Latest news with #GipsyKings
Malaysian Reserve
08-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Malaysian Reserve
Gerina Teams Up with Legendary Chico & The Gypsies for Electrifying New Version of "Arrepentido"
Latin Pop Sensation and Iconic Former Founding Member of the Gipsy Kings Unite for Worldwide Release LAS VEGAS, Aug. 7, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Latin pop rising star Gerina joins forces with the legendary Chico & The Gypsies for a captivating new version of her hit song 'Arrepentido', now available worldwide through Mission Records across all major streaming platforms. This dynamic collaboration brings together Gerina's contemporary Latin pop sensibilities with the authentic flamenco mastery that has made Chico & The Gypsies international icons. The partnership between these exceptional artists reached its pinnacle during a sold-out performance in France this past June, where Gerina took the stage alongside Chico & The Gypsies to deliver an unforgettable live rendition of 'Arrepentido.' The electric atmosphere and overwhelming audience response confirmed the magic of this collaboration. Gerina has established herself as a formidable force in Latin pop, with her original version of 'Arrepentido' garnering over 4 million views on YouTube. Her infectious tracks 'Lo Que No Tienes' and 'Fantasma' have also achieved millions of views, cementing her status as an artist to watch in the Latin music scene. Her ability to blend traditional Latin rhythms with contemporary pop elements has resonated with audiences worldwide. Chico & The Gypsies, fronted by Chico Bouchikhi, co-founder of the legendary Gipsy Kings, bring decades of flamenco expertise and international acclaim to this collaboration. The group has maintained the authentic spirit of flamenco and rumba catalana music while captivating global audiences with their passionate performances and masterful musicianship. As an accomplished songwriter, Gerina has already achieved remarkable success, with #1 hits under her belt and a prestigious BMI Award for Best Song of the Year for Thalia's hit single. Her songwriting skills have been recognized globally, and she's worked with top artists in the industry. 'Arrepentido' was written by Gerina and co-written by Tim Mitchell, renowned guitarist for international superstar Shakira, and produced by Adrian Lopez. 'Arrepentido' represents more than just a collaboration—it's a celebration of Latin music's rich heritage and its evolution in the modern era. The fusion of Gerina's fresh perspective with Chico & The Gypsies' time-honored tradition creates something truly special for fans of both contemporary Latin pop and classic flamenco. Gerina Links: YouTube: Chico & The Gypsies Links: YouTube:
The Guardian
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Wish you were still here: what happened to the one-hit wonders of 80s package holiday pop?
Until 1982, if you wanted to go on holiday, you had to go to a high street travel agent, who would generally make a bunch of phone calls and tell you to come back later. Then Thomson Holidays introduced the first computerised booking system and pricing was deregulated – enter the golden age of Brits-on-tour package trips to Benidorm, Torremolinos and the other resorts scattered along the Costa del Sol. It created a curious phenomenon of its own: the hit single the holidaymakers brought home. Plenty of 1980s European artists won a single hit, perhaps two, in the UK before slinking back into obscurity or – just as often – back into the domestic or continental stardom they already had before the British deigned to take an interest. For a few weeks, their names were inescapable: Spagna, Sabrina, Modern Talking, Desireless, Baltimora, Opus, Nena. Then they became pub quiz answers. Among the travellers going out to Spain was the Radio 1 DJ Gary Davies, who championed many of the big 80s Europop hits on his afternoon show. 'There were two main places I would go,' he says. 'Marbella and then Ibiza, which I discovered in 1986. I'd be out in bars and in clubs all the time and hearing a lot of European music. For example, I heard Bamboléo by Gipsy Kings in Ibiza and it just blew me away. I got hold of a copy while I was there, brought it back, played it on the radio and the reaction was so great that they got a record deal in the UK.' Europop hits could grow from seemingly infertile soil. Opus were an Austrian band who made music not unlike Supertramp – prog-inflected pop-rock – and had grown an audience first in their home country and then in Italy. After four albums, they were popular enough to justify recording a live album, for which the guitarist and songwriter Ewald Pfleger decided to write a new song. 'We were playing to about 5,000 people and my aim was to compose a song for them [to sing],' he says. 'So I had to use a simple melody and simple words. We had to do it twice, the second time at the end of the show, and of course the second time was much better, because the audience knew the song. They sang and clapped with us – and that was the birth of a worldwide hit.' The song was the cheesily stirring Live Is Life, which in 1985 and 1986 spread around the world, its one-size-fits-all lyrics finding universal popularity: 'When we all give the power / We all give the best / Every minute of an hour / Don't think about the rest.' For the best part of two years, Opus toured globally to promote it. 'We had been together for 12 years and our aim was to get successful outside Austria, outside Europe. So when it happened, we took it as it was,' Pfleger says. But when Live Is Life had faded, those outside the Germanic world no longer cared. 'It's just a fact,' Pfleger says. 'It's not easy for Austrian acts. Falco didn't get the chance to have a second hit after Rock Me Amadeus and it was the same for us.' Nena were a young West Berlin band, loosely associated with the neue Deutsche welle (new German wave) of the early 80s, who wanted their third single to be an anti-war rock song called 99 Luftballons. 'That created quite a panic at our record label,' says the band's eponymous singer (born Gabriele Kerner). 'Their main argument was that the song didn't have a chorus and wasn't commercial enough.' But the song became a huge smash in Europe – full of brash energy, it had 'one of the best hooks of the 80s', according to the musician and writer Scott Miller, despite its 'embarrassingly out-of-place disco-funk interlude'. And like so many other Europop smashes, it owed success in the anglosphere to a DJ. 'Rodney Bingenheimer of KROQ in LA caused our breakthrough,' Nena says. 'Christiane F [the German actor and musician] was invited to Rodney's radio show and she brought a suitcase of her favourite German music, which included our first album. He loved the song and played it up to seven times a day and other radio stations followed suit. Before any label even realised it would be worth releasing us, we already had a chart entry in America.' 99 Luftballons reached No 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in December 1983. Britain (and Canada, Australia and South Africa) had to wait until the following year for 99 Red Balloons, an English-language version whose lyrics the band didn't really warm to, but which became a monster hit in turn. Nena remained a huge star – the most successful female singer in German chart history – but those 99 balloons were the beginning and end of her UK chart career (the follow-up, Just a Dream, peaked at No 70). But, as she points out, they were all so young that no thought was given to capitalising on that hit. 'The word career didn't even exist in our vocabulary,' she says. 'We never analysed or sought explanations. I was just fulfilled experiencing so many beautiful and exciting things. None of us expected our success and when it happened we celebrated and lived it to the fullest.' Europop smashes often live on in the mind, partly because they are unusual, and partly because that novelty makes them powerful signifiers, easy to use in films to mark a time and place. Nena's hit was used in, among many others, Grosse Pointe Blank, Boogie Nights, The Wedding Singer, Atomic Blonde and Despicable Me 3; even Baltimora's Tarzan Boy ended up on a few soundtracks. Live Is Life, though, secured a strange afterlife. For one thing, it became a staple of sports arenas around the world (and its popularity soared again once YouTube came along, thanks to a clip of Diego Maradona doing keepy-uppies in time to it). For another, it was given one of pop's most extraordinary reimaginings when the Slovenian art band Laibach rearranged it into a terrifying martial statement, in English and German. In the bland call to unity of the original lyrics, Laibach found something else and rewrote it as Leben heißt Leben. 'Mediocrity in language is a powerful weapon – it strips words of resistance and makes them infinitely adaptable,' they say via email. 'The hollow optimism of old Eurohits offers a perfect canvas for reinterpretation, subversion and reappropriation. These songs were never truly about any meaningful meaning – popular culture rarely understands itself – and when we reinterpret these songs, we simply help them discover their deeper, often unintended, potential.' But why remake it in that way? 'Songs are not innocent; beneath every sweet song lies a hidden command. Our version only amplifies what was already present: the spirit of order, discipline and collective will. If it now sounds like a marching anthem, it is because the DNA was always there, waiting to be activated. Nostalgia, nationalism, conformity – these are not our inventions. They are the silent architects of European history, European order, and they are behind much of European pop culture, too. We only turned up the volume.' And what does Pfleger make of that rendering of his song? 'I don't like it,' he says, his face souring. 'You know, they never contacted us since they did it. It has no positive feeling and more a dark, bad energy.' Big holiday hits flourished in the 90s and 00s, too – The Ketchup Song, Macarena – but they were clearly recorded as novelties, in a way most of the 80s hits had not been. Today, Europop hits blossom in micro-moments on TikTok, while globalised streaming culture means that when you're poolside in Spain or Greece, you are more likely to hear Bad Bunny, Sabrina Carpenter or some generic tropical house than a homegrown hit to export back home alongside a novelty fridge magnet. That means Pfleger and Nena seem all the more like outliers – but they remain delighted by the songs that changed their lives for a summer or two. 'I'm very proud that an Austrian band had this success,' Pfleger says. 'I wrote more than 200 songs and it is very special to have one that so many people liked.' 99 Luftballons means Nena's name is instantly recognisable: she will be touring this October, with a London show lined up. 'I love that song,' she says. Nena plays O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire, London, on 11 October Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
The Guardian
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Wish you were still here: what happened to the one-hit wonders of 80s package holiday pop?
Until 1982, if you wanted to go on holiday, you had to go to a high street travel agent, who would generally make a bunch of phone calls and tell you to come back later. Then Thomson Holidays introduced the first computerised booking system and pricing was deregulated – enter the golden age of Brits-on-tour package trips to Benidorm, Torremolinos and the other resorts scattered along the Costa del Sol. It created a curious phenomenon of its own: the hit single the holidaymakers brought home. Plenty of 1980s European artists won a single hit, perhaps two, in the UK before slinking back into obscurity or – just as often – back into the domestic or continental stardom they already had before the British deigned to take an interest. For a few weeks, their names were inescapable: Spagna, Sabrina, Modern Talking, Desireless, Baltimora, Opus, Nena. Then they became pub quiz answers. Among the travellers going out to Spain was the Radio 1 DJ Gary Davies, who championed many of the big 80s Europop hits on his afternoon show. 'There were two main places I would go,' he says. 'Marbella and then Ibiza, which I discovered in 1986. I'd be out in bars and in clubs all the time and hearing a lot of European music. For example, I heard Bamboléo by Gipsy Kings in Ibiza and it just blew me away. I got hold of a copy while I was there, brought it back, played it on the radio and the reaction was so great that they got a record deal in the UK.' Europop hits could grow from seemingly infertile soil. Opus were an Austrian band who made music not unlike Supertramp – prog-inflected pop-rock – and had grown an audience first in their home country and then in Italy. After four albums, they were popular enough to justify recording a live album, for which the guitarist and songwriter Ewald Pfleger decided to write a new song. 'We were playing to about 5,000 people and my aim was to compose a song for them [to sing],' he says. 'So I had to use a simple melody and simple words. We had to do it twice, the second time at the end of the show, and of course the second time was much better, because the audience knew the song. They sang and clapped with us – and that was the birth of a worldwide hit.' The song was the cheesily stirring Live Is Life, which in 1985 and 1986 spread around the world, its one-size-fits-all lyrics finding universal popularity: 'When we all give the power / We all give the best / Every minute of an hour / Don't think about the rest.' For the best part of two years, Opus toured globally to promote it. 'We had been together for 12 years and our aim was to get successful outside Austria, outside Europe. So when it happened, we took it as it was,' Pfleger says. But when Live Is Life had faded, those outside the Germanic world no longer cared. 'It's just a fact,' Pfleger says. 'It's not easy for Austrian acts. Falco didn't get the chance to have a second hit after Rock Me Amadeus and it was the same for us.' Nena were a young West Berlin band, loosely associated with the neue Deutsche welle (new German wave) of the early 80s, who wanted their third single to be an anti-war rock song called 99 Luftballons. 'That created quite a panic at our record label,' says the band's eponymous singer (born Gabriele Kerner). 'Their main argument was that the song didn't have a chorus and wasn't commercial enough.' But the song became a huge smash in Europe – full of brash energy, it had 'one of the best hooks of the 80s', according to the musician and writer Scott Miller, despite its 'embarrassingly out-of-place disco-funk interlude'. And like so many other Europop smashes, it owed success in the anglosphere to a DJ. 'Rodney Bingenheimer of KROQ in LA caused our breakthrough,' Nena says. 'Christiane F [the German actor and musician] was invited to Rodney's radio show and she brought a suitcase of her favourite German music, which included our first album. He loved the song and played it up to seven times a day and other radio stations followed suit. Before any label even realised it would be worth releasing us, we already had a chart entry in America.' 99 Luftballons reached No 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in December 1983. Britain (and Canada, Australia and South Africa) had to wait until the following year for 99 Red Balloons, an English-language version whose lyrics the band didn't really warm to, but which became a monster hit in turn. Nena remained a huge star – the most successful female singer in German chart history – but those 99 balloons were the beginning and end of her UK chart career (the follow-up, Just a Dream, peaked at No 70). But, as she points out, they were all so young that no thought was given to capitalising on that hit. 'The word career didn't even exist in our vocabulary,' she says. 'We never analysed or sought explanations. I was just fulfilled experiencing so many beautiful and exciting things. None of us expected our success and when it happened we celebrated and lived it to the fullest.' Europop smashes often live on in the mind, partly because they are unusual, and partly because that novelty makes them powerful signifiers, easy to use in films to mark a time and place. Nena's hit was used in, among many others, Grosse Pointe Blank, Boogie Nights, The Wedding Singer, Atomic Blonde and Despicable Me 3; even Baltimora's Tarzan Boy ended up on a few soundtracks. Live Is Life, though, secured a strange afterlife. For one thing, it became a staple of sports arenas around the world (and its popularity soared again once YouTube came along, thanks to a clip of Diego Maradona doing keepy-uppies in time to it). For another, it was given one of pop's most extraordinary reimaginings when the Slovenian art band Laibach rearranged it into a terrifying martial statement, in English and German. In the bland call to unity of the original lyrics, Laibach found something else and rewrote it as Leben heißt Leben. 'Mediocrity in language is a powerful weapon – it strips words of resistance and makes them infinitely adaptable,' they say via email. 'The hollow optimism of old Eurohits offers a perfect canvas for reinterpretation, subversion and reappropriation. These songs were never truly about any meaningful meaning – popular culture rarely understands itself – and when we reinterpret these songs, we simply help them discover their deeper, often unintended, potential.' But why remake it in that way? 'Songs are not innocent; beneath every sweet song lies a hidden command. Our version only amplifies what was already present: the spirit of order, discipline and collective will. If it now sounds like a marching anthem, it is because the DNA was always there, waiting to be activated. Nostalgia, nationalism, conformity – these are not our inventions. They are the silent architects of European history, European order, and they are behind much of European pop culture, too. We only turned up the volume.' And what does Pfleger make of that rendering of his song? 'I don't like it,' he says, his face souring. 'You know, they never contacted us since they did it. It has no positive feeling and more a dark, bad energy.' Big holiday hits flourished in the 90s and 00s, too – The Ketchup Song, Macarena – but they were clearly recorded as novelties, in a way most of the 80s hits had not been. Today, Europop hits blossom in micro-moments on TikTok, while globalised streaming culture means that when you're poolside in Spain or Greece, you are more likely to hear Bad Bunny, Sabrina Carpenter or some generic tropical house than a homegrown hit to export back home alongside a novelty fridge magnet. That means Pfleger and Nena seem all the more like outliers – but they remain delighted by the songs that changed their lives for a summer or two. 'I'm very proud that an Austrian band had this success,' Pfleger says. 'I wrote more than 200 songs and it is very special to have one that so many people liked.' 99 Luftballons means Nena's name is instantly recognisable: she will be touring this October, with a London show lined up. 'I love that song,' she says. Nena plays O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire, London, on 11 October Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Khaleej Times
22-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Khaleej Times
From composer to global guitar star: Jesse Cook reflects on his unlikely journey
After electrifying audiences in Dubai and Abu Dhabi with back-to-back weekend concerts, genre-defying guitarist Jesse Cook sat down with Khaleej Times to reflect not just on the tour, but on the unexpected path that led him there. From childhood flamenco records in Canada to a breakout album he never expected to sell, Cook's story is as layered as the music he creates. "My earliest memories would be maybe when I was four or five in Canada," he recalled. "We had a stereo in our house and my mum had brought all these records back from France. She had these Manitas de Plata records - a flamenco guitarist from the Camargue region of France. I remember putting them on and loving them.' It was the start of what he now sees as a series of signs pointing him toward flamenco. "My mum was trying to find a guitar teacher because she knew I loved the guitar. I had a little toy guitar... The first teacher I had was a flamenco player. So the first pieces I learned were flamenco." By the time he was a teenager, fate intervened again. His father retired to Arles in the south of France, in a neighbourhood Cook described as "the gypsy area". The family's neighbour? Nicolas Reyes, lead singer of the Gipsy Kings. "It wasn't just the neighbours. Kids out in the street would be playing that gypsy style where they're pounding the guitar like a percussionist. You didn't see that in Canada. I was like, what is that?" Yet Cook's relationship with the guitar wasn't always smooth. At 13, he walked away from it altogether. "I was getting a lot of pressure to play classical guitar and to do competitions. I just wanted to play basketball. It was hard to give it up, because it was one of the few things I was really good at.' A casual moment brought him back: a friend wanted to learn the guitar, and Cook offered to help. "He didn't even know I played. I started showing him and I saw how much fun he was having. I thought, oh yeah, guitar can be fun." Years later, having trained in classical and jazz at top schools, including the Royal Conservatory and Berklee, Cook was working steadily as a composer when he wrote a piece for local television. "Every time they played it, the switchboard would light up... People were phoning, trying to find out what that music was. And I kept saying, I'm a composer, I don't do music for the public.' But the calls kept coming. By the end of that year, in 1994, he decided to record an album. He played all the instruments and mixed it himself. "I remember going to those places where you could order CDs. They asked how many I wanted. I said, what's the smallest amount? They said 500. I said, let's get 500. They said, for pennies more, you could have 1,000. I said, I'm never going to sell 1,000... they'll be in my basement for the rest of my life." Instead, Tempest sold out immediately. "I did a radio interview and a TV performance on the first day. Instantly, they were gone. Then the distributor said, we need 2,000 more. I said, I can't afford to make more. They said, we'll give you the money.' The album climbed the Billboard charts, and by that summer Cook was playing the Catalina Jazz Festival in California. "They said, you can play during the intermission at the bar. I thought, what a waste of time. But once we started playing, people came rushing in. There was a line outside. By the end of the weekend, the head of the festival asked me to play in the All-Star Jam." Before his name was even announced, he received a standing ovation. Despite three decades of touring and recording since then, Cook said his music continues to evolve. "What I play now is a little bit of everything mixed together. It's not really flamenco. It's a kind of fusion." Even the flamenco community has taken notice. "Spanish websites are starting to talk about me as an important figure in flamenco. I always feel like, who am I? I don't live in Spain... But any music, to live, has to change. Perhaps it's because I'm not from Spain and doing something different that it helps flamenco in some way. I'm part of the flamenco diaspora." The cultural crossovers have not gone unnoticed in the Middle East. One of Cook's most requested tracks in the region is his reinterpretation of the Arabic classic Qadduka Al-Mayyas, which he adapted after hearing a stripped-down version by Egyptian and Palestinian-Canadian friends. "I loved it. I started adding guitars, drums, strings... I was thinking, that could be a rumba." In 2008, Cook performed at the Dubai Jazz Festival unaware the song had found an audience here. "We didn't put it on the list. After the concert, people asked, 'Why didn't you do the song?' We said, what song? They said, the song!' The same happened during this tour. Just hours before taking the Abu Dhabi stage on Saturday night, violinist Fethi Nadjem was Googling the lyrics backstage. Despite the last-minute scramble, the performance was a standout moment of the night. As Fethi sang the Arabic lyrics and Sherine Tohamy accompanied on the oud, the crowd erupted dancing, clapping and cheering through the entire number. Cook performed alongside a five-piece band that included guitarist Matt Sellick, bassist Dan Minchom, drummer Matias Recharte, and special musical guest Sherine Tohamy on oud in Abu Dhabi. Despite his international reach, Cook remains something of an anomaly in today's music scene. "Most people listen to pop music with a singer. People ask, who's the singer in your band? And I go, there isn't one. That makes it hard to describe. But the very thing that makes it hard to define is also what makes it last.' Asked why his music resonates so strongly across the region, his largest fanbase on Instagram is in Iran, where he's never performed, he cited musical history. "The music of the Middle East is in the DNA of flamenco. When you take flamenco and play it with oud, it just works. There's some connection." Cook pointed to Ziryab, a 9th-century musician who migrated from Baghdad to Andalusia and revolutionised music in the region. "When he arrived in southern Spain, it was like the Beatles showed up. People went crazy for him. He influenced music, fashion, even hygiene. Flamenco later absorbed that Andalusian sound created under his influence.' He added that the gypsies arrived in Spain 500 years after Ziryab and picked up the Andalusian musical traditions that eventually gave birth to flamenco. "So, for me, the music of the Middle East is in flamenco's DNA. It's already there." During the Covid-19 lockdowns, Cook launched a self-directed video series, reinterpreting older compositions and creating new ones in his home studio. One of the earliest tracks he revisited became an unexpected fan favourite - and literally broke his guitar. 'I just sat down and thought, since it's just me, I won't do drums and bass and everything. I'll just play,' he said. 'And I'm having a great old time, it's sounding good… and then I look at the guitar and I realise this crack has been forming all the way down. I'd been hitting the guitar too hard.' The song, eventually titled Tormenta, made it onto his Libre album in a fully arranged version. Cook is now taking the summer off to rest and record on a private island he owns in Canada. "Not in a billionaire kind of way," he laughed. "In Canada, a regular person can own an island. I'm going to take my boat, go out there, and make some music." After 30 years on stage, that DIY spirit hasn't changed. Nor has the question: what exactly is Jesse Cook's music? Even he can't answer that. "You kind of have to hear it to know what it is. If you like it, I'm the only one doing that.' A platinum-selling artist and Juno Award winner, Cook has featured in five PBS television specials, showcasing his virtuosity and creative range. Beyond critical praise, his broad cross-cultural appeal is evident in his digital footprint, with more than 900 million streams and views across platforms—a number that continues to grow by over 85 million each year.
