Alien Pop

Alien Pop & Gloomy Sunday FOR FREE at Bandcamp!

I’m still alive and make music! In fact, I’ve never stopped, but for quite a while I didn’t feel like showing myself to the world. Thinking about the future of my musical style and other things, I’ve finally come to the conclusion that music was my first love and will always be. So I’m back again!

During my absence my single Gloomy Sunday (2012) and the EP Alien Pop (2013) have disappeared from the download portals like iTunes, Amazon etc. However, I hadn’t found out before Friday night! Sometimes musicians are naive and during the time of the production I was in touch with a guy from a small net label who published my records without asking for money.

A certain time after the online releases I’ve never heard from him again. He vanished from social media and it wasn’t possible to contact him via email any longer. I haven’t even seen a single cent from download sales!

Nevertheless, Gloomy Sunday and Alien Pop will come back to the stores around February 25th. In the next two weeks I will give you the possibility to get both records at my Bandcamp site – FOR FREE unless you are willing to pay for my work.

Gloomy Sunday: 2 new versions of an old Hungarian song

In 1933 the unknown Budapest bar pianist Rezsö Seress (1899 – 1968) was deserted by his fiancee. Grieving for his lost love, he composed a melancholic melody called “Szomorú Vasárnap“ (Gloomy Sunday) and suddenly became world-famous.

Yet fame had a negative side effect for him because the song inspired numerous listeners to kill themselves and radio stations banned “Gloomy Sunday“ from their programme.

I didn’t use the English translation of László Jávor’s original lyrics like Diamanda Galas, Heather Nova or Björk. In „Gloomy Sunday (Suicide Drive)“ I remember 2009, probably the darkest year of my life. Hysterical synthesizers lead you to the deepest abyss of my soul. Luckily I didn’t fall, but later I committed suicide in my song.

„Gloomy Sunday (Lovers In War)“, the second version on the single, tells the story of a devastating relationship which inspired me to shoot a gloomy video at Beelitz Heilstätten, a former hospital for lung diseases near Berlin. Only the ruins have remained and they look like a battlefield!

Alien Pop: the celebration of a genre

Outer space is much more colourful! On Alien Pop I celebrated extraterrestrial extravagance to the fullest. The first song „Floating In Space“ was a tribute to the great Klaus Nomi who had died 30 years before the release on August 6th, 2013. If you are familiar with his music, you will recognize a few similarities to his song “Total Eclipse“ in the chorus.

On track 5 I honoured a second big idol of mine: Freddie Mercury. Its title “The Show Goes On“ responds to Queen’s “The Show Must Go On“, but it also reflects my own attitude towards music. Well, my music has changed over the year’s, but wouldn’t it be boring to stay the same forever?

Now go to Bandcamp, download the tracks and convince yourself:

https://anna-aliena.bandcamp.com/album/gloomy-sunday
https://anna-aliena.bandcamp.com/album/alien-pop

Tribute To Freddie Mercury

Today 24 years have passed since Freddie Mercury’s death on November 24th, 1991. For me he has never been gone, but unfortunately I was born too late to see him live on stage. I consciously discovered Freddie’s music about two years after his death when Queen was generally considered as uncool among kids. Nobody else at school liked my passion. My classmates rather had a crush on Nirvana, techno and euro dance. In my opinion Freddie had the best voice in the whole universe and it didn’t take a long time till I joined the International Queen Fan Club in London.

Being a school-hater, I learned more from Queen than from my uncreative teachers. Suddenly my English flourished tremendously and the other kids started to wonder who had taught me all those words. No-one tracked down my secret. Of course I had picked up my vocabulary from Queen lyrics and the monthly fan club magazine. Learning English became one of my beloved hobbies in those days, making music my destination in life.

Fascinated by fellow cat lover Freddie, I tried very hard to write a tribute song about him. My very first attempt was called “Immortal Genius”. Every day my mother told me how awful it sounded and my best friend from school days agreed with her. Thus, I dropped the idea for many years. Luckily I rediscovered it three years ago when I wrote “The Show Goes On“, the last track on the Alien Pop EP. The song is actually my personal reply to “The Show Must Go On” from Queen. As far as I remember, I was busy with the composition around November 24th, 2012, Freddie’s 21st anniversary of death.

Every year at the end of November my old friend Magnus (Herr von Keil) hosts a party at the cosy gay bar Betty F. in Berlin. Wearing hilarious costumes and playing Queen records which are only interrupted by our live performances is our way to commemorate one of the most wonderful voices in the history of rock music. Last Saturday I dressed up as Freddie from the “I Want To Break Free” video. As you can see on the photo, I looked like a guy and other guys seemed to take me for a man … When I sang Queen’s “Thank God It’s Christmas” and my own Christmas carol “Buy, Buy For Christmas“, I could not hide my biology any longer. Anyway, it’s always a lot of fun to sing for Freddie and dance to Queen music with my friends who share my fate of being born too late. We will definitely keep our queeny tradition which also means drinking lots of Caipirinha. Freddie might have chosen champagne, though!

The Anna Aliena CD shop

Have you visited my new CD shop? I promise you that this part of my website is the only place where you can buy all my CDs! In addition, I will personally sign the purchased album for you if you wish. Concerning my forthcoming EP The Muse, I made up my mind not to give the CD to any external distributor. As a musician you hardly ever know where the money ends up … You better order The Muse here and get Alien Pop for free.

Of course my CD shop has been authorized by my label Go!Diva Records which is mainly responsible for distributing my records. As you can see on the picture, I have never published my debut Silly Little Boys (2011) on CD. Nevertheless, my first EP and the single Gloomy Sunday (2012) are available at the big download stores such as Amazon and iTunes.

At the moment I only accept your payment via PayPal. All the prices include package and shipment to your home address – no matter where you live. If you make an order on my website, your CD will be accompanied by a handwritten letter from me to you. Many of you already know how much I love the interaction with my fans. Whenever you leave a comment on my social media sites, I try to reply to you as soon as possible.

Tomorrow I’m going to start recording my classical EP Serenada which will probably be out next spring. For details, please read my blog post “Preview Of A Classical Record“.

How I designed the CD artwork for The Muse

While I was arranging a Josip Hatze song for my classical EP Serenada, my forthcoming oeuvre The Muse arrived from the CD factory on Thursday night. After unpacking the parcel I felt like a little kid on Christmas Eve as some of you may have noticed on my Facebook site, on Twitter or Google+. In my opinion the CD looks beautiful and even a little bit better than its predecessor Swinging Berlin! Well, it’s a question of personal taste and I don’t want to sound narcissistic here. Nevertheless, it involves a lot of work to create professional-looking CD artwork. Today I’m telling you how it works.

At first you must find a realiable factory to print CDs at reasonable prices. I always order them at the same company which is specialized in smaller editions. On their website they provide samples having the right measurements for the cover image, the booklet, the inlay and the CD label. Customers can download these samples for Adobe Photoshop – the well-known photo software I’ve always used to design the outer appearance of my music.

As my recent press photos focus on romantic sunsets in Croatia, it was easy to conceive an appropriate layout for The Muse on CD. The booklet conceals one of the marvelous images taken by Christina Katz (please also read “The Muse“ press photos in the making). Page 4 of the booklet and the back of the CD feature my spectacular sunset pictures I personally shot on the beach of Starigrad-Paklenica. By the way, I didn’t need Photoshop to increase the brightness of the colours. When you look at the CD, you will see the sunset through my eyes. Of course nothing will ever be able to compete with the original moment of taking the photos, though!

Until now The Muse has not left my territory, except for one copy: Although it’s a national holiday in Germany, my vocal coach Snezana Nena Brzakovic gave me a lesson this morning. Since she helped me translate the song “Deine Blauen Augen“ into “Tvoje Plave Oči“, she had to be the first one to hold The Muse in her hands. 🙂

The official record release of The Muse is on October 30th. If you preorder it before this date, I will give you my EP Alien Pop from 2013 for free! I decided to sell the EP for 8 euros per copy (plus package and shipping). Soon you will be able to order my music on this website, but you can also contact me via Facebook or write an email to info@godiva-records.biz. I’m going to add my signature to each CD!