Sorry, everyone, not to have blogged for a long time and to have neglected to let you know that I'm on (unintended) hiatus. I kept hoping I would get back to blogging at any moment, but I just have not been up to it. I will return when I feel like I can blog without it taking too much out of me. I also want to take some time to rethink/redesign/relaunch the blog just as I'd like it.
Apologies also to my Last.fm friends and group members. I'll catch up when I can, but need to continue having a total break for now. Socialising online with everyone has been really fun, but it snowballed into something I couldn't keep up with.
You may also have noticed my Youtube account is once again gone, and I won't be setting up another, as it's too much of a gamble that hours of work will be wiped out at their whim. Instead, I'm migrating to Imeem, where many videos are allowed, since Imeem has deals with labels and pay royalties. And if a copyright holder wants to exercise their right to keep everyone from ever seeing obscure videos, as they are wont to do on Youtube, the video gets cut but I get to keep my account. Hooray! So far I've uploaded one of my faves and my most popular video on Youtube, Marianne Faithfull singing 'Hier ou demain ' in Anna:
Another exciting thing about Imeem is I can upload whole albums for you to listen to on demand. So far I've added France Gall's 3 long players from the 60s - Baby Pop, Les Sucettes and 1968, Francoise Hardy's beautiful 1972 album of mostly English covers album If You Listen, and Sandie Shaw's brilliant, unique 1969 covers album, Reviewing the Situation, with more to come. (Not sure if you have to log in to listen to those).
I've also added a sweet tune sung by Natalie Wood in the 1966 comedy Penelope called 'The Sun is Gray' (ripped from the original soundtrack LP). This is Natalie's real voice, whereas the normally impossibly high standards of the day meant she was dubbed in West Side Story (Marni Nixon) and The Great Race (by Jackie Ward). I'm glad she was for once allowed to use her own voice, which is endearingly imperfect with a lovely, gentle tone. The song was written by Gale Garnett, a singer best known for her 1964 country-pop hit, 'We'll Sing in the Sunshine'.
One more thing before I disappear again for a while: I've created a Yé-yé-themed 'blind test' on Deezer, a French site with tons of great music to stream. The blind test plays a 30 second clip of a song and you have to guess the artist. Play the yé-yé blind test below or go here. (You'll note the slightly odd English translations on Deezer at times!). Enjoy! Bye for now.
Update 21 Jan 2010 - Well so much for Imeem. First they removed video uploading, now they are gone altogether. Instead I've uploaded the Natalie Wood song to (the far superior) Grooveshark. Stream it below, or go here.
The Deezer widget is currently not working. I'll update it when they release their new widget. Happy New Year, everyone :)
Update 2016: Grooveshark packed it in as well in 2015 (and was plagued with legal and ethical issues).
The Deezer blind test never returned. Here's the playlist of the songs that were in the blind test.
mostly
Dom
Lyn
mk
I hope that your health is fine!
mk from Watoo Watoo
yeyeking