What is the Eurovision Song Contest?Started way back in 1956 as a way of drawing a fractured Europe back together with the healing power of music, the Eurovision Song Contest, or Concours Eurovision de la Chanson – the contest is telecast in both English and French – is open to Continue Reading
Music
Road to Eurovision 2025: Week 2 – Estonia, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway + Poland (semi-final 1, part 2)
What is the Eurovision Song Contest?Started way back in 1956 as a way of drawing a fractured Europe back together with the healing power of music, the Eurovision Song Contest, or Concours Eurovision de la Chanson – the contest is telecast in both English and French – is open to Continue Reading
Road to Eurovision 2025: Week 1 – Albania, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Croatia + Cyprus (semi-final 1, part 1)
What is the Eurovision Song Contest?Started way back in 1956 as a way of drawing a fractured Europe back together with the healing power of music, the Eurovision Song Contest, or Concours Eurovision de la Chanson – the contest is telecast in both English and French – is open to Continue Reading
Songs, songs and more songs #121: Jamie xx, MØ, Kesha, Lady Gaga and Rae Morris + Eurovision 2025 update
(via Shutterstock) So much good music, and it seems often, so little time to listen to it all. Thankfully thought in a world awash with artists and songs, some do make it through all the digital white noise and make themselves first known and then welcome, enriching commutes, workdays or Continue Reading
Fire up the playlists and let the music fly free: My top 25 songs of 2024
(via Shutterstock) People often talk about music soundtracking their life but in my case, it really is what happens. I listen to music on the train. On the way to and from the train station. In shops. When exercising. When I need to just chill out and escape a very Continue Reading
Merry pop culture Christmas to all … and to all a good streaming-reading-listening night! (Bonus The Penguins of Madagascar Christmas Special)
(courtesy Pinterest (c) Peanuts) Merry pop culture Christmas everyone! Another year has somehow zoomed right through, around and past us, offering up far too many books and movies and TV/streaming show and songs and graphic novels to consume in one lifetime, but reminding us as we gobbled what we could Continue Reading
On 10th day of Christmas … I listened to Sleigher by Ben Folds
(courtesy YouTube) I am, for all my love of upsetting apple carts and pushing envelopes, especially creatively, quite traditional when it comes to Christmas music. That’s not to say that this reviewer wants choral extravaganzas or hymn-drenched carols, though they can be delightful in a sparing context; no, traditional in Continue Reading
On 8th day of Christmas … I listened to When I Think of Christmas by Amy Grant & Vince Gill
(courtesy Apple Music) For many years, Amy Grant, an artist I have loved and admired back when I was in the church, and one of the few who came with me on my way out of it, was Christmas for me. Her Christmas albums – A Christmas Album (1983), Home Continue Reading
Songs, songs and more FESTIVE songs by Eurovision artists (#120): Poli Genova, Daði Freyr, Måns Zelmerlöw, Subwoolfer, Anna Bergendahl … plus “Happy New Year” by ABBA
(via Shutterstock) The artists who are selected to presented their countries at the Eurovision Song Contest like a festive song as much as the next person. When they are done with the glitter and the pyrotechnics and the big LED screen visuals, they often parlay their newfound popularity, and the Continue Reading
On 4th day of Christmas … I listened to Holiday Soirée by George Kahn
(courtesy George Kahn) There’s just something about jazz to put you in the festive mood isn’t there? Maybe it’s the chilled yet emotionally buoyant vocals, the relaxed but propulsive melodies or the sheer exuberant artistry of talented musicians losing themselves in the moment; whatever it is, and it’s likely all Continue Reading