also check Ola's fresh interview where he's singing "All Over The World" in acoustic here.

After promising debut few years ago girls rock-band Those Dancing Days comes back with new album and loads of surprises related to this release.
Band was formed in 2005 taking name from Led Zeppelin's song "Dancing Days" and some members haven't even managed to finish school before big breakthrough with first album "In Our Space Hero Suits" and first singles being noticed by UK label Wichita Recording that signed them afterwards.
In the end of 2010 girls have presented new song "Fuckarias" that you can download for free here. Week ago they premiered first official single "Reaching Forward" getting really fine video-treatment from Andreas Öhman ("Simple Simon" (I rymden finns inga känslor)) that you can see below. Next single "I'll be yours" is on the way and new album "Daydreams & Nightmares" is planned for release on February 25th. It's gonna be produced by Patrik Berger - producer of significant hits of 2010 for Robyn and Tove Styrke (you can actually hear Tove style in "Reaching Forward" very well). Another song on the album "Can't Find The Entrance" was written together with Max Martin and Shellback that always sounds exciting!

I've been a big fan of mash-up mixes over the last few years. When they succeed, they manage to completely reinvent a song and give it a whole new interpretation. I know it's old news now, but I really wanted to write a post about one of the best mash-ups in a long long time: the marriage of Oskar Linnros' "Från och med du" and Robyn's "Dancing On My Own". The idea isn't a new one of course, as Oskar had covered Robyn's hit during his autumn 2010 tour, before leading into his massive summer hit.



Now Patrik Berger has taken it a step further and mashed up the two songs, with Robyn singing over Oskar's backing track. The bittersweet rejection and regret of the original now becomes a good-riddance celebration set to the upbeat, feelgood backing track. To me, it now says: "I'm giving it my all, but I'm not the girl you're taking home....but do you know what? I couldn't care less. F*** you! I keep dancing on my own, and I'm very happy about that, thank you very much."

Maybe that's just my take on the whole thing, but I really was blown away by how this song dramatically changed, just by putting a different backing track to it.



I'd previously featured this next mash-up over at Planet Salem a couple of months ago but while I'm on the subject of mash-ups, my thoughts inevitably turn to a recent mix of Axwell and Ingrosso featuring Salem Al Fakir's "It's True", and Kylie Minogue's "Get Outta My Way" which I think is a pretty successful mix. There have been many many dance remixes of "It's True" over the last 3 years, and the song just refuses to go away. Not that I would ever want it to, of course!! :) This mix is by Ben Double M.



Finally, let's go further back in time a few years to one of my most favourite mash-ups ever: Shakira's "Whenever Wherever" mixed with the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive" and some Britney "Slave 4 U" thrown in for good measure. I never get tired of this mash-up, although faithful travelling companion thinks it's sacrilege!



Let me know if you've discovered any good mash-ups - particularly featuring Swedish or other European music.

Few days ago we could see announcement on Carola's facebook page talking about forthcoming single and as it was revealed before that Carola will release her tribute-album to Elvis Presley and Barbra Streisand on March 23rd it was pretty expectable to get some of covers as a single. And now it's official that new tribute-single is "Suspicious Minds" and single is already on sales immediately reaching top of iTunes marking that though Carola doesn't release her original stuff lately she's still beloved in Sweden.
Last year "Suspicious Minds" along with other covers was often performed by singer though in studio it has probably become more interesting with Carola making Aguilera in the beginning and dynamic stylish retro-pop spiced with all expression of Carola's vocal. It's not often when we like this sort of stuff but it's really-really good cover charging strongly with positive energy.
You can also check performance live-performance of this song on concert in Dalhalla here.