International Music Journey, part 2: rock

H.E.A.T. - Living On The Run (Sweden)

We start off with some "light" rock from Sweden. This song by H.E.A.T. reminds me a lot of the rock-music that was made by long-haired rockers in the 1980s. Lead singer of the band is Erik Grönwall, who won the Swedish version of Idols in 2009. Immediately after winning this talent contest he recorded some pop-songs, but he quickly decided this was not the kind of music he wanted to make. In August 2010 he joined rock band H.E.A.T., after their old lead singer decided to leave the band. Two years after the change of lead singer H.E.A.T. scored their biggest hit so far with this song.

Shanon - Broken (Estonia)

Shanon is a pop-rock band from Estonia. The band announced to split up on 1 April 2010, but this turned out to be an April Fools Day prank, because one month later the band released a new single called "Broken". Like all of their previous songs, "Broken" became a big hit in Estonia. The band never reached any success outside of Estonia, but they are certainly good enough to be shared in this post.

Wig Wam - Gonna Get You Someday (Norway)

If you are (like me) a big fan of Bon Jovi, you're going to love this next song. Critics say that the idea for this song was stolen from the song "You Give Love A Bad Name", but one can't deny that this song rocks. Even though the video makes it look like this song is from the 1980s, it was made only a couple of years ago. Interesting fact: Wig Wam represented Norway in the Eurovision Contest of 2005 with the song "In My Dreams". After a great rock performance that reminded me of KISS they finished on a respectable 9th place in the final.

Ewa Farna - Cicho (Poland)

Ewa Farna is a talented singer who started singing at a very early age. At the age of 13 she already released a first album in Czech Republic (where she was born). In 2009, at the age of 16, she recorded "Cicho" which is about a boring relationship in which both partners don't have a lot to say to eachother.
Unfortunately, like with most teenage pop stars, things went from bad to worse with Ewa in recent years. She was arrested in May 2012 after having caused a car accident while driving drunk. Let's hope she gets through this period in one piece and continues to make good music.

Volbeat - Still Counting (Denmark)

This last song may be a bit too much for some of you, but I felt I needed to include a hard-rock song as well for all those real rockers who are reading my blog and were looking forward to this post. :) Try it out, and if you don't like it, then in two weeks I will write another post with a theme that may suit your taste better.

International Music Journey: Kickoff!

Since I'm not travelling so often any more I need to find something else to write about on my blog. After travelling, music is my second big passion so the choice for a new topic was an easy one for me. In this post I will introduce you to a new series on my blog. Every two weeks I will share music from all over the world that is not known to the big crowd (yet), but should certainly be shared. Every post (except for today's one) will be related to a certain theme. The list of themes is mentioned at the bottom of this post, now let's start with the music.

Lolita Jolie - Non Non Non (Poland)

To start off, I present you with Lolita Jolie (real name: Claudia Cislek). She's from Poland, but living in Germany and she's singing a song in French. Are you still following? Good. Lovely Lolita got her passion for the French language from her grandfather and is now conquering Europe with her music in this language. Her music is addictive from the very first minute you listen to it and is likely to stay in your head for the rest of the day.

Are you still hearing this last song in your head now? You can't say I didn't warn you for that... You can try to get it out of your head again by listening to this next song, which is something completely different.

Molly Sandén & Christopher -  A Little Forgiveness (Sweden + Denmark)

We move on towards a beautiful duet of ISC-winner Christopher and Swedish Molly Sandén. I have no knowledge about musical compositions, but you can hear in this song that the producer of this song is extremely talented and knows what he is doing. This is the perfect modern pop song: it's catchy, sung by an attractive singer (Christopher received 36 of his 41 points in ISC#4 from females, even though there were more male than female voters) and the listener can easily get captured by the beauty of the song. The highlight of the song is when Molly and Christopher sing the second chorus together at 1:40.

Click here to check the song out. The link will open in a new window.

Linda Hesse - Ich Bin Ja Kein Mann (Germany)

I discovered this next song only last week and I love it already. Young and pretty Linda Hesse sings about her response to the tough break-up with her ex-boyfriend who didn't seem to care about her feelings at all. Her first response was to cry (after all: she's not a man), but she quickly realized that it made no sense to cry over a man. She then decided it's more fun to deal with a break-up by going to a party in a tight dress and flirting with random guys all night long.

List of themes:
1. Introduction (3 February)
2. Rock (17 February)
3. Foreign languages - traditional music (3 March)
4. South Africa (17 March)
5. To be announced later (31 March)
6. Foreign languages - pop (14 April)
7. Asian pop music (28 April)
8. To be announced later (12 May)
9. Covers of internationally known songs (26 May)
10. To be announced later (9 June)

If you have any internationally unknown songs from your country (or any other country) related to one of these themes, please let me know. If the song makes it to my blog in the end, I will mention your name in that post to thank you for your input.

Results of ISC#4

After a very exciting voting process, the results of ISC#4 can now be announced. The differences are smaller than ever, also due to the fact that the amount of voters in this edition was smaller than ever. However, I am happy to announce that the 9 voters represent in total 8 different nationalities, which makes this a truly international song contest. :)
You can click here to see the full voting process in Eurovision style. The only thing that is missing are the pretty ladies and excited gentlemen that are announcing the votes, but I'm sure you can do without them.
A big thanks goes out to all people who have voted in my contest! Without you this contest wouldn't have been possible and without you the results would have also been different. Unfortunately I have decided that this has been the last edition of ISC. From now on I will share my music in a different way. Every two weeks I will write about 3-5 unknown songs related to a certain theme. More information about the themes will be available in my next post.

For those of you who actually enjoyed this kind of online song contest, I can recommend that you take a look at two online song contests that I participate in: World Song Contest On Net and Planet Earth Song Contest. My role in those contests is usually the same role as the Netherlands play at the real Eurovision song contest: I'm usually eliminated in the semi-finals, although unlike the Netherlands at Eurovision I actually do send in good quality music. However, I really enjoy participating in these contests and finding new music from other countries.

ISC #4

Ladies and gentlemen,

The moment has arrived again. It's time for the fourth edition of the International Song Contest on this blog. This time I took a bit more time to collect only the very best songs for you. I found most of these songs via the online song contests I participate in, however this time I also had a little help from my friends. So a special thanks goes to Laura (Estonia), José (Mexico), Līna (Latvia) and Tiina (Finland) for helping me select a song from their country!

Unfortunately some reasonably good songs didn't make it through the strict selection procedure, such as the Swedish modern-day equivalent of the band Europe (you know, those guys from the Final Countdown), the Kazakh Amy Winehouse and the Uzbek Shakira. Below you can find the list of all 22 songs that did make it, the links to YouTube and a recap video with a fragment of each of the 22 songs.

If you want to help decide who will win this edition of the ISC, I kindly ask you to make a top 10 of your favourite songs and submit them via the form at the bottom of this post. You can vote until 24 January 9:30pm CET. You can vote for your own country (or even the song you helped pick for this contest), as long as you vote honestly. After the voting has ended I will publish the results on my blog and make a fancy animation of the voting process, to give you the feeling like you're watching the results of the real Eurovision song contest. Thank you in advance for voting!

Recap video:

 
I had some issues with uploading the video to YouTube which did't allow me to place the video on my blog due to a copyright claim. You should also be able to access the video without ads on my YouTube-channel by clicking here.

List of participants:

1.	Norway	Tone Damli	Never Look Back
2.	Czech Republic	Verona	Hey Boy
3.	Netherlands	Nielson	Beauty & The Brains
4.	Switzerland	TinkaBelle	The Man I Need
5.	Germany	Revolverheld	Keine Liebeslieder
6.	Sweden	Paulina Starborn	Never Gonna Let Me Go
7.	Italy	Modà feat. Emma	Arriverà
8.	Slovakia	Celeste Buckingham	Run Run Run
9.	Lithuania	Marijonas, Mantas & Mia	Celebrate Basketball
10.	Romania	Connect-R	Vara Nu Dorm
11.	South Africa	Elvis Blue	Lighthouse
12.	Estonia	Greip	Vihma Loits
13.	Slovenia	Atomik Harmonik	Choco La
14.	Portugal	Aurea	Busy (For Me)
15.	Australia	Sam Clark	Broken
16.	Latvia	BrainStorm	Lantern
17.	South Korea	Yisabel	I Wish I Can Fly
18.	Finland	Satellite Stories	Family
19.	Mexico	Julieta Venegas	Me Voy
20.	Greece	Demy	Poses Xiliades Kalokairia
21.	Faroe Islands	Eivør	Undo Your Mind
22.	Denmark	Christopher	Against All Odds

Voting is over!

Top 200 of my all-time favorite music

It's the end of the year, which meant a lot of work for me this time. I was trying to put together a photobook of 2011 and 2012 containing all my travel photos because I had a discount voucher that was valid until 31 December 2012 and also I was working on a list with my all-time favorite music.

I listened to more than 500 songs and ranked them with the initial idea to make a top 300. However, due to time constraints and the feeling that the songs after song number 201 were not really worth being in the list of my favorite music, I decided that a top 200 would be enough for this year.

Since Blogspot makes it impossible for me to post the list on my weblog, I had to put it on another old website I still have. Click HERE to view the list, which for the first time contains hyperlinks to the music videos of some songs.

I wish you all a happy and productive 2013.

Random people I meet, part 1 (?)

A little more than one month ago I had a job interview in Eindhoven. The interview went well (although it didn't lead to a job offer) and when I got back to the train station I learnt that due to a train accident there were no trains going on the route between Eindhoven and my home town Houten, so I was looking for an alternative route. After looking at the map one more time I realized that I could also take the "touristic" route. For the Dutch readers (or the foreigners that love to use Google Maps): I would go from Eindhoven further south to Venlo, then to Nijmegen and finally I would travel back to my hometown Houten via Utrecht Central Station. I had no idea how long this was going to take, but it couldn't be more than the 3 hours I would have to wait at the train station if I didn't do it, so I hopped on the intercity to Venlo.

You should know that people in the southern part of the Netherlands are very social people who really like to talk. This led to an interesting situation. I was sitting in this train when a man sat down opposite to me. This is not special and I was reading a book, so I didn't pay too much attention to him. Out of the blue the man said to me (in Dutch): "Hi, how are you?"
Though this is uncommon in my country, I just replied in a friendly manner and asked him how he was doing. He was doing fine. Great. Now I could read more in my book.

Or not. The man had been silent for about a minute and then he started talking (more or less to himself) about how there was yet another disruption of the train traffic and how it could be that the Dutch Railways could not prevent such disruptions. I felt it wouldn't be very nice if I just kept on reading, so I put my book down and started nodding towards the man that was sitting opposite to me and took a better look at him. His hair was messy: he was getting bald but he seemed to think that as long as he would let his hair grow longer it would go unnoticed. Furthermore the man had dirty clothes and long fingernails. It was clear to me that this man was living alone. When he started talking about his canary and how much work it was to clean up the cage of this bird ("because it's always escaping from the cage! You know how difficult it is to catch a loose canary?!?"), I knew for sure.
I tried to ignore the weird things this man said to me and have a normal conversation with him, as this was clearly what he wanted. We talked about the beauty of the southern part of the Netherlands, getting stuck with your bicycle while cycling through the forest and the economic crisis. The highlight of the conversation was when the man told me he had to live from unemployment benefits and how proud he was that he came up with an idea to save money: not switching on any lights at night.
"It's really not a problem for me to pee in the dark," he said.

The man got off the train in his home town Deurne and I looked around in the train compartment. It could have been my imagination, but it seemed like the people were relieved that this man and his dirty stories were gone.
I didn't feel relief though. In fact I felt a bit sorry for this man. As I started reading in my book again I thought about how this man was probably living a very lonely life, with his canary and his house without lights.

7 songs to counter the Winter Blues

When that the days are getting shorter and the weather is getting colder, people are more likely to get a sad feeling. This phenomenon is known as the Winter Blues. This blog is written with the purpose to counter those sad feelings with music. In just 7 songs I will guide you to a happy feeling. Based on every song I will give you an advice on how to become a happier person. You can also see these 7 songs as your personal 7-step guide to happiness.

I guarantee you that you will have a happier feeling after listening to all these songs.

1. Wake up the right way (Alex Day - Good Morning Sunshine)
Have you ever wondered why British people always seem so happy? A happy feeling starts with waking up the right way. The video below shows how British people like to start their day. It's clear what you need to do with this step: wake up with a smile, sing a happy song, wear a colorful t-shirt and do crazy things with the people close to you.
You can start with that new lifestyle tomorrow, for now it will be sufficient just to watch the video below.

2. Be happy with what you have (Gerry & The Pacemakers - I Like It)
One of the first steps on your way to happiness is to appreciate what you have. It's always better to think about the things that you do have than to think about the things that you don't have. So please start up the video below, watch the old commercial about Mikey who gets used as a guinea pig by his older brothers, close your eyes, listen to the song and think about all the good things in your life. Friends, family, beautiful things you have seen or maybe even memories of a warm spring day in the park. Or just that delicious chocolate you always eat... Anything will do.

Are you feeling happier already? Yes? Good, you are well on your way to become a happy person. Are you not feeling happy yet? Wow, you certainly are a tough one. Maybe the next song will do the trick for you.

3. Jump up and down a few times (Munamies - Pomppufiilis)
You always feel happier when you are physically active. Therefore step 3 on the road to happiness requires you to jump up and down a few times. I know it sounds silly, but just do it. It works. To give you energy while while you're jumping, here is a video with an egg-man who is singing (in Finnish) about the bouncy feeling he is experiencing.

And if you get tired from the jumping, you may also sit down and just happily move your head a bit from left to right for the rest of the song with a huge smile on your face. That should also help to make you feel happy.

4. Don't create a monster; fight your fears (The Hoosiers - Worried About Ray)
The next step is an important one. To become a happy person you must know yourself and your weaknesses. You should actively do something to make sure your bad qualities don't make you into a bad or annoying person. Moreover, you should never be afraid to do something that you want to do. Keep in mind that at the end of their lives most people feel more regret about the things that they didn't do than about the things that they did do.

Unfortunately Ray from the video below hadn't read my blog yet. As a consequence, he decided to create a monster. Luckily he has a friend who did read my blog and fights his fear, a.k.a. the monster.

5. Think about how it's all going to be alright in the end (He Is We - Happily Ever After)
It's not always easy to maintain a happy feeling. At times you may be worried about something or it may seem that things are going wrong. If you encounter such a situation, just think about how it will all be alright in the end. Can you imagine yourself 5 years from now still worrying about the things you are worried about at that moment? I bet you can't. See, you know it's all going to be alright. Then why should you let it ruin your good mood now?

In line with this, you can listen to the following feel-good song:

6. Do something you like to do (Alexander Rybak - Roll With The Wind)
If there is one singer who always gives me a happy feeling, it's Alexander Rybak with his everlasting smile and his violin. So if I select 7 songs to guide you to a happy feeling, I should also include a song by the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest in 2009.

I chose a song with the title "Roll With The Wind". It's quite difficult to come up with an advice from this song. I guess the main idea of all songs by Alexander Rybak is that everyone should just do whatever they like to do. If you like to make catchy pop music with a violin, then just do it. If you're happy being in love with a fairytale, then just do it. If one day you wake up and you feel like rolling with the wind (and you actually know what this is), then I guess you should also just do it.

7. Maintain your happy feeling throughout the day (Scouting For Girls - Gotta Keep Smiling)
There you go, you're in a good mood now. And is that a smile on your face? Yes! It is! Congratulations, you have made it to the final step and you already have a smile on your face. Now you just need to make sure that you will continue to have this happy feeling for the rest of your day. How can you do that? Scouting For Girls, my favourite band, has the following advice on how to do this:

Have a happy rest of the day and don't forget to keep smiling!