Weekend Diversion: Various viewed videos

Another week, another eclectic bag of videos from around the world. Not surprisingly, that’s just like the music video TV channel I watch, because that’s where I first ran across these videos.

The video above is “Death Bed (Coffee For Your Head)” by 21 year old Canadian singer-songwriter Powfu (real name Isaiah Faber). The song features a sample of “Coffee” [WATCH/LISTEN] by Filipino-British indie rock artist beabadoobee (real name Bea Kristi) . He said his inspiration for the song was watching romantic films and “I was feeling emotional, I guess”.

The song was pretty successful. It hit Number 5 in Australia (Platinum), 11 in Canada, 5 in New Zealand (Gold), 4 in the UK (Silver), and 23 on the USA’s Billboard “Hot 100” (Platinum).

Up next, a song that features Powfu, “Friends” by Mishaal:



Mishaal (real name Mishaal Tamer) is a 20 year old Saudi-Ecuadoran singer-songwriter who’s from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, but has been living in New York City, where he attended the Clive Davis Institute. The song was recorded while NYC was under lockdown, which the video, released May 23, reflects. The song is catchy, but I have no information on chart performance, so I don’t know if anyone else thought that. His multi-lingual 1:47 long video for “Arabian Nights” is also interesting [WATCH/LISTEN].

Next up, “This City” by Sam Fischer:



Sam Fischer is a 29 year old Australian pop-rock singer-songwriter and musician. The song is about Fischer’s struggle with Los Angeles. He wrote it in 2016, and it was recorded the following year and was originally released in January 2018, but didn’t chart. It became featured by users on TikTok and—not the first time this has happened—it led to the song being re-released, which was in December 2019, when signed to a new label.

I liked the sound of the song, but I never heard it until the music video channel returned. At first, I wasn’t sure who he was or where he was from. I was somewhat surprised when I found out he was Australian, because the sound isn’t typical for their pop music, nor are Fischer’s vocal runs, both of which are fairly common in New Zealand pop music. Maybe Fischer’s time in the USA accounts for that?

The song hit Number 17 in Australia (Platinum), 72 in Canada, 20 in New Zealand (Gold), and 16 in the UK (Silver). In the USA, it hit Number 5 on Billboard’s “Bubbling Under Hot 100” chart, and Number 18 on their “Adult Top 40” chart. This week it’s number 29 in New Zealand.

Finally, a song that’s kind of related to the first one, “If the World Was Ending”:



The song is a duet between 27 year old Canadian singer JP Saxe (real name Jonathan Percy Starker Saxe) and 26 year old American singer and songwriter Julia Michaels (real name Julia Carin Cabazos). The song, which was written by the two, was released in October of last year, but I knew nothing about it until the music video channel resumed.

The version of the video played on TV has been edited to take out the “emergency bulletin" at the beginning and end. It could be that in a geologically active country like New Zealand such a thing wouldn’t be a good idea, but the reference to “fallout shelter” seems like a reference to nuclear war, which seems to be related to some to the imagery in the video. At any rate, something very bad is happening, apparently.

Another video version of the song [WATCH]was made to raise money for Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) to raise money for the the group’s efforts to fight the global pandemic and released in April of this year. The participating artists recorded themselves while in isolation.

The original version hit Number 29 in Australia (Platinum), 13 on the Canadian Hot 100, 20 in New Zealand (Gold), 14 in the UK (Silver), and in the USA, it hit 19 on Billboard’s “Mainstream Top 40” (Platinum). It’s currently Number 23 in New Zealand.

And that’s it for another video-watching excursion around the world.