Music Video: Miraculous - ยังเสียใจ (Still Sad)

There's something that I always enjoy about really hip-hoppy/poppy reggae.  If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you'd know that I love artists that combine upbeat melodies and hip-hop influenced vocals with syncopated Caribbean and African rhythms.  So, artists like Seeed, Afroreggae, Irie Révoltés, and Culcha Candela get a lot of play here.

Well, just because I am going all the way to Thailand today does not mean that I will break with this tradition.  In fact, if you replace the German and English of Seeed, or the French and German of Irie Révoltés, or the Spanish and German of Culcha Candela with the Thai and English of Miraculous - as you do on their song ยังเสียใจ (Still Sad) - you will not feel overwhelming culture shock.

Unfortunately, like much of the music that I find from Asia, I am having a difficult time finding information about Miraculous that I can actually translate.  Bing Translator does yeoman's work of attempting to translate the band's bio on Last.fm from Thai to English, but the result is largely an unreadable garble. This is made even more difficult because, like a frustrating number of bands from around the world, their name is neither terribly unique or easily searchable.  That having been said, if you know anything about Miraculous, please post to the comments.  I'd love to know more.

2012 Open World Music Dance Party

As with last year, this year Open World Music is having a dance party in my newly renovated dance hall - "The Geyer Palladium" (aka my family room).  A new sound system is installed.  New lighting has been turned on.  All we need now is a playlist.

Well, here it is:

1)  Blumio (Germany): Intro
2)  Carly Rae Jespen vs. PSY (USA/South Korea):  Call Me Gangnam
3)  Fettes Brot (Germany):  Kontrolle
4)  Irie Révoltés (Germany):  Explosion
5)  Malik Adouane (Algeria):  Get Up I Feel Like Being a Sex Machine
6)  Boris Grebenschikov and Aquarium (Russia):  Shumelka
7)  Scandal (Japan):  Shojo S
8)  2NE1 (South Korea):  I Am the Best
9)  Marteria, Yasha, and Miss Platnum (Germany):  Feuer
10)  Dendemann (Germany):  Stumpf ist Tumpf 3.0
11)  Paula (Germany):  C'est comme ça
12)  Rachid Taha (Algeria):  Rock the Casbah
13)  Laing (Germany):  Neue Liebe
14)  Culcha Candela (Germany):  Schöne Neue Welt
15)  Nosliw (Germany):  Heiss und laut
16)  Mexican Institute of Sound (Mexico):  Yo Diga Baila
17)  Seeed (Germany):  Seeeds Haus
18)  Plastilina Mosh (Mexico):  Naranjada

This playlist has been test marketed by my 7 year old daughter, and she gives it two enthusiastic thumbs up.  I hope you enjoy it too!

Merry Christmas from Open World Music!!!!

Music Video: Irie Révoltés - Zeit ist Geld

A couple of months ago, I profiled four bands that play in French, but who come from elsewhere.  Today, I bring an unofficial fifth.  Irie Révoltés comes from Heidelberg, Germany, but for some reason they sing about 70% of their songs in French, with most of the rest in German.  To my own ear, it's an exciting mix because Irie Révoltés' music combines the Gallic tongue with decidedly Teutonic inspired reggae, ska, hip-hop, and electronic beats, with the music changing the feel of the language, and the language changing the feel of the music.

A good example of this mix is Irie Révoltés' song, Zeit ist Geld.  This is heavily electronic hip-hop, with some ska horns mixed in, and lyrics in both German and French.  As Irie Révoltés is an explicitly political band (thus the name of the band), this linguistic and musical internationalism merely adds further punch to their universal message of speaking to the common man.