While cleaning the place, out of the mess this -only a decade old but already obsolete- invention emerged. My Panasonic 61 CD changer! Back in 1997 when I purchased this old boy I had not seen such an elaborate changer and neither came I to see one for more than 10 discs after! It was perfect for parties as you could program it to play certain CDs or shuffle songs even, in the era before the computer was used to play music let alone used as a jukebox. I haven’t used it in more than half a decade, especially since it was buried under piles of CDs, but yesterday I dusted it off and loaded it with some of my golden oldies. Talk about nostalgia!
Guarded here by none other than Darth Vader himself!
The Pussycat Dolls keep sexing up the world of entertainment by breeding one sizzling all-girl act after the other! Their latest offspring is the international Paradiso Girls whose video for the song “Patron Tequila” (talk about product endorsement!) is an eye candy and one of those videos which has almost completely met my expectations! The song has taken its beats from the Dolls’ HIT “Don’t Cha”, it even reminds of its music video aesthetically. Which in this case is a positive thing!
Helen has released her new album “Fasle Man”, with a horribly designed cover! You can also buy a COMBO edition with a DVD of four music videos. Released on a (to me) new record label Top records. http://musicboxla.com/hefamancd.html
The beautiful Sheryfa Luna was the winner of the French edition of POPSTARS back in 2007 and ever since she has managed to make a name for herself with her two first albums! In this brand new video where she gets back to her Algerian roots (father’s side) you can see and hear why! Tres jolie!
Reza Sadeghi has started touring again and his record company has announced that his ill-fated album will finally see the light of day in a few weeks. The 14-track album “Cheghadr Sakhte” which was leaked pre-release has now undergone a total makeover for a commercial damage control and changed title to “Yeki Bood, Yeki Nabood”. It will be featuring 16 rearranged tracks!
As I’ve told you before this is my house cleaning season and I’m busy boxing. I was about to box away a couple of hundred copies of Javanan magazines that I own from the 90’s and while doing so I caught a glimpse of the covers and the images on them. Often depicting singers in different stages of life and album releases, some still with us and some no longer with us. Due to different reasons. What’s interesting is that together these weekly covers create dots that connect the history of our post exile music! While no longer being the first and fastest in terms of information delivery this weekly was a good source in the media-vacuum of the pre-Internet/sat-TV era, in the absence of today’s information technology. However always with a promoting/flattering tone and a less critical approach in its covering of the artists and the music industry, due to the explained reason. I stopped buying the magazine in early millennium because it did no longer serve the same purpose for me, long before my review on Arash’s debut was published with my permission but edited to leave out the critique without my permission! However Mehdi Zokaei’s vision and decades of efforts are to be acknowledged.
Shahrzad Sepanlou whose blog I have recommend before seems to be back blogging after a break, take a listen to her beautiful tribute to Neda.
And while you’re at it check out her brand new album “Tō”. If I’m not mistaking this is the international album she has been working on a few years now.
I can’t wait to watch this one! I love all the secrecy and viral marketing which preceded this trailer. Reminiscent of “Cloverfield”, which’s genius marketing sold and surpassed the actual movie!
A bit of trivia :
During the 70’s in Cape Town, South Africa, there existed an inner-city residential area where 60000 people where forcibly removed from their homes and relocated away in smaller houses away from the city center. This amounted to 1/10 of the city’s population.
Mansour Tehrani, the veteran lyricist and creator of the anthem “Yaare Dabestaani” who is based in Sweden since two decades ago has performed a song called “Emrooz Ba To”, created by Yeganeh/Parsifar.
Days ago I posted about Shakira’s upcoming album cover and praised it for its aesthetic and thematic strengths. Now it’s time to show an exactly opposite cover! This one belonging to Brooke Hogan’s newly released album is beyond the doubt one of the crappiest commercial album covers I have ever seen in my life!! What were you thinking girl?!!!!!!!!!!! I mean come ooooooooon!!! Don’t you have a creative consultant or at least someone with a taste and a bit sense to give you suggestions?!! I understand the idea …, I think! But this just looks wrong! The composition and the execution are by all books wrong! It doesnt look like a cool airbrushed pinup but rather like a drawing done by a kid in a Sunday school! One of those images people turn into gifs by adding digital glitter to and type “thanks for the add” on myspace! This just gives me headches! Baaaaaaad bad headaches!!lol
Fereydoun who got back to Iran a few years ago after a failed debut in LA and had a huge success with his album “Gharibe”, could never follow that up with the album “Az to Dooram”. He has recently made up with the producer Behrooz Saffarian whose touch was Midas in “Gharibe” and missing after the fall-out in the follow-up. Fereydoun is now back in Canada for some recording according to Saffarian but the duo intend to go on a national/European tour together, as soon as Fereydoun’s new album is released.
Even though I’ve always been a comic-book geek I had never read Alan Moore’s critically acclaimed Watchmen! Simply because I choose my comic-books based on the artwork and not the story. And while Watchmen’s story is one of the most complex stories written for a graphic novel and ranked by TIME as one of all time greatest novels, I never really liked Dave Gibbons’ POP artwork. It was first after that I had watched the movie adaptation recently that I picked it up and read for a more complete story. As a companion to the movie. Needless to say I absolutely loved the movie and yesterday I watched the Director’s Cut on Blu-ray. Wow, three hours of excellence! Keep in mind that even though it might come across as one this is not a generic super-hero story! Just disguised as one! I highly recommend it, especially if you like complex characters and philosophical dilemmas. If you haven’t watched it yet the DC is the cut you wanna watch. For now, that is! Because in December the ultimate cut with an essential side-story woven in will be released on five discs! Below is the Amazon exclusive set, a miniature “Nite Owl Ship” packaging.
I was just told by my good friend and your fellow review reader Shahab that Abdi Yamini has passed away! Shahab has been a fan and friend of Abdi Yamini’s and many years ago created a website dedicated to the life and work of the maestro. Abdi Yamini whose epic arrangements have been heard in many songs by Dariush, Ebi, Aref, Hatef, Shahyar Ghanbari and Mansour left LA for a life in Iran half a decade ago with minor musical activities, however recently he had moved to England where he once recieved his masters. Abdi had a very unique signature style which created an airy Pink Floyd-ian ambience in the songs. His range can best be heard in Mansour’s debut album “Ferferehaaye Bibaad” and Dariush’s “Bachehaaye Iran”! Here is one of my personal favorites from Ghanbari’s album “Safarnameh”. The song is long and a perfect example of how Abdi liked to work. Abdi Yamini died at the age of 56, rest in peace maestro!
Shakira is one of the female singers who has an annoying habit of gracing her albums with horribly designed covers! Despite being a naturally endowed and attractive girl, she always uses the least flattering angles or crazily cropped images for the cover. And to me a lame cover with a wasted potential is even a bigger sin than a lame cover with no potential to begin with! The annoyance it causes can even put me off buying the product! Or I’d buy it and hide it away somewhere it can’t be seen again, ’til I’ve forgot the tragedy and can focus on the music! You might think I’m kidding but I’m not!lol So it is a pure pleasure to see that the cover of her upcoming “She Wolf” album is to be an exception!
This “exploitation” inspired cover and the video that comes with it, adhere to the rules of aesthetics and the chosen theme very well. For instance the ill-red rigid lettering cuts through the earth tone color-scheme, however it does so in accordance with the exploitation genre and to serve the purpose of the theme. Even the cover of the single is thought through! Well done girl! Well done!
I recall from my childhood back in Iran that we wore “dam-payis” of the Kafshe Melli brand, which were all one-piece roughly cut plastic footwears in all sorts of vivid colors. Cheap as hell! I found them incredibly tacky even back then. A couple of years ago when the Crocks hit the stores I had a horrible flashback! Just couldn’t believe my eyes! It was as if the Western world had waited decades to copy our crappy dam-payis!lol And what baffles me is that these became popular and are still popular, while they should be fashionably illegal! *%¤#”!!lol
I have previously mentioned that as someone who is interested in cover art and design I sometimes buy albums just for the sake of the artwork, without having a clue about the kind of music it contains! La Roux is my latest purchase of such kind. I just love the composition, the color combination and lettering. Very chic, 80’s style. The face and hair also remind me of my good friend Lena. Now remains to be heard what the music actually sounds like! If it is the Electro-POP that the cover conveys, or not!
My good friend Richard is like I’ve written before more enthusiastic and supportive of the domestic POP industry than any Iranian I’ve ever met! Including myself! This Dutch gentleman has many times before attempted to introduce our music to the Dutch media and public and his recent attempt seems to have slam dunked! Being a Sirvan fan (as hardcore as he is I’d say “devote”!) he has managed to convince this certain radio in Holland to consider giving Sirvan’s songs airtime! The station has asked its listeners to chose one of four songs to be given rotation. Dank je wel, Richard (hope I’ve spelled the dutch correctly, since you beat even me in nitpicking!lol )!
France’s Sophie Marceau and Italy’s Monica Bellucci, two international sex symbols! The photos above portray them as young starlets and even though I’ve always loved both of these ladies, there is no question to whom time has been extra kind!
These European beauties have recently realized the fantasy of many men (moi included) by uniting talents in a movie called “Ne Te Retourne Pas”. A thriller which looks promising!
I can’t wait to see them together in action, joining …talents!
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