Swinging Saturdays #99: European Championships ~ The Quarter Finals in music

Swinging saturdays is a musical meme hosted by Ice Cold Passion, to share our passion for music. The goal is to make a top 5 (or Top 10) for whatever genre or artist you like or get creative and share a theme based music top 5. For example a bookish soundtrack, funny songs, song to listen to on a rainy day top 5.

 So we are down to the quarterfinals! I thought it would be fun to do a top 8 today, with all the countries that made it into the quarter finals! I thought it would have been I will be sharing 1 song of an artist out of each country, I am not sure how this will go, as I might have to do some research for some of the countries. So lets get into this!

Italy: Måneskin ~ Zitti E Bueni

This will be a first on my blog, I am most definitely not the biggest fan of the Eurovision song festival. Most of the songs are not for me, and usually the songs they pick for our Dutch artist to preform are bad, does any one remember Birds from Anouk? Anyone, it was so bad. Any ways, this I think is actually a great song, very original, lots of guitars, yes please can we have a winnner like this every year, please? Thank you. Sorry Duncan this is more my style.

Denmark: Volbeat ~ For Evigt

I thought I didn't know any bands from Denmark. I was very wrong, almost every week I get confronted with this band.. Because, my sister is a big fan, and well we have a company together, so yeah it gets played at the office. I like this band, but it is not my go to band, I have my favorites for example Sad Man's Tongue and I really do enjoy this song. Only just found out thought that the entire chorus is in Danish... Yeah that is kind of my issue with the singer, I don't always know what he is singing. I love this live version, also like the art from the album btw.

Czech Republic: Airfare ~ Sorry babe

I don't want to talk about the match against the Netherlands OKE..(being overdramatic) Oke, well let's move on, I know 0 music from the Czech Republic, so I did some research and found this band that sounds a bit like Franz Ferdinand but then a bit different. I like this song so this is what we are going with. If you are from the Czech Republic and you have some other great suggestions, leave it in the comments! I will definitely check it out!

Belgium: Bazart ~ Telkens Als Je Gaat

I know, I know, unfortunetly the red devils did not hold up against Italy yesterday, but hey we are discussing the quarter finalists here. Bazart is one of my favorite bands from our neighbouring countries, this just released yesterday on Youtube, so it must be a new song. So yeah, I just check they just released a new album, it is called Onderweg, which reminds of a Dutch song with the same name, from the artist Abel, but that is beside the point. This is a very interesting band to keep your eye on, their music is amazing.

Urkaine: Stoned Jesus ~ I Am The Mountain

So I was talking about doing this top 8 today at work this week and our trainee send me a text now you need to find a song for Ukraine as well as I told him that I didn't know any music from the Chzech Republic. The thing is though I do know bands from the Urkaine. One of Martijn's favorite stoner bands is from the Ukraine, and also one of the symphonic metal bands I listen to is from the Ukraine. So it kind of was an easy one for me. And I am going with Stoned Jesus because of that epic vocals in this song. I just wanted to have an excuse to use this song actually. This song is around 14 minutes but trust me it is worth your time.

England: Arctic Monkeys ~ R U Mine?

From Sheffield England, comes a band I am a huge fan of but I am not sure if I ever used their songs on my blog. Why not? I don't know honestly, but hey now we have a great excuse to do so. R U Mine is by far my favourite, but I also love I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor.

Switserland: Coilguns ~ Earthians

So here is a surprise, I know 0 music from Switserland, not one single thing. It was a bit of a challenge to find anything interesting coming from this country. This band is not a hundred percent my cup of tea, but it was the most interesting band I could find. Their music is pretty expirimental, and ranges from metal screams to mellow rocksongs, and everything in between. This song actually to me sound more like something Martijn would listen to, so Stoner. I think he would appreciate this song. Man this was a hard search.If you know any good other music coming from Switserland please let me know in the comments.

Spain: Las Ketchup ~ The Ketchup Song

I honestly thought I could come up with something different for Spain, but the thing is, all the Spanish language songs that I know, are either from South America or in case of Manu Chao France. So this was a lot harder then expected, this was definitely a hit in the Netherlands, it was a number 1 in the charts for a couple of weeks here. I know it is kind of a funny song but I do appreciated. My other option would have been Penelope Cruz with Volver, from the movie with the same name. It is an authentic Spanish song, and if you would like to watch something foreign langauge Volver is a great movie. It is kind of strange in a way as well but that is oke.


This turned out to be much much harder to do then I anticipated, honestly I thought it would have been easy peasy. If you have any suggestions for music from all the countries mentions feel free to leave a comment, I am always on the lookout for new music so I will definitely check it out.

Did I miss anything? Let me know in the comments!

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Send me an email: icecoldpassions@gmail.com. 

I would love to hear what kind of music you like!