In The Spotlight: Duke Dumont & Gorgon City (ft Naations) Real Life

RealLife

For this edition of the Spotlight feature I wanted to discuss a former dance hit called Real Life. It was made by three dance artists who are amazing in their own way; Duke Dumont, Gorgon City and Naations. Now each of these three have had hit tracks before disappearing into obscurity so this track gives us all the more reason to celebrate their return, and to be honest, why not?
What reasons do I have for even making this my chosen track? Well first and foremost, why not. It’s simply an amazing song. The chorus, “I just wanna love you, in real life baby” just goes around and round your head. What I find intriguing about that is that you could easily point out about how it directly points out our desire to be loved, liked and appreciated in real life and for who we actually are, not for what we are online.
The video that accompanies the song has two direct cultural references; one being to the infamous horror classic, Carrie, the other to teen flick, Mean Girls. Now what is deeply fascinating is how closely it mirrors real life itself when it comes to everyone’s obsession with the online world, especially social media. Let’s face it, how many of us have ever gone on social media, seen how many ‘likes’, ‘shares’, and ‘followers’ we’ve got and tried to match it to someone else just so as to increase our own feeling of self-worth. Many of us are guilty of that and that’s something that gets poked fun at.
Another cultural reference that pointed out is our usage of emojis every time we seem to go online
As an avid fan of the dance music genre, every time I hear Real Life I always find myself going through the song bit by bit and trying to find something new about it. Another thing that makes the track is the vocals by Naations singer Nat Dunn as there seems to be fewer female singers in the dance genre than there are men

https://twitter.com/dukedumont?lang=en&lang=en
https://twitter.com/GorgonCity?lang=en
https://twitter.com/_naations?lang=en

Mumford & Sons on The Graham Norton Show

Currently been watching Indie/folk lads, also known as Mumford & Sons perform their new single Guiding Light on TV right now and all I can say is welcome back guys. The song is terrific and the guys’ vocal talents have not lost any of their touch and their voices are still as soothing as they’ve always been. Marcus Mumford, their lead man doesn’t fail to deliver when it comes to a live show. Ben, Winston and Ted always deliver when it comes to doing the backing vocals. Their new single Guiding Light is available on their new album Delta.

Kurt Russell, Claire Foy, Lee Evans and David Walliams plenty of banter as well as discussing their upcoming projects.

In The Spotlight: Keala Settle

KealaSettle

In this post of In The Spotlight I’m going to discuss the song, This Is Me, by American actress and singer Keala Settle and is one of the hit songs from the hit American musical The Greatest Showman. In the film she plays a woman known as Lettie Lutz, who is also known or referred to as The Bearded Lady.
Now for me, I picked this song for a number of specific reasons; it’s incredibly uplifting and has a feel-good factor, it’s one of those songs that you just cannot ignore no matter how much you try. But there is another reason why I chose it; the song is about being an outcast and facing social prejudice and coping with discrimination. During the film her character, along with a handful of others face discrimination, rejection, but also harassment so the song is their retaliation.
Whilst the song itself is very empowering there’s a verse in the lyrics which carry a strong message “But I won’t let them break me down to dust, I know that there is a place for us. For we are glorious”. People who are viewed as outcasts are looked down upon and unfairly judged and this is one of the lines from the song which address that directly.
This song carries a lot of meaning and understanding for anyone who has faced discrimination and that alone is a rarity in itself as there are very few songs in modern-day music that speak out about such issues. And let alone about empowerment.
As an artist Keala Settle has an incredible voice and is a vocal force to be reckoned with and there have been attempts by other artists. None of them however, seem to be able to hit it quite in the way that Keale seems to. The song is one that once you know the words you’d probably be highly tempted to sing to it, and in all fairness, who could even blame you.

https://twitter.com/kealasettle?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Rick Astley on The Graham Norton Show

Just watched a performance by former 80’s heartthrob Rick Astley perform his latest single Try. The performance itself felt quite sombre and it sounded like one of those songs with carry numerous emotions and carries a certain mood to it. Compared to his earlier, more iconic material Try sounds a lot more mature and definitely one for the modern-day times. The backing singers added some depth to the song and together they made one great song and even better performance. In many ways Rick’s like a good wine, just seems to get better with age and yet still retains his boyish good looks even if he’s in his early 50’s. His current song Try is from his new album Beautiful Life.

Also on the sofa were British actors Eddie Redmayne and Jude Jaw discussing their new upcoming film and American comic actress Melissa McCarthy also discussing her new upcoming film with Richard E.Grant

BTS on The Graham Norton Show

Caught sight of a special performance by South Korean boy-band BTS perform their song Idol. Amazingly these guys are a 7-members line-up which is quite big in itself, their performance was quite energetic and the audience seemed to like them and the show ended with a showering of glitter. Sadly I can’t say I’m a huge fan but I can see why they’d have an appeal to many girls out there. The only positive thing I can say them is that they have a nice dress-sense. However there was only 6 on tonight as one of the band members was off due to injury. As far as they go they’ve certainly got what you’d expect e.g good vocals, energetic dance moves, dress-sense and good looks which is all you’d need. They were kind enough to say what the initials stood for Behind The Scenes, for anyone who’s interested in what it says in their native it’s Bullet-proof Boy Scouts. The song is available on their album Love Yourself, I for one won’t be rushing to by myself a copy as I can’t count myself as a fan

😦  Sorry

However Jamie Dornan, Rosamund Pike, Harry Connick Jr and Whoopi Goldberg were on the sofa to talks about their upcoming projects and provide a few laughs

GSGM Spotlight: Little Simz

A new column feature I’m doing for GSGM called Spotlight, editorial picked songs and here’s my first one, have a read and enjoy. Little Simz – B.O.S.S

https://www.gsgmedia.co/2018/10/08/little-simz-b-o-s-s/

 

Jeff Goldblum on The Graham Norton Show

Hollywood legend, well in my opinion anyway, Jeff Goldblum played on TV a few minutes ago with another singing great Imelda May. Now I have to admit that I’m not a huge fan of jazz/swing/rockability even at the best of times even I have to admit that their sound tonight was quite good. Straighten Up and Fly Right. has got a contemporary feel to it. I think Jeff may have performed live on TV before, can’t remember, but when you put these two together they’re like lemon-tea and honey, they just go together like that. The song was on Jeff Goldblum’s debut album The Capitol Studios Sessions, ironically Imelda’s also on the album. Also on the sofa were scream-queen Jamie-Lee Curtis, Gary Barlow and the man behind Blackadder and Bean Rowan Atkinson.

Derbyshire Pride 2018

derbypride4Crowds gathered in their masses on Saturday the 8th September for the annual Derbyshire Pride event and it was an occasion that just wasn’t to be missed. Hundreds of people gathered on Curzon Street for an all-day party which wasn’t just about celebrating the Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community, it was about the people of Derby and Derbyshire celebrating differences. As was also traditional was the Great British weather, cos let’s face it the weather doesn’t know what it’s doing from one moment to the next.

Many organisations came together to help celebrate the day, the LGBT+ community and its allies and reminded everyone that the special day was about inclusivity to everyone, from all walks of life. The message couldn’t be any clearer; it doesn’t matter who you are be it your sexuality, gender, disability, race or ethnicity we are one big community and that’s what should be celebrated.

Hosting duties were taken by Galaxy Radio’s Soraya Vivian and Derby’s own Trudy Knight and Miss Davinia

Several performers helped put on an amazing show, drag Queens, DJ’s, singers and even tribute acts including Mizz Pink, Livin Joy, Danny Beard and Kirby Frost. Also making an appearance were Ross Alexander, members of Studio Storm Fitness, Sweet Female Attitude. Also making an appearance were stars of Channel 4’s Gogglebox and The Property Boyz derbypride14derbypride6  Derbyshire Police, ambulance crew and the local fire services came down to offer their support along with other organisations such as The Samaritans and members of the Derbyshire LGBT+ Network and many more. Even special hair and make-up treatments were available.

The event stared with the annual parade which began on St Peter’s Churchyard which began at 11:15 am and went on till 12pm and ended at Curzon Street which is where the celebrations continued. The party went on till 3am at The Crown Inn, which isn’t just an LGBT+ venue, but also one of Derbyshire Pride’s sponsors as well.    derbypride11  Looking forward to Derbyshire Pride 2019.

Derbypride

Steve Page live@ the Rescue Rooms Gig review

A review piece I did for MusicNotts on the recent Steven Page gig at the Rescue Rooms on Saturday last week (18/8/18), have a read and enjoy 🙂

http://musicnotts.com/review-steve-page-live-the-rescue-rooms-18-8-2018/