The Eurovision Song Contest is an annual international song competition, held every year by the Eurovision broadcasting organisation since 1956, with participants representing primarily European countries. Each participating country submits an original song to be performed on live television and radio, then casts votes for the other countries' songs to determine the winner. At least 50 countries are eligible to compete as of 2019; since 2015, Australia has been allowed as a contestant.
A song is a musical composition intended to be vocally performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetition and variation of sections.
"Bohemian Rhapsody" is a song by the British rock band Queen. It was written by Freddie Mercury for the band's 1975 album A Night at the Opera. It is a six-minute suite, consisting of several sections without a chorus: an intro, a ballad segment, an operatic passage, a hard rock part and a reflective coda. The song is a more accessible take on the 1970s progressive rock genre.
The Song dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou, ending the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. The Song often came into conflict with the contemporaneous Liao, Western Xia and Jin dynasties to its north. It was eventually conquered by the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty.
"Happy Birthday to You", also known as "Happy Birthday", is a song traditionally sung to celebrate the anniversary of a person's birth. According to the 1998 Guinness World Records, it is the most recognized song in the English language, followed by "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow". The song's base lyrics have been translated into at least 18 languages. The melody of "Happy Birthday to You" comes from the song "Good Morning to All", which has traditionally been attributed to American sisters Patty and Mildred J. Hill in 1893, although the claim that the sisters composed the tune is disputed.
A songwriter is a musician who professionally composes musical compositions and writes lyrics for songs. A songwriter can also be called a composer, although the latter term tends to be used mainly for individuals from the classical music genre and film scoring, but is also associated writing and composing the original musical composition or musical bed. A songwriter who mainly writes the lyrics for a song is referred to as lyricist. The pressure from the music industry to produce popular hits means that song writing is often an activity for which the tasks are distributed between a number of people. For example, a songwriter who excels at writing lyrics might be paired with a songwriter with the task of creating original melodies. Pop songs may be composed by group members from the band or by staff writers – songwriters directly employed by music publishers. Some songwriters serve as their own music publishers, while others have outside publishers.
The terms A-side and B-side refer to the two sides of 78, 45, and 331⁄3 rpm phonograph records, or cassettes, whether singles, extended plays (EPs), or long-playing (LP) records. The A-side usually featured the recording that the artist, record producer, or the record company intended to receive the initial promotional effort and then receive radio airplay, hopefully, to become a "hit" record. The B-side is a secondary recording that has a history of its own: some artists released B-sides that were considered as strong as, or stronger than, the A-side and became hits in their own right. Others took the opposite approach: producer Phil Spector was in the habit of filling B-sides with on-the-spot instrumentals that no one would confuse with the A-side. With this practice, Spector was assured that airplay was focused on the side he wanted to be the hit side.
Sir Barry Alan Crompton Gibb is a British-American musician, singer-songwriter and record producer who rose to worldwide fame as a co-founder of the group the Bee Gees, one of the most commercially successful groups in the history of popular music. With his younger brothers, twins Robin and Maurice Gibb, he formed a songwriting partnership beginning in 1955.
Lata Mangeshkar (pronunciation is an Indian playback singer and music director. She is one of the best-known and most respected playback singers in India. She has recorded songs in over a thousand Hindi films and has sung songs in over thirty-six regional Indian languages and foreign languages, though primarily in Marathi, Hindi, Bengali and Assamese.
Bernard John Taupin is an English lyricist, poet, singer and artist. He is best known for his long-term collaboration with Elton John, having written the lyrics for most of John's songs.
Enrique Miguel Iglesias Preysler is a Spanish singer, songwriter, actor, and record producer who is regarded as the King of Latin Pop.
The Billboard Hot 100 is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for songs, published weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on sales, radio play, and online streaming in the United States.
Krishnan Nair Shantakumari Chithra, often credited as K. S. Chithra or simply Chithra, is an Indian playback singer and carnatic musician from Kerala. Chithra also sings Indian classical, devotional, and popular music. She has more than 25,000 recorded songs in various Indian languages, including Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, Tamil, Hindi, Bengali, Oriya, Punjabi, Gujarati, Tulu, Rajasthani, Urdu, Sanskrit, and Badaga, as well as foreign languages such as Malay, Latin, Arabic, Sinhalese, English and French. She is considered as the one among the "First ladies" of India who was honoured by the President of India.
Brenda Song is an American actress. She began her career in show business as a child fashion model, and her early acting work included roles in the television series Fudge (1995) and 100 Deeds for Eddie McDowd (1999). After many commercials and television roles in the late 1990s, Song appeared in The Ultimate Christmas Present (2000) and won a Young Artist Award for her performance. In 2002, she signed a contract with Disney Channel and starred in the Disney Channel Original Movie Get a Clue (2002). She went on to make significant contributions to the network, including starring in films such as Stuck in the Suburbs (2004), Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior (2006), and many other productions. Song went on to portray the lead female role of London Tipton in the comedy series The Suite Life of Zack & Cody (2005–2008), and later reprised the role on the spinoff series The Suite Life on Deck (2008–2011).
In Indian cinema, an item number or item song is a musical number inserted into a film that may or may not have any relevance to the plot. The term is commonly used within Indian films to describe a catchy, upbeat, often sexually provocative dance sequence for a song in a movie. The main aim of an item number is to entertain movie-goers and to lend support to the marketability of the film by being featured in trailers. They are favoured by filmmakers as they afford the opportunity pick potential hit songs from the stocks, since they do not add to the continuity of the plot. It is thus a vehicle for commercial success that ensures repeat viewing.
Shreya Ghoshal is an Indian singer, composer and music producer. She has received four National Film Awards, four Kerala State Film Awards, two Tamil Nadu State Film Awards, seven Filmfare Awards including six for Best Female Playback Singer and ten Filmfare Awards South. She has recorded songs for film music and albums in various Indian languages and has established herself as a leading playback singer of Indian cinema.
A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film or television show. The first such album to be commercially released was Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the soundtrack to the film of the same name, in 1938. The first soundtrack album of a film's orchestral score was that for Alexander Korda's 1942 film Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book, composed by Miklós Rózsa. However, this album added the voice of Sabu, the film's star, narrating the story in character as Mowgli.
"The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" was the cover story of a special issue of Rolling Stone, issue number 963, published in December 2004, a year after the magazine published its list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time".
Alfred Matthew "Weird Al" Yankovic is an American musical comedian and actor who is known for his humorous songs that make light of popular culture and often parody specific songs by contemporary musical acts; original songs that are style pastiches of the work of other acts; and polka medleys of several popular songs, featuring his favored instrument, the accordion.
Sripathi Panditaradhyula Balasubrahmanyam mostly referred to as S. P. B. or Balu is an Indian playback singer, music director, actor, dubbing artist and film producer who works predominantly in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Hindi and Malayalam. He has recorded over 40000 songs in 16 Indian languages. He has garnered six National Film Awards for Best Male Playback Singer for his works in four different languages; Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, and Hindi; twenty five Andhra Pradesh state Nandi Awards for his works towards Telugu cinema, numerous other state awards from Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. In addition, he garnered the Bollywood Filmfare Award, and six Filmfare Awards South. In 2012, he received the state NTR National Award for his contributions to Indian cinema. In 2016, He was honored with the Indian Film Personality of the Year consisting of a Silver Peacock Medal. He is a recipient of civilian awards such as Padma Shri (2001) and Padma Bhushan (2011) from the Government of India.
