Mijn beeld van liefde is zo vaak kapot gemaakt

Why didn't anyone tell me Dutch singer Jim had a new single out?



Boy, I love his voice. If you're not already familiar with Jim or haven't been won over by his previous work, "Door Jou" isn't the place to start, but I really like it; uplifting gentle pop-rock is a subgenre I have a lot of patience for, and Jim did it nearly unbeatably with "Fenomeen," a track from his last album which was one of my absolute favorite songs of the year it was released. I'd be thrilled if the album from which "Door Jou" comes ends up featuring some electro-pop edge like the also fantastic "Altijd" from that album, too. If I'm speaking of Jim songs I love, there's at least one more that I can't leave out: his 2003 debut single "Tell Her," a precious (gasp!) ballad that owes much of its emotional edge to that voice of Jim's. Watch him perform it while looking almost unreasonably pretty below.



Though I enjoy "Door Jou," I'm pretty sure I could tell you how it came about: Jim's people saw the unbelievable success Dutch singer Jeroen van der Boom had with his cover of David Bisbal's "Silencio" and went out and found another track written by Colombian hitmaker Kike Santander. I say "unbelievable" not for any reasons related to the song itself--I adored "Silencio," a 2006 single from David's most recent studio album and, though less dancey, a worthy successor to songwriter Kike and David's earlier hits together like "Ave María" and "Bulería"--but because I'm under the impression that Jeroen somehow ended up gaining a lot of credibility with his cover of it. Anyway, the result here is a cover of Cristian Castro's "Azul," but in this case, unlike with David and Jeroen, I like the cover version a lot more; I've never loved "Azul" as much as I wanted to and, in addition to the advantage of Jim's voice, the Dutch language lyrics just feel as if they fill out the vocal part of the song more completely to me.

Jim's latest single "Door Jou" can be purchased from all countries' iTunes stores here (digital).

In other news about male European singers who took second in the first season of Idol in their countries to some other male singer, it looks like Darin is properly releasing the anti-bullying song "What If" as his next single. It's been known for a while now that he filmed a video for the song, but I just always figured it was a tie-in with some campaign or something; now, though, "What If" is officially listed on the singles release list.

Next up: maybe that '80's Danish song, Swedish pop-rock, or Swedish/Finnish dance.