Examining a music phenomenon: ABC News Nightline's Chris Connelly interviews pop sensation Justin Bieber: "The Business of Being Bieber"

The Business of Being Bieber 07:55
We're backstage with teen idol and pop sensation Justin Bieber.
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/business-bieber-11474697




When I saw last Tuesday that ABC News Nightline would be doing a segment that night on teen singer Justin Bieber, I must admit that I was of two minds about actually watching it.

The first was the old default attitude that I grew-up with as a guy coming of age in the 1970's, one that had usually proven so accurate, which was that if 95% of a singer's fan base consisted of young teenage girls, with posters in their bedrooms of unicorns, or, if they were REALLY wild, posters of unicorns AND whomever the singer/group was -Bay City Rollers, perhaps?- chances were pretty good that most self-respecting teenage guys would NOT respect them as an artist.

History is replete with examples proving this music & social theorem so there's no point in my
kicking that can all over again.
And certainly every news video I've seen of Bieber over the past year prior to last Tuesday, if I even paid attention to it, showed that his fan base was... well, about as expected, albeit perhaps with less unicorn posters these days, and in the U.K., probably also including posters of girl group, The Saturdays. http://www.thesaturdays.co.uk/

On the other hand, for all of Bieber's apparent popularity, and knowing who he was, I'd never actually listened to one of Bieber's songs, since I don't actually listen to Miami's FM radio stations and couldn't name one of his songs to save my life, though I could, to save my life, name the entire Dolphins' or Orioles' 1972 roster, or recount key plays, good and bad, from closely following the Dolphins since 1970 and the Hurricanes from 1973, in-person at the Orange Bowl, complete with commentary on the sights and sounds around me.

Yeah, if my life depended on it, I could even tell you which teams baseball Hall-of-Famer Grover Cleveland Alexander pitched for and why the legacy of his greatness and toughness can never be challenged.
Or tell you that the semi-fictionalized biopic on him, starring Ronald Reagan and Doris Day, was much better and more accurate than 75% of the sports-themed films made in the past thirty years. http://www.tcm.com/video/videoPlayer/?cid=319902&titleId=12906

(Or more honest and heartfelt than anything Alex Rodriguez will ever say or do.)

But Justin Bieber, well, he might as well have been the 2010 Slovakian contestant for the Eurovision Song Contest.
Except, of course, that I might've actually heard of THEM, for reasons that I've previously discussed here in discussing my music interests and education, such as it is.

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In fact, in a March 7th post about Timoteij, I even included the original version Kristina Pelakova did of Horehronie, this catchy song that I was humming to myself over-and-over
after first seeing the national entry video.

I found myself humming it while stuck at red lights or in check-out lines at stores, which, living around here, means that I was doing a LOT of humming.
And once it's in your head, that's it -it's there forever.
But then who doesn't love great singing with flutes and drums?
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/look-out-world-here-comes-timoteij.html

That post of mine five months ago also included an interesting fan video of the song that featured a scenic travelogue of that part of central Slovakia, with its verdant hills and beautiful mountains, which, then as now, seems so very, very far from here and our gridlocked traffic next to oh-so ugly buildings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0CaeDo-wEY

Here's Kristina Pelakova performing Horehronie at Eurovision in Oslo back in May with her dancers and musicians.



(I mentioned in March that a former housemate of mine now work for the U.S. State Dept. in Slovakia, so I'm a little more conscious of things going on there than I was before.)
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On the other hand, any thirteen-year old kid who has the self-confidence to pull a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey when he meets and auditions for one of his idols, Usher, can't be all bad.
I will give him props for that!

And at sixteen, for better or worse, he seems intent on ignoring YES Men and is going to do things his way, however that winds up in the end years from now.
Kudos to the kid.

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Chris Connelly bio: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=4853214

Kristina Pelakova: http://www.eurovision.tv/event/artistdetail?song=24973&event=1503

Background on the song, Horehronie, and the effect of it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/will-adams/slovakias-eurovision-2010_b_577593.html

Look out world, here comes Timoteij! Thoughts on the pop group that rocked Melodifestivalen 2010 in Göteborg, in Stockholm next Saturday for Finals

Among the many hopeful performers last month
in Göteborg (Gothenberg) at the third Semifinal
of Sweden's extremely popular Melodifestivalen
singing competition -telecast LIVE by SVT-
http://svt.se/2.120908/melodifestivalen_2010
for the chance to represent Sweden at the 2010
Eurovision Song Contest in late May in Oslo,
http://www.eurovision.tv/page/home
was a very intriguing four-woman pop group
known as Timoteij, singing what I'd call a
folk-inspired pop song titled Kom.
("Come" as in a plaintive plea.)

The band only formed in the Fall of 2008,
from some music students in the Skaraborg
area of central Sweden: Cecilia Kallin,
Bodil Bergstrom, Elina Thorsell and
Johanna Pettersson.

Despite how talented each woman was known
to be individually, nobody could've honestly
predicted that Sweden as a whole would be so
knocked-out by them ensemble, but appealing
they are, and this has caused some pop culture
watchers to say that maybe the fog has lifted,
and that Swedish power pop has -finally-
returned to its roots, by doing what it always
did so well when it really mattered and was
actually popular outside of the country:
well-crafted songs with catchy hooks and
great harmonies that linger in your head
long after the song has ended.

Some Swedish music industry types have even
gone so far as to publicly say that this overdue
return to fun power pop is not just a very welcome
breath of fresh air, after an era where Sweden,
quite frankly, had really become a bit of a
tired afterthought musically, continually sending
performers to Eurovision that were clearly
too obscure or overtly theatrical than musical
-and sure to get hammered by judges and
millions of European TV viewers at home
for these very reasons- but an opportunity
for the entire Swedish music industry to regain
its balance.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see on that,
but certainly there's a palpable sense of new
confidence there that a certain degree of
competitiveness and interest has returned.

The group's tremendous performance last month
before a nation-wide TV audience has earned
them a spot in the Finals next Saturday night at
the Ericsson Globe Arena a.k.a. Globen,
in Stockholm, where they will be one of ten
acts vying to perform at this year's Eurovision
competition being held in Oslo, because it is the
home of last year's winner, Alexander Rybak,
whose Fairytale captured so many people's
attention last year, for both good and bad reasons.



Timoteij has created quite a buzz for themselves
all over Sweden and one reason for that, though
hardly the most important one, is that they sing
in Swedish and not in English, as so many other
acts have chosen to do over the years for all
sorts of practical marketing and voting
reasons.

Not that there's any consensus about the
issue, per se, since people clearly understand
why a Swedish singer or group hoping
to make it big would choose to go the
English route for the contest, but from
reading comments in different forums over
the past few weeks, people definitely seem
pleased that such a talented and immensely
appealing group has consciously chosen
to perform in Swedish, not Engelska.

Their harmonies are tight and heavenly,
as you'll hear for yourself when you watch
the video.



Melodifestivalen's homepage for Timoteij
is at http://svt.se/2.121002/timoteij?lid=puff_1786706&lpos=lasMer

Hanna intervjuar vinnarna i Göteborg Längd: 03:10

An SVT promo from December 21st, 2009 Timoteij utklassade alla

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

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Interview on SVT's Gomorron Sverige with
Cecilia Kallin and Johanna Pettersson of
Timoteij.


The groups's website is at http://www.timoteij.se/

And just when you counted them out, Slovakia,
yes, Slovakia, goes "Solid Gold" in its entry,
almost like they could get votes from South Florida
precincts, with the lovely Kristina singing her
heart out about Horehronie, a beautiful region of
Slovakia.
http://www.horehronie.com/

You know what they say, after the country girl
has seen the bright lights of Bratislava, there's
just no going back to the farm!

FYI: One of my former housemates from Arlington
is a member of the Foreign Service stationed in
Slovakia.
Slovakia shoots and it scores! Here's the travelogue version of the song

Sweet!