Month: July 2023

Classical label Hyperion starts streaming for the first

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Hyperion Records, a classical label founded 43 years ago, has made 200 albums from its catalog available for streaming for the first time on Friday (July 28), four months after being acquired by Universal Music Group.

Founded in the UK in 1980 by the late Ted Perry MBE, the label has been managed by his son, Simon Perry, for over 20 years.

Hyperion aims to stream its entire catalog of over 2,000 recordings by spring 2024. The initial release of 200 albums includes the latest Dvořák album from the Grammy Award-winning Takács Quartet; a collection of choral anthems from Stephen Layton and Trinity College Choir Cambridge; and a new issue in The Orlando Consort’s survey of French poet-composer Guillaume de Machaut.

The label will release subsequent collections every fortnight from September 15. The second phase will feature some of Hyperion’s piano and keyboard artists like pianists Danny Driver, Stephen Hough, Pavel Kolesnikov, Steven Osborne, and harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani among others across more than 70 albums.

“These first 200 albums tell our story, and we look forward to presenting all our work from the past four decades to a new global streaming audience artist-by-artist, series-by-series.”

Simon Perry, Hyperion Records

The succeeding ‘release chapters’ will highlight different genres, including choral music, string quartets, Baroque, early music, and solo vocal performances. New chapters will be unveiled every two weeks, leading up to the complete availability of the entire catalog for streaming by spring 2024.

In addition to releasing its existing catalog for streaming, Hyperion says it will continue to ensure that all new titles are available for streaming, physical purchase, and download.

The label added that its editorial standards will be maintained in the streaming world, including cover artwork and detailed digital booklets in multiple languages.

The transition to streaming comes after Universal Music Group acquired Hyperion in March, integrating the label into UMG’s collection of classical labels, which includes names like Decca and Deutsche Grammophon.

It also comes as UMG sharpens its focus on classical music after launching its own streaming service for classical music through Deutsche Grammophon in November 2022.

“The arrival of Hyperion on the world’s streaming platforms offers a special moment of discovery for this precious and pioneering label,” said Dickon Stainer, UMG’s President of Global Classics & Jazz.

Simon Perry, Managing Director of Hyperion, added: “We searched for and found a long-term home that is committed to our values, artists, recordings and editorial style and we are delighted that our entire back catalogue as well as new and future releases will be available on streaming platforms in the coming months.”

“These first 200 albums tell our story, and we look forward to presenting all our work from the past four decades to a new global streaming audience artist-by-artist, series-by-series. Each had their challenges and now they come together to tell a narrative, hopefully a powerful one, of what can happen when you make space for musicians to thrive: it’s why Hyperion has worked.”

The move also comes as the appetite for classical music returns. Apple Music debuted its standalone Apple Music Classical app in March after acquiring classical music streaming service Primephonic.

Martin Kudla, Deputy Director and Digital Marketing Manager at Czech record label SUPRAPHON, had earlier said in an interview with MBW that classical music “is not subject to trends and fads [like] popular music.”

“The genre shows longer-term value across generations,” Kudla said.

Music Business Worldwide

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‘Audiio Originals’ are New Royalty-Free Songs Produced with

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Audiio, a music licensing platform, will start rolling out exclusive songs produced by what it calls “sync industry veterans” monthly. Called “Originals,” the songs aim to provide new, “trend worthy” and relevant songs into Audiio’s catalog of music.

Self-described as a world leader in music licensing, Audiio says it has provided content to over 1.5 million projects from filmmakers, brands, content creators, and agencies spanning over 180 countries. It works with a network of music publishers, major labels, and independent artists in order to maintain what it positions is high-quality music that is expanded upon daily.

To date, Audiio has licensed songs to projects ranging from NFL Super Bowl advertisements to small non-profit organizations

The company says that its new Originals move is part of its mission to democratize music licensing and to provide all creators with unlimited access to high-quality music. Audio Originals kicks off today with an initial release of 20 songs that span a wide range of genres.

Each track is created based on current music trends, Audio says, and range from what it describes as powerful commercial anthems for advertisers to immersive compositions ideal for dramatic entertainment content. Even in this first batch, editors will find significant diversity, from hip-hop to cinematic music.

“Audiio Originals producers represent a diverse group of music industry talent including Max Corwin, Joshua Silverberg, Faded Light, J Scott Rakozy, Outland, Laim Back, Yellen, and Que Parks, who have had music featured by brands like Nike, Range Rover, Under Armour, Starbucks, MTV, and NFL. Que Parks has most recently had his song selected to promote Showtime’s hit series Billions,” Audiio says. The company says that more artists are coming along with more new music added monthly.

“The initial release features Que Parks, whose song was recently selected to promote Showtime’s hit series Billions. We are continually recruiting industry-leading talent and cultivating an exciting range of music,” the company adds.

Audiio users can download an unlimited amount of music to use in as many films, videos, or media as they want — and that includes the new Originals music. Even better, the company offers access to its library for a one-time fee (for small teams, YouTubers, and other content creators) of $499 — a rarity in the day and age of subscriptions. However, a subscription is still offered and that costs $199 per year, though the first year is heavily discounted to $59. Enterprise teams and large film productions will need a custom arrangement. All pricing details can be found on Audiio’s website.

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Is ‘Gloomy Sunday’ really the saddest song of all time?

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When the poverty-stricken Hungarian pianist Rezső Seress was looking for a publisher for his jazz song ‘Gloomy Sunday’, one of his rejections came with the appraisal: “It is not that the song is sad, there is a sort of terrible compelling despair about it. I don’t think it would do anyone any good to hear a song like that.” These words proved spookily prescient.

The song would eventually be published, and the interim years saw a spike in suicides to such an extent in Seress’ native Hungary that the track became known as the ‘Hungarian Suicide Song’. First published in 1933, reports from the time claimed that the song quickly became linked to 100 separate suicides. The song then went global in a wave of perverse curiosity that saw countless American versions crop up. This overture of doom prompted the BBC to ban Billie Holliday’s version in 1941 for fear it would dampen wartime morale, and this wasn’t lifted until 2002.

Completing the despairing narrative of this haunting piece of music was the suicide of Seress himself, who took his own life 35 years after writing the composition. So, it only seems natural that the song is now imbued with myths of curses, haunted melodies and subsumed by dark hearsay. However, this is more of a case where art imitates life than the poetic obverse. If it is the saddest song of all time, then it is a product of the era that spawned it.

At the time of writing the composition, Seress was already suicidal, but so too was half of the world. He found himself a struggling musician down and out in Paris in 1932. The Great Depression was thrusting the world into ever-deepening poverty, and the finger-pointing rise of fascism was coaxing up conspiratorial divides, amplifying this despair. Things had reached such a fever pitch of ruination that a mere gloomy Sunday would’ve almost been a welcome comfort. The original lyrics were rather more fitting than the title: “Vége a világnak (The world is ending)”.

These original lyrics were discarded when the poet László Jávor performed the old writer’s trick of condensing the big picture into something more personal, allowing listeners to feel more empathetic while also distant from the doom. Jávor’s lyrics told the tale of a lonely protagonist’s bid to commit suicide following the death of his lover. This was the version that was popularised by the permanently hatted pop singer Pál Kalmár in 1935.

Jávor himself had just recently split from his fiancée adding another level of poetic depth to the protagonist’s bid to be reunited in the afterlife with his late lover. But over the years, these quirks in the song’s backstory served to simply propel urban myths. When digging beneath these stories of related suicides, it is hard to corroborate any of the information. We’re left with spurious mentions in old newspaper reports and a few press tricks that drove the ironic commercial appeal of the song. And while the overarching evidence does show that suicides rose following the publication of the song – notably rapidly in Hungary – there are far more obvious causes for this than a mere maudlin track.

All that being said, there is a crushing nature to the damnation perpetuated in the song. Unlike a lot of efforts that strive for despair, there is a perturbing level of sincerity held within the strange humility of the song. This does not seem like the put-upon hardship that many ’emo’ efforts drum up but rather a weary sigh written by Seress with a sense that the song would never see the light of day, which is only added to bu the lowly Jávor’s lyrics which were later added.

‘Gloomy Sunday’ English lyrics:

“Sunday is gloomy,
My hours are slumberless
Dearest the shadows
I live with are numberless
Little white flowers
Will never awaken you
Not where the black coach of
Sorrow has taken you
Angels have no thought
Of ever returning you,
Would they be angry
If I thought of joining you?

Gloomy Sunday

Gloomy is Sunday,
With shadows I spend it all
My heart and I
Have decided to end it all
Soon there’ll be candles
And prayers that are sad I know
Let them not weep
Let them know that I’m glad to go
Death is no dream
For in death I’m caressing you
With the last breath of my soul
I’ll be blessing you

Gloomy Sunday

(Last verse often omitted):

Dreaming, I was only dreaming
I wake and I find you asleep
In the deep of my heart, dear
Darling I hope
That my dream never haunted you
My heart is tellin’ you
How much I wanted you

Gloomy Sunday”.

Now, this troubled song is saddled with a troubling disposition. As such, it is perhaps best to leave the tugged narrative of the song behind and focus instead on the hardships in the life of Seress that drove him to write it and perpetuated the mirthless myth thereafter.

Seress might have found relative fame with ‘Gloomy Sunday’, but he found no fortune. Rather than travel to America to collect royalties for his record, he wanted to stay in Hungary instead and ironically boost morale by performing in a shivering restaurant in Budapest frequented by the bohemian underclass of sex workers and working-class Jews of which he was one. In the scourge of the war to come, he was forced into a Nazi labour camp in Ukraine, where his mother died.

Seress would survive, but he would never mentally recover. His New York Times obituary from the time of his death reads: “Authorities disclosed today that Mr. Seress jumped from a window of his small apartment here last Sunday, shortly after his 69th birthday.”

“The decade of the nineteen-thirties was marked by severe economic depression and the political upheaval that was to lead to World War II. The melancholy song written by Mr. Seress, with words by his friend, Ladislas Javor, a poet, declares at its climax, ‘My heart and I have decided to end it all’. It was blamed for a sharp increase in suicides, and Hungarian officials finally prohibited it.”

Concluding: “Mr. Seress complained that the success of ‘Gloomy Sunday’ actually increased his unhappiness, because he knew he would never be able to write a second hit.”

Undoubtedly, that signifies a very tragic tale both on the personal and societal level. However, when the troublesome myths are removed, there is almost a fitting sense of hopeful transcendence that the song survives today. It speaks of a cognisance regarding the state of the world that proves prescient even today, illuminating the lessons to be learnt from history, which prove far more alarming than the many falsehoods caught up in the welter of this haunting refrain.

More Country Music Song Titles Sound Familiar These Days –

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When Dolly Parton debuted her latest single, “World on Fire,” during the Academy of Country Music Awards on May 11, Nate Smith was aghast.

RCA Nashville was set to release his single with the same name to radio four days later.

“What are the odds of that?” Smith asks. “That’s crazy to me.”

The odds of two different songs with the same title being worked to the marketplace at the same time are not that large, though the likelihood that a title has been used before is pretty good:

• Chris Stapleton’s “White Horse,” the top debut on the current Country Airplay chart, uses the same two-word moniker as a 2008 Taylor Swift single and a 1984 pop single by Laid Back.

• Gabby Barrett’s “Glory Days” shares its name with a Bruce Springsteen classic and a recent Chapel Hart single.

• Parker McCollum’s “Burn It Down” mirrors the title of a 2012 Linkin Park single that topped Hot Rock & Alternative Songs. Jason Aldean also launched a Burn It Down Tour behind the similarly titled “Burnin’ It Down,” and back in the ’90s, Marty Stuart’s “Burn Me Down” and Clint Black’s “Burn One Down” were fairly close.

• Meanwhile, the July 26 death of Sinéad O’Connor, best known for “Nothing Compares 2 U,” occurred just nine days after the release of Mickey Guyton’s properly spelled “Nothing Compares to You,” featuring Kane Brown.

Using the same title isn’t a sin, as “Glory Days” co-writer Seth Mosley discovered early in his career. His first hit was The Newsboys’ “Born Again,” which peaked at No. 2 on the Christian chart in 2010. It came a year after Third Day reached No. 3 with its own take on “Born Again.”

“You can write the same title five different ways,” says “Glory Days” co-writer Emily Weisband.

Actually, five is a low number. There are nearly 300 songs with the name “Glory Days” in the Songview database, an online catalog of titles represented by performing rights agencies BMI and/or ASCAP. The index also features over 330 songs named “World on Fire,” more than 650 called “Burn It Down” and more than 50 titled “Nothing Compares to You.” Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night,” in fact, is one of at least 1,000 songs with that moniker.

“I guess if everybody else has been trying to do it, maybe we were on to something,” “Burn It Down” co-writer Hillary Lindsey reasons.

Whether or not a title has been written before hinges in great part on the familiarity of the phrase. Songwriters tend to lean toward songs that feature common language. Thus, the everyday phrase “Change of Heart” -— associated with hits by The Judds, Cyndi Lauper, Tom Petty and Eric Carmen — appears nearly 800 times in Songview, while the Joe Nichols semi-novelty “Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off” is the only song with that title.

The age of existing hits with a particular title can influence whether a phrase gets reused. Springsteen’s version of “Glory Days,” for example, was a hit in 1985, a full 15 years before Barrett was born. When the title came up in the writing room, she didn’t know about the Boss’ version, and nobody told her about it, either. The live-in-the-moment plot she and her co-writers developed is distinctly different from Springsteen’s nostalgic take on it.

Similarly, the writers on Carrie Underwood’s “Dirty Laundry” had little or no awareness of Don Henley’s 1982 anti-media take on that title. And Old Dominion’s current “Memory Lane,” a title that appears more than 900 times in the Songview database, has not been a top 20 title since Paul Whiteman’s Pennsylvanians took it to No. 1 in 1924. And Brothers Osborne’s first top 10 single, 2015’s “Stay a Little Longer,” came 70 years after Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys recorded a Western swing hit with the same name.

“Shit, if you know the Bob Wills song, then more power to you,” T.J. Osborne said at the time.

Still, standard titles — such as “Georgia on My Mind,” “I Will Always Love You” or “Your Cheatin’ Heart” — are mostly out of bounds.

“There are some that when you hear it, you would never touch it or you look like assholes, like ‘Yesterday,’ ” says “Burn It Down” co-writer Liz Rose.

Titles and basic ideas cannot be copyrighted — it would be unrealistic to ask writers to avoid “Without You” (a hit for Badfinger, Keith Urban and Dixie Chicks) as a title, or to not address a widely familiar topic such as heartbreak, simply because those subjects had been broached before.

It would also be difficult to referee disputes when more than one version of a title emerges at the same time. When “Day Drinking,” for example, became a hit for Little Big Town in 2014, it was one of several songs with that title that had circulated around Music Row simultaneously. That sometimes happens when specific themes become popular and multiple songwriters attempt to capitalize on the trend. It could, however, derive from something deeper.

“Some people say that being creative, it’s just out there in the universe, and you have to just be open to it to let it flow through you,” Lindsey notes. “I believe in all that stuff. I haven’t dove all the way into all that stuff, but I believe it.”

That title, “I Believe It,” has already been written more than 150 times, and it has yet to become a hit.

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This Music CEO Still Makes Decisions Based on ‘Gut Feel and

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Mushroom Records was founded in Australia in the 1970s by Michael Gudinski.
His son Matt joined the company at the age of 17 and became CEO when his father died in 2021.
Matt Gudinski says Mushroom helps artists build long-term careers and gives them creative control.

Once upon a time, if you wanted to listen to a particular artist, you needed to drive to a record store and buy their album or CD. And for many years, buying that album usually cost considerably more than seeing that performer play live.

YouTube and streaming platforms like Spotify changed all that, putting tens of millions of tracks in your pocket.

But it’s also meant that most artists now make far less from releasing music, which is partly why the cost of seeing them play live has soared.

That’s not stopped many fans of megastars artists such as Beyonce and Taylor Swift shelling out hundreds – or even thousands – of dollars to see their idols play live. Will fans one day draw the line and say even the cheapest tickets are now too expensive?

That doesn’t seem likely, says Matt Gudinski, CEO of the Mushroom Group, which promotes concerts for the likes of megastars such as Ed Sheeran and TayTay in Australia and New Zealand through its Frontier Touring division.

Michael Gudinski with Ed Sheeran at the start of his 2018 Australian tour in Perth.

Matt Jelonek/Getty Images

Mushroom also has a recorded music operation that’s been home to some of Australia’s biggest acts, including Kylie Minogue, Jimmy Barnes, Vance Joy, the Temper Trap and Split Enz.

Some in the industry credit Mushroom with pioneering the “360” model – where one company has a deal that encompasses both an act’s recorded music as well as their tours and other aspects such as merchandise and using their music in films, TV or adverts. (Madonna signed a 10-year “360” deal with Live Nation worth a reported $120 million in 2007.)

Kylie Minogue started her recording career on Mushroom Records.

Don Arnold/Getty Images

Mushroom is celebrating its 50th anniversary and Gudinski says the approaches taken by his father Michael, who founded the company in the 1970s and ran it until his untimely death aged 68 in March 2021, helped it survive and prosper.

Michael Gudinski was such a towering figure in Australian music that the Victorian government held a state memorial in his honour, with performances and messages from the likes of Minogue, Sheeran, Sting and Bruce Springsteen.

Mushroom released Minogue’s debut album and she thanked the entrepreneur for taking a “scrawny girl from Melbourne to the world and back home again,” ABC News reported.

Matt Gudinski, now 38, joined Mushroom when he was 17 and says he worked alongside his dad for the past decade. “I had no reservations about taking the reins and building upon the foundations my father laid and the amazing legacy he built, but was determined to do it my own way. We worked so well together for many years as we both had a different approach that complemented each other.”

Gudinski insists that Mushroom’s ethos remains the same – helping artists build careers over the long term, not chasing overnight success and giving them substantial creative control. “Once we really believe in something, we commit to something and stay the course.”

Vance Joy performs in Madrid, Spain in April.

Mariano Regidor/Getty Images

While many decisions in the music business are now driven by data, “gut feel and instinct” remain part of the equation for his company at least. Take that away, Gudinski says, and they’d “lose the essence of what makes Mushroom what it is.”

The rise of YouTube and other platforms means artists now have more “freedom to start their careers and get themselves out there,” but the Australian says artists still benefit from being signed to a label. He likens the music business to a situation where there used to be “10 opportunities and 100 artists. Now there’s 1,000 artists – but still only 10 opportunities.” That makes it “really challenging” for artists to “cut through and take that next step.”

Music fans are also faced with an avalanche of choice, with endless new content competing with more established artists (tens of thousands of tracks are uploaded every day to platforms like Spotify.) As Gudinski puts it: “There’s always something else put in front of you that you discover you like.”

Does he still listen to albums from start to finish? “Not as much as I once did – I’m even reluctant to say that.”

Streaming has brought challenges to the industry, but he thinks it’s “probably done a lot more good than not” by making music far more accessible.

It’s also proved lucrative for the big record companies, with Universal Music this week posting a 8.7% rise in revenues for the first half of the year to just over 5.1 billion euros, for example.

Kylie Minogue performs at the Mushroom Records 25th anniversary concert in Melbourne in 1998.

Martin Philbey/Getty Images

But if many artists not quite at the level of Taylor Swift or Coldplay are already struggling to make a living from the music business, it’s not likely to get any easier given the potential impact of AI. Gudinski thinks the jury is still out, but admits: “It will challenge many parts of our industry; whether that’s for the better or the worse still remains to be seen. There’s no doubt it’s going to have a big impact.”

He says Mushroom’s already had several pitches for live shows by manufactured characters, or “artists that are not artists.” Despite its history of being a leader rather than a follower, Gudinski says AI might be one time for the company to wait and see how it all shakes out.

Michael Gudinski founded Mushroom Records in 1972.

Mushroom

In the meantime, Mushroom has relaunched its record label in the UK that was once home to acts such as Garbage in the 1990s, has 250 staff working in offices in Australia, Europe and North America, and recently signed a global distribution deal with Universal.

“There’s not many independent record labels, to use an old term, working with artists on a global front anymore,” Gudinski says.

Will Mushroom remain a private company in its sixth decade and beyond? While a sale is “not part of our plan,” he adds: “Never say never … it’s a really challenging time for anybody – independent, major label or listed company – to be investing in new music.”

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Charismatic singer Aimyon, ‘queen of streaming’ |

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Her momentum shows no signs of slowing down. Just this year, she turned in an electrifying performance at her first concert at the Nippon Budokan hall, and contributed the theme song for the movie version of the popular anime “Crayon Shin-chan.”

A veteran Yomiuri Shimbun reporter described Aimyon’s name as “gibberish” in a column last November. When I told her about the article, she said: “I think it’s perfectly OK. Of course, my name is puzzling. The stranger the name or the title is, the more attraction it has. Looking back, though, I do sometimes wonder what it would be like to perform under my real name.”

Aimyon spoke in a matter-of-fact style, her eyes cool and calm.

Her lyrics have an almost painfully sharp edge to them, while her vocals have cross-sexual appeal and alternate between sounding like a girl and a boy. “Charisma” is the perfect word to describe the sight of her singing and plucking an acoustic guitar.

Wasn’t it around summer last year when “Marigold” came out and Aimyon fever began sweeping the country?

“Marigold” is a sentimental J-pop song with lyrics that conjure up powerful visuals, like “Mugiwara no boshi no kimi ga, yureta marigold ni niteru” (In your straw hat, you look like swaying marigold). The song dominated the most-streamed rankings, earning Aimyon the nickname “queen of streaming.”

What does she think of her breakthrough?

“I don’t know what to think. People around me often tell me, ‘This is crazy. Everybody knows you,’ but I’m like, ‘Do they really?’ I’m not so sure that’s true,” she said.

Aimyon’s songs are provocative. That’s partly because of her hard-hitting lyrics, such as “Shine” (Die) and “Sex bakkano omaera nankayori aijo motome ikitekitennoni” (I’m seeking love in my life more than you guys who only think of sex). It’s also because her songs express a kind of love that is heart-breakingly pure.

However, she says her top priority is creating “authentic J-pop.”

“In my heart, I believe that making authentic J-pop is the right thing to do. I’m not good at difficult things, and I’m not a great guitar player,” she said.

“Marigold,” meanwhile, has captured the hearts of many, including Aimyon herself.

“If we lived in a world where people couldn’t listen to this song, I couldn’t continue with music. I’d quit,” she said of the incredible feedback she has received for the song.

Inspired by parents, friends

What kind of child was Aimyon, now 24?

Born on March 6, 1995, she is the second of six siblings from Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture. Her father was working in an audio-related job. Is her talent in music the result of an elite education?

“Not at all. My father happened to play the guitar at home at times, and he let me play his instrument. But he told me, ‘The guitar is an instrument you teach yourself’ and threw a guitar book at me. I hated textbooks and stuff, so I soon gave it up,” she recalled.

Aimyon would often ransack CD shelves in her father’s room. “I found Spitz, Hamasho (singer Shogo Hamada), Michael Jackson, all on the shelves,” she said. She grew up in a family environment in which windows were all wide open at cleanup times. She is often asked which musicians influenced her. Her answer is: “If I were to find my roots, it would be my father and mother. They let me listen to good music.”

She quit the guitar at one point, but she took it up again when she was in her third year of junior high school and an English teacher from the United States gave her his old guitar before leaving Japan, saying, “It’s cheaper in the States.” While playing songs by Spitz and other artists, she also started composing music.

“I’m really bad at studying, so I hated reading and learning guitar chords. I thought that maybe I could learn them if I wrote my own songs. So I started writing music by following other examples,” she said.

She posted a video of her performance on YouTube, which was spotted by a music agency. The agency contacted her through Twitter and opened the door for her to start her career in music. She made her major-label debut in 2016, and her album “Shunkanteki Sixth Sense,” which includes “Marigold,” has sold over 120,000 copies and counting.

What is behind the stage name Aimyon?

“It’s my nickname from the time when I was in my third year of junior high school,” she said. “A friend of mine gave me the nickname. I sang about her in the song ‘〇〇 chan’ (Marumaru-chan).”

That song is about a woman who lives a very hard life. The lyrics introduce her as having slept with a guy she is not in love with and depending on a surgeon to look pretty.

“We’re still on good terms, and she sometimes comes to my place. She says to me, ‘Maybe you’re popular because of your stage name, so give me some money, like royalties.’ I’m ignoring her on that,” she said.

A family with a good sense of music, and a stimulating friend. Influence from around her may have made Aimyon what she is now.

‘Crayon Shin-chan’ theme song

The theme song of the new “Crayon Shin-chan” film — “Eiga Crayon Shinchan Shinkon-ryokou Hurricane — Ushinawareta Hiroshi” — is “Harunohi” by Aimyon. She has written songs for films and TV dramas, but this song is filled with her love for the lead character, Shin-chan.

The TV anime adaptation of the manga “Crayon Shin-chan” started in 1992. For Aimyon and others of her generation born in 1995, the anime is “something you’ve watched before realizing it,” she said.

She added a little-known fan-favorite episode from the manga to the song. Kita-senju Station, which appears in the first part of the lyrics, is the place where Shin-chan’s father, Hiroshi, proposed to Misae, who was to become Shin-chan’s mother.

“When you have the honor of writing the theme songs of the work you’ve been a fan of for a long time, there’s this atmosphere that forces you to say, ‘I love this work,’ and I really hate such an atmosphere. I want to say it with music,” she said, adding that she did not reread the manga or rewatch the anime when she composed the song.

In the film, Shin-chan’s family — the Noharas — visit Australia for his parents’ much belated honeymoon and get involved in a great yet dangerous adventure. Although the film was yet to be completed while Aimyon was recording the theme song, she was able to see an illustration of a family photo of the Noharas, which was made at an early stage of production planning. The illustration made her cry, she said.

Aimyon and her family had a photo of them taken when she was leaving for Tokyo.

“We are a family of eight, and it was difficult to get us all together. Maybe my father wasn’t there [that day] because of work. Family photos are great, aren’t they?” she said.

http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0005697907

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20th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION OF ELF SPARKLES WITH A LIVE

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20th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION OF ELF SPARKLES WITH A LIVE FILM CONCERT TOUR ACROSS 31 CITIES WORLDWIDE – Music Industry Today – EIN Presswire

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Tim McGraw: Tim McGraw shares his safety plans ahead of his

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Tim McGraw recently announced his 2024 Standing Room Only Tour, covering 33 arenas in the U.S. and Canada next spring. However, concerns have risen about fans throwing things onstage, which has become a problem at shows in country music and beyond. Other artists like Bebe Rexha, Kelsea Ballerini, Morgan Wallen, and Adele have also experienced incidents where objects were thrown at them during their performances.

Recently, Cardi B lost her calm when a fan threw a drink at her while she was performing “Bodak Yellow” in Las Vegas on Saturday. She quickly retaliated by hurling her microphone back at the fan, leading to their removal by security. The incident highlights the need for proper concert security to ensure everyone’s safety and enjoyment during live shows.

How will Tim McGraw ensure safety while performing at the 2024 Standing Room Only Tour?

During a recent interview with ET Online, McGraw expressed concern about the trend of fans throwing objects on stage at concerts. However, he mentioned that he doesn’t plan to add extra barriers or increase security for his upcoming tour. Instead, he hopes his own agility and quick reflexes will help him dodge any potential projectiles. McGraw emphasized that throwing items at artists is absolutely crazy and ruins the show for everyone else in the audience.

Despite not focusing on increased security, safety remains a significant priority for McGraw’s upcoming show. He aims to create a “crazy spectacular production” that doesn’t heavily rely on pyrotechnics to ensure a thrilling and secure experience for all concertgoers.

Tim McGraw has reservations about pyrotechnics during his performances. He admits to being scared of them and knows that he tends to move around a lot on stage, which could put him at risk of standing too close to the pyrotechnic effects when they go off. To emphasize his concern in a lighthearted manner, he jokes that using pyrotechnics might lead to him accidentally setting himself on fire.

Tim McGraw’s 2024 Standing Room Only Tour Dates

Tickets for the Standing Room Only Tour, including VIP packages, will be available for purchase starting on August 4. Here is the full list of tour dates:
March 14: Jacksonville, FL – VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena
March 15: Tampa, FL – Amalie Arena
March 16: Orlando, FL – Amway Center
March 21: Des Moines, IA – Wells Fargo Arena
March 27: Vancouver, BC – Rogers Arena
March 29: Seattle, WA – Climate Pledge Arena
March 30: Eugene, OR – University of Oregon – Matthew Knight Arena
April 4: Denver, CO – Ball Arena
April 5: Salt Lake City, UT – Delta Center
April 6: Boise, ID – Boise State University – ExtraMile Arena
April 13: Tulsa, OK – BOK Center
April 18: Indianapolis, IN – Gainbridge Fieldhouse
April 19: Milwaukee, WI – Fiserv Forum
April 20: Saint Paul, MN – Xcel Energy Center
April 25: Nashville, TN – Bridgestone Arena
April 26: Knoxville, TN – Thompson-Boling Arena
May 9: Belmont Park, NY – UBS Arena
May 11: Wilkes-Barre, PA – Mohegan Sun Arena
May 16: Greenville, SC – Bon Secours Wellness Arena
May 17: Charlotte, NC – Spectrum Center
May 18: Charleston, WV – Charleston Coliseum & Convention Center
May 30: Toledo, OH – Huntington Center
May 31: Chicago, IL- United Center
June 1: Grand Rapids, MI- Van Andel Arena
June 6: Sioux Falls, SD – Denny Sanford Premier Center
June 7: Omaha, NE – CHI Health Center
June 8: Kansas City, MO – T-Mobile Center
June 13: Biloxi, MS – Mississippi Coast Coliseum
June 15: Lexington, KY – Rupp Arena at Central Bank Center
June 20: Philadelphia, PA – Wells Fargo Center
June 21: Baltimore, MD – CFG Bank Arena
June 22: Raleigh, NC – PNC Arena
June 27: Phoenix, AZ – Footprint Center

FAQs:

Who is Tim McGraw?
Tim McGraw is a renowned American country music singer, songwriter, and actor. Born on May 1, 1967, in Delhi, Louisiana, his full name is Samuel Timothy McGraw. He is known for his distinctive voice, heartfelt lyrics, and impressive stage presence, which have made him one of the most successful and beloved artists in the country music industry.

Who is Cardi B?
Cardi B, whose real name is Belcalis Marlenis Almánzar, is a popular and influential American rapper, singer, and songwriter. She was born on October 11, 1992, in The Bronx, New York City. Cardi B first gained public attention through her viral videos on social media, where she showcased her candid personality and humor.

Disclaimer Statement: This content is authored by a 3rd party. The views expressed here are that of the respective authors/ entities and do not represent the views of Economic Times (ET). ET does not guarantee, vouch for or endorse any of its contents nor is responsible for them in any manner whatsoever. Please take all steps necessary to ascertain that any information and content provided is correct, updated, and verified. ET hereby disclaims any and all warranties, express or implied, relating to the report and any content therein.

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TunedCoin Announces Airdrop of 25,000 Tokens Alongside Song

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TunedCoin Announces Airdrop of 25,000 Tokens Alongside Song Voting Campaign – Music Industry Today – EIN Presswire

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Long-lost siblings reunite in Lincoln for the first time

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Siblings reunited — Siblings Kathy Baca (from left), Julie Reese Mills and Jodie Meyer wearing matching T-shirts during their reunion.

Courtesy photo

Having the same laundry detergent isn’t exciting to most people, but to three women, it was everything.

Jodie Meyer, Kathy Baca and Julie Reese Mills live on opposite sides of the country and share more than laundry detergent brands; they also share the same mom, Beverly Davis. Meyer, 65 is the oldest and lives in Lincoln. Baca, 61, currently lives in Arkansas, and the baby of the family, Reese Mills, 49, lives in Arizona.

It was only recently that the three learned about each other after Reese Mills took a DNA test, prompting the three to meet in person for the first time.

At first, it was the gap in their front teeth that the sisters noticed they had in common. Then it was Baca and Reese Mills’ curly hair that stuck out. Then Reese Mills pointed at Baca’s feet to find that they shared the same baby toe.

“I have never seen another person with my baby toe,” Reese Mills said.

Finally, it was the Gain laundry detergent that all three sisters had been using.

“It’s the little things that are important, like Gain,” Reese Mills said.

The three sisters are finally starting to learn each other’s little quirks, and they’ve waited a long time. They were separated as children and aren’t quite sure how it all happened.

“Everybody has different versions of what may have happened,” Reese Mills said. “We’re kind of going off the paperwork that we have, but nothing gives us specifics yet.”

Siblings reunited, 7.25 — Jodie Meyer holds the custom tumbler her siblings made for their recent reunion during a Zoom interview with her siblings Julie Reese Mills and Kathy Baca.

JUSTIN WAN, Journal Star

The three sisters have four other siblings, one of which they have yet to find. Meyer was born in North Carolina with a sister who is two years younger. The two of them grew up with their grandmother, Genevieve. Baca was born in Chicago and was adopted along with Susan Baca, 60, who was born in Lincoln. The last three siblings were born in Arizona, where Reese Mills grew up with the only brother, Leroy, 52, and their mom. Patricia, however, left around the age of 18 and has since lost contact with the family.

Reese Mills believes that Patricia was born between 1968 and 1970, but they haven’t been able to find a birth certificate or baby announcement, nor have they been able to find someone who has known her recently.

The last memory Reese Mills has of Patricia was when they were waiting at a bus station for her to arrive, but she never got off. She said Patricia would’ve been about 18 at the time and they are not sure if she even boarded the bus in the first place.

“It’s a lot of could-be’s out there, because we don’t know anything,” Reese Mills said.

Meyer and Kathy Baca only remember small glimpses of each other, and never enough to actually piece anything together.

Susan and Kathy Baca found out about Meyer and their other sister when they were teenagers, but never heard about the siblings in Arizona.

“We always knew we were adopted, but we didn’t hear that we had other sisters until junior high or high school, when my adopted grandma told me she was mad at us for something. She said we were acting just like Jodie,” Kathy Baca said.

Meyer’s grandparents wouldn’t talk about Kathy or Susan either. Later, she found out that the two girls were adopted, although her grandparents wouldn’t say by whom. Eventually, Meyer found out their adoptive grandma was actually a friend of Meyer’s grandma.

“They were best friends,” Meyer said. “They knew the whole time where they were, but they wouldn’t tell us.”

Meyer remembers seeing Kathy and Susan when she was about five years old. Although she can’t locate it, there is a picture of the four girls, which Meyer believes was the last time they saw each other.

“We were all in the same dress, but then, they were gone,” Meyer said. “I will always remember, and I said I was going to find them one day, but I didn’t find them, they found me.”

Meyer has few memories of her mom as well. The last time she remembers seeing Beverly, she was an irritated teenager.

“I was 16 and I was an angry girl, so it didn’t go well,” Meyer said. “I was not nice, let’s put it that way.”

Reese Mills, however, has always known the other siblings were out there, she just didn’t know where. She said Beverly had kept a family bible with personal records of the family. Last November, she decided it was finally time to begin finding her siblings.

“I’ve been wanting to find them for decades,” Reese Mills said. “It’s always been on my heart since mama passed away. I always wanted to find them.”

It would be 25 years after Beverly died before Reese Mills would take the DNA test through 23andMe.

After having a mild medical scare last year, Reese Mills began thinking about life and decided she would cross some items off her bucket list.

“I said, ‘Screw it. I’m just gonna do it, we’ll see what happens and we’ll go from there,’” Reese Mills said.

Reese Mills sent in her saliva sample and upon receiving her results, the sister who grew up with Meyer popped up as the top result with 28% relation.

“My account has attached me to over 5,000 relatives with the same DNA,” Reese Mills said. “I think the lowest one had like 1.9% relation in it. Those would probably be fifth and sixth family members removed.”

Reese Mills messaged the sister who had the highest relation, but she never got a response. The second highest result was her niece, Rachel, daughter of Kathy Baca, who helped the two connect. Reese Mills later got connected with Meyer as well.

“I was a hold out,” Meyer said. “Then (Reese Mills) sent me a text and said, ‘You know what happened back then is done and we’re all innocent in it.’”

So Meyer got on the phone with Reese Mills and the two talked for three hours, instantly forming a connection. The phone calls continued and since December, the three sisters have had weekly video calls on Wednesdays. For now, it’s just the three of them, but Leroy recently joined in on one of the calls.

The sisters talk about everything during their weekly phone calls, including updates on the search for Patricia.

“My friends said they’ve never seen me smile this much in my life,” Meyer said. “I always walked around and I was grumpy.”

After awhile, they decided it was finally time to meet in person. Last week, the three met up for the first time for a reunion and to celebrate Kathy Baca and Meyer’s birthdays — which they found were only a day apart.

Meyer and Kathy Baca met up first after flying in to Wichita, Kansas. They embraced each other in a long-awaited hug before jumping into a car together to make the road trip to see Meyer.

“It was fantastic,” Reese Mills said. “It was like we had known each other the whole time, so it was natural. We laughed, we sung, we talked, we ate.”

After arriving in Lincoln, the two bear-hugged Meyer for the first time.

“We kept saying, ‘We’re not doing it. We’re not doing it. We’re not going to cry,’” Meyer said.

The three had tears in their eyes, but Meyer was adamant that none of them cried and “lost it.”

They only had a few days together to make up for lost time, and while their first birthday party didn’t have a pillow fight, there was a pajama party.

“We had to wear matching Snoopy pajamas,” Meyer said. “That was not fun. I am way too old to wear little skimpy pajamas.”

They spent their days together getting pedicures, visiting the Wildlife Safari park and even visiting Scheels for a Ferris Wheel ride. Had the three grown up together, they agreed these adventures and matching pajamas would have been frequently enjoyed.

“The amazing thing is that when we met, it was like we’ve known each other forever,” Kathy Baca said.

Kathy Baca and Reese Mills even had the opportunity to meet some great nieces and nephews. Between the seven siblings, there are at least 19 living nieces and nephews and 19 grandchildren that they know about.

“We’re hoping that maybe, eventually, that we can all just be together as one,” Reese Mills said. “It’s a transitional period, so we’re all going to have to get used to the ups and downs of each other because we all have different personalities.”

A trip to Phoenix in September is in the works for Reese Mills’ birthday, along with a Polar Express night for Christmas with more pajamas and hot chocolate. Meyer said that name tags are a priority, though, as Reese Mills has eight kids alone.

While they are still relishing the excitement of finding one another, Meyer, Kathy Baca and Reese Mills are still longing to find out what happened and where Patricia is.

“No matter what, we are siblings and we deserve to know each other,” Reese Mills said. “Even if we never find out what happened, we deserve to know each other.”

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