eurovision 2007 :: the pmed round-up

This year's Eurovision is pretty uneventful for dance fans, with only two proper pmed tracks making it to Helsinki.

Bulgaria's Elica Todorova & Stoyan Yankulov Елица Тодорова & Стоян Янкулов will actually open the semi final on 10 May with Water, which despite the English title apparently will be sung in Bulgarian. The song, presented with the original title Voda Вода in the Bulgarian final, is maybe closer to ethnic trance than dance, but pretty great in any case. A nice remix version has also turned up on the internet. Bulgarian tv has even shelled out money for a decent video:



Cyprus is the only other pmed entry this year, and starts as number three in the semi final. Evridiki Ευριδίκη has represented Cyprus twice before, the first time back in 1992 with Tairiázoume Ταιριάζουμε and in 1994 with Eímai ánthropos ke egó Είμαι άνθρωπος & εγώ. This time around, her entry reflects the direction she has taken more recently together with her producer and boyfriend Dimítris Korgialás Δημήτρης Κοργιαλάς, who has written and produced Comme ci, comme ça. In my opinion, the remix version is even better than the original, but in any case, I think the song is going to do well. I wouldn't mind attending the Eurovision in either Nicosia or Sofia next year, for that matter!

Cypriotic tv has also invested in a nice video, and kept the tourist board out of the production:

Verka Serdyučka :: glamorous train hostess superstar!

Ukraine had a late Eurovision debut, but went ahead and won on their second try with Ruslana's Wild dances in Istanbul in 2004. In the few years the Ukrainians have participated they have shown remarkable variation in their entries: In 2003, they sent trite Central European pop (Hasta la vista performed by Olexandr Ponomar'ov Олександр Пономарьов), the year after Ruslana's ethnic stomper, when they arranged the final in Kyiv in 2005 Greenjolly did political rap, then last year the exuberantly bubbly and charming Tina Karol' Тина Кароль demanded Show me your love. But this year, Europe should brace itself for the phenomenon that is Verka Serdyučka Верка Сердючка - possibly the closest the former Soviet Union comes to Dame Edna Everage.

Verka is really something else than Ruslana, which you can read all about in the article Exporting Ukraine West and East: Ruslana vs. Serduchka by Olena Fedyuk. Verka's alter ego is Andrey Danilko Андрей Данилко, who releases mostly melancholic instrumentals under his own name - one example is Posle tebja После тебя ("after you"):



Most of Verka's songs are very upbeat on the verge of being stressful, like Vsë budet xorošo Всё будет хорошо ("everything will be fine"), usually referred to as just Xa-ra-šo Ха-ра-шо ("fine, great"), which was a huge hit all over the former Soviet Union in 2003:



It will probably not come as a surprise to you that La Verka has also ventured into pmed-land. Eastern Europe is mad about this stuff, so our Verka jumped the bandwagon in 2004 with the pretty fantastic Ya popala na lyubov' Я попала на любовь ("I'm falling in love"), which was followed by a great little video:



Now, this is pretty харашо - don't you agree?

With love (and hate) from Norway :: Dina - Hater og elsker deg

In Norway, there is a certain schizophrenia when it comes to the choice of language in pop music. A large number of artists record all their material in English instead of Norwegian, some even go as far as saying they feel they can express themselves better in English than Norwegian (which is a bit dubious as hardly any Norwegian songwriters have English as a mother tongue or are bilingual). Others express the hope of an international career, even though extremely few Norwegian artists recording in English have ever had an international breakthrough - the main exceptions being a-ha and Bel Canto. The electronica band Röyksopp, which also has had some international success, hardly has any lyrics at all.

Even so, artists sometimes have to justify why they sing in Norwegian, unless they are folk musicians or make dansband music. Singing in Norwegian seems to signify that you're low on ambitions - both when it comes to career opportunities and the Norwegian audience you aim for.

Dance has never really caught on in Norway the way it has elsewhere, and for several years the few acts associated with the genre, like Infinity and the wonderfully dim hairdresser duo Diva, did all their stuff in English. The pioneer of Norwegian pmed was Merete LaVerdi, who had a radio hit with Vinger in the late 1990s, but she has stopped recording and become a music manager instead.

Then finally in 2003, Dina appeared on the scene, releasing several singles and scoring a number of radio hits with dance in Norwegian. In November the same year, she released the first complete album of Norwegian pmed with Dina - one of my favourite tracks on the album is Hater og elsker deg ("Hating and loving you").

She has a back catalogue :: Dana International - Yesh bo esh

One of my first and lasting pmed favourites is Dana International, and I have no idea how much time I've devoted to running an unofficial website about her since I started it in early 1998, after hearing she would represent Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest with Diva.

At the time, I had been a fan for more than three years, first hearing her 1994 hit Ani lo yekhola bil'adeykha אני לא יכולה בלעדיך ("I can't manage without you") in the legendary Tel Aviv disco Allenby 54 in late December that year. One of my main goals with starting a website about Dana was to show that she was not a novelty one hit wonder, but an established singer and star - not only in Israel, but in the Arab world too (due to a couple of notorious songs in Arabic that became underground hits in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia).

Being a Dana-fan can be frustrating at times as she has made some fairly strange career choices up through the years, since starting out as a Tel Aviv cabaret artist in the early 1990s. She has recorded with almost all Israeli record companies, which could be interpreted as being a bit fickle, but my main gripe is how her managers managed (sic) to fall out spectacularly with Sony Records' London office soon after signing with them after winning the Eurovision, hooking up with a Dutch compilation record firm and a couple of has-been producers instead. Suffice to say, the chances of an international career as a dance star went down the drain. Trying to make a come-back, she and her managers choose the former Soviet Union countries (a market famous for pirate copying and mafia involvement in the music industry) instead of Western Europe and the US, where she probably would have had much more of a chance of turning her Eurovision notoriety into a career - at least as a cult artist focusing on the gay club circuit.

Fortunately, she has at least continued to release albums in Israel, although it's now been almost five years since her latest one. However, apparently she has now signed with the important Israeli label Hed Artzi (Ofra Haza's record company through most of her career), and an album is supposed to be in the works. It's not the first time there have rumours like these floating around, but I guess there's still hope.

In the meantime, enjoy one of my all time favourites, Yesh bo esh יש בו אש ("He has fire") - a duet with Israeli rock singer Iggy Waxman איגי וקסמן off the 1996 album Maganona مجنونة.

The pmed of loneliness :: Despina Vandi - I melodía tis monaksiás

Modern Greek artists record most of their material in the laïká λαϊκά style, but their pmed material is commonplace and pretty fabulous to boot. Despina Vandi Δέσποινα Βανδή is huge in Greece, and has had an international hit with the world music middle eastern tinged Giá Γειά. Which is a nice song but give I melodía tis monaksiás Η μελωδία της μοναξιάς ("The song of loneliness") a go!

The video features Athens in a cold winter's night rather than the Greek islands during summer:

Albanian angst? :: Julka - Duhet më shumë

In Europe, knowing three or four languages is considered pretty impressive, even when these languages are closely related. In other parts of the world, like most parts of Africa south of Sahara, this is the norm, but never mind. In any case, fairly few people apart from Albanians can make any sense of Albanian (neither the gheg or the tosk dialect), but whatever Julka's hit Duhet më shumë is about, it's pretty catchy!

(If you are able to enlighten me about the lyrics to this song, or any other song mentioned in this blog, please get in touch!)

pmed in Israel is more than Dana Int. :: Mikhal Amdurski - Obsexion

One of my first pmed discoveries was Israeli pmed star and Eurovision diva Dana International. (The link points to the website that yours truly hasn't updated in years, but Dana apparently is going to relaunch her career - if that actually happens, I'll get my act together!)

In the late 1990s, an Israeli Dana fan made me aware that Dana was not the only Israeli singer recording pmed. "Check out Mikhal Amdurski מיכל אמדורסקי", he told me. Since then I have got hold of two of her cds, and my favourite track is Obsexion (power mix). Great stuff!

Night watching :: Blestjaščie - A ja vsë letala

Sometimes seeing a movie has weird consequences. I first read about the Russian hit movie Night Watch (Ночной дозор/Nočnoy dozor) in the Christian Science Monitor (of all places) and picked it up as soon as it was released in Europe. The movie is great, and so is the book it's based on (Sergei Lukyanenko's Night Watch). But what really caught my attention was a song performed by one of the characters of the film, Alice, played by Russian singer and actress Žanna Friske Жанна Фриске. First I tried downloading the film soundtrack, but the song wasn't on it. Then I tried downloading all the songs by Žanna Friske that I could find, but that was also a blind alley. Finally, several months later in September 2006, I struck gold. Wikipedia, a great source for pop information, has an entry on Žanna Friske, which had been updated since I checked it in May 2006 with information on the girl group Blestjaščie Блестящие ("sparkling"), that Žanna was a part of for a couple of years. And finally, it turned out that the song that had caught my attention in Night Watch was one of their big hits; A ja vsë letala А я всё летала ("And I was flying"). I hope you'll like it as much as I do!

There is a video too:

Tied to you with love :: Palli - Ég er bundinn fastur við þig með ást

Páll Óskar was the first openly gay participant in the Eurovision Song Contest, with the rather wonderful Minn hinsti dans ("my last dance") - just slightly inspired by Roger Miles. Palli has a strong Burt Bacharach-fetish, has done a wonderful Icelandic version of Randy Crawford's Rainy night in Georgia in Icelandic (Það rignir látlaust á mig - "it keeps pouring down on me") and has of late ventured into some sort of classical meets easy listening together with harpist Monika Abendroth. But my alltime favourite of his is the wonderful Ég er bundinn fastur við þig með ást.

Pure bliss - enjoy!

pmed :: adorable kitsch dance sung with feeling

Páll Óskar (Iceland) :: Verka Serdyučka Верка Сердючка (Ukraina) :: Dana International דנה אינטרנשיונל (Israel) :: Style (Czech Republic) :: Colonia (Croatia) :: trf (Japan) :: Željko Joksimović (Serbia) :: Blümchen (Germany) :: Caramell (Sweden) :: Zomkiat Ariyachaipanich สมเกียรติ อริยะชัยพาณิชย์ (Thailand) :: Mandaryna (Poland) :: Globe (Japan) :: Despina Vandi Δέσποινα Βανδή (Greece) :: Aikakone (Finland) :: Mikhal Amdurski מיכל אמדורסקי (Israel) :: Blestjaščie Блестящие (Russia) :: Movetron (Finland) :: Ivana Banfić (Croatia) :: 2 Quick Start (Estonia) :: Anna Vishy Άννα Βίσση (Greece) :: Byte (México) :: t.A.T.u. Тату (Russia) :: Blå Øjne (Denmark) :: Deen (Bosnia) :: Adelina Ismajli (Kosova) :: Camela (Spain) :: Dina (Norway) :: O-Zone (Moldova) :: Julka (Albania) :: Kate Ryan (Belgium) :: Katja Lel' Катя Лель (Russia) :: Mihai Trăistariu (Romania) :: Mónica Naranjo (Spain) :: Caater (Estonia) :: Nuša Derenda (Slovenia) :: Philip Kirkorov Филипп Киркоров (Russia) :: Shazna (Japan) :: Valja & Žoro Ljubimeca Валя & Жоро Любимеца (Bulgaria)

What do they all have in common?

No, Eurovision participation (including national finals) is not it - though it applies to quite a few of the artists listed above. No, the common denominator is a shameless embrace of dance fused with lyrics in anything but English. As a genre, dance is not exactly famous for its deep lyrics, but when people sing in a language they know well, they seem to relate more to what they sing - whatever it is. I understand few of the languages these artists sing in, but their songs still seem to end up in my iTunes playlists and make me reach out for the repeat button (to my neighbours' chagrin).

This blog is inteded to spread the good news - post-modern ethnic dance is here to entertain you!