Santa – reviews

Sofia Talvik annual Christmas single "Santa (can you bring me someone else this year)"

My new Xmas single “Santa” has only been out for a day but I’ve already got some lovely reviews:

Women’s Radio has written a fun review:

“Santa” has that 80’s music vibe that will make listeners bob their heads unknowingly.  Imagine Santa Claus bouncing around with a Mohawk, jean jacket and tight leather pants.  It is a cheerful, bubbly and hope-filled piece that will bring positive energy to Talvik’s cause this year.
Read the full review here.

Free Christmas Music Blog says:

“This year’s single, “Santa (can you bring me someone else this year)”, was just released today, and it’s every bit as good as I expected it to be (which is a relief, because I often worry when my expectations get too high for something). Musically, “Santa” is a fun, synthesizer-based pop song that would not sound out of place on a mid-80s Madonna album.  If you’re a fan of songs like “Last Christmas”, this song is a must hear.”
Read full review here

Santas Working Overtime has chosen “Santa” as song of the day! Thanks!

Wears the Trousers magazine did a nice little write up – check it out here! .. as did the lovely blog With Music in My Mind!

Stubby’s House of Christmas wrote in their review:>
“I love this woman.  And every year Sofia Talvik releases a free Christmas song, so what’s not to love?  This year’s effort is a fairly uptempo danceable indie track, even if the lyrics are the “I’ve been alone since we split up” type.  It might be her catchiest yet.”

Read the whole review here

Fab Womens Radio has already put “Santa” in rotation and writes on their website:
“Highlights?  Just about every single track, but why not start with this week’s FEATURED FEMMEP3, a glorious new track from our favorite Swedish singer-songwriter, Sofia Talvik, titled, “Santa”.”

Download your copy of “Santa” here

Sofia Talvik annual Christmas single "Santa (can you bring me someone else this year)"
Sofia Talvik annual Christmas single "Santa (can you bring me someone else this year)"

The hard work of being an artist!

Sometimes everyones tired and grumpy...
Sometimes everyone's tired and grumpy...

Lots of people think it’s just glamour, travels and good times to be an artist. Even friends of mine tell me how great it must be for me to “get to” tour and travel so much. Even they don’t realize I pay for the tour myself most of the time and bringing a band is never cheap, you guys out there who have families know a couple of plane tickets tend to eat up your budget pretty fast.

I also get a lot of questions from up-and-coming artists wondering how to go about the business of starting a record label or how to promote their music. I always try to answer the best I can, but the short answer to all of this is “you have to work your ass off!”. Nothing comes for free in this business and no one will care about your music as much as you do, no matter what that manager/label/pr company is trying to tell you.

.. but most of the time it's great!
.. but most of the time it's great!

So I was very happy to stumble upon this great website where all of the stuff about being an artist and building your brand is collected in a fun and comprehensible way. This post today is mainly for all you artists and musicians out there, but you other guys can check out http://www.eventric.com/ as well (scroll down to featured articles), it’s a lot of fun reading and gives you an insight on all the things you need to know when you want to get out there with your music.Martin Atkins who is the guy sharing all these great tips really knows what he’s talking about!

One of the things that made me laugh was the post about why you need to learn screen printing as an artist. Why? So you can make your own merchandise of course. Just like I started doing a while back. All my tees are hand printed by me, check them out here: shop.sofiatalvik.com. So it’s just a lot of great advice there for all artists, no matter where you are in your career.

Here’s some fast links to my fave posts:

11 (of 27) Things Touring Bands Can Do NOW To Make a Difference

11 MORE (of 29) Tips Touring Bands Can Do Now To Make a Difference

10 Ideas For Making Your Show an Event

Just remember that it's a lot of hard work!
Just remember that it's a lot of hard work!

Be friends with my site

I just added Google friend connect to my site. If you have a google, aim, yahoo! or OpenID account you can become friends with my website and leave me comments and check out my other friends. You can also contribute to the playlist on blog. Look at the bottom of this site to become my google friend.

google friend

Contest in Todays Country Magazine

TMC

Today’s Country Magazine loves my album Jonestown and gives you a chance to love it too by giving away the album to 3 lucky winners. Go to TCM’s website for details. As my private CD shop is closed for the summer, this is probably the best way to get a hold of a copy of Jonestown! 🙂 The contest is open until May 29th.

Tour blog begins today!

On the Lollapalooza tour I blogged on Aftonbladet.se but this time I thought I’d give all my non-swedish friends and fans an opportunity to follow me on tour, so my tour blog this time will be in english here on my own website.


Flight trip

I’ve just arrived in Canada for Canadian Music week and am exploiting the free wifi on the Fairmont to write this. The trip yesterday was about 14 hours long and we were very happy to have some pizza and get some rest on an inflatable bed at my friend Gary Taxali’s house here in Toronto when we arrived. Gary is the most talented artist, he designed the stunning coverart for Aimee Mann’s latest album and when he heard we were coming here he invited us to stay with him. Check out Gary’s work here: http://www.garytaxali.com

At Gary Taxali’s

Today’s mission is to check out Toronto, pick up some lotion (I realized I was allergic to the one I brought from home) and to check out my favourite store “Forever 21”.

flight
Going to Canada
flight2
View from my window
gary's
Gary's cool artwork
breakfast in Toronto
No refill on the coffe in Canada
blogging
Blogging at the fairmont this minute!