Sometimes I feel so bad, so bad
Sometimes I wish that life was never-ending
But all good things they say never last

The song of the summer for me was “Madre Tierra (Oye)” by Chayanne.

The only reason I came across this song was because they played it all the time when we were on holidays in Spain. The “animation” team had a set of dance moves to go along with it which the adults and kids could do along with them.

We bought the CD and we (well especially me) have been listening to it a lot over the past few days.

You can see and hear the song here:

Following on from my last post about “Uptown Funk”, I heard another great fun song the other day, also heavily influenced by sounds from the past: “Easy Love” by Sigala. The song has strong overtones/undertones (samples) of “ABC” by The Jackson 5.

Here’s a great video featuring dozens of dance scenes from moves (and also The Jackson 5 from back in the day!)

Uptown Funk is a fabulous song. I guess people have got a little sick of it because it has been overplayed – but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it’s a great song.

One of the reasons I like it is pretty obvious: when I first heard it I couldn’t believe that Prince wasn’t involved.

Overall it sounds like a Prince song. And it’s hard to believe that the guitar piece that starts at 3:12 isn’t Prince!

Other people hear overtones of other songs/artists. Some people hear The Time.

Mark Ronson himself admits that the song “animates a Minneapolis groove”.

And apparently the members of The Gap Band have been given song-writing credit because of similarities to “Oops! Upside Your Head”.

Ronson is pretty upfront about his attitude to sampling. He even gave a TED talk about it.

In any event, here is the song for you to enjoy: