Learn the top five most important pop culture icons in the Netherlands
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| Mies: Welcome back to DutchPod101.com. All About Lesson 10, An Introduction to Dutch Pop Culture. |
| Mies: Mies here |
| Jacob: Hallo, Jacob here. |
| Mies: In this lesson, on DutchPod101, we bring you the Netherlands of today. |
| Jacob: That’s right, Dutch pop culture. |
| Jacob: One of the more developed aspects of pop culture in the Netherlands is the pop music scene. |
| Mies: Yes, Dutch pop music has, in recent history, been dominating the charts in contrast to classic Dutch music. |
| Jacob: Of course, Dutch music and traditional folk songs are still favorites of the older generation. And you can also see that influence in modern pop. |
| Mies: How would you describe Dutch pop music, Jacob? |
| Jacob: Well, it’s not really easy to describe Dutch pop music. You could divide it into two segments. One would be pop and rock music, which is sung in English, and the other would be Kleinkunst and Levenslied sung in Dutch. |
| Mies: Hmm let’s see Kleinkunst how could you describe that? |
| Jacob: Well it used to be a mix of folk and cabaret but nowadays it’s closer to pop music |
| Mies: And how about Levenslied? |
| Jacob: Well Levenslied literally means "life song," meaning "song about the real life") is a highly sentimental Dutch-language sub-genre of pop music. |
| Mies: Can you tell me the name of an artist singing the Levenslied? |
| Jacob: Sure, I can name a few of them: Andre Hazes, Koos Alberts and Frans Bauer. |
| Mies: Oh yeah I have heard of all of them. |
| Jacob: Yeah, but probably if you aren’t Dutch or Belgian, the chances are low that you have heard of them because they only sing in Dutch. |
| Mies: So can you think of some pop or rock musicians people might have heard of? |
| Jacob: Have you ever heard of the song Venus? |
| Mies: “she’s got it, yeah baby she’s got it!” |
| Jacob: Well I can hear that you know it. Do you also know who sang it? |
| Mies: Shocking Blue! Yeah they are Dutch indeed. |
| Jacob: How about No Limit? |
| Mies: By Two Unlimited? |
| Jacob: Yes indeed. |
| Mies: “No, no, no, no, no, no there is no limit!” |
| Jacob: Yeah yeah yeah! that was a big hit. How about Andre Rieu? |
| Mies: Yes, but he plays the violin you can’t really call him a pop artist or rock star. |
| Jacob: True, but he definitely is very popular abroad! |
| Mies: Did you know that he appeared as himself in “Ramsay Street” in the long-running Australian soap opera Neighbours. |
| Jacob: Wow, no, I didn’t know that. |
| Mies: Yeah Neighbours used to be on Dutch TV I haven’t really seen it recently. |
| Jacob: Yeah loads of American and British soaps, reality shows and sitcoms have been on Dutch TV too. |
| Mies: But one of the good things is that the Dutch use subtitles and rarely dub programs. |
| Jacob: Yeah, it's a very good way to learn a foreign language. |
| Mies: Yeah, people you should watch some Dutch movies subtitled in English. |
| Jacob: I’ve seen quite a few good Dutch movies recently. |
| Mies: Yeah, have you seen “Alles is Liefde” ? |
| Jacob: Yeah! I love that movie. |
| Mies: Yeah and how about the old timers like “Ciske de Rat” and “De Aanslag.” |
| Jacob: Ciske de Rat, is the movie about an 11-year-old street boy. |
| Mies: “Had ik maar iemand om van te houden, twee zachte armen om me heen!” (Mies sings) |
| Jacob: Ha ha, yeah I remember that very well. Some of the Dutch movie stars made it quite big abroad. |
| Mies: Like who? |
| Jacob: Well like Rutger Hauer, who acted in Blade Runner, Jeroen Krabbé who was in the Fugitive, and Famke Janssen, whom you could see in the X-Men movies. |
| Mies: Yeah and how about that movie “Million Dollar Baby” |
| Jacob: You are right: Lucia Rijker, the boxer, is in that movie. |
| Mies: You know what the press say about her? |
| Jacob: No, what did they say? |
| Mies: That she is the most dangerous woman in the world! |
| Jacob: Yeah and she is pretty amazing. At the age of 6 she started training in judo, this was in 1973 |
| Mies: Yeah and later she got into boxing. I heard she only lost a match once. |
| Jacob: Yeah up till 2007 she was undefeated but then she lost one match against a male opponent, World Champion Somchai Jaidee from New Zealand. |
| Mies: Wow, yeah, she would fight men too. What a woman. |
| Jacob: Yeah Mies, women can be dangerous, watch out! |
| Mies: Haha, as if I didn’t know that. So could you tell me 3 Dutch people foreigners would have heard of? |
| Jacob. Sure, ever heard of Tijs Michiel Verwest? |
| Mies: No, never heard of him |
| Jacob: How about DJ Tiësto? |
| Mies: Yeah yeah! I heard of him and actually I saw him play in Ageha in Tokyo. |
| Jacob: DJ Tiësto is Tijs Michiel Verwest! Tiesto is just his artist name. |
| Mies: Wow, yeah he played during the opening of the summer Olympics in 2004 |
| Jacob: He really knows how to make a party! |
| Mies: Okay, number 2 |
| Jacob. Vincent van Gogh |
| Mies: The painter who cut off his ear. |
| Jacob: Yes he didn’t have an easy life and didn’t make much money with his paintings at the time. Nowadays his paintings rank among the most expensive paintings in the world. |
| Mies: Wow! I wonder what Vincent would say if he would know this. How about number 3? |
| Jacob: Anne Frank |
| Mies: The Jewish girl who wrote a diary and became a Holocaust victim. |
| Jacob: Yes, in Amsterdam you can go and visit the place where she was hiding with her family from the Germans. |
| Mies: I hear millions of people have read her diary. |
| Jacob: Yes that is true. |
| Mies: What about sports, any famous sport figures? |
| Jacob: Sure. How about Marco van Basten? |
| Mies: The soccer player? |
| Jacob: Yeah I must say if I start talking about soccer players I think you could tell me a few more Dutch soccer players right? |
| Mies: Sure let’s see: van Nistelrooy, van Persie, Ruud Gullit, Ronald Koeman, Arjen Robben. Frank de Boer, van der Sar….. |
| Jacob: STOP! Enough!! Lets move on. Swimmers…do you know anyone ? |
| Mies: You tell me, you are the expert here. |
| Jacob: Ha ha yeah I am indeed. Well Pieter van den Hoogenband is pretty fast. |
| Mies: Yeah true, he’s like a fish in the water. |
| Jacob: Very funny Mies. So another popular sport figure is Rintje Ritsma, he moves on the ice. |
| Mies: A speed-skater! |
| Jacob: Yes indeed – very very speedy. |
| Mies: Well Jacob, thank you very much for sharing all this interesting information with us. |
| Jacob: You’re welcome, it was a pleasure as always. |
| Mies: Until next time, Bye! |
| Jacob: Dag! |
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