16/09/2012

What’s New This Week On The British Music Scene

Gerry and the Pacemakers
Jerry and the Pacemakers
Filed UnderEntertainment TagsNewsMatt CardleSimon CowellDidoSycoLondonUK Singles ChartHillsborough disasterMany of HorrorGerry and the PacemakersMichael Kiwanukamusic .
Gerry and the Pacemakers © Stirring Trouble Internationally Google+
Freddie Matthews writes from London: In a week that saw the announcement of a mass police evidence cover up, after the tragic Hillsborough stadium disaster, when 96 football fans died in a crush in the stands, surprisingly or probably not if you think about it, this week we’re kicking off – yes it’s a football pun – with a song about to smash its way back into the UK chart, some 49 years after it first made an appearance. 
It’s the welcome return of Gerry and The Pacemakers with the song You’ll Never Walk Alone. Originally from the hit Rogers and Hammerstein musical Carousel, it became a Liverpool Football Club terrace match day anthem as long ago as 1963. 
The recent music awards have unveiled some newish bands and compared them to the older rocker billie songs, read on to find out more, be sure to leave a comment please.
At the time the song spent four weeks at the top of the UK singles chart and after all, Gerry and The Pacemakers, like The Beatles, were from Liverpool (near where the Hillsborough stadium disaster tool place) so the city was already celebrating a huge high in the music industry.
Over the years many other football clubs worldwide including Scotland’s Glasgow Celtic, Germany’s Borussia Dortmund and Japan’s F.C. Tokyo, have also adopted the song, although I really can’t imagine it translated into German let alone Japanese.

Matt Cardle
Matt Cardle
Even after all these years this emotional classic is worth an impressive 8.1 out of 10.



Other Brits worthy of a mention this week include former X-Factor winner Matt Cardle. You may well remember that he won a £1 million recording contract with Syco Music.

Yes, that’s Simon Cowell’s record label, but that was two years ago and to be frank Matt Cardle’s success has limped along when compared to many other previous X-Factor winners.

OK, when I say struggled, he’s actually sold over two million singles and albums in the last two years. This is by no means a shabby performance but most of those sales were his X-Factor winning single and even that was a cover of the far better Biffy Clyro performed original single ‘When We Collide’ (Many of Horror).

Mr Cardle has enlisted one of the best song writers in the business to help him out with the new single, namely Paul Statham.

You might not know it but he co-wrote Dido’s debut single ‘Here With Me’. Watch out for, this is getting boring now, Matt’s X-Factor performance and subsequent album release which in turn is ‘just in time for Christmas’.

The album released on the same day as the single, October 29th, is called The Fire and this first single from it is It’s Only Love, that's nothing to do with a similar song by Gerry and The Pacemakers.
To put Matt Cardle’s success, or mostly lack of it, into some perspective, Dido’s debut album alone, the 1999 masterpiece No Angel went on to sell over 21 million copies and all ‘without’ the help and guidance of Simon Cowell.

By the way, ‘it’s Only Love’ struggles to a poor 5.3 out of 10.

Michael Kiwanuka
Michael Kiwianuka
If you’re looking for something a little more unusual this week, then how about the Mercury Music Prize nominated Michael Kiwanuka?

His album Home Again has already been out for a few months and sold over 400,000 copies. But off the back of his Mercury nomination it would almost be rude not to release a new single, what with all this new interest in the singer with the strange surname.

The single Bones is released on September 24th and I give it 7 out of 10. Other British singles released in the next week include: Delilah with Shades Of Grey, the Hackney singer would seem to be after the female vote with this appropriately named song conveniently very similar to a certain steamy book a lot of women have been reading, or should I say perving over, lately. Dundee in Scotland’s high energy wild boys of pop, The View, return with another single for their 4th album Cheeky For A Reason.

The Clock is a great builder of a song, with some impressive writing skills involved, proving that these lads have matured with age, despite the renegade attitude. There’s even more London talent around as Jess Mills releases her new single For My Sins.

All I can say is that she’s signed to Island Records, so enough said, well certainly in music industry terms anyway. She’s a music phenomenon waiting to explode. And finally fans young and old will be buying the new Mumford & Sons single I Will Wait by the bucket load as the band go from strength to strength, despite being named after what sounds like a furniture removals company.

Via Stirring Trouble Internationally - (A humorous take on news and current affairs).
Matt Cardle winner of the X-Factor 2010
Matt Cardle winner of the X-Factor 2010 (Photo credit: fluterirl).
Filed Under: Entertainment Tags: News, Matt Cardle, Simon Cowell, Dido, Syco, London, UK Singles Chart, Hillsborough disaster, Many of Horror, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Michael Kiwanuka, music .

No comments: