What is
Pink Lady? In Japan they are remembered for a string of pop hits in the 70s, but Americans might remember them either from their disco single "
Kiss In The Dark" or from an attempt to sell them to the US market in 1980 via a short-lived NBC variety show
Pink Lady & Jeff (
TVParty summary) with comedian
Jeff Altman. (
Opening). The show featured their Japanese hits,
UFO,
MONSTER (a bi
t more rock and roll), and
SOS along with US hits like
Boogie Wonderland,
McArthur Park and the
occasional guest star. (with
encore)
Also, Roy Orbison.
Sadly, the show failed to break out and the two returned to Japan for a series of farewell concerts and retrospectives. Much, much more available at this
charmingly retro, utterly exhaustive fan site devoted to them. Or just
read the recaps. [more inside]
posted by The Whelk
on Dec 11, 2011 -
33 comments
Fiddle, accordion, and a singing drummer. Seven minutes and fifty seven seconds of Gypsy music from Ukraine, live in Budapest. The real thing. Totally wailing. Kickass.
Técső Banda at Kertem.
posted by flapjax at midnite
on Oct 10, 2009 -
23 comments
Stan Hugill, often known as "
The Last Shantyman," authored a
book called
Shanties From the Seven Seas, based on his own work experiences in the last days of sail. Influential in the folk revival, the book is one of the most important written sources for music sung aboard ships in the 19th and early 20th century,
the "Bible" of sea music. Decades of chanteying in pubs and at festivals have kept many of the songs alive, but in most cases they've strayed stylistically from the verses and versions Hugill collected, or dropped out of popularity entirely. Now,
one musician is returning to the source and creating a new audio archive for the original versions of the songs as written, by
singing through the more than 400 songs in the book, one song each week, and posting the songs on YouTube, with commentary.
[more inside]
posted by Miko
on Jun 15, 2009 -
28 comments
The
Vocaloids,
1 anime-like characters created for the singing synthasizer program by the Yamaha Corporation, have been capturing the imaginations of Japanese fans for more than a year. They've inspired and starred in a large body of fan-produced songs and animated videos,
2 ranging from macabre to sorrowful to dramatic to humorous. [Massive MLYTP]
[more inside]
posted by anthy
on Jan 28, 2009 -
7 comments
In Mongolia, overtone singing (or hoomei, as it's known locally) is mainly a guy thing, but there are exceptions to the rule, for example, the
Hoomei Women's Group. More commonly though, women who want to sing do so in an exquisite, soaring style like
this and
this. Sometimes the men do the hoomei thing while the women do that
soaring thing. Then there are those lovely
choral arrangements. And then there are those rare moments when the YouTube poster's description of a clip just hits the nail square on the head, as with this one:
amazing.
[more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite
on Feb 29, 2008 -
23 comments
It seems that
this gentleman bought a set of musical robots from the defunct
Showbiz Pizza restaurant chain. This gent has been reprogramming the robots to sing recent hit songs, rather than the '60s Motown hits they sang originally. He then takes video of these performances, and posts it on YouTube. I guarantee this version of Evanescence's "Lithium" will haunt your dreams (or, perhaps, make you hurl).
posted by metasonix
on Aug 2, 2007 -
59 comments
Broadway's original
Effie White, Jennifer Holliday, has been very open about how
haunted and
snubbed she felt during the production of the Dreamgirls movie. In particular she was hurt when, without permission, her own singing voice was used in a theatrical trailer to promote the production that had completely shut her out. Yesterday at the BET Awards she was finally given some overdue recognition and invited to join Jennifer Hudson onstage for a duet of
the song she made famous. You may have heard the song a hundred times, but try to make it 101. 'Cuz seriously, the girls can sing.
Previously.
posted by miss lynnster
on Jun 27, 2007 -
46 comments
