New home, new school, new town and new people

It's been a while.
But, I think it's fair to say I have kept busy :)

I've promised myself I'll never apologize or explain myself... so I won't. Not because I don't have good and sometimes exciting explanations, just because it'd be way too boring for you to listen to (read)!

Well... First thing first: I do not live in Stavanger any more. As I have briefly mentioned to those bothering to read the "This is me"-section, I am now a citizen of the beautiful, cold and wet city of Bergen.

There was also a reason behind the moving: I'm now officially a student at Bergen University! Monday 13th of August was the first day of my time as a student in Media Science. (I don't really know if that's the correct translation from the Norwegian word, but it basically means I study everything concerning the media in general... at least I think that's what I am about to study?)

Since it'd probably be a tiny little bit problematic studying in Bergen while still living in Stavanger, I therefore got myself an apartment. Basically it's just a room, since I share kitchen and two bathrooms with seven other people... But still, to me it's become my own little house <3

It's still far from finished, but it's getting there... My housemates, who live in the other seven rooms, seems nice, so I recon I'll like it here :)

Nobody told me how much work it actually takes to move from one house to another!

(Taken before I'd had the time to make it all messy...)

In addition to moving and starting to study I've also been traveling A LOT! Lucky for me I'm not afraid of airplanes. You see, last week my best friend and I went to Barcelona! Yepp, right in the middle of everything I somehow managed to find the time to go on vacation. It was fantastic, and really hot and sunny, just as Spain should be. Some pictures may appear later...

I'll try to make a new update within a couple of days, although not yet having internet in my apartment is a mayor problem for the time being. However it's being handled with recent trips to the library... :)

Tomorrow I probably have to get started on the miniature mountain of school-books that has to be finished before Christmas. (Tidying my exceedingly messy room, drinking tea, eating a lot of chocolate, and watching some more of my latest addiction: "Game of Thrones" will probably also be on tomorrow's schedule...)

Kurt Hugo Schneider - The Music Magician

(*Update: Read more about Kurt and Sam's new original album "Make It Up")

I just had to mention him at some point, and the thought hit me that it should be rather sooner than later!

For those of you that don't already know him, he's a magician. Well... not the wand and cloak kind of guy, but a real-life magician after all. He conjures music and songs. The most beautiful kind there is.

The more common explanation is that he's a music producer, film director and songwriter who can play nearly every instrument you'd be able to mention. Long story short, at high school he met a singer named Sam Tsui, and soon they started to make small films together.

In 2008 they published their first video, Can I Have This Dance, on Kurt's YouTube-channel. The song from the film High School Musical was ment to be sung by Sam and a girl, but she bailed in last second. Kurt thought it'd be fun to make Sam sing the girl's part too, and he ended up editing the two different clips so that it would appear to be two guys sitting next to each other singing the duet. Just imagine how stunned people became when they found out it was actually the same guy!

After the surprising response to their video they continued to cover a lot of different songs using Kurt's astonishing skill as a musician and a lot of Sam's for all of the vocals. The YouTube-channel grew popular in record-time, and as of today it's one of YouTube's 50 most subscribed channels with the amazing number of 1 442 201 subscribers as of today!

Over the years he's collaborated with a lot of other singers, both knows and unknown to the web-universe, and made everything from mashups to covers of famous songs to original music and music videos. Always improving and ever-changing his videos are now some of the best there is on YouTube.

In 2010 he created a Miley Cyrus-medley together with fellow YouTuber Christina Grimmie. This has later been proved to be the video that earned Christina an agent and sent her on her way to fame. (That's a story destined for another post later sometime...)

The video that really made him boost to fame was him and Sam's mashup of Love The Way You Lie, Dynamite and Teenage Dream. It became so popular it eventually ended up airing on different radio stations, and as of today it's got over 26 million views! It's also the first of their videos I saw, and from then I was hooked.

His most viewed video of all time is Sam Tsui and Christina Grimmie's cover of Just A Dream, originally preformed by Nelly. It's got more than 51 million views, and if you check out the video below you'll understand why! I love it a thousand timed more than the original (which I actually don't like at all...) and so do thousands of others!

One of my favorites of his is Sam's version of Safe And Sound by Taylor Swift.  It's so beautiful it's breathtaking! I happend to listen to it again tonight, and it was so good I just had to write this entire blog post...

Today he also posted a Sam Tsui-cover of David Guetta's Titanium. I love the original, but I LOVE this version!

Other videos worth mentioning is a Rihanna medley by Matisse, B-e-a-utiful by Megan Nicole, Born This Way Cover by Sam Tsui, OneRepublic Medley by The Royal Sons, and Sam and Kurt's first original song Don't Want An Ending. He's actually making YouTube-stars rather than just collaborating with them!

Finally I'll just link you some of the most recent work by the music wizard himself... And I hope you'll start to love him as much as I do :-)

A Thousand Years (ft. Aimée Proal and Lindsey Stirling)

Pop Medley 2011 (ft. Sam Tsui)

Skyscraper Cover (ft. Olivia Noelle)

Katy Perry Medley (ft. Olivia Noelle)