New entry in SR P3's Digilistan chart

In the other Swedish chart, Swedish radio P3's Digilistan, "It's Only You Part II" is a new entry at no.44.

(At no.43 is a Johan Palm track from "Idol". )

The singles chart used to mean something once upon a time.....we can't really say that any more can we!! Nevertheless it's good to see Salem's name on the list once more.

"It's Only You Part II" enters the Swedish singles chart

OK it's only no. 50, but it's a start :)

I'm not sure how much airplay the song is getting on Swedish radio at the moment though.

(As for the UK, well needless to say none of our radio stations had any musical taste and totally overlooked the song, in favour of the usual ten songs which are played morning, noon and night.)

See you all on Monday...

I'm off to Dublin for a weekend break so I won't be back on here till Monday night. Feel free to leave your comments in the meantime and I'll answer them when I come back.

Once again thanks to each and every one of you for visiting this site, I really appreciate your support.

See you all again on Monday! X

Christmas show!

Salem will be one of the guests in "Oh No....It's Christmas!" which is billed as an 'alternative Christmas celebration' with a number of acts playing their own unique versions of Christmas songs. I wonder what Salem will sing?

The show will take place at Nalen in Stockholm on 14.12.08. It will be hosted by Mange Schmidt and other guests announced so far include Annika Norlin, Veronica Maggio, Timo Räisänen and Markus Krunegård.

More info at http://www.nalen.com/KonsertInfo.aspx?HId=5&KId=2390

This should be a really fun show!

Benoît's review of the It's Only You Part II EP

There is a great review of the EP (in French) by Benoît, who is an old friend of this blog! Good to see that you still love Salem's music and are still spreading the word about him in France. http://www.lecargo.org/spip/salem/it-s_only_you_part_2/reviews-4597.html

Salem's job interview with Sofie & Sofia at P3!

Found this on the internet tonight, it's a good bit of fun from last week when Sofie and Sofia from Swedish radio P3 put Salem through a job interview!

He's certainly got a lot of appealing qualities and I wouldn't hesitate to hire him :)

http://www.p3star.se/default.ns?lngItemID=1088&intPageColor=4&objectID=4354

I think I've just heard my favourite song of 2009...

..."One Of The Others".

Whoever filmed and posted this (you know where), thank you, thank you, thank you.

Even though it's just an amateur recording, it's still so obvious that it's a brilliantly arranged, brilliantly written song which swings and soars and manages to be uplifting and moving at the same time. Stunning. Fantastic. I'm running out of superlatives to describe this :)))

This has got to be on the new album!!

Berwaldhallen reviews in the Swedish press

I’ve found a couple of reviews today from Salem’s Berwaldhallen concerts at:

Svenska Dagbladet http://www.svd.se/kulturnoje/scen/artikel_2043335.svd

Expressen: http://www.expressen.se/kultur/1.1368817/salem-al-fakir-berwaldhallen

I translated these reviews, and neither of them seemed too positive about the mix of Salem’s music with an orchestral backing, however I’ve checked out a few Swedish blogs as well as Salem’s MySpace and I’m glad to see that at least the real fans did enjoy the concerts.

If you were there at one (or more) of these concerts, then why not post a comment here about it! What did you think of the new songs?

As one of my readers posted in an earlier post comment, SR P4 will be broadcasting one of the concerts on New Year’s Day at 15:00 Swedish time (14:00 UK time) and I can’t wait to hear this. It will be a great start to 2009 :)

There is also a very interesting interview with Salem along with his very talented siblings Aminah, Nassim & Sami in Svenska Dagbladet today :
http://www.svd.se/kulturnoje/nyheter/artikel_2044269.svd

Thank you Salem!!

This might just be one of the happiest nights of my life.

I just found out tonight that Salem has posted a link to this site from his MySpace.

Well Salem, what can I say? I started this fansite purely because I have loved your music since the summer of 2007 and I just wanted to let the world know all about it. I can't describe how happy I am to know that you are visiting this site and reading what I've written, and I'm so glad you think it's accurate!

I hope that "It's Only You Part II" becomes a massive international hit. You deserve it!!

Thanks again for the link, and I hope you'll continue to enjoy what I write about you! Also, good luck with the Berwaldhallen shows...and can we have a live DVD soon??

And keep the "Kitchen Sessions" coming on YouTube, they are great fun!

Second album out in Spring 2009!

News from a couple of websites/blogs today:

1. Salem's second album - the follow-up to "This Is Who I Am" - will be released in Sweden in spring 2009.

Yay!!!!! Now I know that, you'll be spared me speculating over the next 4 or 5 months about when it's going to be released, as I'm happy just to know that it's going to be released anyway!!

2. "It's Only You Part II" is also going to be released in Sweden, and will be sent to Swedish radio on 12.11.08. The EP will be released in the UK, Holland, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, France and Germany.

Salem will be on Swedish radio this week.

He will be one of the guests on P3 Populär on Monday 10.11.08, which is broadcast on P3 radio from 10.00 am till noon, Swedish time. The show will also be available on P3's 'listen again' service for the next 30 days.

There is also an online chat being advertised on SR here which takes place on Wednesday 12.11.08 between 17.00 and 17.30 Swedish time - I won't be able to catch this as I'll still be at work, so I hope they publish the transcripts on SR's site. Or maybe someone would like to tell me what he said...?

"It's Only You Part II" release date confirmed

Big news!! I've been over at Amazon which has confirmed the physical release date for the EP as 17.11.08 (although it's already available to download from iTunes).

A very momentous occasion indeed and I don't think I can get much more excited about all this than I already am!!!

The artist formerly known as...

Such an exciting time right now, every day brings something new for me to post on here!!

Over at YouTube, Salem has posted the videos of some old familiar favourites, but if you're just getting into his music thanks to "It's Only You Part II" then you have just got to check these out:

"It's True" http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DdfM5OKks6Q
"Good Song" http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KaBcpkUX5pE (regular readers will know that "Good Song" is my favourite Salem song and, in fact, my favourite song of all time!)
"This Is Who I Am" http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=nYFpU4fnm0E
"Dream Girl" http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=gIx-a1EVBtM

I note that the little description on these says that he's "previously known as Salem Al Fakir" or "formerly known as Salem Al Fakir", this reminds me of when Prince changed his name to "the artist formerly known as Prince", well it's not quite as bad as that, at least Salem is still Salem!

EDIT 07.11.08: Salem has now removed some of these but "It's True" is still there.
FURTHER EDIT 07.11.08: "Dream Girl" is back... http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=sAH6hUR0ztA&feature=channel

The video for "It's Only You Part II" has only been on YouTube since 30.10.08 but has already had 1054 views - OK let's make that 1055 (but trust me, I haven't watched it as many times as that...other people have watched it too!!). The song has also had nearly 5000 plays at Salem's MySpace.

"It's Only You Part II" : here's the video

I meant to post this earlier in the week but here is the video for "It's Only You Part II", courtesy of Salem TV, his very own YouTube channel.



The EP is now available on iTunes and to all of my new readers who weren't aware of Salem before the Volvo ad, it contains "It's Only You Part II" and the brilliant new song "Twelve Fingers" but also two of his best songs from 'back in the day' :) "It's True" and "Dream Girl", which are rather fantastic too, as I've said on many occasions in the past - but even after all this time I still love them.

Salem, in the kitchen, with the Casio ???

There's a crazy little video clip which has been posted over at YouTube today, this is of Salem in his kitchen playing a cheesy little instrumental called "The Astronaut" on his Casio, whilst he puts on his cardigan and swapping some hats. Now that's what I call multi-tasking!! Posted by ItsAllManfred...a Salem alter ego!

The message next to the video says 'first of many to come, hopefully'.

UK viewers - where's the Volvo ad?

Over the past week I noticed that many more of you have been visiting the site, mainly because of "It's Only You" being featured in the Volvo XC60 commercial. Judging by the number of visitors from the UK I'd guess that the ad is being shown here but I haven't seen it on TV yet. Or is it being shown in the cinema?

(In the end it doesn't really matter where it's shown as long as it's shown as much as possible, so that everyone can finally realise just how wonderful Salem's music is).

Berwaldhallen on P4: we'll have to wait

I thought that one of the Berwaldhallen concerts would go out live on Swedish Radio P4, however I've just checked over at www.sr.se and I can confirm it's not going out live, but will be recorded and broadcast at a later date. I'll let you know on here when it will be broadcast :)