I
Nick & Simon

About:

Nick Schilder (6 November 1983)
Simon Keizer (16 May 1984)

Both born in the town of Volendam (just north of Amsterdam) the boys met each other at highschool when they were 17 years old, at which point they began singing and writing songs together. Their first song was 'Do you know what I mean'. At New Year's Eve in 2001, Nick was injured during a fire in a pub. He had to stay in the hospital for 23 days for lung problems. Afterward, the doctors advised him to take singing lessons. After this, he participated in the second season (2004) of the Dutch version of American Idol called Idols where he finished in eleventh place. Simon Keizer already had been eliminated in the first round. After the show, Nick & Simon were contacted by a record company to form a duo. They started writing songs and rehearsing but their regular appearance in a reallife soap of popular singer (and friend) Jan Smit caused for some pre-promotion. This caused their debutsingle ‘Steeds weer’ (again and again) to become a first charthit. Their selftitled debut eventually sold platinum. The single ‘De soldaat’ (the soldier) was written for the Dutch forces in Afghanistan. In the original version the soldier dies but for the single they changed the end to a more happy one. In 2007 they were awarded with the Zilveren Harp as promising act. Later that the again appeared in a reallife soap together with Jan Smit and colleagues 3J’s. This back-up by public TV caused their popularity to grow rapidly. They also wrote the title song for the movie ‘Scheepsjongens van Bontekoe’. In september their second album appeared selling double platinum. The single ‘Rosanne’ charted for 55 subsequent weeks. In 2009 the duo got into a car accident while recording their new video in Spain. Scarred with a concusion and minor burns the single ‘De dag dat alles beter is’ (the day everything is better) charted at number one the day of appearance. The album ‘Luister’ also features their first hit in Belgium with ‘Door jou’. Their fourth album ‘Fier’ appears in 2010.

On the web:

- Nick & Simon's website: http://www.nickensimon.nl/

If you like this, you probably like.. / european counterparts:

David Bisbal (Spain)

What do we think:

DB: In the new millennium the kids from Volendam took the elements of ‘palingsound’ (popular in the seventies by artists like The Cats and George Baker) and mixed that with pop and more traditional Dutch schlager (levenslied). Preceded by Jan Smit Nick and Simon started perfecting the pop-sound positioning themselves in the frontline of new Dutch languaged pop. Their catalogue progresses slowly to a more mature sound. Often slanted by the critics for being to commercial and to eager to please the main public they obliviously work on their ever growing popularity and did succeed (together with their friends) to but Dutch popmusic back on the radio and public TV.

Albums:

- Nick & Simon - 2006

- Vandaag - 2007

♪♪♪ - Luister - 2009

♪♪♪ - Fier - 2010

- Sterker - 2012

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♪♪♪♪♪ = outstanding album, an absolute must-have
♪♪♪♪ = great album, highly recomended
♪♪♪ = nice album
♪♪ = be careful, requires listening before buying
♪ = best to be avoided