Dries Buytaert

Smashing Pumpkins - Disarm

Another post in my favorite music series. This time, a song from the Smashing Pumpkins, a band that I listened to a lot in the formative years of my youth. Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was one of the very first albums that I ever bought. Many people loathe Billy Corgan's voice, but to me, his voice is what makes the Smashing Pumpkins so unique -- even today.

Faithless - We come one

Want to see me dance on tables? No problem. Fill me up with gin and tonic, and play "We come one" from Faithless. One of my all time favorite party songs.

Anouk

Another post in my favorite music category: Anouk, a Dutch singer.

Between 1998 and 2008, Anouk left The Netherlands and moved to US to escape the pressures of fame, only to return a few years later.

I embedded two of my favorite songs in this blog post. The first song (Nobody's wife) was recorded in 1998 before she left, the second song (Michel) ten years later in 2008 after she had returned from the US. In the first song, she is getting eggs smashed at her t-shirt and simply takes of her t-shirt to continue in her bra. In the second song, she performs live in front of 60.000 people, and is visibly more relax.

I've been a big fan of Anouk from day one, for more than 10 years, and still think she is one of the best European singers.

U2 - City of Blinding Lights

U2 playing City of Blinding Lights for Barack Obama on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in DC. Monumental performance!

Pearl Jam - Black

I must have listened to this Pearl Jam song a million times. This video chills up my spine and makes me want to be a rock star. Eddie Vedder's raw passion comes straight from his heart and his soul and can bring a grown man to its knees. Powerful stuff!

Bush - Glycerine

The song Glycerine, of the post-grunge band Bush, is probably the song that has had the most impact on my life. I was 17 years old when I discovered this song. I had just moved out of my parents' place to go to college and started dating the woman that would later become my wife.

Around that time, in 1996, the song was performed live, solo, by Gavin Rossdale, during a heavy storm at the MTV Spring Break festival. Thanks to the wonders of YouTube, we can go back in time and replay sentimental memories of our youth. (The YouTube video of the MTV Spring Break performance is embedded below.)

Even today, 12 years later, this might still be my all-time favorite song. I just listened to it ... twice. Nostalgic!

Pink using Drupal

Pink is using Drupal for her official website. She also began using Mollom to protect her site's content, and we've blocked thousands of spam attempts since. The site was built by her label Sony BMG. Yay!

Call me soft, but my favorite Pink song is "I have seen the rain", a song written by her father while he was stationed in Vietnam. You can watch the YouTube video below ...