Random acts of music

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From another appearance on the same show in 1991, their powerful anthem "Wind of Change", written to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall.


And a recent song featuring Meine duetting with one of my favorite metal singers, Finnish soprano Tarja.

 
And to give a sense of just how long this band has been going, Klaus became lead singer of Scorpions eight years before Tarja was even born. And she has now been in the music business for 25 years, initially as a founding member of Nightwish and later as a solo artist.
 
And Floor Jansen's live release for this week is her cover of 2012 Eurovision winner "Euphoria". She first did this on a Beste Zangers (Dutch music reality TV show) special last year and both song (which was new to me) and Floor's performance blew me away.


And there is an interesting story around Floor singing this song. She originally was supposed to sing it on a special edition of Beste Zangers in 2021 after being part of the show's 2019 season. But while in Finland rehearsing with Nightwish for a virtual concert they did last May, Floor fell ill and ended up having her gall bladder removed (she apparently had so many gall stones that the band's guitar player nicknamed her "Stonehenge"). So instead of appearing live, she recorded the song at home while recovering and they used that footage on the show.
 
Scorpions are one of my favourite bands - Klaus Mein has an amazing voice and really adds something extra to the vocals.

@Mendalla have you seen my other site all about rock music - Home you may find it interesting and if you're up for it, register and start adding some bands and artists that are new to me and, perhaps, a lot of other people too :)
 
Davyc said:
Scorpions are one of my favourite bands - Klaus Mein has an amazing voice and really adds something extra to the vocals.

@Mendalla have you seen my other site all about rock music - Home you may find it interesting and if you're up for it, register and start adding some bands and artists that are new to me and, perhaps, a lot of other people too :)
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Looks vaguely familiar so I might have skimmed it at some point without actually joining. Do you have a thread about it on XF Community maybe? If so, that's probably what happened. Will take a closer look.
 
My love of Violet Orlandi's alto voice only grows with time. Her new cover of "Chandelier" by Sia is a terrific performance and she ups her video game with a more active, dynamic shoot as well.

 
Mendalla said:
Looks vaguely familiar so I might have skimmed it at some point without actually joining. Do you have a thread about it on XF Community maybe? If so, that's probably what happened. Will take a closer look.
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Yes I added a thread about it on XF - I'm busy giving it a makeover at the moment so I'll give you a heads-up when it's open again :)
 
I'll give a boo and maybe sign up later.

Speaking of rock, here's Halocene ft. Violet Orlandi with a rockin' cover of an Evanescence song. Addie Nicole and Violet Orlandi turn in great vocal performances with some good harmonizing. There's some nice work by Halocene guitarist Brad Amick here, too.

 
Marcel Fisser, who leads the band that has been backing Floor Jansen on her solo shows, apparently had a bit of a learning curve given that his band is a pop band and Floor's background is metal and hard rock. Still, the band rose to the occasion and here's possibly their most metal performance in the releases so far from that show. And, of course, Floor rocks out on this one, too, giving a terrific performance. We even hear her growling, a metal singing technique usually done by men.

"Face Your Demons" dates to the 2005 album ReImagine from After Forever, the Dutch metal band that launched Floor's career. Like almost all the songs on that album, it features lyrics by Floor herself. It ranks as one of my favorite songs from her early career and I was glad to see it on this setlist

 
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Violet Orlandi's back ... and this time she's bringing her Dad.


What a great performance. One of the Brazilian alto's best. Violet and the band, including her father on drums, do a great job with this Who classic. Not sure if this will be her tour band this summer (she's touring with her friends Halocene and Lauren Babic), but they are certainly good enough.
 
And her friend Lauren Babic, a Toronto-based singer-songwriter-teacher, dropped a new single with her band Red Handed Denial this week. It is perhaps a little heavier than I usually go, but Lauren's grunting and singing are fantastic here. This is the first time I've heard her in the band and I will be checking them out some more.

 
"Winner" by Dutch singer-songwriter Tim Akkerman is another song that I was introduced to through Floor Jansen's appearance on Beste Zangers 2019. It's not quite Floor's usual, a powerful pop anthem rather than rock, but she nails it. I remember Akkerman himself, also on Beste Zangers that season, having a strong reaction to her performance of it on the show. It has become part of her solo setlist and is the latest release from her Amsterdam show.


And I have recently joined Floor's new website, basically a social media/forum site for her fans and fans of the bands she has been in. Here's my post from today with some thoughts on the Amsterdam show so far.

floorworld.floorjansen.com

FloorWorld

Login to FloorWorld community via email or SSO today.
floorworld.floorjansen.com floorworld.floorjansen.com
 
And a big event this week: The full album of the Amsterdam concert is now out on major streaming platforms.

The video release for the week is "Slow, Love, Slow". It's a Nightwish song from the 2011 album Imaginaerum and is a rare foray by their songwriter Tuomas Holopainen into a jazz style, which is nicely suited to Floor's solo band. To be honest, I think this is the first time I have heard Floor sing it. The album came out during the tenure of Anette Olzon, her predecessor.

 
While Scottish rockers Nazareth are usually associated with the seventies, when they had their biggest successes, they have actually been around continuously, with lineup changes, since 1968. The current lineup is bassist Pete Agnew, the only remaining original member and the only member to appear for the band's entire history, his son Lee on drums, guitarist Jimmy Murrison (joined in the early nineties), and lead singer Carl Sentance. Sentance has only been in Nazareth since 2015 but has worked with a raft of bands and artists in hard rock and heavy metal over a 40 year career. And guess what? A new album, Suriviving the Law, is out from Frontier Records. And these guys rock!

 
I was never really a fan of "Shallow" by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper when it came out. Nice song, but didn't blow me away or anything. Then Beste Zangers 2019 came along and Floor Jansen covered, and nailed, it twice, once solo and once with fellow Dutch singer-songwriter Tim Akkerman. And now the solo version is part of her live album. Not sure what it is beyond Floor just throwing that magnificent set of pipes into high gear on the chorus, but this is the version that sold me on the song.


And, just for fun, here's the version with Tim, which of course hews closer to the original which was also a male-female duet.

 
So ... Nickelback. They are loved and hated by millions. I have always been a bit meh on them. Didn't find them especially interesting musically most of the time but didn't hate on them like some did. But "How You Remind Me" is definitely one of their better songs. And Violet Orlandi kicked that song up several notches with a new arrangement designed to move it more into the realm of Evanescence. That arrangement combined with her powerful alto makes for quite a song.

 
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