Top 5 Wedding First Dance Songs + Katy Perry does it again!

June is almost upon us and its traditionally one of the most popular months of the year for Weddings. I recently did an interview with AXS.com where I gave my personal Top 5 Wedding First Dance Songs and why. We also talked about what makes a love song timeless - what makes it last year after year and decade after decade. Why do some songs from the 60s-70s still get played on the radio today while others are forgotten to history. It was a fun interview and you can reac the whole thing right here at Vincent James - Top 5 Wedding First Dance Songs

I'll relist the songs here but you'll need to check the AXS article for why I picked this particular five. My top five in no particular order were:

• Can't Help Falling in Love (Elvis Presley)
• I Swear (All 4 One, John Michael Montgomery
• Nothings Gonna Change My Love For You (Glenn Medeiros)
• Valentine (Jim Brickman featuring Martina McBride)
• All of Me (John Legend)

Feel free to post a comment here telling us what your favorite Wedding First Dance song is. To check out the full interview about Top 5 Wedding First Dance Songs please click here

Katy Perry gives us another #1 Pop Song

One of my new favorite songs from the radio isn't exactly a Wedding First Dance song, but it is a great pop tune. Since coming on the scene in 2008, Katy Perry has given us no less than 13 Top Ten Billboard hits including 9 #1 hits - that is pretty amazing for any artist but especially one still so young. Katy Perry started out as Katy Hudson (her real name) back in 2001 with a self-titled CD release and two tours when only 16 years old. Back then her music primarily focused on Christian Rock but unfortunately was not successful. After transforming her music and style into a pop princess she has given us hit song after hit song. Katy's latest song "Dark Horse" has also gone to #1 and for good reason. It's an incredibly well-written and produced pop song and features these tantalizing lines:

"Make me your Aphrodite...
Make me your one and only" which is followed up by

"So you wanna play with magic,
boy you should know what you're falling for
Baby do you dare to do this"
Cause I'm coming at ya like a dark horse

It's not Shakespeare, but as pop lyrics go they're pretty awesome and when you add in some great melodies that Katy is famous for you can definitely see why "Dark Horse" went all the way to #1. My only partial critique of the song is I'm not a big fan of the rap inserted in the middle like is done on many pop songs these days. There are many rap songs I have liked over the years and I have liked when rap is inserted into a pop song in some cases. But too many times I feel its added just to try to expand the audience when the pop song really stands on its own with the added rap just detracted from the music. I'll write a future blog post featuring pop songs where I felt the rap section added actually added something to the song to make it better.

Here is the Egyptian themed video for "Dark Horse" which has been viewed almost 400 million times (that's just crazzzzy)

That's everything for today folks - I hope you have a great weekend and we'll be back to you with another post in June - which is like reaaaaal soon :)

Peace, Love & Laughter,

Vincent James @ LoveSongs.com

Will the VOICE find its VOICE with its Season 6 Winner?

I have to confess, I have never watched an episode of The Voice which is now in its 6th season after debuting in the spring of 2011. I'm sure there have been numerous great singers performing on the show, most more talented then yours truly. I also must confess that I haven't watched American Idol for the last few seasons either. We all enjoyed Simon Cowells below the belt (but funny as all) comments to the contestants and the bickering between Paula Abdul and Simon. But what really peaked my interest was that Winners for the first several American Idol seasons would start releasing top quality songs on their recordings. Not songs that would be often hard pressed to be released as B-sides on a single back in the day (anybody remember B-sides?). In my opinion, the primary reason the Idol winners (and often 1st, 2nd and 3rd runner up contestants) were successful with radio and record sales was the quality of the songs.

It has been said by many, that "it all starts with a song" and they aren't kidding. If you don't have a great song you're not going to make a star out of anyone. Too many times songs are selected for these artists because of "who wrote the song", "who controls the song", translation: "who stands to gain money IF the song is a hit". Well I'm here to tell you that if you release a crappy song it isn't going to be a hit and there isn't going to be much money to be had :)

If I could give one piece of advice (as if they are listening) to the producers of future Idol and Voice winners it would be simply be: Find the absolute best songs you can that fits your artist and go with that song regardless of who wrote the song or who owns the publishing. Heck take an old song and re-work and have the artist make it their own - its no secret that some of the best songs ever written were not written recently. OR maybe the next time Adam Levine and his Maroon 5 band mates come up with another song like "Pay Phone", "Love Somebody" or "Daylight" he'll decide to let the Voice Winner take this song to the bank AND finally answer the question: "Will The Voice ever produce a star"?

Inside TV has some insightful information on this same topic here: The Voice vs. American Idol

In this article, Forbes magazine tells us last year the top earning American idol winners and Alumni - I think its possible to say that each of these 12 folks on the list have earned more than all of The Voice winners combined: Top 12 American Idol alumni earnings from 2013

Here's the gal that started it all winning "American Idol" season 1 - Kelly Clarkson singing "A Moment Like This" - the first of many great song released by Kelly since her 2002 debut:

Okay that's my soapbox for now - the reason for today's rant is that I realized I couldn't find a new song that I really liked enough to write about. Recently I've written about "Human", "Say Something", "Story of My Life", "Pompeii", "Happy" and "All of Me" - and each of these songs are STILL on the charts because they are THAT good. I'm sure there is something new out there I will really love but I just haven't heard it yet. Stay tuned I'll be looking and listening :) You can always tell me your favorite new song by voting on our "Love Song" poll at Vote for Favorite Love Song or post on our Facebook page at LoveSongs.com on Facebook

Music, Love & Laughter,

~Vincent James @ LoveSongs.com

Spring and Spring Weddings are ALMOST Here

That's right, just a couple more days and Spring 2014 will finally be upon us. In the Philadelphia area we've had a record snowfall total this year with almost 70 inches of the white freezy stuff. But now its time to start the spring thaw and getting ready for the surge of weddings coming this spring and summer. To help get you in the mood we found one fun and one very useful article you might be interested in.

The first is 10 Wedding superstitions from around the World. Read about some pretty interesting superstitions from all the world including Ireland, Japan, India, Italy, England and more.

The 2nd article is for after the "I do's", when the honeymoon period is over and you're trying to figure out how to live together for the rest of your lives. For this you need 5 Rules for a Happy Marriage . I can attest that after almost 24 years of marriage, my wife and I have stuck to almost everything in this article and its definitely helped make us a very happy couple as we get closer and closer to our 25th Anniversary in 2015.

To finish off today's post, I leave you with a very special love song that has drawn me in more and more everytime I listen. Check out John Legend's "All of Me" with these lyrics that say it all:

"Your crazy and I'm out of my mind
Cause All of me loves all of you
Love your curves and all your edges
All your perfect imperfections"

Have a great week everyone and be back to you with another post this weekend!

Peace, Love & Happiness

~Vincent James @ LoveSongs.com

Happy HALLOWEEEN Weekend to All!

Usually I blink and maybe a few days goes by, maybe a week or two. This time I blinked and almost two months slipped by. Just so much going on hard to believe I think I've written 11 or 12 new original songs this year including custom songs, songs for other artists and songs for my own Christmas release. I'm going to take a deep breath this weekend and try to catch up on everything else.

LoveSongs.com Members Area - Now open!

LoveSongs.com has finally opened up its members area - to find out more please sign up for our 2x/month newsletter on our home page and we'll send you the link and password so you can download new love songs every month for free (and no charge for shipping and handling ha ha).

Scary Love Songs??

Whats the scariest love song you've ever heard? It could be "scary good" or scary creepy either one (hey its Halloween :)) Connect with us on Facebook and tell us about your scariest looove song :) http://www.facebook.com/pages/Vincent-James-Love-Songs/367685720872

New Fall Music on the Radio

So far there's not a lot of great new music this fall in my opinion. Earlier this year there just seemed to be a flood of great new pop songs but not so much as the year continued on. One song that did catch my attention recently was "Dynomite" by Taio Cruz. The verse/rap doesn't do much for me (hey I'm a melody guy :))..but the prehook into the chorus hook definitely draws you in and makes you hit "replay" on this one. Check out the international version of Taio's song and video right here:



That's all for tooooday kiddies. Have a great weekend and a very SPOOKY Halloweeen and I will be back Monday November 1st with another post or my name isn't Johnny Walker....or is it??? :)

~Vincent James @ LoveSongs.com

Whirlwind Valentines Tour - 10 Borders Stores in one Day!

I'm heading down the path of madness once again. On Saturday February 13th, I planning to perform at 10 different Borders Bookstores in a single day - all to help celebrate Valentines day in the City of Brotherly Love (we need a little love after that Eagles game yesterday :)).

This will be my 3rd crazy Valentines event....few years back I performed 100 shows in the 45 days from New Years to Valentines ("6 Weeks to Valentines" Tour) and a few years before that performed at 8 different Barnes and Noble Stores in a single day (the original "Whirlwind Valentines" tour).

Well I figured I had to break my old record of 8 shows/stores in a single day so we're going for 10 and we'll see if I have a voice left when its all over. Stop back later this week for more info on what I'll be playing and a full intinerary. Until then have a great day/night wherever you are and Happy New Years 2010 we finally made it!!

~Vincent

Put One Foot in Front of the Other

Yes its almost holiday time so I'll throw in a Christmas reference now and again :) All I can say is thank goodness the local radio stations aren't playing holiday music already. I guess all those complaints we made finally got their attention. Although I was in the grocery store on Nov 1st and was treated to some way too early Christmas music...o wellll...

Alright on to the topic of the post. Slowly (very slowly) but surely we are making strides to move forward with the website. We updated our Voting charts last week for Nov and December and we will have a special holiday chart that launches day after Thanksgiving. We'll also post a few Holiday related MP3s for you to download between then and New Years.

Whats next...well we've been wanting to launch an International Love Songs section for quite a while and it will finally be real on Jan 1st (as opposed to April 1st...no Foolin :)). We have visitors come to LoveSongs.com from all over the world so many countries I lose track. Our first rendition of the International section will have favorites from 10-12 countries and we'll build from there. Look for more info in our November newsletter going out this Friday (if you're not on the list just sign up on the top of the our home page at LoveSongs.com

Other good stuff is on the way stay tuned as we slowly put "one foot in front of the other"...soon we'll be "walking out the doooooor"...quick name that Holiday special!! Have a great Wednesday and we'll be back with another post on Friday.

~Vincent James @ LoveSongs.com

Whats Your Purpose??

Did you ever wonder why the person known as you was put on this planet Earth? I have to say thats not something I often thought about during my own life. I was recently had the good fortune to read a motivational book entitled "Success Principles" by none other than Jack Canfield...co-author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series (more on how this happened later...it starts with horses). While reading I soon discovered that I've been wandering (not wondering) my entire adult life without any purpose at all. I tried this activity and then I tried that one, and then maybe I tried something else. Sometimes I tried all three things at the same time (lack of focus..thats another chapter in the book). It turns out I was missing the ground floor of the building of success...namely having a purpose that gives your actions some meaning...gives you something to build upon.

So I spent some time thinking about it...I know I love music..I love to play it, hear it, write it, pretty much anything to do with music. I also know that I have a deep caring for my fellow human. It really bothers me when I read or hear about bad news whether its a friend or someone far away in another country. So after breaking my brain for a few hours I've come up with this purpose:

"My lifes purpose is to use my creativity and compassion to entertain, inspire and motivate others to live joyfully and to be loving towards all humanity"

Pretty much this just means I want to use the creative gifts that God has given me to help make people happy and to help us all treat each other better.

I've been slacking bigtime on the LoveSongs website and this blog (6 months between posts really??). Now that I have a purpose my goal is to have 3 blog updates per week with Monday's purpose highlighting the chapter in the "Success Principles" book. Chapter 1 was about finding your purpose and I've finally found mine.

Did you know that today November 16th is International Tolerance Day (and Dec 1-7 is National Tolerance week in the US). Lets all try a little harder to be nicer to folks we meet, people we know and even people we don't know (a little more smiling on the road and a little less yelling ha ha). Life is too short to be spent being angry at anyone especially for things that in the grand scheme of things are not important. As the Beatles once said "All We Need is Love"

For info on "Success Principles" visit Success Principles Online Site. There are lots of free online resources here to help you on your way.

Have a great Monday folks and we will be back on Wednesday with a musical update!

~Vincent

Website updates Sept 30 & Moreeee!

That's right we launched our first set of updates one day early (so we could get the bugs out :)). LoveSongs.com now has a wider page format so we can place more content within. New features that just rolled out include a Daily Poll (new poll every day :)) and a Weekly Trivia question (thanks for the answers coming in already). If you have a suggestion for a new Daily Poll or Trivia question please email them to me at Site Feedback.

Our Wedding Music section was greatly expanded with our updates yesterday. Now featuring 3X the number of song suggestions for your Ceremony and Reception. Please check out the new format at Wedding Songs

Our October newsletter will be going out tomorrow Oct 2nd and this will be our very first HTML format newsletter (yes I know I know we're behind the times :)). If you'd like to receive our updates 1x/month just enter your email address at the top of any our pages in our Email News box.

Whats next you say?? Here's a few things coming up very soon:

• Adoption Song - We have a very special song entitled "So Many Things" that was written for a mother who gave up their child for adoption. We'll be posting the song and lyrics online early in October and reaching out to Adoption agencies to let them know its available.
  
• Wedding Blog - We'll be starting a monthly wedding blog written by well respected wedding planners from across the land. Stop in each month to readly timely tips for planning your special day.
  
• Love Song FREE Ebook - "How to Write a Love Song & WOW The One You Love" was co-written by myself and songwriter Ande Rasmussen . We'll show you how anyone get create the most unique gift for someone you love no matter what your budget is.
  
• Love Song TShirts - Just in time for the holiday season, we'll be offering Love Song TShirts with many different styles available.
  

That's all for today kiddies...I hope this weekends stock market crazyness isn't affecting you too much. Best bet would be to turn off the TV and radio and check back in after the election....don't forget to vote of course :)

~Vincent James @ LoveSongscom