Fancy 2021

We are very happy with the new release of our dear Fancy, who is back on the road with this great production from Team 33. The promotional single is called "I Like Your Smile" which is already available. 

 

 

The videoclip is also fantastic  

 

 The album called "Masquerade/ Les Marionettes" is announced to be released on 11.06.2021

Thomas Anders Cosmic – The new Modern Talking 2021?

 

 

Thomas Anders' long awaited new album is finally out and Modern Talking fans were waiting for it with certain positive and negative expectations.

As we could predict, Thomas has fans who are quite pleased with this release, they belong to his hardcore fan base, those who would literally love even a "La cucaracha" sung by their star because they will never question anything or dare to show any discomfort, so for them the style, the genre, the language, the lyrics, whatever comes from Thomas is fine and celebrated in the same way, they are simply in love with the voice and the person that Thomas is and he has a large group of those fans.

But Thomas also has fans from different backgrounds, we would say, the more serious ones, the ones who care about the music, strict with the style and are not so easy to fool. Most of them were Modern Talking fans, the biggest fan base that has been divided by decades between TA fans, DB fans and the last years with a smaller but passionate group of SIB fans.

The album was announced by Thomas Anders' producer, Christian Geller, in a controversial video where he assured that they were going to work with the "original" Modern Talking choir. That news ran like a river through the social network and a clarification was demanded, why? Many fans thought that Thomas would finally work with Systems In Blue, an opportunity so desired and awaited by the fan community, but later we realized that it was just a misunderstanding. Geller was referring to the chorus of replacements for that real original chorus from the 80s, those who arrived in the middle of the MT comeback era. And also a bit weird that it was announced this way, when there are videos of earlier releases like "History" where Thomas himself told the cameras that he was already working with that same choir from the 2000s. So it was actually not the first time they worked together. Mr. Geller are you trying to fool us?.

 

The announcement from Christian Geller

 

Then would come the single "Cosmic Rider", a nice song with a nice video clip and a super Thomas singing on a virtual stage, all nice but ..... what about the music?... the most demanding fans of the classic MT side couldn't avoid expressing their "what the hell!" and some others even created their own version of the song. Now thanks to technologies it is easier to extract an acapella and change the music. The result was amazing, this is the real sound the new songs should follow, they claimed. Hey Mr. Geller, look here please, consider it! But none of these remixes were official. Geller just ignored them and kept releasing little samples one by one, each time proving that nothing was coming for those fans.

 Original:

 Remix by fans:

That decision disappointed 80's lovers and the samples that came didn't help showing another obvious flaw of this album, the chorus and falsetto sounded like famished vocals trying to achieve a sound that was glorious in the past. What happened to the chorus, getting the right MT high pitched vocals is not such an easy thing as Bohlen tried to prove by undervaluing that work a few years ago. Modern Talking's background vocals were always an exceptional part of every classic song, falsettos are the brand and the most important part of Modern Talking since the beginning.

So how dare you claim that this new Thomas Anders album sounds like Modern Talking. We can even dare to speculate what the producer's idea might have been, maybe a: "I'll take two or three old MT songs from their last albums, change some melodies, write new lyrics and hire someone who sang on this chorus at that time, that's all. Enough to become popular with the fans and be number one in the charts like Dieter Bohlen himself."

Not that the effort to sound like Modern Talking made by the producer is not visible, the references are clear to anyone. The structure of the songs following the classic verse, prechoir and falsetto chorus are also there, the same bars and sequence, but it is the technical details that perhaps needed more effort, the songs are limited to copying the same bass line with the same repetitive sound of piano, drums, hit hats and snares that in some cases has created cloned melodies that barely change from track to track. The rest comes so forced to fit that in the end it has only produced a MT parody album. Not even Thomas Anders' vocals could save it. Not to mention the chorus, I'm sorry but it's hard to believe that Mr. Billy King is singing there. The album contains nine uptempo songs and three ballads, some quite faithful to MT's past style or more than faithful they are almost slight new versions of the same songs. And not being so demanding with the chorus (which is actually a sin), we can enjoy some tracks like "Je ne sais pas" (but come on... it's almost the same "Rouge et Noir"), "Today, tonight, together" (a shameless copy of "no face no name no number"), "Moonlight In Your Eyes",... and by the way, I wonder if "Another Night, Another Heartache" was a demo for a song with Florian Silberestein.

As for the lyrics it's funny how we are even able to guess the words that follow, they were also faithful to the lack of ideas from the MT times and made it easier this time by mentioning words related to MT history that only fans can understand. We even have a whole song talking about the "Modern Conversation" that connects the nations. But it's just a tricky mention because the meaning is not related to the Modern Talking as the popular cult band of the 80s.

In fact, it's something that may give us pause for a reflection. It was good that MT was over at the time, it could even have been before, it was just that at the time we, the fans, didn't want it to happen. But Bohlen suddenly took the illusion away from us one day when he stopped it without previously discussing it with Thomas Anders, he saw what we could not. Because we were clinging so furiously to MT, we didn't realize that it was already dead. All the albums especially after Year Of The Dragon already sounded quite different, totally moving away from the original essence it once had, and just copying known hits from that time. This new album by Thomas Anders does nothing but continue this same line.

So, can we call it the new Modern Talking from 2021?

No and yes,

-No, because it's not nearly what we can expect from a legendary band like Modern Talking. No, because it doesn't maintain the combination of melodies together with the right harmonies that only MT could create in their time. During the 80's when the sound conditioned real gear existed and the environment of those sounds were everywhere all the time, it sounded simply magnificent, it was new and it was original, now we are not able to repeat that because it is just past. And no, because it simply doesn't have the quality, innovation and professionalism that it should require.

-Yes, because after the return of Modern Talking in 1998, we realized that the rules were broken and with that a new kind of MT was developing. Yes, because it follows the path it was decided to follow since then, an obvious involution year after year. Modern Talking survived only until 2003, but the discomfort with their music and that way they took to create the new songs was happening already years before. Almost all of those new songs were based on others that were having some success around the world, it was the point that began to show the sad evidence that the project became just a mediocre band trying to stand on its feet using stolen tunes made by people who just wanted a paycheck.

At least Bohlen had the consideration to decide to stop it when it was simply impossible to keep it going. But Thomas has now brought it back to the same point where he left it, maybe even in the worst way, because there is not a drop of originality.

In conclusion, you can consider it a Modern Talking of 2021 if you want, in the best case you can take it as a sort of "homage to MT", but after the way it was announced and presented being a long awaited official new album from former Modern Talking vocalist, popular singer Thomas Anders, the album was a complete disappointment. It is nothing more than the disaster Bohlen tried to avoid. And we know that it doesn't need any good producer or mixer to get that second-era sound by following the same method. All it takes is someone who has been in the music business long enough that he can easily change a couple of tunes from an old, forgotten hit at random to create a new one and play with the fans by managing the promotion.... Now we just have recycled melodies, stolen lyrics and titles and full of MT references appealing to nostalgia with things that will make us remember something that will never come back.

 

The fourth Album of Systems In Blue

The year 2020 was not really the best year of our lifes and we had not time enough for talk about the excellent releases and productions that happened during this year related to our favorite music and stars. 

But with all the problems and lack of time against us. We want to make one only single post which will stand and be representative of this year. 

The year when the fourth album of Systems In Blue was released.

 Tracklist CD version

1    Systems In Blue - Lola, Better To Fall In Love   
2    Systems In Blue - Don't Walk Into The Light   
3    D. O. Passion - How I'm Gonna Catch You?   
4    Ms Project & Michael Scholz - My Mystery   
5    Systems In Blue - Tree Of Love   
6    Systems In Blue - It's Not Bad To Believe   
7    D. O. Passion - Don't Set My Heart On Fire   
8    Ms Project & Michael Scholz - Goodbye   
9    Systems In Blue - So Long (Captain Trash Remix)   
10   Systems In Blue - Play For Me The Melody Of Love   
11    Ms Project & Michael Scholz - Love & Hope   
12    Systems In Blue - And In The End   
13    Systems In Blue - Christmas In Blue

The physical release was on 7 December 2020 and for sure we will continue talking about this record, because the digital and streaming version has not been released yet. It will be released during 2021, according to some information with a different tracklist, so we are really looking forward for it