Sunday, September 09, 2007

Gonna be sunshine and rain, gonna be pleasure and pain

I'm still in extreme Espen Lind appreciation mode, but I really shouldn't post two songs by him back to back, so let's go with something he wrote instead. Speaking of writing, though, I noticed yesterday that he, virtually perpetual partner Bluefish/Amund Bjørklund, and...guess who--James Bourne (he out of Busted and Son of Dork) had written several songs together! They've not come out as far as I know, though they could have been released by some group I don't know of, and I have no idea how old they are, but with titles like "How To Succeed In The Music Industry" and "No Casanova," they sound very James Bourne-y, don't they (the others are "Brand New You" and "Obvious Tonight")? I'm not sure how they'd sound--no guarantee they're good--but I'm intrigued.

Anyhow, skipping back to what I was supposed to be writing about, today's song was the debut single from the late and frequently lamented boy band V, who released three singles and an album back around 2004.

Blood, Sweat and Tears (Almighty Radio Edit)--I should probably be posting the original and I'm sure it shows more of Espen's influence, but the first time I ever heard "Blood, Sweat and Tears" was in its Almighty version and I've never been able to listen to the original since--it just seems too slow. I've been spoiled for life...so beware if you like the original! Though V were a "regular" boy band (i.e., not a boy band with guitars), their music often had acoustic guitar strums in it. Well, forget those in this remix--it's all about the sort of spacey electronic sound effects. The song really benefits from having the tempo kicked up, too.

You can buy V's single "Blood, Sweat and Tears" here (physical), but you're probably better off picking up the album, You Stood Up, from here (physical) or here (digital).

Oh, and while we're talking of V, I only noticed yesterday that a British-turned-Maltese singer named Aaron Benjamin has released a song charting on some Maltese radio stations that Aaron out of V had on his MySpace (in my defense, I haven't checked his MySpace for...oh, three quarters of a year now) a while ago, "In My Head". I'm curious: does anyone know if he wrote the song or was just singing the demo? I'd like the idea of him at least working as a songwriter, since V as a pop group didn't seem to work out.

(I do have to admit that I liked the "original" better--it was less fuzzed up with guitars.)

Edit: it's practically criminal that I did a post on V (well, sort of on V) and forgot to include the video of one of the definitive live boy band performances of all time, their performance on TV show Top of the Pops. I'll just say this: rain. "You Stood Up" should've gone to #1 just for the genius promotional effort of this alone.



Next up: maybe a South African group.

6 comments:

Paul said...

it's effing tragic that V didn't take off. I may adopt their album for a year long project on my post starting in January (ooo mysterious). I need to check out Aaron's single. BTW - did you know Andy Scott Lee has a single coming out! In Feb 08! Why the wait i don't know and sadly it's very generic...

Poster Girl said...

That is mysterious! Ooo! I feel like I might have heard that about Andy but then forgotten because I wasn't very impressed :( On the other hand, I still love "Guardian Angel"! Did you ever hear the longer non-Eurovision edit?

Adem With An E said...

I remember getting into V the day I heard they were no more. I still feel somewhat robbed.

Poster Girl said...

Aww :( I didn't know about them until after they'd broken up, which still feels like such a shame considering it sounds like they had this great fun attitude towards being a boy band.

D'luv said...

I really tried to like V back in '04, but they were just so boring, I had to transfer the affection to Pop!

Poster Girl said...

Pop! The introduction to Glen Ball's web page has to be one of my favorite web page openings ever. Not that I've, you know, visited it much or anything.