Passionate by nature

Elena Krovvidi life and her daily activities has been defined by a simple word: passion

A person’s life can be ruled by love, friendship or daily hard work but for Elena Krovvidi, passion is the reason to wake up every single day.
“It doesn’t make sense to live if you don’t have a passion, at least for one thing”, says Elena with a cheerful smile.
In her former job back in Russia, Elena involved this feeling by creating deep and intense documentaries about; for example, elderly care homes in different countries.
“I cried a lot when I interviewed all of this old people and saw the terrible conditions in where so many of them lived”, said the former Tv producer from Russian National Broadcaster.
As she speaks with a strong and confident voice, Elena explains how her career in journalism has become an obsession due to the passion she feels to speak with people.
“I chose journalism because I enjoy passionately listen to people’s stories”, expressed.
When it comes to express her ideas, Elena enjoys doing not only with confident statements but also her body language says even much more.
“I gesture a lot. Every idea I express has a different gesture and I can make a million of gestures a minute”, expressed Elena with a loud laugh and a fast move with her hands.
Travelling is Elena’s most favourite activities in her free time.
This passion has made Elena travelled to different countries all over the world including Italy, Germany, France, India, USA, Austria and Canada
And the journey can continue, Elena believes.
“If I had the opportunity to visit the world I would do it not only once but maybe twice”.

Enjoying her passion in London
Currently, Elena is doing a Master in Journalism in London at the University of Westminster.
Beside the passion she feel for this daily activity, Elena enjoys with passion being at the wide variety of parks this city offers.
“I feel passion about the parks and I love to get lost in them as it seems time stops when you enter a park”.
After Elena finishes her master’s degree she would like to specialize in writing for magazines about psychology, language and arts.
The most important thing is that people express any kind of passion their feel, no matter what kind but express it in any way possible, says Elena while she raises her hand impatiently expressing this idea.

Hooverphonic: Between nostalgia and a 'blue' deep state of mind

Music can make you feel a wide variety of moods, can turn you upside down, can make you vibrate, can twist your emotions, can change your state your mind and in many times can make you submerge deeply in a state called nostalgia.

And when it comes to this 'blue' emotion and beyond it, there is only one band able to create this perfect atmosphere filled with sounds and marvelous musical creations: Hooverphonic.

The band emerged in 1996 from Belgium with a massive influence from the trip-hop movement that already started in Bristol, UK with artists like Portishead and Massive Attack.

However, this belgian act -conformed by Alex Callier, Raymond Geerts and Geike Arnaert- started to mix up the main elements of this musical scene with their own 'musical flavor'.

The journey began with 2 Tricky that became popular as it was part of the soundtrack of an european film of that time.

Their first album A new stereophonic sound spectacular was mainly created with a wide and impressive variety of sounds and effects with the use of synthesizers...Inhaler, Plus profond and Sarangi speak themselves about this.

Two years later, a new album was born, new songs like Battersea, Club Monterpulciano and Magenta keep the same 'blue' and atmospheric state of music, while Eden -originally released by Sarah Brightman- made the band more popular with a more commercial sound.

Everything changed in 2000 when the belgian act released the song Mad about you as this tune became quite popular all over the world and was even included as part of the soundtracks and tv shows. This song showed off the magnificent voice of Geike, the female leader voice of Hooverphonic.

Also, a new character was introduced in this album: Jackie Cane, who seemed to be a mysterious girl with a complex behavior and a weird personality.

Their next album had actually as a massive inspiration in this peculiar person, the name: Hooverphonic presents Jackie Cane.

This new 'baby' combined a wider and different variety of songs, from classic trip-hop creations like One and Opium to a bit rock/pop with Sometimes and The world is mine.

And Jackie Cane fell into a deep and lost stage in the song: Jackie's delirium, a tune that includes music instruments from the Middle East and Africa.

In 2003, Hooverphonic released an album recorded previously in one of their european tours. This included their most important songs from the past 7 years and just a new single: The last thing I need is you.

This album is full with the sounds of strings and cords to stressed an even depressive and blue state of music.

Is it possible to record two versions of the same song in the same album? Hooverphonic believed it and released the bittersweet doubled album: No more sweet music.

This new musical trip includes 11 different songs recorded and presented in two quite different perspectives.

While We all float can remind you of a dessert in Africa, No more sweet music can take you back to the stage of an old bar in the 1950's and Heartbeat can submerge you in a futuristic spaceship of music.

A year later, in 2006, the band celebrated their first decade by releasing a collection of their best 20 singles of their past six albums.

This special album contains also a DVD with their videos and one of their concerts in Belgium.

A mysterious and 'foggy' album was born a year later with the name The President of the LSD Golf Club, in which the influence of trip-hop was the essence of the album.

The singles Circles and Gentle storm were released by the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008.

However, the life of the band was suddenly interrupted by the unexpected announcement of Geike who decided to continued her music career as a solo artist.

Therefore, the band had to split and began the search of a new voice.

The 'haunting' is still on process and, hopefully, next year a new stage and maybe a new era of Hooverphonic will begin.

Despite this, their nine albums and their more than 100 records remain as one of the most original treasure that the musical scene in the world have ever presented: Hooverphonic...between nostalgia and a blue deep state of mind.

If you are interested you can login in their official website to find out more about them and listen to their marvelous creations...

www.hooverphonic.com

Creativity + Combination + Time = worthy compositions

Create a dance tune can be not as easy as you might think

For some Dj's compose a song can be a bit difficult as it may require creativity, time, extravagant combinations and a lot of research...but at the end everything is worthy.
During the past decade, fearless dj's such as Sash!, LMC, Mousse T and Jakatta decided to experiment and take their chances in creating the latest dance tunes with a big inspiration and originality.
In all of these cases, they decided to re-use old songs and mix them with some of their original samples. But it took sometime to release the last version as some of them decided to use the lyrics of one song and the music from other or get inspiration in the score of a movie.
The british Dj Joey Negro has worked during the past decade in various solo projects, each with a different name and characteristics.
One of them was the acclaimed Jakatta, which became famous, mainly, from 2001 to 2004 releasing singles as So Lonely, My vision and American Dream.
This last composition, released by the end of 2001, was definitely the most acclaimed and popular as it is based in two of the main themes from the movie American Beauty.
The result of this mix and chop is the following song: American Dream...


Dance tunes like La Primavera, Adelante and Ecuador were a massive success across Europe and specially in the UK.
The creator: the german producer Sash!, who decided to create an especial edition of the former number 2 Encore une fois, released in 1997.
This version was released last year as a compilation of Sash!'s greatest hits became available last year in stores. But even though it may sound quite catchy, the process to create was quite exhausting.
To create this new version Sash! took as an inspiration the song Insomnia from Faithless and the lyrics of the song Raindrops by the dj Stunt.
The result was quite original and successful as it reached the UK top ten by the beginning of last year. Enjoy the song

The german-turkish dj, Mousse T became massive in 1998 with the release of his first single Horny and later in 2004 with the song Is it cos I'm cool?
But in 2006, he made a remarkable return when he created the song Horny as a Dandy, which is nothing but a combination of his former number one Horny and the song Bohemians like you from the american band The Dandy Warhols.
The combination as it follows:


In 2004 the english dance artist LMC took the melody from that acclaimed song With or without you from U2 and then he mixed the lyrics from Whitney Houston's hit How will I know.
The result was the chart hit Take me to clouds above, single that became quite popular in the UK.

Are contestants in reality musical Tv shows real singers?

The question can be tricky, but what I tried to mean is if even they just compete to these kind of shows can they be consider as a singers? A professional ones?

For me the answer is simple: Yes.

I believe that even they just appear in a competition like this and not afterwards they don't become a formal and popular artist, they still remain as singers.

Their version or covers of the songs they perform in the shows can be consider as an alternative new version...sometimes quite better than the original one.

In Mexico, we have had for the past 7 years or so, different kind of musical reality shows, but the most popular is called The Academy (La Academia).

Each year, a new generation of people compete to reach the top of the contest and become popular in the country.

So far, the show has had 6 different generations of people, loads of singers have had struggled to get to the top but just a few of them have reached that place.

Here are some examples of female contestants that for me were the most talented in these generations...none of them become the most popular but have the talented required to be a professional singer in Mexico.

And yes, they are singers even though they were not quite popular, they have the talent to sing quite well and they can be seen as Mexican Singers.

Enjoy their voice and a piece of good mexican talented singers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHTwMVGEUMk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ft5lfKk4I0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRJ4ObZVGVM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrGHVjmIt08&feature=PlayList&p=175302097E48C269&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BexHCqaQ8gY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHjafmytZM0

The sounds of Scotland

Scotland is not only about beautiful landscapes and old castles, friendly people or ancient cities, it also can be seen as the land where talented artists and bands have emerged.

From pop, indie to rock and electronic music, Scottish acts have gained a good position among different audiences in Great Britain.

Talking about contemporary examples let's start with the classic band Texas who for more than a decade released around 20 singles that reached the UK Charts.

The band became famous in 1989 with the song 'I don't want a lover' who was his first major single. Unfortunately, they separate recently in 2006 when the front man of the band, Sharleen Spiteri, decided to took her on way in the music as a solo artist.

With nostalgic ballads and catchy pop songs, K.T. Tunstall has raised as one of the most prominent talents not only as a singer but as a composer.

Even though, her last album, Drastic Fantastic, didn't become as popular as the first one, she is got now a prominent place in british music.

Who can forget songs like Suddenly I see and Other side of the world?

The rock scene
Scotland has also brought incredible bands that have enjoyed a quite big popularity in the charts.

I will mention some of the latest and probably most popular ones: The View, Glasvegas and Biffy Clyro.

Probably from the three, indie rocker's Biffy Clyro has been the most successful, specially with their current album.

Recent singles like Folding stars, Mountains and The Golden Rule have reached at least the UK top 20. In fact, Mountains has become their major single to date when reached the 5th position last year.

Biffy Clyro's new album, Only Revolutions, was actually released in stores yesterday.

With a catchy and alternative sound, Same Jeans debuted in 2006 in the UK Charts and became The View's most popular rock anthem.

This year, the band released their second album Witch Bitch? and the leading single was Shock Horror.

Last year, Glasvegas became massively popular with their singles: Daddy's gone, Geraldine and Flower and football tops, and even though it was their first album success came steadily.

The electronic sounds
Electro pop best defines Calvin Harris who has become one of the most respectable Dj's in the current electronic scene.

With only two albums, Harris has enjoyed fame and popularity among the whole country with songs like Girls, Ready for the Weekend and Acceptable in the 80's.

Also, he worked with the acclaimed Dizzy Rascal in the song Dance wiv me, which stayed for 3 weeks in the top of the charts last summer.

I'm not alone became his first solo chart-topper to date and currently his third single Flashback reached yesterday the top 20 in the UK Charts.

Now is time to enjoy all of these magic sounds of Scotland that I have been talking about, have a listen...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uIFISklvXY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clY2RAgXpM0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm5PFIRdPfQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhEDbqktSEM

*Main photographs by Luis Dominguez

Calvin Harris and Mr. Hudson rocking London!

It seems to be a promising night, the stage was ready to ‘burn’ and the place was as busy as can be.

It was almost 9 of wednesday last week when suddenly colourful lights came into the stage: red, yellow, green, white, purple…the widest variety I have ever seen.

As the first song started to begin you can already feel its echoes all over the HMV Forum in Kentish Town, London.

This musical venue, located in North London, was being today the house for Calvin Harris’ performance, but before he appeared on stage an unexpected guest came to perform: Mr. Hudson.

The london based artist opened the show with White Lies, the second single of his latest record Straight No Chaser.

The combination of R&B and electropop was the perfect mix to 'warm up' the audience who enjoyed the three other songs he performed in the stage, including his cover of Forever Young.

With Supernova, which debuted at number 2 on the Charts in July, Mr. Hudson end his performance.

Minutes later...the lights dimmed, the public started to shout excited and then the stage was suddenly covered by the music of Calvin Harris.

The scottish DJ, who debuted in the charts in 2007 with the cover of Acceptable in the 80's, began to 'burn' the stage with Merry Making.

The people started to jump and shout as some of the songs from his latest record, Ready for the Weekend, were performed.

The euphoria came specially when the artist performed songs like Ready for the Weekend, Flashback and Girls.

And just when people believed that everything ended came back to the stage to perform I'm not alone, which became his first and yet so far his only chart topper song in the UK.