Sunday, December 24, 2006
I went into my first listen of the new Darin album, Break The News, expecting track 2 (Extraordinary Love, the work of Robyn
and Max Martin) to be my far off favourite, but actually I was a bit disappointed there and instead gravitated towards this more 'urban' song, the first track. The verses sound like JC Chasez and the chorus like Justin, showing once again that Darin, despite his youth and not being American, is a one-man *N Sync! This is one of the coolest and most grown-up songs Darin has done, and shows he can really compete with the worldwide stars... so why isn't he one? If you like SexyBack and JC's Schizophrenic album, download this now. If you want something a bit lighter look for Saturday Night, ballad Everything But The Girl (which sounds a bit like No Promises by Brian Rice/Shayne Ward) or the single, Perfect, while if you like Insanity I also recommend Desire which is
very SexyBack.
# posted by Jessica : 9:43 pm
Thursday, December 14, 2006
I have posted quite a lot by Fefe here but it's always warranted because she has some amazing songs, and now her Sunday Love album is not going to be released (she was dropped from her label so no longer has the rights to it) I don't want brilliance like this to go unheard. It's very emotional and a bit depressing - quite different to the punchy girl power anthems Fefe usually provides. I don't know where she's planning to go musically with her new post-dropping album, but hopefully she won't lose her commercial appeal, even if it didn't actually appeal to many people in the end. The Sunday Love album is currently going for £690.59 on Amazon, so if any rich people want to buy it for me feel free.
# posted by Jessica : 3:16 pm
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Here's a song that just missed out on my top 25 singles of the year, and since I hadn't previously posted it here I decided it deserved some extra recognition. Of the songs I've loved this year this is one of the least conventionally poppy and yet it is bursting with addictive hooks and general jauntiness. And it does it all with pounding emotion and a sense of true, honest love for this Mandy. I hope she deserves to have such a fantastic song written about her. The song, which reminds me a lot of the one Arcade Fire song I like, Rebellion (Lies), is so catchy you can imagine it being covered by a pop singer, whether male or female (but definitely a fun one), and it would be a great song, but it's the weirdness of the vocals here that makes it something special.
# posted by Jessica : 11:58 pm
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
I have never known of anyone with so many names as this young lady - she began her career as Joie Lenz, then added the Bethany and swapped the 'ie' for a 'y', and now she goes by her married name of Bethany Joy Galeotti. And just to complicate things, this song appears on the One Tree Hill soundtrack under the name of her character on the show, Haley James Scott! The song is more upbeat than the singer-songwriter nicey-niceness Bethany/Haley usually provides us with, and has a great emotional sing-along chorus. Haley is really one of the wimpiest characters to ever grace our TV screens (and apparently in real life Bethany enjoys knitting and making stationery!) so she really needs a bit of angst-pop to bring out the aceness I'm sure is in there somewhere, and this just about does it, but may just carry itself on good singing and songwriting.
# posted by Jessica : 9:38 am
Sunday, December 03, 2006
(Now on Filelodge) All I remember about the Alice Band is that they were three young ladies with a sort of 'mature Hepburn' thing going on (not that Hepburn themselves did well enough to warrant a mature version), one of them went out with Tim from Ash, and this was their second single, the follow up to the nice but nothing special One Day at a Time. This one is quite special, though. It's a real girl's anthem, about kicking out the boy to dance around in your birthday suit to loads of ace songs, and the carefree jubilation described in the lyrics is reflected in the sound of this extremely jolly single. A little research tells me they released an album in 2002, The Love Junk Store, which is available on Amazon.
# posted by Jessica : 4:45 pm
Friday, December 01, 2006
(Now on Filelodge) When Popjustice first linked to the new song by what seemed to be a girl-group called Pleasure, I wondered if they knew that there was an act already using that name, the one who released Don't Look The Other Way, featuring Justine from Elastica a few years ago. However, a little research revealed that there would be no copyright battles, as this was the very same Pleasure, simply with different vocalists. In fact, Wikipedia describes Pleasure as "a Norwegian funky pop band, led by Fred Ball", who, as Mr PJ mentioned, is the writer/producer of much of Bertine Zetlitz's recent work. This song was released in 2003 and was the only hit from the full album, also called Pleasure. I was quite a fan of it at the time, although I had no idea who Pleasure was. It's very catchy 80s-style electro-pop and the weird
video is pretty cool too.
# posted by Jessica : 4:07 pm
