BillyH
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Posts posted by BillyH
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Same!! It's the #1 most played song on my iTunes, followed by Delerium's Silence :D Remember first hearing both songs in about 2004 and being blown away by them. Think I've said before, but Ferry remastered the song in 2010, sounding similar to the original but sonically much more beefed up - definitely worth a listen!
Wanted to go back to this question I posted in the 90s thread last year, when we were on Orbital - The Saint:
This one always frustrates me a little because it reminds me of another, similar track - probably late 90s/early noughties - that I heard a million different times on various adverts/TV shows in the early-mid noughties but never known the name of it as it's an instrumental.Features a brassy sample from what sounds like an old movie/TV show theme - but might not be - and goes into a garage/D&B style-sound similar to Bomfunk MC's 'Freestyler'. Unfortunately that's not enough to identify it but it's the same sort of idea as the Orbital track.
Despite the suggestions I wasn't able to find it, and still don't know the name, but I've made a hilariously terrible MIDI/mp3 recording of my hazy memory of it:
http://vocaroo.com/i/s1YqddIFvfwg
Yeah, I know it's bad :P But does it ring any bells for anyone as to what I mean?
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So I had a ticket for this tonight, and the stadium is 20 minutes walk from my house :( Booked the night off from work and everything. I bought the ticket second hand, but hopefully if it gets rescheduled I can make the new date...if it gets completely cancelled I'm down £70 if I can't get it refunded!
It's not as bad as Michael Jackson 2009 or Nirvana 1994 - Adele at least is still alive!! - and unlike some I haven't travelled halfway across the country to see her, but hopefully I'll get to see her one day!
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Did we even have iTunes chart effects in 2006? So for example did a totps performance effect iTunes?
The problem by then was that Top of the Pops was buried away on a Sunday afternoon, and absolutely no one was watching it.
The last Top of the Pops performance I remember that genuinely got a fair amount of attention was this one from 2003, unfortunately still in the physical CD era so no download boost!
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Edited by BillyH
I just remembered something about Thunder In My Heart - every time I heard that opening instrumental hook, I kept thinking about this level from the SNES classic Donkey Kong Country! 0:56 in...
Compare to about 0:08 into that Thunder In My Heart video...
EDIT: Just realised I'm being dumb, cus if anything Nintendo nicked it from Leo Sayer, as it's on his original version too...still similar though!
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Leo was originally asked not to promote the remix or even have anything to do with it, as the label wanted to hide the fact that the song was old and the singer was now in his 50s. But once a huge chart position was guaranteed they changed their mind, and 'Leo gets another #1!' headlines were everywhere - think he even may have done a TOTP/CD:UK performance!
It was a huge surprise #1, the first since Call On Me I genuinely considered a dance #1 (didn't count the Crazy Frog or Madonna!) - fun to listen to at the time but I haven't revisited it much since. Takes me back though!
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Craig David's comeback was carefully planned out from the beginning, was it not? Release a couple of easy hit modern-sounding club tracks with him on them (When The Bassline Drops being something of an old/new school fusion), getting his name back out there and letting early word spread, and once they're established, slowly transition into his own new material. It was basically the Jess Glynne path to success but relaunching an old star rather than unveiling a new one.
Comebacks usually happen when the singer or group have the right team on board to get the public to actually notice and the songs to be played. The Human League in 1994-5 was a great example of this - 'Tell Me When' was hyped up as their big return after a decade, but they'd never stopped making music, it had all just been ignored by the public for ages. Their new song got a shedload of radio play and smashed into the top ten, and then One Man In My Heart did equally well later that year. Granted music consumption has moved on a lot since then but the general methods still remain.
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I'll Be Ready - easily one of my favourites of the looped house age. As I think I've written here before, the original Baywatch theme had undergone a major revival in clubs by the mid-noughties and by 2005 a ton of different DJs were making cash-in remixes of it - Sunblock's was the most chart-friendly and managed to get the most airplay and promotion out of them all. I was slightly amazed when they had a couple of follow-up "hits" as by their name I assumed they were just gonna be a random one-hit wonder act - tons of unsold cut-price copies of their album were a regular sight on HMV shelves by the end of the noughties!
The version I remember hearing the most of Muscle Car was the much beefier Sander Kleinenberg remix, as heard below:
I listened to Say Say Say a lot at the time, but mostly only because it was one of the few dance tracks around. Not one I revisit these days and god knows how they cleared for copyright vocals by Michael Jackson of all people - were they re-recorded or was he genuinely that desperate for money after his trial? See also another looped house hit to follow in a few months...
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This seemed a surprise hit at the time as it sounded completely out of step with then-current UK dance trends...it would never have been released here had it not been for its United States success, as ever a few years behind the times with European dance music. Meanwhile, as this reached its UK peak, an obscure German recording trio quietly release in the States what would turn out to be one of the biggest UK hits of 2006...
Just missing out on dance #1 is this glorious bit of piano house from Herd & Fitz, extremely evocative of Winter 2005-06 for me along with 'My Humps' by the Black Eyed Peas and 'Sewn' by The Feeling. I remember loving this at the time for finally being a dance hit that wasn't looped house!
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The next one is from a genre of dance we haven't seen for a while on this thread. Lenny also make sure you post the right video, there are a multitude of versions on youtube, the one that charted is the "remix version" I think.... :D
Couldn't resist and had a look...the radio edit that charted in the UK can be found at
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I'd close to given up on chart dance by this point, there was so few of it and the only ones around were missing top 10 and sinking down the chart. It felt like everyone's backs had turned to it in favour of indie and R&B. I didn't mind 'Your Body' but it got overplayed to death over the next few months, I'm amazed at that long chart run - seems so random!
I really thought this one had a chance of being a massive hit around this time, but it missed the top 40:
(Olav Basoski - Waterman)
There's one that might be coming soon though which I loved, and was really happy to see it chart well - not sure if it was dance #1 but it has a chance! It's the feeling that I love...
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How early did you join the streaming revolution? Did you have to get an invite code to use Spotify, as was the case for a few years, or were you one of the first ever users almost a decade ago? Do you remember the first song you streamed and when?
I randomly found an old Facebook status recently which reveals it for me - first song I streamed was Snow Patrol - Run, on April 11th 2010! Presumably many of this forum were much earlier to the party than me though :P
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So in the arena this was absolutely immense, the main bassline loudly rumbling, the flame jets blasting us with warmth and Artsvik's voice soaring throughout. Technically this was mixed perfectly, better than Italy and Belgium's entries which didn't quite have as much of a kick live. I had this in my top 5 with Portugal, Belgium, Italy and Sweden.
It does lose a little something when watching at home, but this is still the most unfair lowest place of the competition for me, if not quite as shocking as Barei last year. Armenia seriously deserve a win at some point and if their quality remains this good we'll hopefully see a Yerevan Eurovision one day!
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As the postcard for this was being shown to TV viewers, and during the jury final, Nathan bounded on stage with a huge beaming grin, looking overjoyed to be there, jumping around and hyping up the crowd as the main moon prop got prepared. It was nicely endearing and made everyone smile and enjoy the song a lot more.
TV viewers saw none of that, and I can't help seeing a link between the juries liking him and televoters ranking him last. It was never in my top 10 but seemed a shame for him to flop the televote that badly.
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Just saw the semi final performance of this...as much as I loved this song to the point of having it in my top 3, it should really be included in a Eurovision Training Video as a warning not to completely screw up the staging. It's like they literally had a couple of minutes to prepare, spent the first two minutes awkwardly standing around and only coming together at the end.
Two decades ago it would have been fine, but comparing it to others this year they really missed the ball here, a huge shame as the song is brilliant - compared to a country like Azerbaijan, who had an OK song but blessed it with phenomenal staging using only a couple of chalk boards, a ladder and a bloke wearing a horse's head!
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Yeah I can see this being much harder to get tickets for than Kiev, it's not been in this part of the continent for decades so thousands of Spanish and Portuguese fans have their first chance to see it next year.
Regarding accomodation, my hostel in Stockholm in 2016 cost something painful like £25 per night (booked in November the previous year when I got my ticket), whereas my private room in Kiev, booked around February/March, cost £6. Presumably Lisbon will be somewhere in between...
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Portugal won by a landslide and they only have one neighbour!
Obviously 15th isn't a massive result - when Nicki French reached 16th in 2000 it was seen as a total and utter disaster, but our track record was much better then and we'd never been that low before. It just hopefully feels like a step in the right direction this time after ranking so low year after year since the start of this century.
My only worry is that both Jessica and Jade (our two best results since '99) were followed by two of our biggest flops, and any momentum got completely lost after that. Hopefully 2018 will bring us back to the left side of the scoreboard.
Random thought - that Bulgaria contestant is surely going to return in a few years, given his age? Could landslide a win for them in the early 2020s...
Who'll still be relevant in ten years time?
in UK Charts
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So who out of pop's biggest megastars of now will still be relevant in some way in 2027, as in still known and perhaps still releasing hit singles to the public? Will Drake still be a big name in the hip-hop scene at age 40? Will Adele's '39' album be another massive seller? Will Bieber be packing out arena tours to screaming fans at age 33? And will we be flying into London Ed Sheeran Airport by then, a huge statue of his grinning face the first thing international tourists see on arrival?
Let's quickly look back at some of the biggest names of a decade ago, and whether they could still feasibly be called musical A-listers today. All of these had either a yearly top ten album or single in 2007:
* Rihanna (she'd get even bigger!!)
* Leona Lewis (no)
* Mika (hell no)
* A reformed Take That (still touring to huge crowds with a recent top 20 single)
* Sugababes (fizzled out into ridiculousness)
* Timbaland (not the producer of the moment anymore)
* Mark Ronson ('Uptown Funk' probably ended up making him a millionaire for life)
* Kaiser Chiefs (the British public still hasn't quite embraced guitars the way they did in the noughties)
* Amy Winehouse ( :( )
Remind me to bump this thread in ten years...