SOUNDTRACK: LORDI-“Hard Rock Hallelujah” (2006).
When browsing the Wikipedia entry on Gwar, I learned that the Finnish band Lordi (of whom I’d never heard) won the 2006 Eurovision song contest with what is essentially a Gwar-lite stage show.
Unlike Gwar, this Lordi song is extremely catchy and easy to digest (as all Eurovision songs tend to be). But like Gwar it is fairly heavy and the band are in outrageous costumes (think glam period Kiss with crazy death-monster masks on–how does he sing with all that crap on his face?).
The singer has quite the voice (he sing/speaks in a cookie monster style (but audible–a sort of radio-friendly version of cookie monster) but he also hits very high notes). The song is an anthemic sing-along like many metal songs from the early 80s (although it’s also pretty heavy). And, if you listen closely to the bridge it’s sounds a bit like Abba’s “Gimme Gimme Gimme”. It’s pretty cheesy and that’s clearly why it won Eurovision, and yet I find that after listening to it twice, I was humming it all day.
It’s fun to hear the comments after the song (I wish the recording was longer), but even more amazing is that they won with 292 points (the highest victory ever). I’m so delighted for them (and for Eurovision that this preposterousness won).
A recent interview sounds like they have gotten heavier than this in recent years (“Bite It Like a Bulldog” kind of sounds like Accept).
Good on ya Finland.
[READ: November 8, 2010] “Breakup Stories”
I’ve been reading a lot of Franzen’s non-fiction in the New Yorker, so it’s nice to get back to some of his fiction. Because even though the non-fiction is great, the fiction shows how creative Franzen can be.
This piece is, as the title suggets, a series of breakup stories. It’s really five vignettes about how various couples broke up. There’s “our friend Danni” and “Danni’s college friend Stephen” and “Ron” and “Stephen’s cousin Peter” and “Peter’s friend Antonia.” The “stories” come across mostly as character studies in bad behavior.
Danni’s husband can’t admit that he doesn’t want children (and he takes the cowardly way out, what a cad). Stephen’s fiancée hates that he devotes so much of his time to helping nuns (that’ a funny story). Ron is a serial monogamist. He hits it big with an inheritance and tries to settle down, but when he finds out that he can’t, he loses more than the woman he stayed with for six whole months. Peter cheats on his wife and tries to make the three of them have a “French-style family relationship.” (more…)
I Just Read About That... 