M2M (band)

M2M was a Norwegian pop music duo comprising Marion Raven and Marit Larsen. Raven and Larsen had been friends since the age of five, and formed their first band when they were eight. They released a children's album under the name "Marion & Mariot", which was nominated for a Spellemannprisen award when they were 12. They later changed their name to M2M and were signed to Atlantic Records in 1998. M2M were frequently praised for writing most of their songs and performing their own instruments, something which was considered to set them aside from the majority of pop music artists.

Their debut single, Don't Say You Love Me (1999), was both a critical and commercial success, and remained their biggest hit. Their debut album, Shades of Purple (2000), was critically acclaimed and sold over 1.5 million units worldwide. Despite critical acclaim, their second album, The Big Room (2002), did not perform as well commercially, and the duo broke up the year of its release, with each pursuing a solo career. A 'best of' album, The Day You Went Away: The Best of M2M (2003) was released after they disbanded. M2M sold over 2 million albums.

Boy

A boy is a young male human, usually a child or adolescent. When he becomes an adult, he is described as a man. The most apparent difference between a typical boy and a typical girl is the genitalia. However, some intersex children with ambiguous genitals, and genetically female transgender children, may also be classified or self-identify as a boy.

The term boy is primarily used to indicate biological sex distinctions, cultural gender role distinctions or both. The latter most commonly applies to adult men, either considered in some way immature or inferior, in a position associated with aspects of boyhood, or even without such boyish connotation as age-indiscriminate synonym. The term can be joined with a variety of other words to form these gender-related labels as compound words.

Etymology

The word "boy" comes from Middle English boi, boye ("boy, servant"), related to other Germanic words for boy, namely East Frisian boi ("boy, young man") and West Frisian boai ("boy"). Although the exact etymology is obscure, the English and Frisian forms probably derive from an earlier Anglo-Frisian *bō-ja ("little brother"), a diminutive of the Germanic root *bō- ("brother, male relation"), from Proto-Indo-European *bhā-, *bhāt- ("father, brother"). The root is also found in Flemish boe ("brother"), Norwegian dialectal boa ("brother"), and, through a reduplicated variant *bō-bō-, in Old Norse bófi, Dutch boef "(criminal) knave, rogue", German Bube ("knave, rogue, boy"). Furthermore, the word may be related to Bōia, an Anglo-Saxon personal name.

Lyrics

Lyrics are words that make up a song usually consisting of verses and choruses. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist. The words to an extended musical composition such as an opera are, however, usually known as a "libretto" and their writer, as a "librettist". The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of expression.

Etymology

"Lyric" derives via Latin lyricus from the Greek λυρικός (lyrikós), the adjectival form of lyre. It first appeared in English in the mid-16th century in reference, to the Earl of Surrey's translations of Petrarch and to his own sonnets.Greek lyric poetry had been defined by the manner in which it was sung accompanied by the lyre or cithara, as opposed to the chanted formal epics or the more passionate elegies accompanied by the flute. The personal nature of many of the verses of the Nine Lyric Poets led to the present sense of "lyric poetry" but the original Greek sense—words set to music—eventually led to its use as "lyrics", first attested in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Stainer and Barrett used the word as a singular substantive: "Lyric, poetry or blank verse intended to be set to music and sung". By the 1930s, the present use of the plurale tantum "lyrics" had begun; it has been standard since the 1950s. The singular form "lyric" still appears; its present use, however, is to refer to a specific phrase within a song's lyrics.