Alexandra Burke – Overcome

So, it’s Monday morning,  and without doubt, the highlight of my week is that Alexandra Burke’s debut album, ‘Overcome’ is out!

Very pleased that it was on Spotify first thing this morning!

Alexandra has done a lot of press for the album recently, and had a reported thirty songs that were being considered for the album. She has said in interviews that she wanted to do a double CD, though the record label wouldn’t hear of it due to it being her first!

I had a listen to the album whilst at work, so I made a few thought notes against each track, which I have shared below. I know many of the words that I have used aren’t real words, but they seemed appropriate when I was note-taking

NB – these are in order of how the ‘random’ function on Spotify played them, so are not in track listing order.

Bad Boys (feat. Flo Rida): Anthemic – and easily the song of the album (and my song of 2009 thus far!)

Overcome: Great, powerful ‘feel-good’ song. Potential single?

Bury Me (6 feet under): weird… but in a good way! Love the classic sound to it with the piano coming through!

All Night Long: dancy R’n'B song, catchy chorus – album track maybe, but also a club favourite?

They Don’t Know: Christina Aguilera/emo-esque clean vocal song… you long for her to belt, but, surprisingly, this never comes. Good track, unexpected style more than anything.

The Silence: Perhaps what I was expecting from ‘They Don’t Know’ – like, very much! Almost 80s power-ballad’y! Another potential single?

Good Night, Good Morning (feat. Ne-Yo): Another R’n'B track, no doubt will be released as a single due to collaboration with Ne-Yo. I like it, but it’s not really my taste… that said, this song is perfect for the number one spot of the UK charts given the tracks that tend to get top spot these days.

Gotta Go: Nice ballad track, album track in my opinion.

Dumb: punchy and great for dancing along in a club! ‘dumb dumb dumb’ *jigs*’ – infectious! Love it!!

You Broke My Heart: Adore those opening bars, a little Duffy-esque in vocal style, but with much needed attitude! Power tune if ever there was one, with some great chords thrown in for that ’sass’ factor! (I can’t listen to this without rolling my shoulders and wagging my fingers heh!)

Hallelujah (Bonus Track): Her version of this track speaks for itself really… what a set of lungs!

Broken Heels: Bouncy song, great to dance to at a party but an album track I think. My neck is sore from head-dancing heh! (NB – I’d suggest you listen to this track in private, otherwise your colleagues may look upon you and your head-dancing strangely!)

Nothing But The Girl: Different to the rest of the album, love how this builds up, a good pop record.

A frantic few months for Alexandra, but they have definitely paid off and, in my opinion,  resulted in what must be the pop album of the year!

Michael Jackson 1958 – 2009

OK, so I was in two minds as to whether or not to do a post… there is so much already on the internet about this tragic event that I really have very little  information to add to what has already been said. Friends who know me ’in the real world’ will also know that there are other periferal aspects that I am unable to comment on at present. However I reasoned that this is such a huge event, and something I am sure to look back on in later life, and so I’ve decided to say a few words for the purpose of my blog.

I saw mention of something being wrong come up on twitter around 21:30 and at first wrote it off as a rumour; after all, I’d not heard of TMZ, and Sky News are hardly a reliable news source in my opinion. However it soon became apparent that there was some weight to the rumour and I was quick to switch on to BBC News 24, and I stayed there until around 3:30 this morning watching this all unfolding.

On the note of BBC News, I thought that their coverage was occasionally disgusting (referring specifically the male anchor chap who was on around midnight GMT when they confirmed Jackson’s death). I don’t see why, less than 5 minutes after announcing death, they went and did a hatchet-job character assassination on him! Why skirt the issue for hours and then, as soon as he dies, absolutely slate him and bring people on the phone to try and portray him badly? Not what people wanted to hear at that time, surely? I can’t believe that when they went back to Uri Gellar, the male anchor said “Uri, your friend is dead”, and said it completely deadpan and without compassion. What a twat.

Truly this was the first time that twitter has broken a story for me, and it has been ‘interesting’ to read the reports of the roles of social media in this instance. I just wish that the subject matter had been a happier one.

I think I understand why a lot of people feel confused about all of this. I never met the chap, never saw him, and only really knew him through his music (which I adored and has landmarked key moments of my life thus far); however I feel a strange feeling of loss and sadness. My family is small, so I don’t really have too much experience of death and so I do feel at a bit of a loss as to how I am feeling, how I’m supposed to feel, and why I do. I’m still slowly getting used to the idea of ‘he’s really not with us any more’.

I sincerely don’t think that we will ever see such an immense public reaction as this again, and I think that it really did come straight out of left-field… I mean, he was only 50 years old! It really does make you appreciate the fragility of life. I am still struggling to comprehend all of this I think… perhaps when the media hype quietens down, I’ll be able to process my thoughts a little more clearly. I hasten to add that I am not one of these die-hard-I love you Michael-kind of fans, moreover I am a lover of music, and I think that Jackson truly was the master of his craft!

My favourite song of his (and one of my all-time favourites) has to be ‘Beat It’:

So many of my memories include Jacko songs, especially some great nights out back in the Village in Manchester – with most of them revolving around this song.

Back in the day when I was at college and all of my friends were getting into thrash metal, and I wasn’t(!), they used to tease me that the music that I listened to was manufactured rubbish (in fairness, at the time, it largely was heh!). However the next day, I came in and put on ‘Beat It’ and we all rocked out to Van Halen’s guitar riff, danced around the common room and agreed that even though Jacko wasn’t thrash metal, he certainly was very, very cool!

I really don’t think his success will ever be matched, and I would say that I think we’ve genuinely lost *the* biggest star that we will ever produce in our generation. Through his music, and the decades/generations to follow, I am sure he will live on. Certainly, when I am old and half-dead, you can bet I’ll still be skipping along paving stones to ‘Billy Jean’ and contemplating how I can fit ‘Thriller’ and myself as a zombie into my funeral to give everyone a fright heh.

“Music has been my outlet, my gift to all of the lovers in this world.
Through it — my music, I know I will live forever.” Michael Jackson.

RIP x

Build up to Eurovision 2009 (Moscow)

Wow, I really love some of the artwork surrounding this year’s show!

Even YouTube have designed a Moscow 2009 YouTube logo especially for the show (though they seem to have forgotten to update the logo on the Eurovision YouTube channel… doh!)

The artwork and all the little mini-films that they make for each of the countries involved are usually the highlight of the whole thing for me, and so I’m really looking forward to seeing what they’ve come up with this year!

Without a doubt though, the thing that I am looking forward most to this year is when they link up with a space station and get them to open the voting across Europe… HOW EXCITING!

For anyone looking for a Eurovision Score-Sheet to use at home, the BBC have a fab one; accessible HERE (it’s a .pdf so may take a little while to open – which it’ll do in a new browser tab).

No doubt I’ll make time to do a blog post on Moscow 2009, much in the same vein as I did last year.

On the subject of last year, I am STILL absolutely loving Sweden’s entry and listen to it on an astoundingly frequent basis!

In a bid not to ruin anything for myself for the final, I have avoided all the semi-final performances etc. To my mind, what’s the point in watching on Saturday if you’ve already seen them all perform?! It’s far more pleasurable, in my opinion, to watch on Saturday night and then go back to YouTube afterwards to see the non-qualifiers!

I think that Eurovision is going to be an event that dominates social media and perhaps will do quite a lot for twitter. The number of journos and bloggers who are either actually working the event in Moscow at present, or else reporting from home, is phenominal. In addition to all of their tweets (which have been coming thick and fast all week into my twitter feed), I am sure that all of the people that I follow will also be tweeting away. This will be the first ‘big’ event that the UK / Europe will want to talk about en massé and so it’ll be very intriguing to see just how a-buzz twitter becomes!

We shall see…!

Manchester Pride 2009 : Tickets now onsale!

WHOOP!

I’m already rather planned for this; I sorted my hotel and whatnot way back on Boxing Day 2008, and am sorting myself out with Big Weekend Tickets over this holiday weekend. Excitement took over I think heh!

Hopefully this year, whilst they’re giving out all of the stickers, cards and fun stuff at the parade, I won’t only get targetted by the STD people…! Oh, the shame!!!

The Early Bird tickets for this year’s event went onsale on 1st May.

Big Weekend Tickets are currently priced at £12.50. Daily tickets are also available in advance at £10 per day.

(NB -  prices will go up to £17.50 for Big Weekend after 1 July 2009, and prices for all Adult ticket types at the Box Office on the day will be significantly higher)

Although tickets do not ’sell out’ per sé (there’s usually unlimited quantity), the hike in price is a good enough reason to buy them early if you already know that you’ll be going is it not?!

In my opinion, you’re best off buying the tickets in person at the usual outlets in Manchester so as to avoid the booking/delivery fee, though if that’s not possible, or if you want to book online, you can do so via See Tickets.

Can’t wait to be back home and partying like anything once again! Manchester Pride is definitely one of the highlights of the year.

Hurrah!

Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince

Surely this has to be one of the most eagerly anticipated movies of the year?!

I CAN’T WAIT!

Posted a couple of trailers below, one is one of the ‘old’ ones from 2008, whereas the second is the new (and final) trailer which has just been released.

Although the dementors do not attack London in the book, I do think that it adds a great twist to the movie. I work near to Trafalgar Square, so for all I know, I could now be a movie star hehe!! Alas, I don’t recall seeing any dementors over the skies when I was passing through…

Some of the scenes were filmed at my local rail station too, so that’ll be interesting to see too.

I really cannot wait for the release of this film… it looks to be one of the highlights of the year!

Don’t you just love it when…

… in the middle of the Oscars, Beyoncé starts singing bits of your favourite music in a number called ‘Musicals Are Back!’ ?

The Youtube link above is unfortunately ambiguously labeled (and poorly spelt too!), however, Beyoncé, Hugh Jackman, Amanda Seyfried, Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens all appear.

I have been looking forward to seeing this since I first heard about it a week or so ago… I have to say that it isn’t stunning and admit that it does get a little lost in itself pretty much from the onset, however it still counts fab in my books.

The best bit…? It definitely has to be at 1:17 on the clip, “Wait a minute… something’s missing…”

Oh, and hurrah to Slumdog Millionaire for doing so well (amazing film), and although I’m a little miffed to see The Dark Knight didn’t pick up too many technical awards, they did OK, and Heath Ledger’s posthumous Oscar award for Best Supporting Actor was definitely deserved!

UNIX time system reaches 1234567890 seconds old

Just a quick one to give a passing nod to the UNIX time system, which will ‘celebrate’ reaching 1234567890 seconds old on Friday 13th February 2009.

Or, to re-phrase, at 23:31:30 GMT on 13/02/2009 it will be 1234567890 seconds since 00:00:00 GMT on 1/1/1970, which was the UNIX epoch.

I hasten to add that it is not just UNIX operating systems which make use of this process, most operating systems do these days.

For example have you ever tried to put a date into Microsoft Excel and it’s come out with a date in the 1970s (normally 01/01/1970)?  It happens all the time to me – especially when trying to input 2010 dates! Most date detail is actually stored as a number in computer operating systems – once again, playing around with data formats in Microsoft Excel is a rather good way of illustrating this point.

Although Friday 13th is being referred to as ‘epoch’ by many, this definition is technically incorrect, as an epoch would refer to a defining moment at the creation of something… which this is not – 00:00:00 01/01/1970 was though.

Friday is  just a really cool thing for slightly weird people like myself who derive a degree of satisfaction when numbers work in a way like this!

Abtruse Goose has a grand sketch which really does sum it all up hehe…

Here’s a link to a nice little site which has a count-down (or should that be count-up!) clock which shows when the Unix clock will reach 1234567890 and whatnot.

I’ll leave the final words with Dilbert:

Enjoy!

Happy Birthday!

Just a small post to reference that it is my blog’s first anniversary today! Hurrah!

I’m very happy with the stats that I’ve been able to generate over this past year, so thanks to all for reading and following! Marvellous work!

Also, today marks the day that I am closer to being the age of 24 than I am to the date that I turned 23… yes, it’s that regular despair that I feel when I realise that I now have to start referring to myself as ‘nearly 24′.

Here’s a link to my first post on this blog… it seems strange that a year ago today I was worrying about exactly the same thing! I guess my outlook on life hasn’t changed as much as I thought it had in the last year!

I am really worried that I may end up having some kind of mid-young-adult-life crisis, such as this… or even worse… this! hehe.

24 will also be my last year in that awesome 18 – 24 age bracket on all of the surveys.

Ah well, can’t win them all, eh?!