Browsing Category wildcard
Wildcard (week 8):
Vendredi Sur Mer – Chewing-Gum
French music is the most sensual music around. There, I said it!
Feel free not to believe me (or even to disagree), but for me, Vendredi Sur Mer’s new single Chewing-Gum is just another affirmation of my thesis. Only a few years on the scene, Swiss-born Charline Mignot already inspired Munya’s song Hotel Delmaro, and her star is rising fast.
22 March, Vendredi Sur Mer’s debut album Premiers Émois will be released. Ahead of it, the singer unveils her new single Chewing-Gum. A song with the classic ingredients, that make me so fond of French music. Basically a chanson, it’s also got a funky groove (that bassline!) and even features a flute and a xylophone. Throughout, Mignot displays her typical vocal style, halfway between singing and speaking. All of this creates an atmosphere of sensuality only matched by certain latin songs, in my opinion.
Chewing-Gum is as catchy and sticky as one can expect from a song with that title. It’s this week’s Carte Blanche Music Wildcard!
In the Wildcards 2019 playlist you can find all of this year’s Carte Blanche Music Wildcards so far.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Wildcard (week 7):
Stats – The Family Business
15 February, London sextet Stats release their debut album Other People’s Lives. The record is inspired by the likes of Roxy Music, Talking Heads and LCD Soundsystem. A month ago, I already recommended the single Lose It off the long-player.
Now, amid increasing media attention, the band are back with an even stronger teaser. The Family Business is an energetic pop song with a driving 80’s influenced drum pattern, presumably originating from the same computer as the rhythm underlying a-ha’s Take On Me.
Stats have a way with catchy tunes, not in the least because frontman Ed Seed was part of La Roux earlier, and played guitar and keys in Dua Lipa’s band. With his new musical project, he’s about to reach the same heights. As a first step in this direction, Stats’s new single The Family Business is this week’s Carte Blanche Music Wildcard, meaning it’ll feature here prominently until next Wednesday!
In the Wildcards 2019 playlist you can find all of this year’s Carte Blanche Music Wildcards so far.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Wildcard (week 6):
Billie Louise – Like Machines
Belgian radio station Studio Brussel has its own talent contest. Each year, a jury and the broadcaster’s listeners choose ‘De Nieuwe Lichting’ (‘the new class’).
This year, one of the nine contestants (selected out of a thousand artists that sent in their music) was Billie Louise, an ultra-young band, consisting of Billie Louise (16, vocals), Dejan (17, drums), and Jérôme (22, keys). They have been together for such a short time, they only played their first ever gig last week.
Billie Louise is the daughter of Reinhard Vanbergen, who played in Belgian bands like Das Pop, The Happy, and Rheinzand. Growing up with pop music, but mainly listening to hip hop herself, she started writing her own songs at the age of 13. Like Machines, a song about a world where people are becoming more and more alike, is the band’s first single. Musically, acoustic instruments like violins and piano are in perfect harmony with synths and beats. A very promising debut.
Billie Louise didn’t win the StuBru competition, but they did win my heart. Like Machines is this week’s Carte Blanche Music Wildcard!
In the Wildcards 2019 playlist you can find all of this year’s Carte Blanche Music Wildcards so far.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Wildcard (week 5):
Dua Lipa – Swan Song
I’ve got a weak spot for Dua Lipa. In my then radio show, I pronounced her ‘princess of pop’, the first time I played her first official single Be The One in 2015. For me, it’s still one of the best pop singles of this decennium.
In the years that followed, she released a self-titled debut album that spawned 8 commercial singles and a further 3 promotional singles. Also, she was the featured singer on hits by Sean Paul, Martin Garrix, Calvin Harris and Silk City. All of those tracks are present on the Complete Edition of her long-player, effectively making it her first Greatest Hits album. In the meantime, her live shows grew bigger, bolder and better. Dua Lipa is the full package.
Moving on to the next stage of her career, the singer just released a brand-new track. Swan Song is the title song of the forthcoming movie ‘Alita: Battle Angel’. Just like the movie, the video for the song takes place in a futuristic dystopia.
There is a Dutch touch to Swan Song: musician, composer and producer Tom Holkenborg (a.k.a. Junkie XL) wrote the full soundtrack to the movie. By consequence, he is also involved in this great single, which is the new Carte Blanche Music Wildcard.
In the Wildcards 2019 playlist you can find all of this year’s Carte Blanche Music Wildcards so far.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Wildcard (week 4):
Sigrid – Don’t Feel Like Crying
Since her 2017 debut single Don’t Kill My Vibe earned Sigrid Solbakk Raabe a European Border Breakers Award the year after, she continued to score hits like Strangers, High Five and, most recently, Sucker Punch. All of them are expected to appear on the Norwegian singer’s first album Sucker Punch, that will be out in March.
Ahead of the long player, Sigrid provides us with one more taster. A great sophisticated pop song. Don’t Feel Like Crying deserves to be as big a hit as Carly Rae Jepsen’s Call Me Maybe, for instance.
“There’s a certain grace to heartache,” Sigrid says of the new track. “A sort of… epic grace! I like good, heartfelt pop songs.” So do I, that’s why Don’t Feel Like Crying is the new Carte Blanche Music Wildcard!
In the Wildcards 2019 playlist you can find all of this year’s Carte Blanche Music Wildcards so far.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Wildcard (week 3):
Jon Tessier – For A Little Eye Candy
Jon Tessier is a Brazilian-French singer-songwriter and music producer, who spent childhood and most of his teenage years in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia). The last three years however, he’s been working on his music from Ibiza (Spain) and Paris (France).
He draws inspiration from a diverse range of musical heroes, including Mötley Crüe, Depeche Mode, The Doors, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers as well as the Brazilian bossa nova artist João Gilberto. None of them are overtly present in the music Tessier makes himself, which can be described as guitar-driven pop music with an alternative rock edge. A new artist with a fresh sound, that I like very much.
For A Little Eye Candy, Jon Tessier’s new single, is this week’s Carte Blanche Music Wildcard, which means it features prominently on this blog for seven full days.
In the Wildcards 2019 playlist you can find all of this year’s Carte Blanche Music Wildcards so far.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Wildcard (week 2):
Lizzo – Juice
Lizzo’s most recent single Boys ended in the Carte Blanche Music Top 2018. Now, the Minneapolis singer/rapper is back with an equally infectious single.
Juice is a self-confident, funky, danceable jam, with eighties-flavoured synths, a bass line and percussion from the same era, and horns that provide the finishing touch.
Also, be sure to check the song’s video, where Lizzo stars in an ’80s-style workout program, goes on a late-night talk show, sells products on an infomercial, and more.
Juice is this week’s Carte Blanche Music Wildcard!
In the Wildcards 2019 playlist you can find all of this year’s Carte Blanche Music Wildcards so far.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Wildcard (week 1):
The Lottery Winners – That’s Not Entertainment
Let me start the new year with a song from late 2018, that was criminally overlooked by… well, everybody really. Including me. And being overlooked isn’t going to win this band the lottery, so I’d better set things straight…
The Lottery Winners are a British four-piece, formed in 2008 by Thom Rylance (vocals/guitar), Robert Lally (guitar/vocals), Katie Lloyd (bass/vocals), and Joe Singleton (drums). They were signed to Sire Records, a subsidiary of Warner Records, by music mogul Seymour Stein in 2016.
After releasing a few singles throughout the years, and extensive touring late 2016 and early 2017, the band are now working on their debut album. That’s Not Entertainment is the first, rather brilliant single off it, and it deserves to be a hit. For starters, it’s the first Carte Blanche Music Wildcard of 2019!
In the Wildcards 2019 playlist you can find all of this year’s Carte Blanche Music Wildcards so far.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Wildcard (week 52):
Mokono – Signs
Georgia Lee (vocals), Charlie English (guitar), Annabel Thornton (keys), Ross Millar (bass), and Ben Lester (drums) met at university, where they decided to start a musical project together. The Southampton-based band, which they called Mokono, spent last year playing gigs in the South of England and just released their highly anticipated debut single.
Signs is a great, groovy introduction of a band that calls their music ‘psychedelic soul’, but at the same time incorporates complex jazz structures, and elements of funk and world music into their sound. As far as one can determine such things after hearing only one song, that is…
In the Wildcards 2018 playlist you can find all of this year’s Carte Blanche Music Wildcards so far.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
Wildcard (week 51):
Babyteeth – Cocoon
As far as Babyteeth are concerned, 2018 goes out with a bang. On the doorstep of the new year, the London-based 5-piece deliver one of the finest rock songs of 2018. Cocoon reminds me of some of my favourite 90’s rock acts (from Fiona Apple to Garbage), with a tight and modern production.
Influenced by grunge and punk rock and inspired by strong female artists and role models, Babyteeth say about their new single: “Cocoon is about how we’re sometimes addicted to making bad choices because they’re the more exciting. It’s also about how powerful it can be to decide to feel gratitude for all the shitty experiences, as they’ve turned you into a stronger version of yourself. It’s about personal rebirth, and remaking.”
These sentiments are reflected in the black and white video that comes with the song. On this blog, however, we highlight Babyteeth in full-colour, for Cocoon is this week’s new Carte Blanche Music Wildcard!
In the Wildcards 2018 playlist you can find all of this year’s Carte Blanche Music Wildcards so far.
Music industry watcher and journalist. Worked at a CD club, a record store chain and was editor in chief of an entertainment trade magazine. Has been in the radio business since 1987, producing and presenting shows. Was music director of several stations. Also, he developed the European Border Breakers Chart, Music Moves Europe Talent Chart and ESNS Chart.
