I can’t believe they turned Mama Mia into a movie. And what a cast: Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and more. I got a chance to watch the show a few years ago in Vegas, and though the storyline was as stupid as a musical storyline can be, I enjoyed listening to the to the immortal ABBA songs performed by the cast.
But now they turned Mama Mia into a movie. That’s unbelievable!
Remember your worst nightmare? The one involving you being discarded like yesterday’s trash and easily replaced? The one where you woke and realized that thankfully you weren’t dispensible or at the very least, it was all just a dream, but secretly questioning and doubting your abilities and cringing at your assessment of you self-worth?
Maybe these neurotic tendencies only creep up on me. It’s possible. As I was watching VH1 today, however, and seeing this new 20-year-old chanteuse from North London being hailed as the “new Amy Winehouse,” I had to sneak a listen to her. I also had to ask myself that why in an industry as vast as music, do we need to go around and recycle the same names. Winehouse was able to breathe new life into soul music and put it back on the map. She should be credited as such, in spite of all her drug-laden shenanigans. The girl’s got raw talent. Her predecessors are simply jumping on the over-crowded bandwagon.
And while the singer known as Adele (having your last name dropped from a label eliminates all those ugly pesky ethnic associations) might be more of a promising gamble in the professionalism dept. and she shares some things in common with Amy -notably they graduated from the same performing arts school and share a producer, Mark Ronson, Adele is no Amy, “chasing pavements” and all.
But you be the judge and listen and compare below.
We should all follow our dreams. And if Scarlett Johansson’s dream is to sing, than so be it.
So, without further ado, here is Scarlett in “Falling Down.”
It’s not horrible right? Not great either…. I don’t know what to make of it…..
I did a Youtube search for one of my favorite artists today and discovered that Ms. Spektor is doing the theme song for the new Chronicles of Narnia movie. It’s a big coup for the artist, whose music has graced many a Grey’s Anatomy/CSI episode over and over again, but has yet to venture into the lucrative, albeit potential shark infested waters of Hollywood.
Anyways, as we’re huge fans of Regina on this blog and were planning on sneaking a peak of the new Narnia flick this weekend (Note: Not the Sex & The City movie), I say a celebratory drink is in high order. However, given that it’s 5 PM and I have a night of work ahead of me, I think I might have to settle for a run to the local Dunkin Donuts…
Amy Winehouse is going to model in London Fashion Week in September. Designer Julien MacDonald wants to sign her because of her ” great style” and because ” She’s unique.”
Therefore, I ask again:
Amy Winehouse and her producer Mark Ronson won’t be teaming up for any theme songs to any motion pictures anytime soon. The two were slated to make some more beautiful music together - this time for the upcoming James Bond film, “Quantum of Solace.” Unfortunately for the Bond franchise and Amy fans, Ronson doesn’t feel Winehouse is ready to resume recording sessions for the song.
“We tried to work for a little bit,” he told Sky News. “I’m not sure she’s ready to work on music yet.”
Ronson, who produced much of the troubled singer’s Back to Black album, also said it was unlikely work on the Quantum of Solace track would continue “unless by some miracle of science it gets recorded and someone sings a vocal on it”.
He added: “We did work on it but we never finished it so that’s about it.”
So, she finally made it, she shook the tree, and got her $48.6M from Sir Paul. “I’m so, so happy with this,” Heather Mills told the many reporters following the closed hearing. “I’m so glad it’s over, It was an incredible result in the end to secure mine and my daughter’s future and that of all the charities that I obviously plan on helping and making a difference with — because you know it has been my life for 20 years” she said. Oh…..so noble…. What she forgot to mention, was that she was offered this amount from McCartney in the past, but the greedy dancer wannabe refused to settle, and sought almost $250 million.
I just hope that we can now have a break from Heather Mills’ circus, and concentrate on what’s really important… American Idol…..
One of my favorite preoccupations and possibly a career of mine in a former life is discovering really great music acts before they make it big. Given this disclaimer, it’s only fitting that I introduce to you an Israeli singer-songwriter that’s sure to gain some serious kudos and notoreity. His name is Oren Lavie and he’s one of a wave of Israeli singers whose music is getting airtime on big-time commercial broadcasts these days. (Yael Naim’s MacBook Air ads are also pretty catchy). So if you haven’t yet heard Oren’s hit single, Her Morning Elegance, on ads for Chevy Malibu, it’s only a matter of time. And if you’d like to hear a more crisp version of the track, click here.
Oren’s brand of music (think brooding Nick Drake meets orchestral overtures of Damien Rice with a little Beatle mania thrown in) is indicative of the type of music that is most likely going to be featured on a Morning Becomes Eclectic playlist and so not surprisingly, not only has his music been featured on KCRW, but it’s gained critical acclaim from the station, being honored as one of the Top 10 albums of 2007.
While it may be rare for someone who is just 31 to have already lived two professionally unrelated lives, it is even rarer to find someone who happens to be re really good at both and acknowledged as such by the public. Lavie, who grew up in Israel and gained early buzz as a playwright winning awards at the Acco Festival in Israel, moved from Israel to New York (with a stop in London) before realizing that music was more his calling. He started his own label, produced his own music, and even began to write his own music.
Lavie, who counts Jacques Brel, Leonard Cohen, and Tom Waits among his influences has a funny, self-deprecating tone to his demeanor. Perhaps evocative of his Israeli upbringing and attempting to create some sort of linear connection between the many different acts of his young life, Lavie likens the cities he’s lived in to the “green-ness” of the cucumbers. For those of you cucumber purists, don’t be betting on Berlin or London. They will only bring you tristesse, which for Oren Lavie might just suit him after all.
For more on Oren, click here.
