Tag Archives: Sam Sparro

The Most Perfect Songs Ever: Part One

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While listening to ‘Memphis Tennessee’ by Chuck Berry something struck me: the song is perfect. It has everything: great lyrics, a great story, melody. It even has a twist. The same is true with Sam Cooke’s ‘A Change Gonna Come’ and ‘Love is a Losing Game’ by Amy Winehouse.

I then asked my friends on Twitter and Facebook what their ‘perfect’ songs where. It’s a wide scope my friend, Monty, pointed out. ‘What makes something perfect?’ It was a good question. Truth is: perfection is hard to pinpoint. It is something that just ‘is’. A sigh-worthy song that you listen to for the rest of your life. You might not listen to it for a while, but it will always return.

I quickly found out that this was going to be harder than I thought so I have decided to do it in parts. So here is part one. Let me know what you think.

Chuck Berry ‘Memphis Tennessee’



Amy Winehouse ‘Love is a Losing Game’

The Temptations ‘I Wish It Would Rain’

Neil Young ‘My My, Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue)’

Stevie Wonder ‘For Once In My Life’

Adele ‘Someone Like You’

This has 354,636,439 views on YouTube!

Sam Cooke ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’

John Legend ‘All of Me’

Elvis Costello ‘A Good Year For The Roses’

Ellie Goulding ‘How Long Will I Love You’

Judy Garland ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’

Sam Sparro ‘I Wish I Never Met You’

Lana Del Ray ‘Born To Die’

Jay Z ’99 Problems’

Pharrel ‘Happy’

Blue Swede ‘Hooked On A Feeling’

Sarah McLachlan ‘Angel’

Johnny Cash ‘Hurt’

Now that we have kicked off the list, what song would you add? Let us know via the comments or by emailing frostmagazine@gmail.com

 

Lovebox 2012.

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The 10th anniversary of Lovebox at Victoria Park, East London was a bloody amazing day. I went on Sunday and here are my highlights.

Chic
Nile Rodger’s is responsible for most of the greatest songs since the 1970’s and Chic had all of Victoria Park dancing and singing. At one point thousands of muddy, tipsy Londoners were all singing ‘Like a Virgin’ in unison. A moment I will always remember.

Sam Sparro
Performed with a peacock headpiece and wearing a black suit. He took the blazer off to show a corset. He was an amazing performer. Brilliant songs, great stage performance and during his rendition of his classic ‘Black & Gold’ he jumped into the crowd and rocked out to his own music. Possibly the coolest person EVER.

The Rapture
Brilliant live.They do the Misfits theme tune. You will know their songs even if you don’t know them. Everybody loved them.

Chrystal Fighters
I have never heard of this band before but they ROCKED. Search them out. They are brilliant live. When they came our and started drumming everyone was grooving.

Chaka Khan
Was amazing and had the whole crowd singing ‘I’m Every Women”. She had the most powerful amazing voice and came out singing into a gold diamante microphone. In my short-sightedness I thought it looked like an ice-cream initially.

Lana Del Rey.
I have no idea why Lana Del Rey was on the second stage. She is a stunning and original performer and pretty much everyone made their way to the stage to see her sing. She captivated the entire audience and even came off the stage to shake hands with festival goers. She is just as beautiful and stylish up close. A true superstar who has been unfairly attacked for being wooden and not being able to sing in the past: none of that is true. She has style and substance.

Grace Jones
Was Grace Jones. She gave an amazing, out of this world performance and brought the house down.

My only gripe is that you cannot bring food or drink into LoveBox with you. There is also no re-admission. The food can be quite pricey but there is everything from salads to Ostrich burgers. Lovebox is the full festival experience without the camping.

A lot of people on Twitter said that they were not at Lovebox because they couldn’t afford to. Hopefully next year the economy will pick up and all of London can experience a music festival without leaving the greatest city on earth. Luckily I won tickets at the Sure Maximum/Handpicked Media event.

I found out from this good article how LoveBox got its name.

Sam Sparro Return’s To Paradise.

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New album ‘RETURN TO PARADISE’ released 18th June

Sam Sparro will release his sophomore album, ‘Return To Paradise’, on Virgin records 18th June 2012. Also just confirmed are two very special UK shows in Birmingham and Manchester to celebrate the release.

Part soul crooner, part pop star with an ever-morphing, chameleon-like quality, Sam coasts a fine line between disarmingly earnest and a chic, credible cool. He has become known not only for his distinct, scale-defying vocals and epic live shows, but also as a visual artist and style icon.

Signed to EMI Australia in December 2011 Sam has spent the last couple of years working on the follow up to 2008’s eponymous debut release. With a Platinum single (‘Black & Gold’), a Gold album, a Grammy nomination and 5 Arias under his belt, Sam has also been busy collaborating with the likes of Mark Ronson and Basement Jaxx as well as writing for other artists such as Natasha Beddingfield. His fans include Katy Perry, Beyonce, Cee-Lo Green and Adele who covered ‘Black & Gold’ in the Radio 1 Live Lounge.

Sam’s new album, ‘Return To Paradise’, is a play on nostalgia and “paradise garage” – a genre derived from the hedonistic discotheque scene in New York in the late 70s that began in a parking lot giving rise to the term “garage” famous for its unique and eclectic style of disco and dance music. It has been co-produced with long time collaborator Jesse Rogg.


It took a considerable amount of time as Sam was determined to get it right. “It is the product of a lot of experimenting and songwriting – I changed direction at least 2-3 times, completely. I started doing more rock oriented stuff, then I went in a pop direction and then through the process of scrap booking stuff that was inspiring me I ended up with an album that was influenced by music from 1978 to 1984”.

The central themes are love and loss and the quest for inner joy and happiness. “A lot of the songs are about me trying to find my sense of innocence and peace of mind and things that I felt had escaped me for a while”.

Whilst drawing on influences from the 70s and 80s the album is very contemporary with a modern take on these themes.

Working between the USA and UK – Sam is conscious of the sense of disillusion and struggle many people are facing. “I know things in Australia are still pretty good but things in America – especially with the economy, people are struggling and disillusioned and looking for escapism and when times are tough people resort to nostalgia”.

During the process of making this album Sam says he tapped into a new found confidence to become a more prolific song-writer and generally more self assured. “I’m more comfortable now and I’ve left things a little bit raw and not completely polished – so much modern pop music is so polished that you lose the soulfulness and essence and human touch”.

‘Return To Paradise’ challenges this and triumphs!

Sam will head out on two UK tour dates in next month:

Thu 14th June Birmingham O2 Academy 2 0844 477 2000

Sat 16th June Manchester Deaf Institute 0161 832 1111

Tickets are £10 adv and go onsale Wednesday 9th May at 9am – www.gigsandtours.com / 0844 811 0051