My love of Anders Johansson is thanks to my friend the ‘PopPosterGirl’ who introduced me to the “One Man Westlife” (thanks to his many covers) with his single – ‘Is He The One’ when she posted it two years ago! She also broke the news on his latest single which I’ve been playing at the beach today and finally had to write about.
Anders Johansson rose to fame in Sweden when he won the reality TV show – Fame Factory in 2003. He’s released a handful of albums which I ran out to buy after hearing the bloody brilliant – Is He The One. Unfortunately his albums didn’t really live up to expectations and are made up of a lot of filler. Despite his dissapointing albums Anders has had success with some great singles! Also trying to find any information on him is almost impossible because there is another artist named Anders Johansson from Sweden which makes it difficult to find anything about him online.
About a year ago Anders released a cover of Heart’s ‘Alone’ and since then things have been pretty quite for the Fame Factory alum. But he’s finally back with a new single a new album and even a new name “Anders Fernette.” The new single is a cover (of coarse) of the classic – “Hungry Eyes” which you’ll know when you hear! The song is already a hit on swedish radio and while it’s not ground breaking it’s still a nice piece of summer fluff and will have you singing along from the first play.
When I was in Stockholm this year I found the single to this song in a box under a table at a cd store. It included this version of “Is He The One.” It has nothing on the original but it’s nice to hear a twist on a song that I hadn’t heard in awhile.
Remember how exciting it was when the Spice Girls came back and released ‘Headlines’ and how dissapointed you were when the song sucked?
Well that’s not going to happen when you hear the just released track from Aqua who are FINALLY releasing their greatest hits album in June with 3 new tracks! I used to LOVE Aqua back in the day (I still have the VHS and their biography.) What I love about the song is that they’re throwing back to the 80’s and at the same time their comeback is taking me back to the 90’s!
It’s great to hear the band back together again with something new. The song is ‘classic’ Aqua – they haven’t changed a thing. The track would have fit perfectly on their last album (where it was originally going to go but it didn’t make the cut.) So check this track out and go back to the 80’s if you’re old enough to remember them and if not then just go back to the 90’s when Aqua was the number 1 Euro-Pop act around.
So Eurovision 2009 is officially over and what a show it was. This was my first year ever really following Eurovision as I’ve always focused more on Melodifestivalen rather than Eurovision itself. This year that all changed as I tuned in all week and watched each Semi-Final and the Final Live online for the first time!
Now that it’s all over I wanted to share my reactions on the entire competition:
- The co-hosts during the semi-finals were HORRIBLE! They lacked chemistry, they couldn’t speak English or French and were really annoying.
- Like many people out there I thought a lot of the camera work didn’t always work with the song being presented on stage. In a lot of ways the stage felt too big for some of the performances. Christer Bjorkman did an interview on esctoday.com where he also mentions this and says this is why he is reccomending that Eurovision allow 8 performers on stage like they do in Melodifestivalen vs the 6 that are currently allowed at Eurovision. I think this is a great idea and would help fill up some of the space on such a large stage.
- Now I always wanted Norway to win so I’m really happy about that, but I’m surprised at how well the song did across the board! He received 12 points from a lot of countries that I didn’t think would vote for him. “Fairytale” has officially received more votes than any other song in Eurovision history!
- What a show! After the mediocre semi-finals I have to say Russia pulled off a fantastic show today. Of the few ESC’s that I’ve seen 2009 was by far the best I’ve seen yet. The opening sequence, the graphics and the interval act were brilliant! So great job to Russia. The biggest miss of the night would have to be the wasted time at the end of the show when we were waiting for Alexander to get to the stage and perform.
THE BEST: So Alexander won the whole thing but there are a few other performances that stole the show and deserve to be recognized and I mean Iceland! Johanna blew me away with her performance of “Is It True.” She deserved that second place spot!
SURPRISE: Where the heck is Aserbaijan come from!? I never expected to like their song as much as I did! Not only did I like the song but it did really well! They were my biggest surprise of the night.
CONGRATS: to the UK who have pulled out one of their best showings in a very long time. I’m glad Jade didn’t win because to be honest I absolutely hate the song. But I’m really happy she did as well as she did. I think the UK deserved to be rewarded for finally taking the competition more seriously. Hopefully this means that we’ll see better quality songs from the Uk in the future.
SWEDEN: I’m pretty dissapointed that Malena did so poorly. It’s one of Swedens worst perfomances in some time even worse than Martin Stenmark! What’s it going to take to get Sweden back in the top? I can’t help but feel like the wrong songs have gone through. Maybe the Melodifestivalen jury had it right when they wanted to send Mans. He would have been more relevant and pulled in the younger votes.
DISSAPOINTMENT: Germany, Greece and Malta deserved to do so much better than they placed; I really enjoyed those songs and wish they had each done a bit better than they ended up.
Now we all look forward to next year! Melodifestivalen will start gearing back up in October with the first artists likely being announced in December and January. Now I start saving up because I’ve already decided that I’m going to head back to Stockholm in 2010 for Melodifestivalen and then to Oslo for Eurovision 2010! I expect to see you there!
Allow me to introduce you to your new favorite band – Industry!
Acts like this are why this site exists and I can’t wait for their debut single to storm the charts this summer.
The band is: Donal, Morgan, Michele, and Lee and they’re based out of the UK. Eurovision fans may see a familiar face in the mix as Donal Skehan took part in Irelands ‘Eurosong’ last year as he competed to represent Ireland at Eurovision with the track – ‘Double Cross My Heart.’
Industry have been locked away in Sweden as they recorded tracks for their debut album and recorded videos for their upcoming singles and the time has come to unleash the band on the world.
The debut single is “My Baby’s Waiting” and will be released in Sweden and Ireland on June 19th with a second single already scheduled to be released in August. Plans are underway to add England to the list as well.
Jennifer Brown… if the name sounds vaguely familiar it might be because Jennifer took part in Melodifestivalen earlier this year with “Never Been Here Before” although she didn’t make it out of the semi-finals. While 2009 marked her first appearance in the festival she’s been around for quite some time and has enjoyed considerable success in Sweden. She’s been releasing music since 1994 and is finally ready to release her first new album in almost 6 years!
Mr. Running man is a fun and energetic pop song that’s perfect for the summer. Her official website describes the song: “In a time where it is easy to record a sparse album in your living room, they decided to go for a luxurious production that oozes timelessness and quality. Mr Running Man is about all the suits and ties who seem to be slaves to their watch, career and money and never take the time to stop and feel.”
It’s been a few years since the world sang along to “Paris To Berlin” and although Infernal are no longer in the international spotlight that doesnt mean they’ve dissapeared. Last year the band released their second album ‘Electric Cabaret’ and while it wasn’t as strong as their debut album there were still a few great songs on the album two of which I posted here for you!
Well I just came across their 4th single from the second album… a single version of ‘Redefinition’ and I really like it! It’s a huge improvement on the album version and listening to it reminded me of how many great songs Infernal had. If you never listened to their debut album you’re missing out because it was fantastic! Looking back It’s sad that the band failed to remain popular in the Uk. I think the problem was that ‘Paris To Berlin’ was so overdone that the band really became a novelty act/one hit wonder before the next single was even released. By the time ‘Self Control’ was released people had already dismissed the band. I feel like their biggest hit was also their undoing in the Uk. As a result of poor album sales and 2 weak singles their second album was never even released in the Uk.
It’s a shame because the band continues to be successful in Denmark and are currently on tour after re-releasing ‘Electric Caberet’ with a live concert DVD.
Attention! The first great pop song of 2009 has arrived just in time for the summer… you have been warned. Prepare yourself to hear this song over and over this summer until you can’t take anymore!
It’s exciting to see an artist like VV Brown who is just on the tipping point and is about to explode into the pop music stratosphere. She has received critical acclaim in the Uk and has toured the Uk extensively while she prepared her debut album. Her music has been described as “Pure Whimsical Fun, Retro, Edgy, Exciting” and it really is all of the above.
VV Brown had her first chance at fame almost 3 years ago even being offered a record deal, but when things fell through she started back at square one and it’s all about to pay off. With all of the buzz that is surrounding her only time will tell if it will translate to the mainstream and into further hit singles. But if her new single is any indication I think we’ll be hearing from VV Brown for quite some time.
I just want to start this post off by saying that this is a great example of exactly what is wrong with Pop music in the USA: Nick Lachey.
Is anyone else completely shocked that Nick Lachey has been allowed to record a new album? It made sense that they threw money at him when he was doing his reality TV show but did the world really need a third album from Nick Lachey?
His new album “Coming Up For Air” is going to be released soon and features Nicks version of the international #1 hit single from Take That – Patience. It drives me crazy that Take That can’t break into the US with a massive hit like Patience and instead Nick Lachey will butcher it and release it instead.
That being said I’m a hypocrite because I do like the new single – “All In My Head.” Sure the lyrics are cheesy; especially the whole “She says she wants to marry me…” but the beat is as infectious as the swine flu and will have you bopping your head along in no time.
