I recently found out a little trivia fact for you…
What song holds the record for having the longest vocal note held by a singer?
It’s held by Morten Harket the lead singer of A-Ha. In 2000 their single ‘Summer Moved On’ hit the Uk top 40. In the track Morten holds a vocal note for 20.2 seconds; The longest vocal note ever held in a Uk top 40 hit.
This was done without any vocal stretching effects and you can hear him hit the note live at one of their concert appearances.
A-Ha are probably most famous for their huge 80’s hit – ‘Take On Me,’ but suprisingly the band has continued recording to this day and has had moderate success recently in Europe with some of their singles.
I’m actually a big fan of their track ‘Did Anyone Approach You.’ I love his voice in this one and the way it builds up as it goes along. What do you think?
One of their most recent hits was ‘Analogue’ which I’m posting for you as well. This track has a great use of piano against a guitar. A-Ha has really shown that they are a talented band and deserve the recognition they’ve received with their last two albums.
The Spice Girls JUST announced 3 more dates for their tour… and they’re now opening the tour in my city – Vancouver, Canada!
If you haven’t registered for tickets yet… get on it! Don’t worry if the girls aren’t coming to your city, because you can now vote where the girls should play! Whichever city gets the most votes will be “SPICE CITY” and will get their own tour stop!
GIRL POWER!
Check out this AMAZING new promo shot the girls just did as well!
Aurora is a dance act created by 2 english DJ’s. The act had their debut back in 1999 with the single “Hear You Calling” and soon exploded in the Uk charts with their follow up single, a cover of Duran Durans ‘Ordinary World’ which peaked at #5 in the Uk!
Like many dance acts the band has worked with many different vocalists to record their songs. After the band had success with ‘Ordinary World’ they teamed up with ‘Lizzy Pattinson’ who became the new full time lead vocalist for Aurora. The band began to work on their debut album and in 2002 released ‘Dreaming.’
But the album turned out to be a bit of a suprise. Instead of focusing on the dancey/trance hits that made the group famous, the album was a collection of slower ballad based songs. Unfortunately their further singles failed to set the charts on fire and there wasn’t much more heard from the band after the album was released.
The band released further singles in 2003, 2005 and in 2006 each track using a different lead vocalist.
None of the singles have matched the success of their earlier singles. Their last single was in 2006, a cover of the Texas hit ‘Summer Son.’ It peaked at #82 in the Uk.
Still at once time Aurora was one of my favorite bands to listen to! I find their singles to be extremely catchy and easy to sing along to. Their videos are quite nice to watch at well! Find out for yourself below…
My favorite song from Aurora has to be ‘The Day It Rained Forever.’ I don’t know what it is about the song… but i absolutely LOVE the title!
That’s right… today I launch a fun new interactive experience on this blog!
The first ever Battle of the B-sides! B-sides are typically a dumping ground for bad songs that weren’t good enough to make it onto an artists album… but sometimes an artist suprises fans with a B-side that is spectacular and in some cases is better than the single itself!
Today I want to celebrate some of these B-sides and challenge you to decide which B-side is the best! I tried to pick a range of tracks that are each a little different from the others but each track is a great tune!
You will have a chance to vote on all 12 B-sides and after 1 week the top 6 will move onto the semi-finals. From there we will narrow it down to the top 2 tracks until there is only one B-side left standing!
If you keep up to date on your Uk Boybands you’ll know who ‘Ultra’ is.
When the band released their first single back in 1998 – Say You Do, it got to number 11. The band were then suprised to hear that the single went #1 in Italy of all places!
Over the next 2 years the band had several singles hit the top 20 in the Uk, Italy and Spain! Despite being mobbed by over 3000 female fans once… the band maintained that their popularity came from their songs that they helped write and produce.
But as always things changed due to record company politics. When it came time to record their 2nd album in 2000 the band found that everyone that worked for the record label when they had been signed no longer worked for Warner. It seemed that despite selling over 1 million albums, no one at Warner was interested in continuing to release music with ‘Ultra.’
Despite other offers from other labels the band was disillusioned with the music industry and the band finally split up in 2001.
3 members of Ultra ended up forming their own music production company and ended up writing songs for Bryan Adams, Kylie Minogue, Liberty X, Phixx and Natasha Bedingfield.
In 2005 the band started spending more time together and decided to release a new album… this time with no record labels to hold them back. In Feb. 2006 the band released their 2nd album ‘The Sun Shines Brighter.’
And despite that fact that they no longer grace the covers of teen magazines or have their singles playing non stop on radios… the band is finally making the music they want, their way.
The new songs are good too, they’re a lot more grown up and mature. What do you think? Were you an Ultra fan? Do you like the new stuff?
Novaspace had success in Germany and other European countries between 2002-2004. The band was a collaboration between singer Jessica Bohrs and dance producer Felix Gauder. Novaspace had moderate success across Europe and released 2 studio albums and one remix album in their time together.
My all time favorite is their cover of the 1988 classic ‘Beds Are Burning.’ This is a great track to blast this summer and the video is fun too.
After the 2nd series of ‘Pop Idol’ in the Uk… runner up contestants Sam and Mark decided to join forces and begin recording together as ‘Sam & Mark.’ They signed with Simon Fuller and immediately released a beatles cover ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’ which entered the Uk singles chart at #1! Things were looking bright for the two-some!
The duo released their second single ‘The Sun Has Come Your Way’ in July 2004. Unfortunately a high chart position did not come their way a 2nd time. The single peaked at a dissapointing #19 and the boys were dropped.
But these boys don’t give up. Despite their failure as a recording act, the boys have managed to successfully carve out a career in television hosting various programs in the Uk including TOTP Reloaded, Level Up and their latest show – Do Something Different!
So while we most likely will never have another single from the boys… we’ll always have this pop gem which I happened to love!
UPDATED: The link to ‘Some Day’ was incorrect… It’s now updated with the correct track
If you follow Eurovision, you may be familiar with Manual Ortega. After his debut single ‘El Amor, La Vida’ became a huge hit in Austria, he represented his country at Eurovision with ‘Say A Word.’
It turns out his failure at Eurovision didn’t stop him… he’s gone on to release 3 albums in Austria and is still releasing material today.
My favorite songs from him are the ones from his debut album ‘Any Kind Of Love’ which you can discover below.
If you like boys that sing sappy songs with guitars you’ll like the new single by Australian Idol winner: Damien Leith.
The new single is a little bland… but I really like the lyrics. They’re the kind of lyrics I think everyone can relate to…
Now although I haven’t fallen for his new single… Damien Leith stole my heart late last year with his debut single – Night Of My Life. The song was number 1 in Australia for 4 weeks and went platinum in it’s first week of release!
So here you can download both of Damiens singles… Night Of My Life is a MUST download!
