So, what are you listening to these days?

[Mendalla]

And rolling back the clock further, War was the first U2 album I heard, though it was not their first. With songs like New Year's Day and Sunday, Bloody Sunday, it was the album that launched the band into stardom and captured the ears and hearts of my generation.

 

[Mendalla]

Usually, I would be posting about First To Eleven in Cover Songs. However, this week they dropped a new original tune. It's been a couple years since they last put out original material so I am pleased to see this. It is solid and well-performed 90s-ish alt rock, pretty much their stock in trade.

 

[Mendalla]

Need to make a slight correction to the above. While the performers are all members of First To Eleven, this song is actually the debut of their new project Concrete Castles. I missed the livestream they did before the video launched so didn't get that important little detail.

 

[ninj]

 

[Mendalla]

Discovered today that Floor Jansen (my current favorite singer and musical crush) appeared on a Dutch reality show in 2019. It's all pop music so different than her usual fare (she has fronted three bands, all in various styles of metal music). She handles the material quite well, too, showing her range and versatility as a singer.

First up, Floor singing in her native Dutch. She mostly sings in English, even though she is originally from the Netherlands and can sing in a number of languages.

Next up, covering the Lady Gaga-Bradley Cooper hit Shallow from the recent remake of A Star Is Born.

And a song by Tim Akkerman, another competitor on the show.

 

[Mendalla]

Nightwish, Floor's current band, covered Andrew Lloyd-Webber's The Phantom of the Opera many years ago when another singer, Tarja Turunen, was fronting the band. However, I have never heard them do it since Floor joined. Here she teams with Dutch singer Henk Poort for a more traditional version (Nightwish's was a metal arrangement by the band).

Floor did do some musical and opera voice training and it really shows here.

And to close, Floor singing in Spanish, a language I have never heard her sing before.

 

[Mendalla]

And back to her native musical environment, here guesting with Swedish metal band Evergrey. Her husband, Swedish drummer Hannes van Dahl, played for this band at one point but I think he had left by the time this came out.

 

[Carolla]

Heard this tonight as part of an online service - Gregory Porter - Take me to the Alley -

And also this - I am Light by India Arie - love them both.

 

[Mendalla]

I had planned to post this last night but it got taken down for a bit for some reason. It is back now. St. Vincent's new album Daddy's Home looms and this is the latest single.

 

[Mendalla]

So, reaction videos generally annoy me. I get dozens of them recommended for every song I listen to even though I have never actually listened to one. However, this is special. Rather than a voice coach or other artist reacting, it's the performer taking us through one of their great performances and giving insight into how they approached the song.

The singer is Floor Jansen (yes, her again) of Nightwish and the song is Ghost Love Song, one of the band's classics. The song predates Floor, having been written in the early noughties for the band's original lead singer, Tarja Turunen. However, this 10 minute epic is one of their most popular numbers and remains in their repertoire to this day. Floor chose one of her early performances of the piece from the Wacken festival in 2013, shortly after she joined Nightwish. And it is fascinating to hear. The song has many segments with different styles and moods so hearing how she handles it makes for a fascinating story.

One thing Floor skims over, naturally since she is a singer, is the instrumentals. However, this is as complex musically as it is vocally and the band is in peak form on the 2013 performance at Wacken.

 

[Mendalla]

And I have the Wacken 2013 performance post on my "wall" if you go to my profile, along with some other Nightwish material.

 

[Lastpointe]

Lately we have been listening to classic fm. Up here it’s 102.9

like every Radio station they have their top 40. But one thing they do through the day is a request line. People request mostly things you hear tons, though occasionally you hear a surprise

What I mostly notice though, is how lonely many people sound. most Are seniors making requests I think, by sounds of voices, and so many are alone. The host is so sweet to them all, has a lovely word or two to each of them

 

[Waterfall]

Two Ontario sisters, Cassandra Star (10) and her sister Callahan (19) singing an Easter Hallelujah. This video has been going viral over Easter.

 

[Lastpointe]

While they have nice voices, my sister sent it to me, I dislike people changing the words to songs. This song is wonderful as it is

 

[BetteTheRed]

Well, except that Leonard Cohen gave some sort of permission to several people for alt verses. Apparently, he himself wrote 80 draft verses to the song, so I take it that the exact lyrics weren't terribly important to him.

I'd agree with you, some of the time, LP, on some songs, but emphatically NOT on this one...

 

[Mendalla]

Apparently, he himself wrote 80 draft verses to the song, so I take it that the exact lyrics weren't terribly important to him.

That's apparently how many he gave John Cale when he asked for the words. Cale put together a version for the Cohen tribute I'm Your Fan, which then became the basis for the versions by Jeff Buckley and K.D. Lang among others. Even Cohen himself was using Cale's version later in life, or so I read somewhere.

 

[BetteTheRed]

I dislike people changing the words to songs

Often, it's the only way for us to sing favorite old hymns. Richard Bott is actually quite good at "re-theologizing" lyrics, lol. I agree that this is cross-religion, but as I said, I think that Cohen authorized a ton of lyrics before his death. What his estate has to say, I don't know.

 

[Mendalla]

I agree that this is cross-religion

Given that Cohen was a Jewish Buddhist who often incorporated Christian imagery into his poetry and lyrics, I'm not sure cross-religion is out of character. It is turning the song into a hymn in any tradition that kind of doesn't work. After all, the original has lyrics like,

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew her
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

That clearly exist at the intersection of spirituality and sensuality. It's not praising God but using the Biblical imagery to explore sexual or romantic feelings.

 

[BetteTheRed]

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew her
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Agreed, but if we're confusing messages, he's just conflated David and Bathsheba (where David is the bad guy), with Sampson and Delilah (and I'm not sure who was the "bad guy" in that one), I just think Leonard is cheering that we're singing his tune...

 

[Mendalla]

Agreed, but if we're confusing messages, he's just conflated David and Bathsheba (where David is the bad guy), with Sampson and Delilah (and I'm not sure who was the "bad guy" in that one), I just think Leonard is cheering that we're singing his tune...

I suspect the conflation is quite deliberate given who we are dealing with. Poets love to play with stories and words.