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Pop Rock Nation

Author: Paul Lorentz

  • Eurovision 2012 Update: Norway! “Stay”

    The Single Artwork for ''Stay''
    The country that gave us a-ha in the 80s has selected their entry for this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. Norway will be represented this year by pop sensation Tooji, and his song “Stay”. The 23-year-old singer, in something of an upset, beat out 15-year-old Nora Foss Al-Jabri, in the finals of Norwegian’s Eurovision song selection contest Melodi Grand Prix.

    Foss Al-Jabri is a lovely girl and her song “Somewhere Beautiful” is a lovely, Broadway-style ballad of yearning – you can totally hear an animated Disney princess singing it to a butterfly, or a lobster, or a frog. But though the judges loved her, rival Tooji won over the audience vote by the sheer force of his niceness. Apparently, when she’s not singing, Miss Nora has a foul mouth. (Meanwhile, when Tooji’s not singing, he’s talking about how wonderful his team of dancers is.)

    Nora Foss Al-Jabri “Somewhere Beautiful”

    Note to Norwegian television producers: if you ever consider developing a Norwegian version of Glee, I think we may have found the girl to play Quinn.

    Interestingly enough, for the first Eurovision hosted by the former Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan – which is just about as Middle Eastern as the European Broadcasting Union gets – both of Norway’s top two finalists have roots in the region. Al-Jabri’s father is from Iraq, and Tooji was born in Iran. His Persian roots are showing on “Stay.” Imagine if Salome had done her dance of the seven veils in a Munich night club, circa A.D. 2009.

    I have to say, I’m totally with Team Tooji on this one. “Stay” is the most convincing Eurovision entry I’ve heard so far this year. It’s got a great beat, and you can sabre dance to it. And: it’s actually available for download on Amazon here in the U.S. (Yup, I’ve already got it on my iPod!)

  • Eurovision 2012 Update: Hungary! “Sound of Our Hearts”

    Eurovision 2012 Update: Hungary! “Sound of Our Hearts”

    Eurovision 2012
    This weekend, while we were all watching Paul McCartney trying to remember the words to “Rhinestone Cowboy”, Hungary made their final selection for this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. Ladies and gentlemen, it is with great… … umm, with great… great… oh, whatever.

    Ladies and gentlemen, meet the men of Compact Disco, a sullen bunch who make up in shoulder pads what they lack in stage presence. Sadly, I can’t see this song making it very far in a competition that rewards spectacle. It’s positively dour. It’s ESL lyrics are laughably clunky even by Eurovision standards, and, well… have a look:

    The saddest part of whatever that mess was is that Compact Disco are really not a bad band. They’re just not a very good live band. (And this song is pretty horrible too, although the studio version is markedly better.) This Budapest-based quartet led by producer Benham Lofti, and featuring the vocals of former talent show finalist Csaba Walko, are coming off the regional success of their singles “Fly or Dive” and “I’m in Love”, both of which (but especially the latter) are pretty great dance songs – upbeat but with a dark thematic core. Check out the video (NSFW) for “I’m In Love” below. Then go to Amazon, where, in fact, you can actually download both their studio albums (or, y’know, just the singles) at refreshingly non-import prices!

  • New Single! Katy Perry “Part of Me”

    New Single! Katy Perry “Part of Me”

    The Forthcoming Tricked Out Reissue of Teenage Dream
    Katy, interrupted: midway through a performance of her single “E.T.”, just minutes after head Foo Fighter Dave Grohl speechified about celebrating the human element in music-making (specifically learning how to sing and play instruments); in the same Grammy Award broadcast that at once celebrated the power of one particular voice (the late Whitney Houston) while also inexplicably celebrating the spectacle of loathe-able mediocrity that is Chris Brown; in the middle of a performance that itself seemed, or might have seemed, aided by backing tapes, those presumable backing tapes started to skip. Or something. Something was wrong. Katy struggled – or seemed to – for a second. Live television! Recorded backing malfunction! What to do? Cross your fingers and hope the sound guys can find a quick fix? Pull an Ashlee Simpson and pretend it’s all the band’s fault? Slink off stage and announce to the nearest Entertainment Tonight correspondent that you’re entering rehab?

    The lights went out. And Katy started to…

    …sing her new single. O. M. G., Grammy audience! We’ve been punk’d! By Katy Perry!

    Unfortunately, the song itself couldn’t live up to the cleverness of its introduction to the world. It’s called “Part of Me”, and is easily spotted as a kiss-off to her freshly exed husband Russell Brand (just as “E.T.”, the song aborted mid-performance to make way for the new single, might be easily spotted as a loopy tribute to Brand, dating back to the couple’s courtship). But the break-up aspect of the song is really the only thing newsy about it. The song doesn’t signal a new album – it’s merely being tacked on to a deluxe edition reissue of Perry’s sophomore album Teenage Dream (which has already sent a record setting six songs to the top of Billboard’s Pop Songs Chart) called The Full Confection, set for release March 27.

    I was a fan of Katy’s first album One of the Boys, but I’ve found most of Teenage Dream to be, at best, generically likeable. This song is both less and more of the same. On one hand, where Teenage Dream was generally a cotton candy album (the LP edition even came out on cotton candy-scented, pink-flecked white vinyl!), this song wants to be a jawbreaker. On the other hand, as jawbreakers go, this one’s just not that tough. Think Kelly Clarkson’s “My Life Would Suck Without You” in reverse. Max Martin and Dr. Luke can toss off hitbound pop singles like this in their sleep, and it appears that’s what they’ve done here. “Part of Me” might just as well have been called “Katy Perry Radio Single #11” and come with black stripe, white block letter thumbnail artwork. But you needn’t take my word for it – hear it here: