You should know about Beste Zangers
How this show is now in its twelfth season without being more well known baffles me. It's a Dutch reality television show where they collect a group of singers, then send them off to a resort and pamper them. The singers get to know each other and take turns covering songs for each other that have influenced them in some way.
Each episode has one of the singers being serenaded by the rest of the group. The songs are in every language and style you can imagine, most of them being performed by singers who are stepping well outside of their own comfort zones/styles (and native languages in some cases). There are amazing performances on this show.
It's blowing up this season because Floor Jansen is one of the guests, and that means the Nightwish army is pimping it all over the net which is how I stumbled on it. I want to know where I can find the past eleven seasons, and why this hasn't been syndicated all over the globe yet, it's a genius idea for a music television show.
There's a youtube channel that posts entire episodes with english captions so you can follow the conversation.
A couple of highlights so far this season...
There are local versions of the show in some other countries as well. The Norwegian version is named "Hver Gang Vi Møtes". (Which translates to "Every Time We Meet", taken from a song lyric from one of the participants in the first season.) It's all very wholesome. I guess the formula is slightly different here though, because there's no winner at the end of the season.
The winner is the audience, for sure. This format may be the only music television show I've ever seen that manages to rise above industry bullshit and hapless promotion to be about music. That's quite an achievement. Having these singers interacting with each other (as opposed to just performing for a studio audience or being a random talk show guest) adds a dynamic that makes a huge difference.
Tell Avrotros to get an American version underway stat. At least in Europe you've all had Jools to keep you company. America has had jack shit since Ed Sullivan went off the air. VH1 Storytellers is I think the last one standing over here. All we get are poorly produced one-shots on late night talk shows or American Idol (bleh), that's eaten up the entire sphere of live music in American television.