You are invited to celebrate life, people, achievements, encouragement, endurance, love and of course music with another thematic digest of my music library.
| Title | Artist | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Celebrate | Coely | Antwerp born Coely released “Celebrate” in 2017. Coely Mbueno was born in Antwerp in 1994 to Congolese parents. I second what’s stated on her website: “In person, Coely blows everyone away with her energy, enthusiasm and exceptional voice. Whether you are a Baby Boomer, a member of Generation X, Y or Z, or something else completely, if you’ve seen Coely perform live, you’ll know that you’ve witnessed a world-class performance.” She played as an opening act for Kanye West, De La Soul and Kendrick Lamar, and performed at all major Belgian festivals, and international festivals like Glastonbury. |
| Girl On Fire | Alicia Keys | “Girl on Fire” was inspired by Keys’ giving birth to her son Egypt and marriage to her husband Swizz Beatz. The song contains an interpolation of the drums from the 1980 song “The Big Beat” by American rock guitarist Billy Squier, who received a writing credit on “Girl on Fire”. The video portrays Keys as a working mother caring for her kids and an elderly mother, has received wide acclaim from critics. |
| Bicycle Race | Queen | The song was written by Freddie Mercury and was inspired by watching the 18th stage of the 1978 Tour de France passing Montreux, where the band were recording Jazz in the Mountain Studios. The song is notable for its video featuring a bicycle race with nude women at Wimbledon Stadium. The controversial video was edited or even banned in several countries. The song itself has appeared in various media with a bicycle theme. |
| The Best | Tina Turner | Also known as “Simply The Best,” by Tina Turner, was originally recorded by Bonnie Tyler in 1988 and written by Mike Chapman and Holly Knight. |
| Let’s Have A Party | Wanda Jackson | With the uptempo rocker “Let’s Have a Party”, Wanda Jackson (“The Queen of Rockabilly”) helped to open the door for women who were tired of letting the guys have all the fun. It made Jessie Mae Robinson recognized as a serious professional black female songwriter. |
| Cool For Cats | Squeeze | ‘Cool For Cats’ was the first rock ‘n’ roll television show in England during 1959. British band Squeeze with the cockney-accented released in 1979 their hit song with the same title ‘Cool for Cats’ written by band members Difford and Tilbrook. Jools Holland, on keyboards, was founding member of Squeeze. |
| Waka Waka (Esto Es Africa) (ft. Freshlyground) | Shakira | Colombian singer Shakira, featuring the South African band Freshlyground performing the official song of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, which was held in South Africa. The song samples the original Cameroonian song “Zamina mina (Zangaléwa)” by Golden Sounds. The lyrics compare football (soccer) players to soldiers on a battlefield and encourage them to fight for their goals. The Spanish version of the song does not contain a war metaphor and instead “talks about walls coming down.” Shakira met Spanish footballer Gerard Piqué during the filming of the video, with whom she pursued a romantic relationship and has two sons. |
| We Are the Champions | Holly Wilson | Holly Wilson covered many hits in bossa nova style: Pink Floyd (2006), Genesis (2007) and Abba (2011). In 2006 she released the album “Queen En Bossa Nova”, featuring ‘We Are the Champions’. |
| Mr. le Président | Vive la Fête | “Mr. le Président” by ‘Vive la Fête’ (English: Long live the party) is performed and written by Els Pynoo and Danny Mommens. Since 1997, the Belgian band of Danny Mommens (ex-bass player of dEUS) and Els Pynoo has been bringing danceable electro-rock, with a touch of kitsch and some new wave and French chanson lurking in the background. In 2002, the king of fashion Karl Lagerfeld meets the couple and is charmed by their music and their looks. This gives green light to the international adventure of Vive la Fête: fashion shows of Chanel in Tokyo, New York, Las Vegas, Berlin, Milan and Paris, the posh Bal de la Rose in Monaco and the face of Chilli Beans in Brazil. During the Corona era they were at home at their farm in the south-west of Belgium. |
| Good Kisser | Usher | American R&B singer Usher giving praise to who is a ‘Good Kisser’ Real instrumentation with pure bass guitar and drums as opposed to electronic, synthesized music. |
| El Beso | Pablo Alborán | “El Beso” (English: “The Kiss”) is a song recorded by the Spanish singer-songwriter Pablo Alborán, nicknamed El Blanco Moreno (The White Moreno). |
| Gold | Spandau Ballet | “Gold” is a song by English new wave band Spandau Ballet, released on 5 August 1983. The band’s classic line-up features brothers Gary and Martin Kemp on guitars, vocalist Tony Hadley, saxophonist Steve Norman and drummer John Keeble. Gary Kemp wanting to write a movie theme in the same vein as John Barry because of his work on the James Bond films and being inspired to the title by Shirley Bassey’s 1964 hit Bond theme “Goldfinger”. |
| Eye of the Tiger | Survivor | “Eye of the Tiger” is a song by American rock band Survivor. It was written as the theme song for the 1982 film Rocky III, which was released a day before the single, and released as a single from their third album of the same name. Written by Survivor guitarist Frankie Sullivan and keyboardist Jim Peterik, it was recorded at the request of Rocky III star, writer, and director Sylvester Stallone, after Queen denied him permission to use “Another One Bites the Dust”, the song Stallone intended as the Rocky III theme. |
| Ladies Don’t Play Guitar | Tennis | Tennis is an Indie pop band from Denver, Colorado, made up of husband and wife duo Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley. The ocean is to Tennis what the spinach is to Popeye: the source from which they derive their impressive power. Prior to forming the band, the husband-and-wife duo embarked on an eight-month sailing expedition that inspired the first songs they ever wrote together. Right from the outset, Alaina Moore’s on the offence “Ladies don’t play guitar/ Ladies don’t get down, down to the sound of it/ Maybe we can play pretend,” she sings with what you imagine is a damning glint in her eye, before turning her attack from the sexist perception to the sexists themselves: “Ladies just need your love/ Don’t you know we are all caught up in it.” Yet even through her sardonic sneer, Moore’s voice is as melodious as ever, and the song itself has that classic Tennis pep in its step. It’s perfect for catching sun on the high seas, but is also much needed social commentary on the expectations placed on female musicians. |
| First Day of My Life | Melanie C | Melanie Jayne Chisholm (born 12 January 1974), professionally known as Melanie C or Mel C, is an English singer-songwriter, DJ, businesswoman and media personality. As one of the five members of the Spice Girls, she was nicknamed Sporty Spice. In 2005 her track ‘First Day Of My Life’ was to become one of her biggest hits to date, selling over 400,000 copies in Germany alone. It also went on to chart at Number 1 in Spain, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, and Portugal where it helped to propel the album ‘Beautiful Intentions’ to double-platinum status and kept it at Number 1 for 9 weeks. As a Spice Girls member Chisholm was called “Sporty Spice” because she usually wore a tracksuit paired with athletic shoes, wore her long dark hair in a high ponytail, and sported a tough girl attitude as well as tattoos on both of her arms. She has a tattoo on her left arm of a black Christian cross. On her upper-right arm she has tattoos of two Chinese characters: “女” meaning “female” and “力” meaning “force” which together represent the phrase “girl power”. She also possessed true athletic abilities, including being able to perform back handsprings. |
| These Are The Days | 10,000 Maniacs | Founding member and co-writer Natalie Merchant is a vegetarian and an environmentalist and referred to Madonna as her “ideological enemy.” Mechant went for deep social commentary and played down any hint of sexuality. |
| Beautiful Days | Venus | Venus was a band created in 1997 by five artists hailing from Brussels, Belgium. The original goal of the band was to create an original sound that expressed different emotions through several instruments including guitar, violin, double bass, organ, percussion, synth, and a host of others. Also using the scenography talents of former member Patric Carpentier to create visual emotion through their live performances. Although not well known in the United States they have had success with releases Beautiful Days and Wanda Wultz from their Capitol record label release in 2003, Vertigone. The single Beautiful Days was also a track featured in the film Immortel, which is based on the popular futuristic and Ancient Egyptian styled Enki Bilal comic series. The band’s name is in reference to and inspired by the Velvet Underground track, Venus in furs. |
| Seven Nation Army | Ben l’Oncle Soul | Benjamin Duterde (born in Tours, France on 10 November 1984), better known by his stage name Ben l’Oncle Soul is a French soul singer and songwriter. His friends called him “l’Oncle Ben” because he was often wearing a bow tie like Uncle Ben from Uncle Ben’s Rice. Jack White wrote the song and it was released it in 2003 by the husband and wife rock band ‘The White Stripes’. Belgium’s Club Brugge football fans began singing the riff in a game against Italy’s A.C. Milan 2003, which turned the song in the team’s “unofficial sports anthem”. |
| Als je wint (feat. Doe Maar) | Brood en Vrienten | “Als je wint” (when your a winner) was written by Henny Vrienten from Dutch band ‘Doe Maar’ and performed with Dutch rocker Herman Brood. Brood was the Dutch personification of “sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll”. Belgian producer and musician Jean Blaute plays the Accordion. The lyrics baseline idea is that when you are successful, you have many friends. |
| The Winner Takes It All | ABBA | ABBA member Björn Ulvaeus wrote it after the breakdown of his marriage with Agnetha Fältskog who calls it “her biggest favourite” from ABBA’s catalogue and regrets they never got to play it live, The Winner Takes It All is also the title to a 1999 documentary about the band. |
| You’ll Never Walk Alone | Gerry & The Pacemakers | “You’ll Never Walk Alone” is a show tune from the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel. The Liverpudlian Merseybeat group Gerry and the Pacemakers’ successful cover was released in 1963. The song quickly became the football anthem of Liverpool F.C., which adopted “You’ll Never Walk Alone” as its official motto on its coat of arms. |
| Survival | Muse | The rock anthem ‘Survival’ was selected as the official song of London’s 2012 Summer Olympic Games. Muse’s frontman Matt Bellamy stated he wrote it with the Games in mind as it expresses a sense of conviction and determination to win. |
| Celebrate The World | Womack & Womack | Womack & Womack was the singing and songwriting partnership of married American musicians Linda Womack and Cecil Womack. American singer and songwriter Linda Womack, born “Linda Marie Campbell” April 25, 1953 in Chicago (USA), is daughter of Sam Cooke. The Womacks, now using their adopted African name Zekkariyas, began recording as a family. The song is about celebrating love and unity in the world through music, that has the power to bring people together and create a universal feeling of love and peace. |
Sources
The information sources of the song facts include, but are not limited to, Wikipedia, songfacts.com, discogs.com, secondhandsongs.com, YouTube and artists’ related websites.
