Sunday, May 25, 2008

Eurodance-vision

I personally only watch the Eurovision Song Contest for fun and not because I like the music. But since it's the time of year for the 2008 final I'll take a look back in the history of dancemusic in the Eurovision.

Most dancemusic on the Eurovision have been second rate versions of the real thing, just like rock, pop etc. on the Eurovision mostly is second rate. But thanks to the popular tv-show we all get an insight to the musical culture across Europe (and beyond nowadays). And once in a while we do get some gems out of all the efforts.

In recent years established artists have started to appear more and more frequently. In 2004 both E-type and Scooter entered the local Swedish and German competitions. None of them went on to the international show and the songs isn't among the best material from eithers back catalogue but both with their unique sound and Scooter ending at a respectable 2. place in Germany with "Jigga Jigga".



Often you have to look at the local competitions to find the best dance songs like The Attic's "The Arrival" posted earlier. But you'll also find something good in the international, most notably Antique's "(I Would) Die For You".

free music


And now a true 90's classic Gina G's "Ooh Aah ... Just A Little Bit" which launched Gina G into a short but big career with many hits. Most people outside the UK probably don't even remember the song as a Eurovision song as it for some reason only ended as #8.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Shopping for music

Let me just rant a little about the music industry! Why is it so damn hard to find old (and in some cases also new) dancemusic to buy online? They go on and on about how filesharing is destroying the income of the music industry and yet the only track I can find from a "fairly" big name like Culture Beat to buy on danish download stores are "Mr. Vain". Even their CD's are almost impossible to find both in regular shops and online stores.

I see it as I'm forced to turn to filesharing to find their music!

I would be more than happy to buy a track like Pharao's "There Is A Star". But again it's not available on danish download stores.



Even though it's hard to find as filesharing it is at least possible!
I can easily find the same problems with newer artists.

Another big issue is file formats. Why can't we the buyers choose freely between acc, wma and mp3? I for one hate the hassle of dealing with acc and wma. Again I would have been glad to buy David Guetta's "Delerious" if it where available as mp3.



But the only way is to buy the wma and somehow convert it to mp3. Or again I could choose the easy and free possibility of turning to filesharing again.

I know that dancemusic is only a tiny tiny bit of the income from music. And I have no idea of who is to blame, the artists or the record companys? But I know that dancemusic is not the only genre with these problems and I'm sure the industry could help themself a great deal by using the energy they do on fighting filesharing on giving us opportunities to buy their music instead!