Author Archives: Dominika

Simple Plan progressing on Czech charts

AUTHOR: Dominika | 28. April 2016 | no comments

Even though almost two months have passed since the Prague show, Simple Plan have not lost their popularity in Czech media since then. For instance, the song ‘Opinion Overload’, although not an official single from the Taking One For The Team album, the song has been going strong in the TOP 20 MODERN ROCK chart of the Czech branch of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). This particular chart documents the 20 most played rock songs on Czech radios every week.

As you can see from the table below, ‘Opinion Overload’ can currently pride itself with the highest position (#14) of this song on this chart ever since it reached the TOP 20:

Song Chart This week Last week Two weeks ago
Opinion Overload
IFPI: TOP 20 Modern Rock
#14
#18
#20

However it is their second single off their new record – Singing In The Rain, for which the band recently released a music video, that Simple Plan are counting on the most. And it is precisely the video and single for ‘Singing In The Rain’ that the Czech music website MusicServer reviewed very positively today – giving it 8/10. While the article admits that the song is definitely a very pop material, it describes it as a “well-written [song] that definitely stays in your head after first listen and makes one wanna tap their feet and immediately start singing along.” Along with that, MusicServer also marked the song as the next big summer hit, which is definitely a very good news!

And while radios over here in the Czech Republic are still only very slowly putting ‘Singing In The Rain’ on, as you already know from one of my previous articles, the Czech music television TV ÓČKO has been airing the music video for a couple days now. This week, the clip has also finally been added as a new addition (N1) to the Óčko chart, where starting today, you can start voting for it! In the past, the fans of Simple Plan have been known on this station to have extremely good voting skills, so let’s not disappoint this time and let’s move SP to the top of the chart! You can vote until Tuesday – just go on the chart’s website, scroll down to N1 and click on the link next to the title of the song.

Medium Type of media Song Current position Voting link
Óčko TV
Czech music TV station
Singing In The Rain
new addition N1
[week zero]
Óčko chart

Jeff weighs in on next Simple Plan EP/album release debate

AUTHOR: Dominika | 28. April 2016 | no comments

If you’ve read practically any of the recent interviews with Simple Plan, I’m sure you’ve noticed that in almost all of them, the interviewees tend to mention the 5-year-gap between Get Your Heart On! (2011) and Simple Plan’s new album Taking One For The Team (2016). The reasoning behind the seemingly long time between these records has been caused by Simple Plan’s non-stop touring between 2011 and 2013, which was followed by a year of time off & writing and then the remaining time, during which the band recorded the album and then the follow-up post-production [along with additional recording sessions].

During these 5 years, of course, the fans haven’t been exactly without any new Simple Plan music. The band released an EP, titled ‘Get Your Heart On: The Second Coming!’ (2013) which featured 7 unreleased tracks, previously written for Get Your Heart On!. This EP served as a bridge between SP’s fourth and fifth record and also as a way for the band to give the fans something to be excited about while they’re waiting for a full-length album.

The members of the band have already been asked many times in the past few months, whether they are thinking about releasing another EP with b-sides left over from the writing sessions of Taking One For The Team and the usual answer so far has been that they are still thinking about it. Mostly, it’s still very early after the release of their new record, so the band definitely doesn’t plan on releasing any new album/EP anytime soon. However this question has once again been presented to Jeff in a recent interview with MTV Brazil and as you can see, there seems to be a lot of debate regarding this topic within the band – sometimes even possibly with different opinions on the topic:

MTV Brazil: I heard that after the tour, you will release an EP with the songs that did not make this album, is that true?

Jeff: Yeah, I heard a rumor about it! But I don’t know if I want that. It’s a possibility.

Personally, I think we should focus on recording new songs sooner and not wait five years to launch a new record. But this is not a bad idea. The band is a democracy, everyone has to give their opinion, but I still prefer full-length albums. I love having the album in hand, and I do not want to let our fans wait five years again to hear new music.

What is YOUR opinion on this matter? Do you think the band should go back to writing a brand new full-length album sooner than the last time and skip the whole process of releasing an EP? Or you’d prefer them to tour longer, release a couple songs and then take a long time off and take their time to get back with album no.6 a couple years later? Make sure to leave your comments in the comment section below!

Jeff discuses Singing In The Rain video and return to Brazil in new interview

AUTHOR: Dominika | 27. April 2016 | no comments

As Jeff Stinco mentioned on Twitter yesterday, the lead guitarist has recently given a large number of interviews for brazilian media, hinting on the band’s return to Brazil this fall.

In one of the interviews, that has already been released, Jeff discussed a number of issues including touring and new album – but I decided to point out two of Jeff’s answers: one of which gives us a little look behind the meaning of the music video for ‘Singing In The Rain’ and the other one that includes Jeff’s excitement about visiting Brazil later this year. Check out the English translation of the excerpt of the interview here [or the original full portuguese version here]:

One of the new music videos – “Singing In The Rain”, seems to be a retelling the story of the band’s career. What exactly did you want to express through this video?

Jeff: It’s not about our career. I think some people thought it is. We’ve been through the process but it’s not as if we lived that way. It’s more about the power of music and what it does for the band. Our band is different… We have a vocalist who is a well-focused guy. He has no “crazy ego”, he is very respectful to his bandmates, so he’s complete opposite of the guy in the video. You know, we are lucky because we all have girlfriends who are not involved in our lives, so the video is about having fun being in a band. It’s about the concept of having a band and what would happen if this band had a song, how long it would last. We also have a lot of influences from bands of that time, like The Beatles. I think our reference to The Beatles there is kind of obvious (laughs). And there is also a little reference to Simple Plan. It’s about the power of five guys who hang out together, form a band, write songs and build things around it.

We miss you in Brazil! It’s been already four years since the last time you were here. Do you have any good memories of the country?

Jeff: We will be back in Brazil this fall. We have a million memories from there! We go out and we have a lot of caipirinha, listen to great music. I have fun there. And one of the most exciting things is the energy that the fans have. We always say that our fans in Brazil are the craziest fans in the world. I can tell you that at every show we do around the world, there is always one Brazilian fan … always! We are very honored to have so much success in Brazil and we love the fans there very much. We have no confirmed date, but everything indicates that we will return in the fall.

Day with SP in Manchester through the lenses of an analog camera

AUTHOR: Dominika | 26. April 2016 | no comments

The British server Clash Music recently released a series of vintage looking photos, which seemed to have been taken by an old-school analogue camera on March 23rd, when Simple Plan were in Manchester, UK. The photography follows the members of Simple Plan from their early afternoon walkabouts around the city of Manchester, their arrival to the venue and also some backstage time.

Check out this very interesting and rather different view at a day in the life of Simple Plan through these pictures in the gallery:

Simple Plan featured on Joffrey’s official Game Of Thrones Spotify playlist

AUTHOR: Dominika | 25. April 2016 | no comments

In advance of last night’s long anticipated premiere of the first episode of the 6th season of one of the most popular TV shows – Game Of Thrones on HBO, Spotify set up a special micro-site, which can determine which character from the show you can match your music taste with – based on the character’s individual characteristics and tastes.

And interestingly enough, one of the show’s most significant characters actually has Simple Plan on their playlist!

It comes as no surprise that Joffrey Baratheon’s Spotify playlist could be easily matched with one of any other angsty young adolescent. His playlist features a number of emo, pop-punk and alternative songs, all of which suit Joffrey’s character 100%. Let’s be real, who wouldn’t have guessed that Joffrey would like to listen to ‘The Kill’ by 30 Seconds To Mars, ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ by Panic! At The Disco or our very own Simple Plan’s ‘I’m Just A Kid’ in his spare time.

I guess we are all Joffrey.