The Norwegians have it
Current mood: Musical
Current music: Norwegian songs in English... No, hang on, I mean English songs by Norwegians... Oh, you figure it out.
"What is it the Norwegians have?" I hear you cry. "Fjords? Glaciers? Beautiful blond people? Rampant polar bears running wild on the streets? What?"
Well, possibly all of the above. But what I'm referring to is: Good music videos.
Lazy Daisy
Photo by Astralwerks from MTV website
Let me explain. Sometime during the summer of 2004 I saw a music video on MTV called 'Two Way Monologue'. It's for a song by a Norwegian guy called Sondre Lerche, and features a showdown between two performers, battling to be 'Best Entertainer'. Sondre, a fabulous singer-songwriter and guitarist, plays both artists (hence the 'two-way monologues' - clever!). It's a good laugh - I love videos with a little storyline. I enjoyed the video enough to find out more (this being the whole purpose of music videos)... You can see it for yourself, on his website:
http://www.sondrelerche.com/media.asp
While you're there, make sure you also check out the video for 'Days that are Over' - that's very good too. It parodies a whole bunch of famous TV shows, from Big Brother to the Late Show with Daaaaavid Letterman.
Anyway, fast-forward to 2005. While I was still hanging around in London, I went to Sondre's gig with a bunch of friends, and enjoyed it immensely. I don't think any one of us was disappointed, even though there was just him onstage all alone, with one mic and three guitars to choose from. He managed to pull off, solo, what he usually would do with a band and lots of interesting backing instruments - we were all very impressed.
So that's one talented Norwegian.
One of my friends, who went to see the Sondre gig with me, e-mailed me a couple of months later about this guy he'd heard on the radio who reminded him of Sondre, and advised me to check out his stuff. Enter Robert Post - another Norwegian singer-songwriter extraordinaire, with a definitely surreal streak.
Picture taken from the Robert Post website
You can tell that surrealism abounds when someone has a 'Flipped Out Whale' game on his website, not to mention pictures of himself in pyjamas and animal masks, posing with giant yetis, very small cars, and eclectic plastic toys:
http://www.robert-post.com
Sadly, the 'Flipped Out' game is not on his website for the time being, but you can still play it here:
Anyway, Robert also has a brilliant video for his hit single, 'Got None', which is all a video should be - fun and colourful, with reference to the song lyrics, but in a creative way. Spice it up with a dash of surrealism! Robert's latest single, 'There's One Thing', also has a video, which doesn't seem quite as exciting as the other one until the end... I've included the links to both videos under the 'Links' section on the right.
I think I've left you with quite a few videos to watch so I'll just vamoose. Incidentally, I originally intended them to be a sort of Christmas treat, but what with one thing and another, they'll just have to be a New Year treat instead... Sit back, relax, and enjoy!
Current music: Norwegian songs in English... No, hang on, I mean English songs by Norwegians... Oh, you figure it out.
"What is it the Norwegians have?" I hear you cry. "Fjords? Glaciers? Beautiful blond people? Rampant polar bears running wild on the streets? What?"
Well, possibly all of the above. But what I'm referring to is: Good music videos.
Lazy Daisy
Photo by Astralwerks from MTV website
Let me explain. Sometime during the summer of 2004 I saw a music video on MTV called 'Two Way Monologue'. It's for a song by a Norwegian guy called Sondre Lerche, and features a showdown between two performers, battling to be 'Best Entertainer'. Sondre, a fabulous singer-songwriter and guitarist, plays both artists (hence the 'two-way monologues' - clever!). It's a good laugh - I love videos with a little storyline. I enjoyed the video enough to find out more (this being the whole purpose of music videos)... You can see it for yourself, on his website:http://www.sondrelerche.com/media.asp
While you're there, make sure you also check out the video for 'Days that are Over' - that's very good too. It parodies a whole bunch of famous TV shows, from Big Brother to the Late Show with Daaaaavid Letterman.
Anyway, fast-forward to 2005. While I was still hanging around in London, I went to Sondre's gig with a bunch of friends, and enjoyed it immensely. I don't think any one of us was disappointed, even though there was just him onstage all alone, with one mic and three guitars to choose from. He managed to pull off, solo, what he usually would do with a band and lots of interesting backing instruments - we were all very impressed.
So that's one talented Norwegian.
One of my friends, who went to see the Sondre gig with me, e-mailed me a couple of months later about this guy he'd heard on the radio who reminded him of Sondre, and advised me to check out his stuff. Enter Robert Post - another Norwegian singer-songwriter extraordinaire, with a definitely surreal streak.
Faster! Faster! Faster!
Picture taken from the Robert Post websitehttp://www.robert-post.com
Sadly, the 'Flipped Out' game is not on his website for the time being, but you can still play it here:
Picture taken from the Robert Post website
http://www.hyperlaunch.com/robertpostAnyway, Robert also has a brilliant video for his hit single, 'Got None', which is all a video should be - fun and colourful, with reference to the song lyrics, but in a creative way. Spice it up with a dash of surrealism! Robert's latest single, 'There's One Thing', also has a video, which doesn't seem quite as exciting as the other one until the end... I've included the links to both videos under the 'Links' section on the right.
I think I've left you with quite a few videos to watch so I'll just vamoose. Incidentally, I originally intended them to be a sort of Christmas treat, but what with one thing and another, they'll just have to be a New Year treat instead... Sit back, relax, and enjoy!
posted by Aureala @ 8:05 pm
PIPSOH!
1 Comments:
At Tuesday, January 17, 2006 9:31:00 am,
Anonymous said…
Hey,
well, I'm back at uni, which means all-day all-night internet! hmm, trying hard not to get distracted, but it's so easy! anyway, hence I won't check out the norwegian singers- they look pretty tho...
talking about mattress, my fav quote about mattress will have to be in "You've got mail" where they talk about in "the Godfathers" about "going to the mattress" ie going to war. That other "Buzz" game sounds like fun! good for your muscles, like a tens machine that physios use...
Post a Comment
<< Home