This time I went a step further in my photo post; I wasn’t happy with just posting a photo I had taken on my holidays, and enclosing a song, I felt like writing a music review as well.

What follows is a picture I took on my recent holiday in Lugano, Switzerland, which I titled “Silver Lining”. In the bellow text you will find a track by the same title that matches my picture, a musical review of the band’s first album, and details on my Thursday’s Special non-challenge.

Silver Lining

The two guys (Hutchcraft and Anderson) that are behind the “Silver lining” song met some eight years ago when their friends got involved in a fight in front of one of Manchester’s nightclubs. Too drunk to join in, they started talking about music and realising they had similar tastes, decided to start a band. The band named “Bureau” broke up a year later, only to reappear shortly afterwards under the name “Daggers” that claimed to be responsible for inventing disco lento musical genre. In early 2009 “Daggers” was also disbanded, but later the same year these two Mancunians formed a duo called “Hurts” that has been active ever since.

Their first album “Happiness” released in 2010 best known for the hit song Wonderful Life, contains the song “Silver lining” that I discovered by accident on you tube while searching for a musical accompaniment for my “Silver lining” photo.

Click here to listen:

Now there’s no way back from the things you’ve done
I know it’s too late to stop the setting sun
You see the shadows in the distant light
And it’s never going to be alright
And you know, and you know, and you know I’m right.

The album received positive to mixed reviews from music critics ranging from “an ordinary package of overblown melodies and musty lyrical clichés” or “music that moisturizes a touch too much” to “music that harnesses the 80’s whole underpinning pop ethos, its spirit of expansiveness, its shamelessness, its irony-free faith in the emotive power of a glorious hook”.

After having listened to it several times I can only say that I find the album (this song included) flamboyant, daring, rich with flashes of wit and intelligence; an ultimate ode to the sounds of the 80’s. It is more 80’s than the 80’s themselves.

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**About this post: Thursday’s Special is a new ‘non-challenge’ challenge that appeals to bloggers eager to wake up their creativity and show their own ideas and interpretation of the world. I invite everybody interested to join in. There are no themes, titles and techniques set for your expression, there are no limits and restrictions (no red tape whatsoever). The only thing required is to post a photo post on Thursdays entitled “Thursday’s Special: (your theme/title)” (as explained in my Thursday’s Special introductory post), to provide a link to my Thursday’s Special post, and to leave a link to your post in the comments section of my post. There is also a widget created especially for this non-challenge, so if you like it, feel free to use it when linking to my Thursday’s Special post, or you can just display it in the sidebar on your blog.

Let me wrap up now with an encouraging quote: “It’s easy to come up with new ideas; the hard part is letting go of what worked for you two years ago, but will soon be out of date.” (Roger von Oech) 😉

Check out the beautiful entries for Thursday’s Special non-challenge:

• View of a Lake

• Thank you, Paula