Tonight

“Tonight's the night we make love till the end
Tonight's the night I vow my love to you
Look into my eyes
I'll love you till the end of time
I'm in love with you”

Tonight – TrueBliss

At the end of last week there were a few million people across the world who waited with held breath to see who would take out season two of The X Factor USA. Would it be the thirty something year old country singer finally getting his chance at fame, or the thirteen year old powerhouse with a voice well beyond her years? In the end, it was the country singer who won the $5 million recording contract and international fame. So what’s this got to do with TrueBliss? Well, New Zealand is adopting The X Factor format and screening it early next year, so it pays to revisit the very first winner of a New Zealand reality television singing competition.

Yes, if you didn’t know it, TrueBliss’ fame came through the New Zealand born concept of PopStars. The show’s creator wanted to form a new, five piece girl group, much like The Spice Girls, and doubled the hype by creating a television show to accompany. The format was sold overseas, with Bardot being created in Australia and Hear’Say being formed in the UK. Simon Fuller went on to create Pop Idols, which went to America as American Idol before Simon Cowell adapted the format in his own series, The X Factor. And now, the series is coming to New Zealand with Dominic Bowden hosting, Stan Walker and Daniel Beddingfield two of the judges – with two female judges still to be announced and my hopes still on one of Runga sisters. Thousands of unsigned singers will turn up and sing their hearts out, hoping to be put through to the next round and not told they are “a talent free zone”.

But will this singer or group become a hit in the country? Our previous reality television winners have crashed and burned when they tried to become big. NZ Idol season one winner Ben Lummis is now immersed in charity work and runner up Michael Murphy graces the stage once a year at Christmas in the Park. There’s nothing to be heard of from season two and three winners, and the show was canned after the third round. As for our TrueBliss ladies following their break up, we saw Megan Alatini judging on NZ Idol series three and owning her own business in Dunedin, Joe Cotton hosting on radio and appearing on Celebrity Treasure Island, Carly Binding having a string of successful songs for a few years, Erica Takacs making guest appearances and hosting that Coca-Cola sponsored top 40 show, and Keri Harper doing ... something.

I do hope whoever wins The X Factor New Zealand will make something of themselves in the music industry. Overseas acts have become famous in other countries through the show – Leona Lewis, One Direction, Reece Mastin and Chris Rene to name a few, so why not a Kiwi too. Although, let’s not forget this is for entertainment, and part of the pleasure is watching those first auditions where people hustling for new jobs cannot actually sing, much to the audiences, and later YouTube viewers pleasure. 

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

“Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Make the Yuletide gay
From now on
Our troubles will be miles away, ooh

Here we are as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more”

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas – [Written by] Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane

It is this time of year when people start to think about New Year’s resolution and, among the other common ones such as lose weight, exercise more, start a blog and finally quit smoking, is the resolution to be nicer to people you previously have had altercations with. As with most resolutions, they fall apart within a few weeks because, at the end of the day, New Year’s is simply another day in the calendar and does not have much of a psychological attachment to it as some people claim. And so, by February we are just as nasty to those people we swore we would be nicer to.

It is, quite simply, built into our human systems not to like everyone we meet and not to get along with every colleague and every friend of a friend. You can be the nicest person on this planet earth and there will still be that one person that really, really irks you. Or you could be a person who hates someone for what they did to you in the past – someone who doesn’t deserve your forgiveness or your thoughts around New Year’s resolutions. I think you should save yourself the hassle of the negative thoughts – because I think I’ve got a better solution.

Next week is Christmas. In the religious sense, it is about celebrating the birth of Christ and the way he helped guide people through their lives in Biblical times. For others, Christmas is about family and friends, food and presents, and enjoying the day off. There is so much magic in the air around Christmas time, and through functions prior to the actual day, there is Christmas festivities to share with people who are in such a jolly good mood. Everyone deserves to have a Merry Christmas. From your best friend to your parents, and from the person who you bicker with occasionally to the person you hate the sight of, they deserve to have Christmas spirit. This doesn’t necessarily mean forgiveness or the start of a friendship, but it can mean a simple bit of holiday cheer in whatever way you can manage.

So, to my friends, my family, my colleagues, my university mates, my wonderful blog readers, and the people I really don’t like (whether or not you know it), I truly wish you a Merry Christmas. I hope you have a wonderful day – and if you aren’t a Christmas goer, I wish you a fantastic 25^th of December in what will hopefully be a fine summer’s day. I will see you for a final Kiwi blog next week, then I look forward to bringing your more rambling wisdom and musings in the New Year. 

Get Rhythm

“Hey, get rhythm when you get the blues
Come on, get rhythm when you get the blues
Get a rock 'n' roll feelin' in your bones
Put taps on your toes and get gone
Get rhythm when you get the blues”

Get Rhythm – Johnny Cash

Yesterday was one of the most surreal days I’ve ever experienced. I donned a heavy gown and hood, walked across stage (without tripping, thank goodness) and received the certificate that officially said I have completed my degree. Now, I’ve assumed I was going to graduate throughout my whole university life and knew I would graduate a couple weeks back when I received my final academic results saying I had passed everything. But it wasn’t until I actually received the certificate and put on the trencher when I really realised I had done the degree. And, as surreal as it was to know I had actually done it, there was a large part of me which was proud of myself.

So what now? I have the certificate and the knowledge of three years of uni – well, what I can remember from Media Comm which I haven’t removed from my brain. I’ve made some amazing friends which have resulted in the best memories (and worst mornings, and the occasional times where things don’t quite get done when they should, like Thursday blog posts). As my tutors would say, it is time to face “the real world”. It’s an exciting prospect – my graduates and I are young and living on hopes and dreams and tins of spaghetti when the finances get really bad. I feel like there’s been a part of me which has been in this “real world” for a few years, as I held down a part time job and made sure not to go into debt, and made it a point of interest to meet people who can help me move forward.

But what if it all falls apart? There’s a deep dark part of me which is so worried everything will just fall apart.

 

I guess that’s when I get rhythm. If anyone knows how to cure the blues, it has to be the man in black who nearly ended up in Folsom Prison. And if any song character can still get rhythm when they are the shoe shiner on a windy corner of the dirty street, then surely a graduated university student can get rhythm too, because it does you a world of good. Getting some rhythm helps you calm down and put things in perspective, and figure your way forward. I’ve heard stories of people succeeding through the worst times and it seems nothing is ever too big to be solved if you want to solve it. It might not be able to be solved straight away and it will take some hard work – but in the meantime, you can get your rhythm on to get through it all. 

Somebody That I Used to Know

“But you didn't have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened and that we were nothing
And I don't even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger and that feels so rough
No you didn't have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records and then change your number
I guess that I don't need that though
Now you're just somebody that I used to know”

Somebody That I Used to Know – Gotye feat Kimbra

I’m always happy when it comes to December, because a lot of cool exciting things happen all around the same time.  There is Christmas and all the trimmings which come with it. In New Zealand December means our summer and beach and barbeques. And it’s also a time for countdowns and looking back at what the biggest events of the year were. The news breaks, sport stories and entertainment scandals which made front page news are all put into countdowns to see what the biggest event of the year was (this year it has got to be the Olympics).

It’s also the time of year when we start to look back and determine what the biggest song of the year was. At the end of every year I scour lists to see who put what song where. It began in 2003 during my ZM listening days when I heard their top 103 of ’03 and I waited all day to hear Where is the Love by The Black Eyes Peas was number one. It’s been a yearly obsession since and each year I’ve always disagreed with the website which told me the winners. I often use this website http://www.bobborst.com/popculture/songoftheyear as it is US based and reflects that of Billboard pop charts (which doesn’t give me top songs of the year). I have followed it when it said 2004 went to Usher with Yeah! And 2005 was Mariah Carey, followed closely by Gwen Stefani’s Hollaback Girl. Last year Adele took it out with her smash hit Rolling in the Deep. And, interestingly, in 2002 it claimed Nickelback’s How You Remind Me was the biggest song.

This year there have been some huge hits in the pop charts– Maroon 5 have had two chart topping hits, Carly Rae Jepsen’s song for some reason stayed near the top  for weeks, Katy Perry, fun., Pink, One Direction and Flo Rida have been dominating our Top 40 radio stations ... and Gangnam Style, of course. But my prediction is Goyte feat Kimbra will be the song of the year. I’m not saying just because it is featuring a gorgeous Kiwi girl; it has been chart topping since it broke into the American market at the beginning of the year. It was the number one song on the Billboard charts for 15 weeks in a row and has sold more than six million copies into the market. It is the third-best-selling single of all-time in Australia, with a certified 10 times platinum status. The stats add up to one smash hit song which I think deserves to take out song of the year – but what are your predictions? 

This blog idea came to me from this awesome mash up video