Category: Music

An album I have been enjoying quite a lot recently is “Kel El Asayed” by Marwan Khoury.

All the songs are written and composed by him. His lyrics are simply beautiful and the music is very classy and delicious.

The album takes you on a great ride between great ballads and more uptempo and catchier tunes.

My favourite songs on this album are: Kel El Asayed (The title track and power ballad of the album), Khedni Maak (A catchier, more fun tune) and Baadak Ya Hawa (Another catchy lighthearted tune).

I really recommend checking out this album.

WAMA are the first Egyptian and Arab boy band, consisting of 4 very talented members, all graduates of the Egyptian conservatoire.

They are Nader Hamdi (Waddour,23, pianist and bass vocals), Ahmed El Shami (Shami, 23, percussionist and bass vocals), Mohamed Nour (Nour, 22, violinist and lead vocals) and Ahmed Fahmi (Fahmi, 24, violinist and lead vocals).

WAMA was formed in 1999. They wrote their own lyrics and started composing, singing, and arranging their demo tape.

I first knew of them when I heard their first single and first album title track “Ya Leil” a couple of years ago. I really liked the song and thought they had the potential to become a successful boy band and lead the way for other Arab boy bands.

Now they’re coming out with a second album called “Ya Ghali Alayya”, and from the 2 or 3 songs I heard from it, it looks like it’s going to be a really good one.

I really like the direction they’re taking in their music and style.
If you don’t know them, I truly recommend checking their stuff out.

For more info about them, check the: WAMA Official Website.

So, it seems like next Friday will be the final prime in this season of the Middle East Star Academy on LBC.

The two students left are Amani Souissi from Tunisia and Hisham Abdel Rahman from Saudi Arabia. Voting for the winner goes on from tonight till next Friday.

From day one of the competition Amani Souissi stood out with her strong and beautiful voice, always getting better and better from prime to prime. This fact is what assured that she got to the finals without ever getting nominated by the academy’s instructors.

I think Amani has one of the most beautiful voices in the Arabic music scene, and I truly wish she was on a show like Superstar instead of Star Academy where she could show her real talent and compete with other great voices.
Anyway, in Star Academy, when compared with all of this year’s contestants as well as all the ones from last year, she beats them all hands down.

So please visit the LBC Star Academy 2 site and vote for her. She truly deserves it.

I just felt like sharing some of my favourite Arab singers, in no particular order.

Marwan Khoury: This guy is really talented. I love his style of music. He’s been writing music for a number of singers for some years now and just recently got into singing himself. He and his music are very classy whether the song is a ballad or a faster catchier tune.

Kathem El Saher: I love how he’s taking Arabic poems and turning them into beautiful songs with his great voice and amazing music. It keeps reminding me how beautiful a language Arabic is. Everytime I hear a song of his, I fall in love with our language again and again.

Saber El Rbai: I love his voice and how much feelings he puts into his performances. He’s very talented and has great musical taste. Makes all us Tunisians proud.

Julia Botros: I more than love her voice, she’s totally amazing. I love her music and the meanings she chooses to pass through it. I could listen to her music forever.

Feirooz: The angelic voice of Arab music. She’s a legend and truly deserves to be. Her songs are just so beautiful, you can’t help but feel lifted.

Marcel Khalifa: Another legend in Arab music. I can’t find enough words to describe him or his music. He’s simply great.

Majida El Roumi: If class, beauty and perfection could be embodied in one artist, it would be Majida. Her voice is great, her songs are amazing and she conveys so many feelings through her music.

Fadl Shaker: He’s like a bunch of warm feelings with a beautiful voice over a soothing tune. Do I need to say more? I don’t think so.

Ilham Madfai: I truly enjoy his music, that’s based on Iraqi folklore with an added touch of spanish guitars. Great stuff.

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do
They’re really saying I love you.

I hear babies crying, I watch them grow
They’ll learn much more than I’ll never know
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
Yes I think to myself what a wonderful world.

What A Wonderful World
Louis Armstrong

I just love this song!
It’s amazing how it can always lift me up and make me feel better.

Unfortunately…

It’s a shame that George Michael will be quitting pop music. His songs and albums were always something great to look out for.

He’s given so much to the music world over the years, and has been one of the few who have managed to keep rolling out amazing hits.

Although I never classified myself as a George Michael fan, I just love his music.
I hope he changes his mind and comes back with another one of his great albums.

Growing up in a music loving family, I was surrounded with all types of music ever since my childhood. My uncles and aunts played and taught different instruments and my dad was as big a music fan as I grew up to be.

So in my childhood other than listening to all the music that was coming up in the 80’s and then 90’s, I also listened to older stuff from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s that my dad used to listen to.

Of course, I had my faves from the music in that era too, and one of my favourite singers was Cat Stevens who later became known as Yusuf Islam when he became a Muslim.
I really like his music, songs and lyrics and among my favourite songs by him is one called “Father & Son”.

The song was covered by Irish boy band Boyzone in the early 90’s and has been re-released again now by Ronan Keating (former lead singer of Boyzone, another fave singer of mine) featuring Yusuf Islam himself.

This version of the song is really nice too, sort of a mixture between new and old, Ronan’s warm voice and Yusuf’s smooth vocals carrying the great lyrics ever so beautifully.

The song is a dialogue between a father and his son, and the lines I love the most are when the father says:

… Take your time, think a lot,
Why, think of everything you’ve got.
For you will still be here tomorrow,
but your dreams may not.

I love this song…

My favorite female singer Tina Arena has gone on and released what must be one of the best songs of the year. An infectious tune, beautiful lyrics and Tina

One of the albums I’ve been pretty much addicted to recently is Songs About Jane by Maroon 5. It’s a great and fun album from the opening note to the very end.

It’s hard to choose any song or two as the highlights of the album because each song is beautiful in it’s own right from “This Love” to “She Will Be Loved” to “Sunday Morning” to “Sweetest Goodbye”, this album simply rocks!

Maroon 5 are certainly the best pop/rock band out there in the music scene today and their debut album is one of the best albums I’ve heard this year.

I also watched them perform Live on MTV at the European Music Awards, and they were great, they rocked the place with a cool rendition of “This Love”.

I’m quite sure that if they go on like this and stick to the great music-making talent they’ve displayed on this album, they’ll become a really big international act soon enough.

My advice, get the album Songs About Jane right now. You won’t regret it, I’m sure.

Anyone checking out the plethora of Arabic music channels, that keep popping up on every satellite frequency possible, and having the courage to go through the experience of watching some of the videos they play will most probably catch the name Jad Choueiri on their screen quite often.

Jad Choueiri is a Lebanese singer, producer and video director.
He and the people he’s working with are riding the wave of sexually crazed music and videos that are playing on Arabic music channels.
From Tina to Maria to his own material and others, this guy is the driving force behind the lowest music ever released in the Arab world.

Being a music fan who stops by Arabic music channels on his daily trip through the Vh1s, MTVs, Rotanas, Mazzikas and other satellite music channels, I have come to know his style very well.

In short, if the video has the singer looking at the camera like a cat in heat, showing their tongues a lot, breathing heavily, baring more skin than you’d usually expect and singing already bad lyrics like shit, then it’s most probably something Jad is associated to.

But, giving credit where credit is due, his style of directing is quite good if we forget about the sex obsession.
I think that if he focuses more on that and starts thinking more with his brain instead of some other part of his body, he could really produce some pretty nice music videos. Maybe.

As for singing, he should totally forget about it. His voice sucks like hell, and his lyrics are even worse.
I get ear cramps, if such a thing exists, whenever I catch a song of his on 😛