Showing posts with label Darren Hayes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Darren Hayes. Show all posts

Wednesday, 28 December 2011

The great musical round-up 2011



OK, It's that time of year when all thoughts turn to trying to remember what music "rocked our boats" during the last twelve months.

To that end, here are (in no particular order) the Dolores Delargo Towers Top Twenty Songs of 2011!

Let us open with the very cool Eastman ft Neve - Greedy Eyes, from July:


Even cooler, Jessica 6 - White Horse, from March:


Herr Styler - Snow in Paris was toast of the town here at the Towers in January:


The beautiful Sound of Arrows - Nova, first featured here in April:


A very welcome return for a gay pioneer, Darren Hayes - Black Out The Sun (here in its remixed form), from September:



Speaking of gay, gay, gay - the anthem that never was, Sir Ari Gold featuring LaBelle's Sarah Dash - Sparkle, featured here in September:


Duran Duran - Girl Panic was a fantabulosa return to form for a long-standing favourite group in November:


Continuing the theme of "welcome returns", Mari Wilson - O.I.C, released earlier in the year, was a discovery here in December:


Not something I am proud of, but I still love Selena Gomez - Love You Like A Love Song, from September:


The sleaze-tastic Traci Lords - Last Drag, from November:


A song that was shockingly ignored by everyone, Beth Ditto - I Wrote the Book, from February:


For once my taste and that of the great unwashed collided, as Example - Changed the Way You Kiss Me became the big chart-topper of the summer, featured here first in March:


A chart could not really be a chart without at least one from the UK's "great white hope": Adele - Rolling in the Deep, as featured here way back in January:


One of my fave discoveries of the year, The Young Professionals ft Uriel Yekutiel - D.I.S.C.O, from July:


The magnificent Will Young - Jealousy, returned to our arms in style in August:


A song (and an artist) that is indeed very popular round here, Eric Saade - Popular, who wuz robbed at Eurovision in May:


Speaking of "we wuz robbed", our own Euro-contender Blue - I Can, was first revealed here in March:


A close contender, and thus in the Top Three, is Martin Solveig ft Dragonette - Hello, featured here in January:


Snapping at the heels of the top slot is the anthem of our last holiday in Spain: Luciana - I'm Still Hot, which I first played on our return in February but seems to have been around for the whole year (including the infamous Betty White version):


And finally, there has to be a winner, and so at Number 1 is (of course) the irresistible Sak Noel - Loca People, which first featured here in September, and has been buzzing round our eardrums ever since:


There will be plenty of omissions, and songs that have completely slipped the memory no doubt, but that is the nature of any Top Twenty.

However, as always, enjoy!!

Sunday, 4 September 2011

Greetings, Pop-Pickers!



Time once more to inflict on you another selection of the newer songs that have pricked up my ears of late...

Opening this week's show is a gay pioneer and owner of one of the most "Marmite-like" voices in pop (you either like it or you hate it - I like it), Darren Hayes. Having been rather unimpressed by his last effort Talk Talk Talk (I preferred the bonus track, his cover of Madonna's Angel), the lovely Mr Hayes has a new, and rather fabulous, single out - Black Out The Sun. With its swooping orchestration and its anthemic melodrama, this has a feel reminiscent of some of Take That's recent material, and I love it!


From swooping to spooky, this is a real discovery. Majiker (alias Matthew Ker) is a long-term collaborator with the first lady of cool, French singer Camille (of Nouvelle Vague fame). His solo album House of Bones is apparently inspired by "ghost stories, haunted house movies from the 1940s and Norse mythology" (and indeed Neil Tennant, I guess), and from it the new single (free to download from his website) is the strange but compelling The Struggle:




Taking more of an electro curve, here's a new collaboration between the incredibly cool SirPaul (who I featured back in June) and Noo Yawk DJ Alex Lauterstein (who has worked with everyone including Danny Tenaglia, Peter Rauhofer and David Guetta). Calling themselves Simulover, this is their new number, the rather kinky and rather brilliant Tourniquet:


From the sublime, etc, etc... This is a bit of a "guilty pleasure". For as much as I tried to hate this new song by some juvenile called Selena Gomez (apparently another Disney Channel "star" a la that Bieber creature; she reminds me of one of those awful child beauty pageant entrants from the inbred American Midwest), Love You Like A Love Song has unfortunately crept into my consciousness...


And, finally - "When you're down, bring your inner diva around!" What better an uplifting message do we need from a song? This anti-gay-bullying demi-anthem Sparkle is the latest production of the splendid Sir Ari Gold, featuring guest vocals by a genuine diva - Sarah Dash who was one of the original members of 70s superstars Labelle (with Patti Labelle and Nona Hendrix)! The rather cute Sir Ari (when exactly was he knighted?) continues his sterling work to bring awareness to gay rights issues - and more power to his efforts!


[Thanks to the lovely JD Doyle over at the magnificent Queer Music Heritage for the heads up!]

Enjoy!

Saturday, 25 June 2011

Hot Shots - La musica dell'estate*



This evening, Sky1HD came up with a fabulous addition to the countdown to Pride, in the form of Kylie's "Aphrodite: Les Folies" concert, filmed at the O2 - absolutely incredible!

As ever, the Princess knows her (gay) audience - glitter, muscle-boys, 200 costume changes, and feathers, fouf and faff are most definitely the order of the day...



Having exhausted my camp genes with a two-hour Kylie-fest, I think it's time for a little update on some of the newer stuff that has flowed through my consciousness recently...

First up, thanks to Henry (yet again) at Barbarella's Galaxy for introducing me to the most original young lady by the name of Florrie and her wittily-named Experimenting with Rugs, which is rather fab:


Next, the Ozzie model, actress and singer Zoe Badwi with a divinely decadent orgiastic video for her new single Carry Me Home:


And as we head into what promises to be a mini-heatwave over the next couple of days (which usually just means a sweltering day then a thunderstorm), here is a most fabulous summery dance choon that should cheer us all up - the boppy "Garage" sound of Chasing Pluto with Maybe I'll Miss You:



Now, with Gay Pride in mind again, it's time for "the family" to step up to the mike...



Here's a real out-and-proud queen doin' what comes naturally! More gratitude to Marc at Deep Dish for drawing my attention to the magnificent diva B. Scott giving a Kiss Kiss to the lovely model Brett Davis. How could I have not discovered this fierce creature before?


This is an interesting conundrum - the uber cool gay "singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and Manhattan nightclub fixture" SirPaul (no relation to McCartney, apparently) has released a new single that is the theme to a film of the same name by the equally cool Casper Andreas - Going Down in La-La Land. The trouble is (and this is no bad thing, of course) it reminds me of a Eurovision track called Drama Queen by DQ from 2007:


And to finish, here's the out and civilly partnered (to music video producer Richard Cullen) Darren Hayes, with a fantastic b-side - to his new single Talk Talk Talk - a rather good cover of Madonna's Angel:


Let's enjoy the sunshine tomorrow and have a ball!

[* La musica dell'estate = The music of summer]