Latin pop: Sofía Reyes (Short)

Temperatures reached summer-like hights the past week in The Netherlands, prompting me to look for some sweet summer tunes. One of the songs that caught my ear was 1,2,3 by Mexican singer Sofía Reyes. Sofía started out five years ago, posting covers on YouTube. Soon after, she got signed to the label of bachata singer Prince Royce and released some songs which had moderate success. Her latest hit 1, 2, 3 is blowing up though, and has managed to rack up 67 million views in only two months. 2018's summer hit?!

Watch more videos on the official Sofia Reyes YouTube channel

Hard Rock: B'z

As one might deduce from reading the articles on this blog, I like listening to music a lot. I however also love to make music myself. After years of focusing on drums, and some piano, last year I decided to buy an electric guitar. Since I've never really been a fan of learning from books I was looking for alternative methods to learn how to play the guitar. I found what I was looking for, unexpectedly, in a video game called Rocksmith 2014. The game allows you to connect your guitar to a PC and play along with a whole range of songs from pop to metal. It starts out easy, but increases in difficulty if you play well. One of the more challenging songs is Go Further by Tak Matsumoto. It was through this awesome song as well as Ultra Soul that I discovered B'z.

B'z, a Japanese rock band consisting of guitarist Takahiro Matsumoto and vocalist Koshi Inaba, is currently one of the best-selling music artists worldwide. With around 100 million sold units they rank amongst rock legends like Metallica, Bon Jovi and Guns N' Roses.

Although Tak's guitar has always played a large part in the band's songs, their initial style was more synth pop than hard rock. Lady-Go-Round for instance favours the use of synthesizers and samplers. Soon however the band's sound changed into arena rock with songs like Alone and Blowin' (can somebody explain those pants?!) and hard rock, Calling and Liar!Liar!

The band's popularity skyrocketed and since their first #1 single Sun's Komachi Angel the band has scored 46 consecutive #1 singles and 25 #1 albums. Let that sink in for a moment... Thirty years after their debut they are not finished yet either. In November 2017 the band released their latest album Dinosaur and surprise, surprise, it reached #1 again.

Let's hope they will continue putting out great work, it is excellent study material for this aspiring rock star.

Due to their large amount of hits it is almost impossible to list my favourites, but I will try regardless:

I Want to Dance Inside You, Love me I love you, Giri Giri Chop, Yasei no Energy, Compulsion, Splash!, Dive and My Lonely Town

For more videos check out the B'z Official YouTube channel