My new video I am leaving was aired on TV6 in USA 14th of June! I am very happy about it. I am leaving is one of my most popular songs. The English lyrics are written by Barbara Helsingius. Marjo Riitta Oksanen wrote original lyrics. The video is made by Kerstin Svanberg, a radio producer and artist.
Look at these wonderful pictures of Swedish nature in winter and summer, enjoy and please write a comment!
What to do a rainy day like this? Make phone calls, write emails to friends and fans, write comments in guest books, take a walk in the rain. I will also rehearse one of my new songs.
Yesterday I took a long walk in the forrest in rain, it was amazing. It was a cold day but teh wind was not so cold in the shelter of trees and the rain didn’t bother so much there either. It was magic. It was lighter than it seemed to be when I looked out through the window.
There is a small lake for birds in the forrest and for the first time this year I saw a mother Goldeneye with 4 sweet young birds, diving all the time, disappearing, then appearing again and swimming around, almost never after their mother but not far away from her.
I also use to follow Tawny Owls, year after year. This Summer I have so far seen only one of them. I find him/her by following the Blackbirds yelling when they try to scare away the Owl from the area. And there the Owl sits, always on a pine tree, trying to look invisible for Blackbirds that are very hostile, wanting to protect there young birds from the Owl.
From now on we all who visit the lake, are counting the young birds every day, telling each other how many we have seen. The Owl is a threat for those small ones, but there are other big birds too and maybe other animals that are a danger for them.
Now I have not time to write any more, I am going to rehearse.
Have a great day.
You can see I Am Leaving video, produced by Kerstin Svanberg on YouTube, too. You can see the video here Don’t forget to rank the video and please write a comment.
Have a beautiful day!
I have a new video I Am Leaving. It is produced by Kerstin Svanberg, a radioproducer and artist from Sweden. Listen to one of my most popular songs and see the beautiful pictures of Swedish nature in Winter and Summer.
Nordisk Film Post Production has converted my video from PAL system that is used in Europe to NTSC that is used in USA. I Am Leaving NTSC is sent to TV6 in USA and will air in June.
I AM LEAVING
Music: Maini Sorri
Lyrics: Barbara Helsingius
Orig. lyrics: Marjo-Riitta Oksanen
Arranged by Jaakko Viitala
DVD Produced by Kerstin Svanberg
1. Snow on the ground, snow all around
where we buried the past and the feelings we found.
Storms in the night, prayers for light,
wishes for wonders to make wrong turn right…
CHORUS: I may long for your touch once tender
but don’t think I’ll ever surrender.
I must try the taste of living
among those warm and forgiving,
I must change the ice for fire,
see the sun and feel desire —
Now I’m leaving….Yes,I’m leaving…Oh I’m leaving…
I am leaving.
2. Doubt in the air, mem’ries we share…
Truth or illusion? I really don’t care!
This is my way, right or astray
I’ll manage, I’ll make it or else I must pay…
CHORUS: I may long for your touch once tender
but don’t think I’ll ever surrender.
I must try the taste of living
among those warm and forgiving,
I must change the ice for fire,
see the sun and feel desire —
Now I’m leaving… Yes, I’m leaving…Oh, I’m leaving…
I am leaving… I am leaving…
You must have a story to tell to win Eurovision Song Contest, I am more and more sure about this. Alexander Rybak from Norway won with 387 points with his song Fairytale, better result than ever. His comment to his victory was: I am not the best singer in the competition. I won because I have a story to tell. I think people like my story.
The Swedish song La voix with Malena Ernman became 21st. Malena is a great artist and had the best voice of all artists in the finale of Eurovision Song Contest but what was the story in the song? I heard the verses but not the lyrics of the chorus because of the high notes that made it impossible even for a opera singer, used to sing that high, to sing the lyrics so it was possible hear the words.
The sound mix of La voix in the Semi Finale made it hard to hear Malenas song. It was not easy to get the impression of a voice that in fact was bigger that all other competitor’s voices.
When I saw the video of La voix , sent to all 42 countries, it was not the original video from her victory of the Swedish National Selection. Someone had softened the contours. There was too much light in it. In the performance of La voix during the Semi Finale there was even more light on the stage. The whole stage became white. Malena disappeared several times because of this strong light.
Maybe the meaning of the light was to show that Malena sings like an angel and that the stage because of it became a heavenly place.? When I saw it I got serious doubts about the chances of the song in the Finale. Maybe the lights didn’t destroy for us who know how charming and communicative Malena is, but for others in Europe for whom the contact must happen during those 3 minutes, I am sure that the strong white light did weaken Malena’s chances.
What was the idea of making the artist dissappear? Was it to make a better contact between the artist and the audience? I don’t think so. On the contrary, it really made the artist something distant and unreachable.
The only way for an artist to touch hearts is to communicate with the audience as much as possible. Why was Malena not allowed to do this? Of course she can do it as an opera singer. To blaim the light technician for all this disturbing white light is not right, he just fullfulled the intention chosen in the softened La voix video.
Here is some issues to think about for the jury that picks the songs for next year’s competition. Is there a story to tell? Do listeners hear the words loud and clear enough? How can you help the artist to communicate in the best way with people in 42 countries and avoid making obstacles for the communication, how cool it even might look for the audience in the big ESC Contest hall. Most people watch the competition on TV anyway and they want to see and hear the artist, to be able to connect and become willing to vote for that particular song.
Alexander Rybak chose another way. It was a pleasure to see his performance and his video without any disturbing lights, to see right into his eyes, to see him smile and hear him sing his heart out loud and clear. Also Yohanna from Iceland did communicate with listeners in a magic way. She had also a story to tell. Her video was very communicative, too. Nothing did disturb the communication between her and her audience.
I suggest that every song that is going to picked to compete in next Swedish National selection is a song that touches hearts. Check up the lyrics carefully and see if there is a story to tell.
I also appeal to Christer Björkman and the others in the Swedish crew to make the video and plans for the performance in a way that makes the artist go right through the TV screen by communicating with the audience without disturbing lights and other obstacles. Let the artist make eye contact as much us possible.
One of my favourites was the Finnish song Lose control by Waldo’s people. It became last in the Finale. I saw the Finnish Finale and there was really lots of energy and heat on the stage then they performed.
I must say I was very suprised in a negative way when I saw the Loose control video! It is a good thing to stand up for homeless people but why make such an depressive video, with the artist freezing to death outside in the night, with eyes that ni the end of the video couldn’t see anything anymore. It is difficult to change the caracter of a song in a Semi Finale in 3 minutes when it has been sent to all 42 countries with such a depressive video.
So, I give the same advice to Finland. Let the artists communicate with listeners in a positive way both on the video and on stage during the live performance.
My congratulations to Norway and Iceland that became number 1 and number 2 in the Finales of ESC 2009! We have a lot to learn from you.
Read these news from Eurovision.tv
One of my songs was aired on TV6 in USA last Sunday, it was a song from my first album from 1998, Sånger om livets årstider (Songs of the seasons of life). The video was The Best of Sweden. I am very happy about it.
But that was not enough. A song from the compilation album Shine on 2 with 20 Swedish bands featuring me, that I have promoted quite a lot, was also played on TV6 last Sunday. The song that was aired was Send them away with a cabincruiser with Touchline. The video was Rail Runner from New Mexico.
Isn’t that great? It really made my day.
The global radio Last.fm temporarily backs down from charging listeners. They have received tons of negative feedback. The founder of Last.fm Richard Jones made an annauncement on March 24th about starting to charge listeners that don’t live in USA, UK or Germany.
I wrote a message to Richard Jones and got an answer. It was of course a good thing. It is important that the staff of Last.fm listen to their 30 million monthly listeners and 280 000 artists and labels but the answer was only an explanation about why they decided to start charging listeners. There is now a strike among listeners on Last.fm.
On March 30th a new annauncement by Richard Jones was published. He annaunced that Last.fm is delaying their move of beginning to charge listeners. It is good although we must keep in mind that this delaying is just temporary. We listeners and artists on Last-fm must keep fighting against this negative change, hoping that it will never happen.
Last.fm listeners are really the best listeners ever, many of them are listening to Last.fm all their awaken hours. I have never met listeners so devoted to music than on Last.fm. Last.fm has listeners from every country in the world and is not only a huge global radio but also a gigantic meeting place for music lovers from different parts of the world, recommending music to each other.
Keep Last.fm free! FREE IS FREE
Check up this article.
Richard Jones on the global Last.fm Radio announced yesterday an upcoming change. Last. fm will only be free in USA, UK and Germany. Other listeners are very soon required $3.00 per month for listening! There are 30 million listeners from all over the world. There are over 7 million tracks available. Last.fm work with 280 000 labels and artists from all over the world, I am one of them.
It is is very sad. There are many listeners who are going to leave their beloved Last.fm because of this. In a couple of hours Last.fm got over 1600 blog comments about the announcement so Last.fm disabled further comments. $3.00 is much money in some parts in the world. A girl from Colombia wrote that she has to pay a sum that would be as big as 12 euro i Europe every month.
Until now I have loved Last.fm. I have listeners from different parts of the world that send me wonderful feedback that really makes my day. I am of course a listener, too. I listen to music in a way I never did before, I get recommendations from other listeners that introduce me new music. There are really people who love music, they live and breath music and are the best listeners ever. Many of them listen to music the whole time they are awake.
We have to try to stop this madness. Keep Last.fm free!
Listen to my music on Last.fm here
Lastfm is unfair Bring back the free Last.fm
Last.fm payment subscription protest FREE IS FREE
Thank you all for all feedback about my previous blog post about picking songs to Swedish National Election of ESC Melodifestivalen. Most of you agreed and many of you had guessed long ago that the rules are not followed.
I think that the most important thing is that SVT tells everybody what the real rules are, as I wrote in my previous blog post. It is not a human right that anybody can send their song to the competition. SVT can choose to do the selection in whatever way they want to. But it is much better to tell us how things are and not pretend that the songs are picked according to the rules. It is obvious that some of the composers and artists are picked before they even sent in their demos. In Finland it is the same but there the record companies choose artists and suitable songs for them.
We that are not satisfied with how things work should disagree loud and clear. Maybe there will be an opinion that forces SVT to begin to follow the rules. It is also important to limit how many times the same composers and artists are allowed to compeat, as a wise blog comment to my previous blog post suggested.
Soon is time to pick songs for ESC 2010 and it is really time for a change. Why is it so difficult to let in new composers and artists? SVT and Christer Björkman, let the new ones suprise you! There could be a new Carola knocking on the door. Open the door for new talents, both artists and songwriters, and you will see that the competition will get a fresh start and the winner of Melodifestivalen will be able to suprise Europe again!
If you live in Sweden maybe you saw the Culture News Kulturnyheterna on Swedish Television SVT last week. They let us know that the information from SVT about that anyone can send a song to the Swedish National Election of ESC is just a fake.
You have not just to be a wellknown composer, the artist that sings your song on the demo must be famous, too. Fredrik Kempe told on Culture News that when he and Henrik Wikström sent their song Cara Mia to the contest for the first time it was sung by an unknown artist. The song was not selected by the jury. When they sent in Cara Mia sang by Måns Zelmerlöw the song was chosen by the jury to the Swedish National selection of ESC Melodifestivalen.
According to the Culture News the thing that happened Marie Lindberg, an unknown artist singing her song right into listeners hearts and becoming famous over night, is never going to happen on Melodifestivalen any more on. It is really sad!
They also told that famous artists now queue to participate in the contest because it gives them so much attention. Unknown artists have really no chance to be picked by the jury these days. It’s really a pity that those magic moments when a new unknown artist touch our heart and gives us something new won’t happen any more. It is very much repetition this year, we have heard the artists before and the composers write melodies that are very much alike the songs by them that we heard before.
According the rules all the songs that people sent in are going to be judged, first by Swedish Music Publishers, then by a judge group from Swedish Television (SVT). I know the rules because I have sent songs to the competition two years in a row now. The composer and the lyricist must send in an application form with their names to SVT together with the AudioCD. The application form has to be sent in a separate sealed envelope and is NOT going to be opened before the songs already have been selected by the jury. Otherwize the song will be disqualified.
I accuse the judge from SVT of breaking this rule all the time! The composers that participate are the same all the time, it is a small group of composers and it is obvious that Christer Björkman have ordered songs from them. In the competition for 10 days ago, Sarah Dawn Finer and Malena Ernman were duelling against each other but both songs were by Fredrik Kempe that is a fulltime composer.
So, it is obvius. The composer must be wellknown and the artist must be wellknown, too, otherwize you can just save your many for the postage of your song.
I really think that there are lack of great melodies on the competition this year, it is becoming more and more obvious each and every year. The same composers cannot vary themselves in style and melodys so much. Christer Björkman defended himself on Culture News by saying that amateur composers cannot compete with the professional composers. He is so right, they cannot, because they are not allowed!
SVT must tell us now what the real rules are. They are not the rules I got from SVT. At least the rules are not followed. SVT has to tell everybody that the rules are just a fake, and let’s see what Swedish people think about that! I think that most of us want have more variety, more new composers and new artists, songs that touch our hearts instead of hit-machines that are so alike each other.
Sign against cheating Stoppa fusket i Melodifestivalen
Read about cheating Aftonbladet Bimbo Boys blogg Stoppa fusket i Melodifestivalen! Read about Melodifuskivalen
Blogs about Christer Björkman Melodifestivalen TV
