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OTHER MUSIC
OTHER FINNISH BANDS: NORTHERN KINGS
2007 is about to end when all the radios, expecially in Finland, start to play a song that we all, more or less, already know.
It's "We Don't Need Another Hero", originally sung by Tina Turner, covered by a new supergroup... not a band like the others, but the union of four big figures of the most successful Finnish metal.
They are the Northern Kings, composed by Jarkko Ahola (Teräsbetoni, Dreamtale), Marco Hietala (Nightwish, Tarot), Tony Kakko (Sonata Arctica) and Juha-Pekka Leppäluoto (Charon).
They wanted to create something special and different together, and their debut is "Reborn": an album of 80s classics revisited in a metal version... this album has become gold in Finland for sales in excess of 15,000 copies.
After "Reborn" (exactly in November 2008), comes "Rethroned" with a rich and amazing tracklist... including covers like "Take On Me" of A-HA, "Wanted Dead of Alive" of Bon Jovi and "Nothing Compares 2 U" of Sinead O'Connor.
The Japanese version of the second album includes even "They Don't Care About Us" of Micheal Jackson. The band hasn't yet undertaken any kind of tour, certainly because of the commitments with their main bands, but they played at Radio Rock Finlandia on December 5th 2008, with bands like Amorphis, Apulanta, and Mokoma; and at the Finnish 'Eurovision Song Contest' Finals on February 11th 2009, a fairly recent show.
For now we enjoy the first two cds of this superband, and we impatiently expect other metal rearrangements of more or less famous songs that have made us dream in the past.
My Selene-Roberta
Discography:
"Reborn"
1. We Don´t Need Another Hero
2. Don´t Bring Me Down
3. Sledge Hammer
4. I Just Died In your Arms Tonight
5. Hello
6. Ashes To Ashes
7. Broken Wings
8. Brothers In Arms
9. Rebel Yell
10. Creep
11. In The Air Tonight
12. Don´t Stop Believing
13. Falling On Hard Times
"Rethroned"
1. Training Montage / Wanted Dead Or Alive
2. Kiss From A Rose
3. A View To A Kill
4. Nothing Compares 2 U
5. My Way
6. Strangelove
7. Take On Me
8. Should Be So Lucky
9. Killer
10. Roisin Dubh / A Rock Legend
Video
- We Don't Need Another Hero (Reborn 2007)
- Kiss From a Rose (Rethroned 2008)
THE GUNS' RETURN: CHINESE DEMOCRACY
No one could have ever given it a pence to believe that, on November 23rd of 2008 the musical scene would have finally seen the release of one of the most discussed album of the last decade. We are talking about “Chinese democracy”, the long awaited album of Guns’n’Roses, that came to light after 15 years of gestation. In this period of time there has been the occasion to hear several rumours, that have been denied and then confirmed and then, afterwards, denied again. There is quite nothing left from the old Guns’n’Roses in fact, starting from the band members. Just Axl Rose and the keyboardist Dizzy Reed are the old part of the group, the rest of the members are people mostly unknown to the great public.
Someone says that there is nothing but the shadow of the old Guns’n’Roses in this album. Is Axl losing the old strength that was a prerogative of him many years ago? It must be said that Guns’n’Roses , and above all the frontman, have grown up in a certain sense. Perhaps they don’t have the same cutting lyrics such as “Get in the ring” or “Back off bitch”. There will be missing the old ballads as “Don’t cry” or the ever green “November rain”, the fact is that G’n’R, in the good or in the bad, are back to make people talk about them.
The hardest fans, the ones of the old period, have rejected this album that, perhaps due to the long wait, was full of expectations that have been a full delusion for the detractors.
Perhaps the ones who will label this album as a fail were expecting the good old Axl swearing in his always ribald way, against journalists, women, politics and whatsoever came into his range. Certainly now he’s not denying himself to show his ideals and what he’s against of, but he’s doing it with consciousness and strong with the fact that it’s not necessary to fill the rhymes and lyrics of a song with insults to let the world understand how much dangerous or wrong is every thing it may be.
“Chinese democracy” could be compared to “Use your illusion I and II” and it surely is farther from the scratchy “Appetite for destruction”. The sounds are more precious with no doubt, orchestral and fluid even if electronic is too much powerful.
But is it really so horrible this album as many of the great journalist have repeated for weeks and weeks after its release? The answer lies in the ears and in the taste of the listeners because it much depends from what we are expecting to find in there. If you think to listen to the old Guns’n’Roses of the 80’s and 90’s then you will be of course deceived.
Because yes, these sound like and are like another band. Perhaps the 46 years old Axl should have released “Chinese democracy” as a solo album and not related with the name of the old band.
Surely fans would have appreciated it much more and, probably, wouldn’t have felt so hijacked of the sonorities that characterized old Guns’, the ones of Axl, Slash and Duff.
Because the weight and fame that the name “Guns’n’Roses” carries on its shoulders in the musical scene is impossible to substitute.
It was a sort of “label” that meant success, stingy and really soaked by good rock songs that always have been a prerogative of this band.
And probably even Axl have never realized what he created in the past and that now seems to be quite erased.
It’s a pity because “Chinese democracy” is, in the end, a good album. But it surely is the name “Guns’n’Roses” that clashes on the sides of the cover.
Tracklist
1. Chinese Democracy
2. Scraped
3. Shackler's Revenge
4. Street Of Dreams
5. If The World
6. Better
7. This I Love
8. There Was A Time
9. Riad N' The Bedouins
10. Sorry
11. I.R.S.
12. Catcher
13. Madagascar
14. Prostitute
Kitiara77 - Laura (translated by Nailedtoacross)
Planned and developed by Mrs Lindstrom with the help of Nailedtoacross, Legolas di Mirkwood,
Shikaia590 Editor in chief: Mrs Lindstrom, Graphic Project: Dan[616]
