Marc Massive finally unleashed his Ego !

After years and years of performing his art on stages & on several singles, Marc Massive, frontman of his multi-partners music entity Massive Ego, has finally released his first Long Player CD, "Nite Klub Skewl" (on underground dance label Klone Records), and it's... em... MASSIVE!


The tracklisting of 13 tracks includes his previous singles and known songs as well as new anthems and after pre-ordering it back in January on Amazon and beeing delayed again and again, I've cancelled my order and bought it elsewhere to finally receive my CD full with a nice coloured booklet with photos, notes & credits yesterday. I've put it in my CD player and discovered the new tracks as well as the older ones and I must say that I LOVE IT at around 85% for there are 2 songs near the end that I, for now, don't like as much as ALL the others... That's a good rate anyway for a dance album... It's just that the title track is maybe more hard edged techno dance than other tracks and it'll take me longer to get into it and I'm so in love with the original version of 1996 Belvedere Kane's unreleased promo single "Never felt as good" (a work of ex-PWL Jewels & Stone) that I can't bear their cover version after just three listens.

And to talk a little bit more of the two greater fantastic producers/remixers that started their career at PWL, I have got to add that Barry Stone is one of Marc's partners in crime here as there are three other songs linked to him, the Gingell/Stone song "Murder", "Wrecked", he co-wrote with Mr. Massive himself, and the cover version of Duran Duran "Planet Earth", that he produced.
Among the other cover versions, there is naturally their Dead Or Alive version of "My heart goes bang" of which I owned the CD single of 2002, and dare I say that Marc Massive could have been the musical son of Pete Burns... Inspiration is not enough to call this. Marc must have had a musical crush on dead or Alive when he first turned up the TV and Barry Stone has collaborated with Pete too .
Then there are The Beloved's beautifully danced up "Sweet harmony", Cerrone's "Supernature", Divine's "You think you're a man", Depeche Mode's "Master & Servant", Animotion's "Obsession" & The Adventures' "Broken land". Marc co-wrote one more track, "Fight the feeling", which sees 80's Scarlet Fantastic beauty Maggie DeMonde feature (and here again another name picked up from Barry Stone's agenda I know but surely a singer Marc Massive gets inspiration from too) and it is one of my favourite ones! (with "Wrecked"). This original has HIT written all over it and it's got to be released as a single for me, and it'd change from the previous cover versions.

So Marc co-wrote 3 songs out of 13 and he co-produced 3 tracks too. The other major music directors are Barry Stone and Klone wizzard Ross Alexander. Other Klone relatives are invited on backing vocals, Jacquii Cann, Dusty O & Teresa Marie and the whole project sounds like a very good Klone release, which means
you gotta like your cover versions being danced up,
you gotta like your dance track to be camp pop & Hi-NRG inspired,
you gotta like to dance around your bedroom with your hands up in the air and the bassline on your hifi playin' loud & heavy,
you gotta like to be (or try to be) the singer's additional backing vocalist 'coz you can't help sing along with Mr. Massive when he does his Pete Burns on the mic
and...
that's all folks!

YOU GOTTA BUY IT
'cos it's better to buy a good dance album on an underground dance label than buy the latest cheap compilation at your local HMV to help the music we like to stay alive and to get maybe sooner than this one a second album full of pop lil' stars.

So don't stay away from these links :
http://www.myspace.com/marcmassive
http://www.massiveego.co.uk
http://klonerecords.com/releases/moreinfo.php?ID=271
where you can listen to their songs and buy the album.

Hugh Grant en Star Pop! dans le film

Bien sûr, je ne vais pas dire que Hugh Grant est le meilleur chanteur de l'année,
Bien sûr, je ne vais pas dire que "Le Come Back" (Music And Lyrics) est le film de l'année,
Bien sûr, je ne vais pas dire que "Pop! goes my heart" est la chanson de l'année,

...mais ce soir, après avoir profité du Printemps du cinéma à 3€50 pour aller voir ce film tandis que les giboulées de mars sévissaient sur ma Bretagne d'adoption, je ne peux m'empêcher de chantonner depuis le refrain de ce titre :
I never thought I'd ever lose my head but then POP! goes my heart...

Pur délice pastiche des année 80s servant de titre phare du passé pop du rôle interprété par Hugh Grant dans le film, celui d'Alex Fletcher, star improbable d'un groupe à mi chemin entre ABC et Wham!, il va pour le moment squater mon lecteur mp3 en attendant que je me procure la BO du film de toute urgence.
Pour mettre en valeur cette addictive composition, le réalisateur a concocté un clip digne de ces années berceau de ma culture musicale (et la votre?) et je n'ai pu résister à l'ajouter sur ma page pour tous ceux qui n'ont pas vu le film.

Hugh Grant est, comme d'habitude, irresistible dans ce film et, coaché par Martin Fry, le leader d'ABC justement, il a posé sa voix de manière tout à fait convenable sur les 3/4 des titres de la BO du film.
A retenir également, la ballade clef du film "Way back into love", qui aurait pu être écrite par Diane Warren et qu'il chante avec Haley Bennett, jeune actrice américaine qui explose dans le film avec des déhanchements lascifs mélange de Britney Spears et Shakira.

Le plus étrange est que ce faux groupe POP! rappelle aussi par certains aspects un passé moins lointain comme ce quatuor des années 2000 managé par Pete Waterman qui s'appelait lui aussi POP! ou les fameux STEPS dont le clip de "Chain reaction" avait une scène inoubliable dans un hopital comme celle du clip ci-dessus. Alors je rêve que les vrais POP! se reforment et relancent leur carrière... Jade McGuire, leur chanteuse principale avait une voix formidable et c'est dommage de ne plus l'entendre. "Without the boy" sera pour longtemps l'une des plus belles chansons d'amour teintée de mélancolie restant sur mon baladeur mp3... Et ce n'était qu'une face B !

Mais revenons au film...
Bon d'accord, une fois l'excitation post séance retombée, les chansons ne sont pas si inoubliables que ça mais le film est une agréable comédie romantique comme on les aime qui vous fait oublier les soucis, a fait rire plus d'un spectateur tout du long, et vous fait quitter la salle le sourire aux lèvres et une seule mélodie en tête : I never thought I'd ever lose my head but then POP! goes my heart...
Au fait, je vous conseille de rester pendant le générique de fin ; il s'accompagne d'un titre interprété par Haley qui ne figure pas sur le CD, "Invincible".

Pour finir, pour pouvoir l'entendre partout sur les radios et faire plus de buzz autour du film, je rêverais que "Pop! goes my heart" soit sorti comme single du faux groupe Pop! dans lequel Hugh Grant partage la vedette avec le craquant Scott Porter . Dommage qu'on ne le voit pas plus dans le film... Il est à croquer!

Eurovision 2007 : France gone mad... help Scooch go for UK!

Tonight I'm devasted, horrified, shocked, shot dead by the french public (and the jury's) votes that chose the song to go for France to Helsinki on the 12th of May for the Eurovision song contest 2007.

The Fatal Picards will represent our country with an awful pastiche song led by lyrics sung in french with a ridiculous english accent and a guitar chorus. Aimable & Son orchestre are not far ! This is the perfect song for a popular wedding party after 4 in the morning when everyone is drunk and wants to dance himself mad around the table trying to catch girls and steal them a kiss... I'm in hell!

The song is even bad enough and second degree to steal some voting to real serious eurovision entries and finish in the last ten placings for sure... I can't stand it!


Countdown to the desaster :

The show started right with Bob Sinclar's "Rock the party" sampling of C+C Music Factory line Everybody dance now! and I was prepared to see my favourite ones perform on stage, Jenifer Chevallier with the eurovision ballad "Mon étoile" (my star) and Estelle Lemée with the bubble pop "Comme un rêve" (like a dream) which reminded me of Ginie Line's 1999 take on the Eurovision internal french contest ("La même histoire") that failed against Nayah's "Je veux donner ma voix"...

The two hosts of the evening, Tex & Julien Lepers were awful, the first taking more interest in 2 cents' jokes than in knowing the title of the songs and the latter as always reading his memos.


First to compete were Les Vedettes, 6 majorettes dressed in red, with a song written by Katerine, "Vive papa", which, on a basic retro rockabillie beat, had them sing happily like bad backing vocalists that dad (apparently for Augusto Pinochet) is dead... 0/10

Then came MAP's "Grain d'sel" (litterally, grain of salt, but meaning they want to put their oar in), two rappers from north of France dressed like blue collars with caps that hammered their song like it should be as if they were in front of MTV's cameras... 2/10

Then came Jenifer Chevallier with her classic ballad "Mon étoile". She had 2 dancers and 3 vocalists with her, including a black guy that sung the high notes all along with her from the middle bridge part. They wear strange dresses & trousers and their performance was nice, the song classic but appealing though not a eurovision winner... 8/10

Then there was the Fatal Picards with "l'amour à la française" (love the french way). They all had a red rose and there was an irritating bald singer on speed singing along the lead singer all through the song. They seemed to have numerous fans in the crowd and elsewhere too as they are the winners...
I've said it all already, happy rockabillie song with awful way of singing the lyrics... 2/10
I HATE THAT SONG FOR GOING TO HELSINKI!

Then came more R&B/Rap/Riddim beats with Medi-T and "On & on" (On & On, you should've guessed!), two friends singing/rapping for friendship and peace between all colours of the world. The song came second to the show after getting to the final duel... Nice beat, good vocals and it'd have been fun to see France go to Eurovision with a french/english song for a time... 7/10

More urban rhythm then with Raï & R&B by BZR featuring Cheb Hamid rapping rather than singing "Galbi" (???)... Everything I dislike... 0,0000/10

Carribean short haired beauty Valérie Louri sung "Besoin d'ailleurs" (Need for somewhere else) after that. The song started slowly, very moody with african beats then got up with a storm before the end. Not a melody to really remember and vote for but a very nice dance & performance... It even made me like the song... 7/10

Do you remember the lithuanian entry of last year, LT United, singing We are the winners of Eurovision, we are, we are! we are, we are! THEY'RE BACK! or at least, they've been copied! It's a piece of shouting rock by The Wampas with a pathetic old rock leader taking his shirt off in the middle of his performance, running across the stage while shouting to us "Faut voter pour nous" (Gotta vote for us) and nearly losing his voice at moments, breaking it more than often but hey, that must be that, good ol' rock'n'roll . Not my cup of tea for sure but always better than the F***** Picards... 4/10

Charlotte Becquin and her all-woman band came to the stage then for a moody-rocky-shouty piece of non-sense called "Je veux tout" (I want it all). The song started so low that you couldn't understand a word she was singing then she got two steps behind her mic to shout so louder (and too far for her real vocal abilities) that you didn't understand anything more, then she got back to rumbling then back to shouting and when the girls finally left the stage, I got back to life... 3/10

Finally, miss bubble gum 2007, all dressed in pink & white like her dancers and with a pink scooter on stage, Estelle Lemée with "Comme un rêve", a piece of seventies pop that I liked and was my favourite ...before I saw her performance. She didn't give her song justice, singing a little out of tune when she had to sing in the high and looking so old fashioned, even for fans of Pop & Camp Eurovision like me that I was desperate not to want her to win anymore... 9/10 for the song, 5/10 for the performance . After that, I got high hopes for Jenifer but have been deceived she didn't even made it to the final two...


Now the cards are laid.
France will send an horrific song to this year's contest and we still need a real pop entry to save the Eurovision crown that has been stolen by KISS-a-monster-a-like Lordi last year...


ALL MY HOPES NOW GO TO...
UNITED KINGDOM!

Their Make Your Mind Up Competition to choose the right one to go to Helsinki is still to happen (on Saturday, 17th March) and the savers of pop are amongst them .

Six years after they've split, SCOOCH are back!
And I got all my fingers crossed that they will be be singing their camp anthemic song "Flying the flag (for you)" on Helsinki's euro stage.

Like Abba, they are two girls and two boys, they had 4 singles between 1999 & 2000 in the UK and in some other countries like Japan and were produced by Stock & Aitken (of legendary SAW but you all know that, don't you?).
They were opposed to UK number one group STEPS at the time and didn't challenge them : They disbanded after their first album's release while STEPS were still riding high in the UK charts.

But now they're back, all dressed like flight attendants and ready to take us to a pop flight to Eurovision Camp.
Clearly they got inspired by Kylie Minogue, her song "Light years" is not that far from here, but it sounds so good, cheesy and fun-tastic it deserves to win!

Sing with me :
Ba ba da Ba ba da Ba da da ba ba da
Ba ba da Ba ba da Ba da da ba ba da
We're flying the flag all over the world
We're flying the flag for you...

I imagine dancing steps with all four of them on stage waving flags around them with one eurovision flag, one european flag, one rainbow flag and the Union Jack... Would that be too much ?
NO!
This song is so camp!

Now go support them and hear it on their MySpace page :
http://www.myspace.com/scoochworld

Ba ba da Ba ba da Ba da da ba ba da... Ba ba da Ba ba da Ba da da ba ba da
That's universal language! As memorable as Kylie's "Can't get you out of my head". Since I heard their song yesterday, I can't get it out of my head .

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17/03/07 EDIT :
TONIGHT THEY'VE MADE IT...
THEY'VE WON THE MAKING YOUR MIND UP FINAL AND WILL REPRESENT THE UNITED KINGDOM IN HELSINKI
VOTE FOR THEM!!