High (The Blue Nile album)

High is the fourth studio album by Scottish band The Blue Nile, released on 30 August 2004 on Sanctuary Records. A single, "I Would Never", was released one week prior to the album: a second song, "She Saw the World", was made available as a promotional single, but never released officially.

"Soul Boy" had already been recorded by former Spice Girl Melanie C for her album Reason the previous year.

Critical reception

The album received generally favourable reviews, with many critics considering High to be a stronger album than their previous effort Peace at Last. AllMusic said "the Blue Nile have returned with a more balanced album [than Peace at Last] and Buchanan is broken-hearted again, thank the stars. He's been struggling with fatigue and illness and as selfish and inconsiderate as it sounds, it's brought the spark back to his writing... given the time to sink in, the album fits well in their canon."The Guardian believed that with High "the emotional commitment of Peace at Last is combined with the observational detachment of the earlier work... In pop, most people do their best work within five or six years. How extraordinary, then, that after more than two decades of activity, the Blue Nile remain on course, their range expanded, their focus more refined, unshaken in their determination to proceed at their own measured pace."

High (Knut Anders Sørum song)

"High" was the Norwegian entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 2004, performed in English by Knut Anders Sørum.

The song is a dramatic ballad, with Sørum expressing his desire to bring an unnamed person "high". The lyrics suggest that this person has been beset by problems, and that Sørum believes he can go some way to curing them.

As Norway had finished the Eurovision Song Contest 2003 in the top 10, the song was pre-qualified for the final. Here, it was performed third, following Austria's Tie Break with "Du bist" and preceding France's Jonatan Cerrada with "À chaque pas". At the close of voting, it had received 3 points, placing 24th (last) in a field of 24, thus requiring Norway to qualify through the semi-final at the next Contest.

The low score, and long wait before Norway scored any points at all, led Australian commentator Des Mangan to jokingly offer money for anyone prepared to vote for the country. Initially, this was "a thousand bucks", later climbing to "ten thousand bucks and my house". Mangan explained during this commentary that he did not want Norway to further extend its unwanted record of failing to record a point on the most occasions.

Patience (game)

Patience, or solitaire as it is known in the US and Canada, is a genre of card games that can be played by a single player. Patience games can also be played in a head-to-head fashion with the winner selected by a scoring scheme.

In the US, the term solitaire is often used specifically to refer to solitaire with cards, while in other countries solitaire specifically refers to peg solitaire. Both Solitaire and Patience are sometimes used to refer specifically to the Klondike form of Patience.

Overview

The purpose of patience generally involves manipulating a layout of cards with a goal of sorting them in some manner. However it is possible to play the same games competitively (often a head to head race) and cooperatively.

Patience games typically involve dealing cards from a shuffled deck into a prescribed arrangement on a tabletop, from which the player attempts to reorder the deck by suit and rank through a series of moves transferring cards from one place to another under prescribed restrictions. Some games allow for the reshuffling of the deck(s), and/or the placement of cards into new or "empty" locations. In the most familiar, general form of Patience, the object of the game is to build up four blocks of cards going from ace to king in each suit, taking cards from the layout if they appear on the table.

Solitaire (disambiguation)

Solitaire or patience is a genre of tabletop games, consisting of card games that can be played by a single player.

Solitaire may also refer to:

Games

Music

Albums

Songs

Film

Solitaire (musician)

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Solitaire from Baltimore, Maryland was a one-man project with pioneering live-electronics created by James L. Callahan; who performed, wrote and recorded solo synth-pop music between 1983 and 1986. James Callahan (aka Solitaire) was the first “truly computerized” artist in the Baltimore area. As Solitaire, Callahan played keyboards and electronic drum machines as a one-man show.

Live Electronics Overview

Solitaire's performance system was manufactured by Sequential Circuits (SCI). It consisted of the Sequential Circuits Six-Trak a 6-voice, polyphonic, analogue synthesizer that was among the first MIDI instruments designed to be used with a computer. The computer and software allowed Solitaire to program the Six-Trak sequencer and SCI's Drumtraks to form one of the earliest known MIDI-based [live] performance systems. In 1984 the system used by Solitaire was said to "create instruments that have never been heard before," at that time "musicians [were] just beginning to tap its potential". However, by modern computer standards the electronic rhythm section used by Solitaire was crude and had several limitations. For example, the SCI Model 64 Sequencer was limited to six voice sequencing. To playback more songs, required sequences be saved to disk (loading of disk sequences had to be done live, on stage, during the performance).