New Year, New Music

Welcome to Wondercafe2!

A community where we discuss, share, and have some fun together. Join today and become a part of it!

Register Log in
Mendalla said:
That woman has a whole channel built around making fun of old songs with questionable lyrics. Her Shorts used to come up a lot when I was doomscrolling through YouTube Shorts. I must have stopped paying attention because she hasn't come up in a while. This is actually one of the few really good songs she's done a video for (seriously, the Chet Baker cover is regarded as a jazz classic). Usually they are music hall stuff with lyrics that could almost go on my NSFW writing site.
Click to expand...
I’ll check it out.
 
I would not call myself a fan of Ella Red but I enjoy her bright, sometimes slightly silly, pop music. Her voice is decent, if a bit too breath-y for my taste, but she's a pretty accomplished songwriter. Interesting that for Valentine's Day, she released this rather sad meditation on heartbreak inspired by a breakup her sister went through. Good song.

 
Welp, I did not have "K-pop girl group covering Pink Floyd" on my card for this morning but here it is. And ... it's actually pretty good. "Wish You Were Here" is one of the great songs of my lifetime and this really shows that greatness. Even sung by a very different group with a very different sound, it shines.

 
Mendalla said:
"Touch My Love and Die" is going to be her entry in the Dansk Melodi Grand Prix song competition, which in turn could lead to it becoming Denmark's Eurovision entry
Click to expand...
Sadly, Myrkur did not win the Grand Prix. Haven't heard the winning entry yet. Too bad. It's a terrific song. Probably too dark and metal for the voters or something (she's basically classed as folk metal, though her range of influences goes broader than usual for that subgenre). Here's the live performance from the Grand Prix.

 
Gong Xi Fa Cai!
1f9e7.svg
✨
@Mendalla

Chinese guitar prodigy, Lv Junxi (Maituo), born in 2015.
https://twitter.com/x/status/2023351654473769228
  • The post features a viral video of 9-year-old Chinese guitar prodigy Maituo (Lv Junxi), shredding blues riffs with mature soul and technique on an electric guitar, sparking widespread jokes about him being a reincarnated blues legend like B.B. King.
  • Posted on July 11, 2024, amid a surge of similar clips that garnered millions of views globally, the caption humorously amplifies the reincarnation narrative
  • Maituo's skill stems from self-taught electric guitar mastery since 2021, blending classical foundations with blues improvisation; studies on child prodigies, like those in Ericsson's deliberate practice research, underscore how such early intensity yields expert-level performance by age 9.
 
Last edited:
Lush, beautiful music. No other way to describe this new song from the European (members come from multiple countries) band Eye of Melian. Besides the regular lineup, there are two special guests. German hurdy-gurdy player and singer Patty Gurdy joins in on both and Troy Donockley of Nightwish and Auri (which shares a lead vocalist with Eye) plays winds. Music is by band founder Martijn Westerholt and lyrics are by vocalist Johanna Kurkela. New album drops Friday and I, at least, am pumped for it. The singles have been terrific so far.

 
Arch Enemy finally ended the speculation about who will replace Alissa White-Gluz as their vocalist after parting ways with Alissa late last year. The new singer is American Lauren Hart, who comes to them after several years fronting an LA-based melodic death metal band called Once Human. She packs a powerful harsh voice and her cleans are powerful, more howls and belts than the kind of singing we heard from Alissa. They released their first single with her today and start their first tour with her in the band next month. I listened to Once Human's last album today and it's very similar sound to some of Arch Enemy's work so I think she's probably a perfect pick but we shall see in the coming months. The real test is when she starts singing the material originally written for Alissa and her predecessor Angela Gossow (who is still with the band as their manager).

 
A couple from today.

First up was a nice surprise, a new single from Dutch songstress Anneke van Giersbergen. While she started in, and is rooted in, metal, Anneke's music covers a diversity of styles. A friend on another site tells me a new EP is expected this year.


The second is a sad one. "The Fever Mask" is from At The Gates, one of the seminal bands of the Gothenberg melodic death metal scene. It is a tribute/farewell to Tomas Lindberg, who was their vocalist through their entire history and all their various incarnations and revivals. Tomas passed away last year due to cancer. His passing brought a wave of tributes from the metal scene as he was highly influential. The band's final album with Lindberg on vocals will follow later this year.

 
New Laufey!! The Icelandic jazz-pop singer-writer visited the BBC on her recent tour of Europe.

First up, her new single. This is actually the first video to be released for it on YouTube. It will be on the upcoming deluxe edition of her Grammy-winning 2025 album A Matter of Time.


And then after that rather soft, sad ballad, the lively bossa nova "Lover Girl", one of the singles from the original album.

 
But I had to save this one for it's own post. Laufey chooses her covers pretty carefully and they often come from the jazz standards that are key influences for her. But this time, she picked a true beauty of a song, for my money one of the best to come out in my lifetime. I first heard "Both Sides Now" by Joni Mitchell c. 1976, sung by my elementary school's choir. It hit me in the feels (as Floor Jansen says, "music is emotion.") right away and I have loved the song ever since. So having possibly my favourite singer of Gen Z take it on had me going "HELL YES" even before I heard it.

 
Mendalla said:
Lay-vay. She has multiple YouTube Shorts and Tik Toks on how to say her name. It's Icelandic.
Click to expand...

May shift to lave Rous as the thing washes in Scandinavian archeology a Gem of Isis in the NA.

Then you too probably denied my Sami heritage ... my connections send chills in some spines ... men in red suites?

Might be the reindeer cakes ... often folk have difficulty getting their tongues about the hammer of Thor ... a heavy linguistic ... guttural A'?

Put a stop to that? No it goes on ... goes round the world in some dark times ...
 
Mendalla said:
I have no idea if you have Sami heritage or not. If you claim it, so be it, but if I was Sami or even Nordic myself, I might want some evidence.
Click to expand...

Funny you should mention such circumstances that would require proof ... I experienced some of it ... but some others claim I lied about it ... then anything I say is wrong regardless ... because few regarded it as important in the entire picture!

As a result I speak of a lot of unbelievable things, just to watch responses! Responses tell a lot ...

There are people that say you need to be spectacular to attract interest ... so I do the opposite and folk hate it! Thus I am placed out of 'ere! Fere less ... negative fare ... a grand mix-up ... like a storm on a Nordic Eve ...

If you tell a story of that ... people might believe in men in red suits ... underdressed?
 
Deluxe albums are something I am a bit cynical about. Too many of them are a re-release with just 2-4 new tracks or even just remixes and live versions of songs already on the album. They come across as a lazy, cynical way for the record company to milk the fans who already bought the original release. However, every now and then, someone gets it right. Like this one.

The deluxe edition of We Should Be Buried Like This by Finnish melodic death metal band Bloodred Hourglass dropped a week ago and adds real value in the form of a second disc containing a 2024 live set by the band accompanied by the St. Michel Strings, recorded in the band's hometown of Mikkeli, Finland. It's a terrific concert, incredibly heavy even with the strings. Love this band, who split the difference between the "melodic" and the "death" better than many.

 
It is all about milken and busting the populace ... how we define economic brilliance when the banks expand and the populace shrinks ... humiliating! In great passion during the spectacle we are blinded ... everyone's doing it ... it is difficult to stand down ... but that's how it goes ... corruption runs a muck ... mortals are stunned ...

Diva Yates ...
 
And from this week, new Lamb Of God. Not the theological concept, but the hard-hitting US heavy metal band that blends thrash, groove, and metalcore elements in a stew of heaviness and brutality. New album Into Oblivion is due in two weeks.


Brazilian band Sepultura are OGs of heavy metal, now over 40 years old though lineup changes have left them with no original members, though bassist Paulo Jr. joined quite early on. Most particularly, the brothers who started the band, Max and Igor Cavalera, are both long gone. Still, the current lineup carries on the sound and has a new album coming in April.

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top