Moon Zero Two – "La Planete De Agua"

It's very rare that I record a song and make a video for it on the same day, but today it happened! Actually I just edited the footage today; it was filmed at Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium on May 21, 2021. This song will appear on the second Moon Zero Two album, due for completion later this year. Give me the sea life matey, that's the life for me.

 

Eurovision 2021 Wrap-up

Hi there, folks. I got up at 5:00 am yesterday (so you didn't have to) to watch the final of the 65th Eurovision Song Contest live from Rotterdam, The Netherlands. As always, here is my annual Eurovision stats map. Click to enlarge, and whatnot.

Either France or Switzerland were poised to take the victory after the jury vote was announced, but Italy swooped in after the televote round to claim their third win, and their first in 31 years. The winning song was "Zitti E Buoni" ("Shut Up And Behave") by glam rock act Måneskin – not your typical Eurovision winner.

Items of note:

• Eurovision's return after the 2020 event's cancellation.
• Italy's first win since 1990, and the first 'Big Five' win since Germany in 2010.
• France and Switzerland were on top of the points tally after the jury vote, and as the French contestant Barbara Pravi herself said, the top two songs (at that stage) were both French – surely something that hasn't happened in decades.
• The winner of the jury vote has not won overall for the 4th time in 5 years.
  
• In the end, France came 2nd and Switzerland 3rd – their best results since the early '90s. The last time France came 2nd was in 1991, and Switzerland hasn't come 3rd since 1993.
• The top 3 songs were all performed in their countries' native languages. The last time this happened was in 1995.
• The last time there were 4 non-English songs in the top 5 was in 1996.
  
• Iceland came 4th – they couldn't perform on the night due to one of them having a COVID issue (negative test result in the end). A rehearsal video in the venue was shown instead, complete with mistimed pyrotechnics at the end. (The same act were to compete last year and their song, "Think About Things" was my favourite entry in 2020.)
• COVID-19 sucks.
  
• Ukraine came 5th with "Shum" ("Forest" or "Noise") by Go_A – easily my favourite entry this year; sung in Ukrainian and really good staging. It's a pagan-trance banger!
  
• Ukraine is now the only country to have always qualified for the final since they joined Eurovision. The only other country was Australia, who failed to qualify this year.
  
• No country improved on its best result. 
• Australia couldn't go to Rotterdam to attend Eurovision (perhaps our contestant Montaigne should've told the government that Eurovision was some kind of European sporting event). As a result she was at a disadvantage, having to perform the song live via satellite from Australia, with strict rules against editing the live vocals.
• That was the first Eurovision performance ever not to take place on the stage.
  
• The first time Portugal's entry was entirely in English. They came 4th in their semi-final and 12th in the final.
  
• Hungary and Montenegro did not return after their 2019 appearance. Armenia withdrew and Belarus was disqualified.
  
• The bottom 4 countries after the jury votes had been tallied, United Kingdom, Germany, Spain and The Netherlands, all got zero points in the televote. Hearing this announced was brutal! Only the UK ended up with 0 points overall, and I felt bad for their contestant, James Newman. Out of 38 countries' top tens, he didn't feature in a single one. Bloody hell. There was audible discomfort after his 0 score was announced; others in the green room made it graceful for him by encouraging a huge audience cheer.
• Malta's contestant is a previous winner of Junior Eurovision. Is this the first time that has happened? (She ended up coming 7th)
• People should stop throwing in random Spanish lyrics to their songs. It's annoying. (And fruitless – Spain hasn't won for 52 years, and counting!)
  
• Rotterdam staged an amazing show, great stage graphics, notwithstanding 'Nikki Tutorials' irritating American accent.
• The rooftop performance by past contestants was pretty cool.
• Helena Paparizou, who won in 2005, is 39 (!) now. Cor blimey guv', yer don't get many o' those to a pound!!
  
• The previous winner, Duncan Laurence, didn't perform at the venue 'cause he's got COVID, or something.
• "RAWK N' RAWL NEVER DIES!!!". So sayeth the Måneskin lead singer upon winning.
• And they were the first band to win since Finland in 2006.
• One of their members was born in 2001, making him the first Eurovision winner to have been born in the 21st century.
• The female guitarist from Måneskin looks a lot like the chick from Cherry Glazerr. And that ain't a bad thing, sunshine.
  
• Too many songs in English, but this has been my yearly complaint since 1999.
• Large discrepancies in the two voting systems. For instance, Ukraine got 97 jury votes and 267 televotes; Malta (7th) got 208 jury votes, 47 televotes; Belgium (19th) got 71 jury votes and a measly 3 (!) televotes.
• Shame on the Russian and Ukrainian juries for their obviously politically-influenced decision to not give each other any points.
• Germany did not deserve to come second-last (25th) with only 3 lousy points. And, no matter how bad, no one deserves to get no points at all. Not even Jemini. Probably.
  
• It was amusing to hear the whole crowd disappointingly shout "GREECE!" after the vote announcer from Cyprus said "And the 12 points goes to...". Oddly enough the announcer was a little kid, but that didn't stop the booing.
• The task of announcing Australia's votes fell to Joel Creasey. He and Myf Warhurst, who couldn't attend Rotterdam to do their announcing for SBS, flipped a coin to decide which of them would do it. Myf found the coin in her bra, incidentally, along with a number of other things. Not that I'd know about that sort of thing. 
• Graham Norton is still kind of a knob.
• Sorry Shaz, but he is.
  
• The Netherlands, the host country, only gave 2 votes to winners Italy – from the televote.
• The Sammarinese (that's the demonym for San Marino – I only just learned that) entry featured Flo Rida. If they had done better than 22nd place, there could be a future trend of getting overhyped American rappers bussed in to compete at Eurovision, which is something I'd rather not see.
• Politics, and the gruesome events that happened in Gaza only last week, didn't seem to affect the Israeli contestant's performance or result. She came 17th, though.
• And she broke the record set by Croatia in 1996 for the highest note sung.
  
• 2020 favourites The Roop from Lithuania came 8th with "Discoteque". Sadly we will never know if their monster of a tune "On Fire", that was to be entered last year, would have won.
• My word, I wanted France to win. They haven't won Eurovision in my entire lifetime. Coming second is a very respectable finish for them, though.
• But good on you, Italy, for bringing ROK™ back to Eurovision.
  

Compilation Album Review: "Hits Now '89 Volume Two"

Compilation: Hits Now '89 Volume Two
Released: 1989 – WEA
Number of tracks: 18
Number one singles: 3 – "She Drives Me Crazy" by Fine Young Cannibals, "Eternal Flame" by The Bangles, "The Living Years" by Mike & The Mechanics
Other top ten singles: 3
Best track: "She Drives Me Crazy" by Fine Young Cannibals
Hidden gem: "Veronica" by Elvis Costello

It's been a while since I added to my retro various artists collection, hasn't it? Well when you've collected as many as I have, they're going to get fewer and further between. That's just the way it is. So I was surprised to find one from the dim and distant year of 1989! At that time, I was 11 years old and had just started watching Rage on Saturday and/or Sunday mornings, so I remember about half of these songs, and their music videos. So, what did the pop world from the tail end of the '80s offer up?

It starts with "She Drives Me Crazy", one of the best songs of the '80s, let alone 1989. A song with an instantly-recognizable and brilliantly '80s music video to boot. I'm not going to use the dreaded I-word – that'd be 'iconic' – but it's right up there. This is immediately followed by "Ring My Bell" by Collette, one of the worst songs of all time, let alone 1989. I'm not sure this even deserves to be on here, let alone given the coveted position of track number 2, but perhaps it's worth it considering it's a fairly typical example of how bad pop music could get in 1989. Gawd, Collette's thin and reedy vocals are another atonal opus for the profoundly deaf.

Speaking of fashion models who try to sing but can't, near the end is Samantha Fox, and "I Only Wanna Be With You", a cover version from the olden days. That's kind of naff as well, but Samantha Fox is leagues ahead vocally, of Collette. 

Next up is "Chained To The Wheel" by The Black Sorrows, their highest-charting single and the only song I like by them. I'm sure I've mentioned this on this blog before, but the opening seconds of this song always bring back memories of doing exercises on the lower playground in primary school. When I was in Year 6, the Year 4 teacher Mr. Jennings always used to make the whole school, even the little squirts, do weekly aerobics. He would always play the same two songs, and this was one of them. The other one was "Opposites Attract" by Paula Abdul, and for some reason I always expect that song to follow when I hear "Chained To The Wheel". I bet that cassette with just those two songs on it is still in the back seat of Mr. Jenning's army-green Moke.

In 1991 or so, an uncle from England visited my family in Perth, and my mum told him I kept up with the charts and the latest music etc. So he says to me, expecting to catch me out, "Have you heard of Tanita Tikaram?" I said yes, because I actually had, from reading Smash Hits. But I'd never heard any of her songs – until now. And, well, "Twist In My Sobriety" is rather dour and underwhelming. I'm sure she has plenty of other songs, though.

"One Summer" by Daryl Braithwaite is another song I remember from the final months of the eighties and although I wasn't much interested by it at the time, it has grown on me since. "Rise" is still my favourite song by him, though. And "The Horses" can go suck it.

Aside from Fine Young Cannibals, the other two no.1 singles on here are fairly well known, getting airplay on Smooth FM and the like even now. "The Living Years" sounds like the closing credits music to an '80s action flick. I've probably used that line before, but it applies to more than one song, okay? And if you don't think so, then I guess we don't see eye to eye. See what I did there?

"What I Am" by Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians seemed like the stupidest song I'd ever heard when I was 11. And, well, it is. The lyrics were certainly dumb, but they stood out from those of the typical vapid pop songs of the time. Is this actually deep philosophizing or hippie bulldust? I'll leave it with you.

"Downtown" by Petula Clark was a number 1 hit back in 1964, but the version here is a remixed version titled "Downtown '88". It peaked at number 58 on the Australian charts. I can't say I'm a fan of this song, in either version, thanks to it being used in a particularly annoying Coles ad ten years ago. Boy, that cacophonous wailing and the tagline of "Look for tha big red hand, 'Straya!" sapped my will to live back then – and probably killed any enthusiasm for the song that may have existed.

The remix has a nice beat and bass line though, for what it's worth.

Rating: 6/10

Moon Zero Two – "The Light No One Sees"

Moon Zero Two, my electronic 'space music' project, was named after a film made in 1969. That film is set in the year 2021, so that's enough reason for a second Moon Zero Two album, right? This is the first video from the as yet untitled album, filmed at Scienceworks in Melbourne on March 26, 2021. The song itself was recorded on May 9, 2021, which is the same date an opening scene in the film is set on! Confused? Just watch the video, you'll be alright.

 

Here's a screenshot from Moon Zero Two (1969) showing today's date. Amazing.