Doris Day’s ‘Whatever will Be, Will Be’. Written by Ray Evans and Jay Livingston hit number one on the week beginning 10th August in both the USA and the UK
The year is 1956 and Alfred Hitchcock is making a new thriller, The Man Who Knew Too Little, with support form actors(tress) Doris Day and James Stewart, and the producers insisted that Doris must be given a song during.
Hitchcock, adverse to the idea at first however, agreed to meet with the songwriters, and the three agreed that a song may be most appropriate during a scene in which she puts her son to bed. The songwriters had been watching The Barefoot Contessa featuring Rossano Brazzi and had decided to base a song around the shows motto, ‘Que Sera Sera’. When Hitchcock heard the first few bars he said “Gentleman, I told you I didn’t know what song I wanted, but this is the kind of song I want”.
The Hitchcock blonde sang it in the film but she was reluctant to release it as a single as she felt it was a children’s song. Her song Que Sera Sera, however, became one of the first ever transatlantic number ones.
Before release, the song was retitled to ‘Whatever Will Be, Will Be’ because unless it was in English it would not be eligible for an Oscar! The song won an Oscar too, much to Cole Porter’s quite public annoyance as he had expected to win. The song was up against ‘True Love’ from the film High Society.
The song later became the theme tune for the TV series, The Doris Day Show. Doris said that the song almost perfectly reflected her philosophy of life, “I strongly believe in the inevitability of everyone’s life pattern. Our destinies are born with us”.
Hello there, did you have a nice weekend? I didn’t, someone came into my house and kindly punched a hole into the fence in my back-garden with his irritating fist. Would you like to know what cheered me up? Bella Union have uploaded a taster of Philip Selway‘s (Radiohead drummer, sort it out!) album, due for release in two weeks.
It’s not a million miles away from Radiohead, whether that’s a good or bad thing I suppose is for you to decide. I liked it and I think if you’re a Radiohead fan you’re definitely going to listen to it at some point, regardless of how good it is.
Somewhere between 5 and 50 times a day I get asked this question; “can you put my band/music on your blog? You can! OK, what do you need me to send you?”. The question isn’t always phrased exactly like that, sometimes it’s less specific than that, sometimes it’s an email that leads absolutely nowhere, sometimes it’s an msn chat that I don’t really have time for.
In short; yes, I am almost always willing to consider any music for this blog. It’s my favourite thing to do, find new music and share it with the world/few hundred people that bother to read this blog.
Every week I delete dozens of emails without even looking at the music I’m being directed to, simply because the person sending me the music hasn’t made it easy enough for me to work with. I’ve spoken to several other music bloggers on this and they’ve all experienced the same.
This is why I’m here to give you a hand, with my top tips for contacting music bloggers and a few ideas as how best to get your music featured on a blog.
1) Basic Manners
You would not believe how many emails I get that start “Here’s my band, check it out” or even worse, just a link to a MySpace page. It’s quite rude. A short hello and introduction is all I’m asking for.
2) Don’t Waffle
Yes, I want you to introduce yourself and give a brief description as to what you are. No, I don’t want your life story (unless it’s VERY interesting and worth writing about). If you have a press release, please don’t send it to me. If you have a badly written press release that your mate has written and you send it to me then there is a good chance I’ll use it to ridicule you later on.
3) Basic Information
Following on from the last two points on what not to write, here is what you should write; your artist/band name, members of the band, basic set up of the band, 50 maximum describing the band and most importantly how you see yourself stylistically.
4) Links
As much as I want to hear your music, I don’t want to download loads of mp3s and load them into iTunes etc. Send me a link where I can hear your music, tell me if you’re on spotify. Absolutely don’t ask me to go to iTunes and pay to download your music (so many people do this).
If I select you for review what I want is; a website/MySpace, a place where you can buy the music so I can advertise you and something I can embed in the blog post – soundcloud, youtube, vimeo…
and finally… 5) Make your email easy to read and work with
Here is what I would consider to be the perfect email from an artist;
Hi Luke, I saw your blog and would like it if you could review my band for it. My name is Rupert Piffle and I’m in a band called The Old Piss Farmers.
We are a lo-fi, electro-punk band and have just released our E.P – Piss Farming For First Timers.
You can hear the E.P in full on our MySpace page and on band camp, where you can also download it for £2. I have uploaded a track to SoundCloud for you.
Thanks,
Rupert
Obviously I’ve not included any links because none of those things exist, but hopefully you get the jist…
Anyway, if you want to be reviewed on this blog then please do get in touch, I’ll be more than happy to listen to your music and I hope this post has helped.
Up to anything exciting this weekend? Maybe a garden party, going out clubbing or just hanging out on your own at home starring at your bum? All of these things I’m sure would be improved with some new music attacking your ear drum.
Here are some of my favourite free SoundCloud play lists that I’ve been made aware of this week.
If you would like something to be included in further blog posts then please get in touch; luke@routenote.com or @monkeyhotel
First, here’s NME’s playlist of the 50 best new bands from 2010. There’s some really good stuff in here, the highlight for me being Darwin Deez (number 44). This is a good, reliable playlist that will happily whir away in the background whilst you get up to whatever sordid activities you choose to over the weekend.
Next, an artist I plugged earlier this week in my music suggestions, Ambeson. If you did the honourable thing and bothered to listen to the album I uploaded earlier in the week and liked it, then why not try his remix playlist? Varied, eclectic and relaxing stuff. Ideal for that post clubbing chill out session (yes, sometimes I like to talk like a moron, what of it?).
And finally some Danish dance music. Here is the upcoming releases set from Danish based indie label Melonsound. Another solid playlist that you should be able to happily play in the background at any social gathering without too many complaints.
Good morning and good Friday (no, not that kind of good Friday) to you. Want to see something cool before the weekend do you? Well, why not take a look and have a listen to the (relatively) new Smashing Pumpkins song ‘Freak’ on their customised SoundCloud player below?
OK, so the big fans amongst you will have heard this song already, fine. You might not have seen the customised SoundCloud player before, and it really is a thing of beauty.
This week I have two new artists that I hope will help make the remainder of your week a tad more tolerable. Why not have a little listen, eh?
First up is a “dazzling, seductive and warm tour de force” according to the homepage of her own website – Claire Simone.
Claire is already an established artist with a decent enough fan base, who serves up delicious and very digestible soul dishes that you could do a lot worse than checking out. You can find out more about her three releases here and I have inserted a track from her latest album Organic.
My second (and final) suggestion this week is an artist whose album I am currently reviewing. Ambeson is an electronic producer type who makes some pretty interesting stuff happen in a very sparse and tasteful way. Linked below is a generous free taster from his most recent album When Colours Flow, which is available to listen to and buy on bandcamp if you click here.
Here’s something fun to settle you into both your Monday and indeed your week; a rap battle between two people who seem confused as to what a microphone is.
Astonishingly this was filmed in 2005, which makes one wonder what the hell kind of equipment these jokers were shooting their production with and who on earth was funding this obvious community project.
This is one of the most absurd videos I’ve ever seen, and hope it brings you as much joy as it did for me.
After my post last week on Stop Motion Music I was emailed by a number of readers with links to things similar.
Like I said last week, I’m a total sucker for this kind of youtube nonsense and as much as I’d love to post everything I ever find, I don’t think there’s enough space on the internet for it.
Today I would like to share with you something I first got sent around 6 months ago, but was kindly reminded of by an emailer called Lukas (thank you).
Kutiman became a bit of a youtube sensation for his project Thru You, where he took clips of youtube videos and edited them together, making one beautiful mess of a video.
Here is my favourite of his efforts. Please check out his website for more.
Do you know who Zoot Woman are? If yes, then congratulations, if no, don’t worry, neither did I until about 5 minutes ago when their new single popped up on soundcloud’s facebook page.
Having heard the new single I thought it best to share it with you. I rather like it and am currently in the process of listening to all of their album’s on spotify, maybe you could do the same on this wet Thursday?
The single ‘Blue Sea’ is taken from the album Things are what they used to be which can be purchased by clicking here.
Welcome to the second of my midweek music suggestions.
Still doing this on a bit of a trial basis, but had a good enough response last week to keep it up.
If you would like your music to feature in future posts then please get in touch with me; luke@routenote.com or on twitter @monkeyhotel
Anyway, without further ado, let’s try to make your week pass that little bit faster by getting some new music down your lug-holes.
The first band I’m suggesting to you this week confirm my fears that I’m becoming some kind of Emo wimp in my late twenties. The Murder Act are exactly the sort of post-punk Shoegaze nonsense that I would normally spend a week happily resenting, but I like them, they remind of Joy Division in a very authentic and heart warming way.
Next some rather lovely acoustic music from a man with an extraordinarily unsuspecting name. David Whitwell writes the sort of striped down acoustic music that will please most people with a pulse. I’m currently reviewing his whole album which I’ll post for you all in the following weeks, watch out for it.
And finally, a band I initially expressed a lot of interest in, entirely because of their excellent name. Outback Eskimos (see, wonderful name) turned out not to be entirely up my street, but I think they might be up the street of the general music listening public which I assume you, dear readers, are a part of. Give them a chance, it’s the least you can do…
may be most appropriate during a scene in which she puts her son to bed. The songwriters had been watching The Barefoot Contessa featuring Rossano Brazzi and had decided to base a song around the shows motto, ‘Que Sera Sera’. When Hitchcock heard the first few bars he said “Gentleman, I told you I didn’t know what song I wanted, but this is the kind of song I want”.
