Donkeyboy (occasionally stylised as donkeyboy) is a

synthpop Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a music genre that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s ...

band from

Drammen Drammen () is a city and municipality in Buskerud county, Norway. The port and river city of Drammen is centrally located in the south-eastern and most populated part of Norway. Drammen municipality also includes smaller towns and villages such ...

, Norway, formed in 2005. The band consists of Cato Sundberg (

vocals Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define sing ...

rhythm guitar In music performances, rhythm guitar is a guitar technique and role that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse (music), pulse in conjunction with other instruments from the rhythm section (e.g., d ...

), Kent Sundberg (

synth A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...

), Peter Michelsen (

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

, backing vocals) and Thomas Drabløs (

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

)

History

Donkeyboy were signed to

Warner Music Warner Music Group Corp., commonly abbreviated as WMG, is an American multinational entertainment and record label conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the " big three" recording companies and the third-largest in the gl ...

after an employee came across their music on

MySpace Myspace (formerly stylized as MySpace, currently myspace; and sometimes my␣, with an elongated Whitespace character#Substitute images, open box symbol) is a social networking service based in the United States. Launched on August 1, 2003, it w ...

. Their debut single, " Ambitions" was released on 26 March 2009 and was put into heavy rotation by NRK P3. The song's chorus is built around a bassline similar to those used on

Michael Jackson Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Michael Jackson, one of the most culturally significan ...

's "

Billie Jean "Billie Jean" is a song by the American singer Michael Jackson, released by Epic Records on January 3, 1983, as the second single from his sixth studio album, ''Thriller (album), Thriller'' (1982). It was written and composed by Jackson, produ ...

" and some of

Madonna Madonna Louise Ciccone ( ; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Referred to as the "Queen of Pop", she has been recognized for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, ...

's 1980s songs. The song features guest vocals by Linnea Dale. "Ambitions" debuted on the Norwegian singles chart at number seven on 6 April 2009, and reached the number one spot on 29 June, after 13 weeks on the

charts A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent t ...

. "Ambitions" remained at the number one spot for 12 consecutive weeks, before being replaced by the band's second single " Sometimes" on September 22. This was the first time ever for a Norwegian artist to occupy the top two spots on the singles chart. Guitarist Peter Michelsen described the situation as "completely absurd". Donkeyboy's debut album '' Caught in a Life'' was released on 19 October 2009. It was produced by Simen & Espen at Livingroom Studios in Oslo. Sven Ove Bakke of ''

Dagbladet () is one of Norway's largest newspapers and is published in the Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid format. It has 1,400,000 daily readers on mobile, web and paper. Traditionally it was considered the main liberal newspaper of Norway, with a ...

'' gave the album four out of six, and described it as "revolving around its already established hits with a combination of self-assured conviction and uneasy duteousness." He concluded that the album was overshadowed by its hit single. The band supported fellow Norwegians

a-ha A-ha (often stylised as ''a''-h''a''; ) is a Norwegian synth-pop band formed in Oslo in 1982. Founded by Paul Waaktaar-Savoy (guitars and vocals), Magne Furuholmen (keyboards, guitars and vocals), and Morten Harket (lead vocals), the band ros ...

in the UK and Oslo legs of their ''

Foot of the Mountain ''Foot of the Mountain'' is the ninth studio album by the Norwegian synth-pop band A-ha. It was released on 19 June 2009 and reached No. 1 on the German Albums Chart and No. 2 on the Norwegian Albums Chart. In its first week in the UK, the albu ...

'' tour in November 2009, and in 2011 Donkeyboy won a

European Border Breakers Award The Music Moves Europe Award, also known as the MME Award, is an annual prize recognizing the success of ten emerging artists or groups who reached audiences outside their own countries with their first internationally released album in the pas ...

for their international success."Winners of the 2011 European Border Breakers Awards"
ec.europa.eu. Retrieved February 20, 2012 Donkeyboy's second album Silver Moon was released on March 2, 2012, and in 2013 they released the single " Triggerfinger" featuring vocals by Kiesza.

Honours

*2009: Three times

Spellemannprisen The Spellemannprisen (also referred to as the Norwegian Grammy Awards) is a Norwegian music award ceremony presented by International Federation of the Phonographic Industry#Local associations, IFPI Norge and :no:FONO, FONO. It was first awarded i ...

in the categories this year's Hit song, Newcomer and Musical video, for the album ''Caught in a Life'' and the tune/video "Ambitions"

Discography

Albums

Singles

References

External links

* {{Authority control Norwegian pop music groups Spellemannprisen winners Musical groups established in 2005 2005 establishments in Norway Musical groups from Drammen