Closer

Closer or Closers may refer to:

Print media

Film, television and theater

Film

Television

Theater

Sports and games

Music

Closer (band)

Closer is an acoustic indie pop band from The Netherlands. Its band members are Roel Kessels as guitarist and lead vocalist, and Thomas van Geelen as cello player and backing vocalist. The band was formed in September 2006 by Kessels who had been performing as a singer/songwriter under the same artistic name.

History

Closer started out as a dream of singer/songwriter Roel Kessels. Inspired by many great artists like Damien Rice and Elliott Smith he already wrote and recorded songs on his own. This filled him with much satisfaction, but he also felt there was something missing. After seeing the movie Closer (film), with Damien Rice's song 'The Blower's Daughter' accompanying the ending, he got inspired to enhance his music with bowed strings.

A couple of years later he met Thomas on the train. Thomas played the cello, and it wouldn't be long before they started playing together and planned their first gig.

Closer is now Roel Kessels as guitarist and lead vocalist, and Thomas van Geelen on the cello, singing an occasional second. They had their first gig together with Lotte, who plays the violin. Lotte still plays with them every now and then, but most of the time you'll find them playing by twos. They started performing at small venues in Tilburg and Breda, and even on some small festivals in Breda (Troubadourfestival and Bluesfestival). In 2007 Closer won the Amsterdam Student Festival (Amsterdamsstudentenfestival.nl).

Closer (Josh Groban album)

Closer is the second studio album by vocalist Josh Groban, released in November 2003. Much like his first studio album, half of this album's songs are sung in English, with the remainder sung in various other languages (Italian, Spanish and French). Closer was the top selling classical album of the 2000s in the US, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The album debuted at #4 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, selling about 375,000 copies in its first week. In January 2004, the album rose from #11 to #1 in its ninth week on the chart, selling about 110,000 copies that week. This followed a sales campaign by Target.

In Australia, Closer reached a peak position of #25 on the ARIA Albums Chart of Australia. On June 13, 2007, it re-entered the chart at #39. As of October 2015, the album has sold over 6.1 million copies in the US. The track, "You Raise Me Up", charted at #73 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart. The track, "Remember When It Rained", reached #15 on the AC chart.

Music

Music is an art form and cultural activity whose medium is sound and silence. The common elements of music are pitch (which governs melody and harmony), rhythm (and its associated concepts tempo, meter, and articulation), dynamics (loudness and softness), and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture (which are sometimes termed the "color" of a musical sound). Different styles or types of music may emphasize, de-emphasize or omit some of these elements. Music is performed with a vast range of instruments and with vocal techniques ranging from singing to rapping, and there are solely instrumental pieces, solely vocal pieces and pieces that combine singing and instruments. The word derives from Greek μουσική (mousike; "art of the Muses"). In its most general form, the activities describing music as an art form include the production of works of music (songs, tunes, symphonies, and so on), the criticism of music, the study of the history of music, and the aesthetic examination of music. Ancient Greek and Indian philosophers defined music as tones ordered horizontally as melodies and vertically as harmonies. Common sayings such as "the harmony of the spheres" and "it is music to my ears" point to the notion that music is often ordered and pleasant to listen to. However, 20th-century composer John Cage thought that any sound can be music, saying, for example, "There is no noise, only sound."

Music (short story)

"Music" is a short story by Russian American author Vladimir Nabokov originally published in Russian in 1932.

Summary

The story uses third-person narration and tells the story of Victor, a self-conscious man for whom "music he did not know... could be likened to the patter of a conversation in a strange tongue." When Victor arrives at a party, he finds the other guests listening with varying degrees of engagement to a man named Wolfe play the piano. As Victor does not know the song being played, he loses interest. He catches a glimpse of his ex-wife at the party, but cannot look at her. He laments the fact that now he must "start all over" the long task of forgetting her (in a flashback, it's revealed that she left him for another, who may or may not be at the party). Throughout the entire story, Victor views the music as a structure that has him encaged in an awkward situation with his ex-wife; it had seemed to him "a narrow dungeon" until it ends, thus giving his ex-wife the opportunity to leave, which she does. Victor then realizes that the music was not a dungeon, but actually "incredible bliss, a magic glass dome that had embraced and imprisoned him and her," and which allowed him to "breathe the same air as she." After she leaves, another party-goer comments to Victor that he looked immune to the music and that he didn't think such a thing possible. His own inanity is revealed when Victor asks him what was played and he cannot tell whether it was Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata or Tekla Bądarzewska-Baranowska's rather easy piece, Maiden's Prayer.

Music (Erick Sermon and Marvin Gaye song)

"Music" is a 2001 hit single by Erick Sermon featuring archived vocals from Marvin Gaye.

The song was thought of by Sermon after buying a copy of Gaye's Midnight Love and the Sexual Healing Sessions album, which overlook some of the original album's earlier mixes. After listening to an outtake of Gaye's 1982 album track, "Turn On Some Music" (titled "I've Got My Music" in its initial version), Sermon decided to mix the vocals (done in a cappella) and add it into his own song. The result was similar to Natalie Cole's interpolation of her father, jazz great Nat "King" Cole's hit, "Unforgettable" revisioned as a duet. The hip hop and soul duet featuring the two veteran performers was released as the leading song of the soundtrack to the Martin Lawrence & Danny DeVito comedy, "What's the Worst That Could Happen?" The song became a runaway success rising to #2 on Billboard's R&B chart and was #1 on the rap charts. It also registered at #21 pop giving Sermon his highest-charted single on the pop charts as a solo artist and giving Gaye his first posthumous hit in 10 years following 1991's R&B-charted single, "My Last Chance" also bringing Gaye his 41st top 40 pop hit. There is also a version that's played on Adult R&B stations that removes Erick Sermon's rap verses. The song was featured in the 2011 Matthew McConaughey film The Lincoln Lawyer.