UPA Dance are a Spanish group consisting of stars of the TV soap 'Un Paso Adelente' (hence UPA). The group began as a five-piece, but 23-year-old Miguel Ángel Muñoz (aka MAM, like Geordie mothers, but not), who sings this song (although it's credited as UPA Dance apart from in France, where it seems to have gained most success) is the only original member remaining as Beatriz Luengo and Pablo Puyol left to go solo and the other 2 (including Penelope Cruz's sister Mónica) followed suit. Undeterred, Miguel recruited an ex-Popstars singer called Eli Jordán and a boy exotically named Edu del Prado (I can't decide if he sounds more like a holiday resort or a fashion label) to continue the group. This is a very catchy, summery song which, although in Spanish, is great to sing along to and since the lyrics are so simple even the least linguistically talented of you will soon be showing off to your pals your excellent grasp of the Spanish language. Also, you must watch the video which is in 2 parts and has some great dance routines (especially the funny waving bit near the end of part 2), although I'm not entirely sure of the storyline. Miguel creepily dances around a very thin girl as she walks down a street at night, joined by a scary man in a red fur coat and silver high heels, then he and his colourfully clothed friends start dancing and a very appreciative audience appears. He clearly wants to be Michael Jackson, even donning a single black glove, but this music is certainly far more poptastic than the recent output of another Jacko-wannabe we could mention.

It's like the 90s never happened as every young female artist is flown over to Sweden in the hope of obtaining some of the Max Martin magic to further their careers, while lining his and co-writer Dr. Luke's pockets very nicely. The latest young lady to jump on the bandwagon is Megan McCauley, an almost-18-year-old American who has so far only been heard on film soundtracks. Tap That is her debut single and it's driven by a beat similar to 4ever or U + Your Hand, but unlike Pink she crosses from aggressive angst to girl power as she channels sassy female rappers such as Salt and Pepa with funky raps in the verses, sexual lyrics and a wild, shouty chorus. She may be barely legal but Megan sounds much older than the typical rock-pop bores such as Hilary Duff and Aly & AJ who clutter the airwaves of Radio Disney these days. Somehow I don't think old Walt would approve of this one! It's a great fun song and Megan is definitely one to watch on the teen-pop scene, as long as she doesn't scare off too many Christians with her offer to be your "dirty fantasy".

I was unsure about this song on first listen, then on my second I absolutely loved it. It's so atmospheric and emotional, it really is a lovely song. Your mum will love it but if you have any taste, so will you. Lisa's last album Fallingwater even got a UK release, so perhaps her new one will too - it's called Changes and comes out on the 30th of this month in Sweden and you can already pre-order it on the CD-Wow. The Swedish female artists are producing loads of great music at the moment, lets hope it continues!

It was a pleasant surprise today to find a Fopp (cheap UK music shop, for those of you lucky enough not to live in the UK) has appeared in my nearest town, Oxford. In celebration I decided to choose myself a treat from the £5 section and I came home with a copy of The Cardigans' latest album Super Extra Gravity. I liked the first two singles, which both received UK releases and even a small amount of music channel airtime, but I wasn't sure if I'd like a whole album as it's the first I've bought by The Cardies. I have to say overall I'm happy with my purchase, especially the tracks Drip Drop Teardrop, Slow and most of all this one which quite surprisingly makes me want to leap out of my chair and dance around the room in a very jolly way! It's such a catchy, fun and poptastic song, if you've ever even slightly liked The Cardigans then you should listen to this. And even if you don't like them you should hear it anyway, so you can change your mind to prevent any further embarrassment of being wrong.

2006 so far has been a surprisingly amazing year for Europop, as Infernal claim the second biggest single of the year so far and last week Cascada's brilliant single Everytime We Touch rose to no.2 in the UK charts. This was of course following its huge success in the USA and across Europe. You may expect such a big dance hit to be a one off, but in fact their next US single (already released in some of Europe prior to EWT's success) Miracle is, according to me at the very least, even better! I usually prefer not to post new singles but I'm really pleased this one is (unless they've changed their mind, cos there isn't a video to be found anywhere) going to be released next. It's nice to see acts making the right single choices, as it isn't half as common an occurence as it should be.

I am absolutely in love with Blog 27 at the moment, but I will leave the reasons why for a longer post soon to come on Dirrrty Pop. In the meantime, I want you to listen to my favourite song off their album , which is this fabulous piece of cheeky electro-pop fun, probably their most instantly catchy track and complete with amusing mispronunciation - stir and fir should be understood as stare and fair respectively. Despite being huge stars in Poland and pretty popular in many other European countries, they are also a figure of hate for many tasteless losers in said countries, and I have no doubt that they would be ignored or if noticed ridiculed in the UK even more so. However, this just places them in the special category with bands like BWO which exist only for the brilliant people like us who understand and love them as they deserve.

# posted by Jessica : 7:20 pm

If you, like all sane people, are a fan of Swedish dance-popster September (releasing Satellites in the UK in, you guessed it, September!) then you must hear this new single by fellow Swedes Da Buzz. They've made heaps of great pop during their 6 year career, having released 5 albums. The latest is Last Goodbye which was out earlier this year and included the title track which was also a single and of course this one which is currently at no.20 in the Swedish hitlistan. It's fast becoming one of my favourite Da Buzz songs as it's so catchy and even has a fun sort of rap near the end! This is bouncy, uplifting Swedish pop at it's very best. If there is a country where life sounds like this, why isn't everyone desperate to move there? I certainly am!

I've posted a few songs by Lillix before, and it's always hard to choose what to post because their consistency in making great songs is amazing. This is one of the tracks from their new album Inside The Hollow which will be out in September. On their MySpace you can also hear this, the fantastic single Sweet Temptation and another brilliant song called Blackout which sounds more like the old-skool Lillix of their debut album. The album was made with the help of people who worked on the Killers' debut and you can certainly hear the similarity on this track, but it's chorus is catchier and having a female sinegr makes it even better. Lillix songs should be listened to loud, even if only on headphones, cos this is as close to real shout-along rock you'll get on this website. And if you're a proper rockist then you should listen to this and maybe you will begin to shed some of those ridiculous prejudices against teen girl rock, since everyone else knows it's by far the best kind.