August 10, 2018

Dutch singer Glennis Grace rocks America’s Got Talent

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 9:03 am

Anyone in the Netherlands who has heard Amsterdam’s Glennis Grace sing knows how fantastic she sounds in both Dutch and English. But in today’s America-obsessed Netherlands [constant comparisons to the US in all fields], if you make it big in the US in English, you’ve reached the top, at least in music.

These days Glennis Grace has been batting them out of the park, to use a baseball expression on America’s Got Talent. At 40, she’s not the doe-eyed 20-year-old looking for validation as annoyingly pointed out by judge Simon Cowell in not so many words in the video below. Glennis also addresses comments to Mel B on the panel, while Cowell finds a way of making it about himself, which doesn’t bother the worldly Glennis one bit.

The next step is singing live with six other contestants. Glennis has met them all and says they are good, but that she plans to stay focused on herself. As well, she’s keeping which song she’ll be singing in the next round a secret, but won’t give any details except that it’s a difficult song to sing.

Listen to Glennis Grace charm the room with ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ by Prince:

(Link: nu.nl, Photo of Microphone by visual dichotomy, some rights reserved)

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July 26, 2016

A singing bike path gets its own sign

Filed under: Bicycles by Orangemaster @ 9:43 pm
Pink bike

The town of Drimmelen, Noord-Brabant has built a one-kilometre long ‘singing bike path’ (an official traffic sign), encouraging people to sing on their bikes and hopefully continue singing when they see another cyclist rather than stop singing.

The idea came from artist Mapije de Wit, a former columnist for the Fietsersbond cyclists union. The special bike path was officially opened by city council member Jan-Willem Stoop for which local troubadour Rinus Rasenberg wrote a song, saying he got some of his best ideas while cycling. In 10 minutes of cycling you can belt out three hit songs or maybe one or two if you keep forgetting the words.

The bike path is a comfortable three metres in width and is part of a nice 17-kilometre network of paths around the town.

(Link: www.waarmaarraar.nl)

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February 25, 2016

Singing off-key is also a thing in the Netherlands

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 10:39 am

The Netherlands has had the imported idea of a choir for people who can’t sing since at least the summer of 2015, according to newspaper AD. The band of bad singers is called Geen Gehoor, a great Dutch double entendre roughly meaning ‘nobody hears you’ (also ‘not getting an answer on the phone’) and ‘it sounds terrible’. The choir mostly attracts the 50 plus set, and the choir practices in the Westland area near The Hague.

Founder Nico Meijer makes an excellent point: people who can’t sing should be able to sing somewhere. And the Internet will tell you how much singing is good for your mood even if you sing off-key. It also makes for a great comedy show.

Have a listen to their first ever live show:

(Links: www.ad.nl-1, www.ad.nl-2, Photo of Microphone by visual dichotomy, some rights reserved)

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March 22, 2013

Skrillex’ Bangarang sung a cappella

Filed under: Music by Branko Collin @ 8:49 pm

Says 3FM: “3FM DJ Roosmarijn asked a Dutch choir to make an a cappella version of Bangarang by Skrillex. She got Dario Fo to sing it in her program 3VOOR12RADIO on Wednesday 20 June [2012].”

Skrillex’ own version never got higher than 59 in the Dutch Mega Single Top 100 according to Dutchcharts.nl.

The Theatre Choir of Dario Fo, as its full name is, has a ‘making of’ video on its website.

(Video: Youtube. Image: crop of a video still.)

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February 13, 2009

Anouk in New York: Jerusalem

Filed under: Music by Branko Collin @ 9:03 am

Here’s one to help you slide into the weekend with outward poise and heart aflutter. A girl from The Hague called Anouk shot this home video with two of her buddies while in what appears to be a hotel room in New York.

Tip ‘o the hat to Olaf for this find. Originally from Anouk’s website, but that one lacks all the Youtube niceties.

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