Christina Perri - A Thousand Years [Music Video Premiere]
Two of the world's biggest singer/songwriters at the minute, Jar of Hearts singer Christina Perri and Grenade crooner Bruno Mars, are each contributing to the soundtrack of the upcoming Twilight film - Breaking Dawn Part I. Bruno was the first to charge ahead with moody ballad It Will Rain but the music video is delayed, which means Christina Perri's similarly moody ballad will go first. Titled A Thousand Years, this fits Christina perfectly, and I remember saying when she first debuted, her music was so appropriate for moody and dramatic shows like The Vampire Diaries and Twilight.
Hey ho, fast forward to October 2011, here we are. A Thousand Years isn't as good as It Will Rain, but Christina has had a few vocal issues lately so she probably doesn't want to strain it on this track. The clip itself is pretty simple with Christina with candles all around whenever scenes from Breaking Dawn aren't playing.
I know I'm late to the party but it's because I forgot to post it. Anyway, UK boyband The Wanted are onto their sophomore album Battleground's second single Lightning which follows the massively successful #1 lead single Glad You Came. (No I don't consider the Comic Relief Single Gold Forever a proper single off Battleground.) If you hated The Wanted's shift into the clubby Ibiza rave-vibe, have no fear as Lightning harks back to classic The Wanted territory with the song marrying electro, pop and a slice of pop/rock as well, before the anthemic chorus erupts and all is good in the world.
The video doesn't exactly do much for me, it's just the boys standing around looking pretty while Nathan blows up a car, but it sounds a lot better than the disastrous radio rip which sounded like an unfinished demo. The song's #2 on the UK Chart midweeks, overtaken by Rihanna's We Found Love (thanks to that incredible video), but it should go on to become a winner for them.
Adele's monster ballad Someone Like You is still unstoppable, reigning at #1 on the Hot 100 for yet another week. Rihanna picks up the Airplay Gainer title and rises up to #6, and hopefully after that amazing music video, she'll be heading further upwards. Kelly Clarkson's Mr. Know It All seems to be seeing a resurgence, rising back up to #24 this week while Bruno Mars' It Will Rain vaults up to #47 this week. Also heading up is Colbie Caillat, as Brighter Than the Sun floats up to #65. After dropping the music video, Britney Spears' Criminal makes a debut at #92 on the Hot 100 while fellow pop tarts Katy Perry and Jessie J's latest tunes The One That Got Away and Domino arrive at #94 and #96.
Over on the albums chart, Evanescence' self-titled album debut at #1 while Adele's 21 holds at #2. American Idol Season 10 finalists Scotty McCreery and Lauren Alaina see their debut studio albums Clear as Day and Wildflower at #4 and #5 respectively.
In four and a half minutes, Rihanna has explored every bit of love, from the fights, the sex, the club raves, the drugs, the unhappiness, and the utter bliss, and has delivered basically the best pop video of the year. The clip for We Found Love starts off slow and introspective, with a very Skins UK ring to it, with a narrator saying "It’s like screaming, but no one can hear. You almost feel ashamed that some one could be that important, that without them, you feel like nothing. No one will ever understand how much it hurts. You feel hopeless, like nothing can save you. But when it’s over, and it’s gone, you almost wish that you could have all that bad stuff back, so that you could have the good."
Before the song starts in a surprising, almost celebratory element to the video, where Rihanna and her lover go through different phases of the relationship. Both sad and fun at the same time.
Oh Britney. As a whole, the Femme Fatale has been a hit and miss for me. The styling of the entire era was a bit generic, the album itself left me cold, but it did bring us the fabulous bonus tracks Up N Down and Scary. Britney's already easily scored three other top 10 hits with Femme Fatale and now onto her fourth single Criminal, Brit Brit dropped by London to film the unnecessarily dramatic music video.
The clip starts off with Socialite Spears getting bullied by her English husband, before getting slapped by him with real life beau Jason Trawick stepping in as Mr. Criminal to save her. Then the unnecessary drama starts, with B shoplifting and a whole lot of sex scenes and running off with Mr. Criminal and the police fail to catch them.
Like I said, unnecessarily dramatic, especially since Britney isn't the finest actress we've seen around doubling as massive popstars, and overall, the clip doesn't do much for me.
Still, I would like to see this become a hit since it's one of the songs I immediately liked from Femme Fatale.
Adele's Someone Like You still reigns over the Hot 100 while Rihanna moves up to #7 with new single We Found Love. Kelly Clarkson's Mr. Know It All is finally seeing a small resurgence, moving up to #27 from #30 last week. Daughtry's new single Crawling Back To You makes an entrance at #41 amidst Glee's entries this week with Fix You starting off at #53, and Run The World (Girls) at #91. Bruno Mars' contribution to the Twilight movie Breaking Dawn Part 1 takes a massive tumble to #64 after it's debut at #28 last week while Colbie Caillat stays fixed at a sexually suggestive #69 with Brighter Than The Sun. This week also sees Beyonce's Party debut at #95 and Jennifer Lopez' Papi making an appearance at #96.
The tenth American Idol Scotty McCreery has broken a record for being the youngest male artist in history to debut atop the Billboard 200 Albums Chart in terms of debut albums, and the first country act to debut at #1 with their first studio album. And as usual, Adele holds strong right behind at #2.
Olly Murs - Dance With Me Tonight [Music Video Premiere]
British pop singer/songwriter Olly Murs has done pretty well for himself post The X Factor, spinning out a far more successful pop career compared to winner Joe McElderry who's found success in Opera-styled music (the lad has a really good voice, so if you're bored with nothing to do, YouTube him). Last year, Olly picked up a #1 single and his self-titled debut album went double platinum. This year, he scored yet another #1 with his upcoming second album In Case You Didn't Know's lead single Heart Skips a Beat. With a new job on the X Factor as the Xtra Factor host, it's full speed ahead and will release his new single Dance With Me Tonight in November.
As usual with British artists, the music videos are unveiled a month before the single release, so now that we're in the middle of October, here we have Olly in the video for Dance With Me Tonight. The clip starts off with Olly getting sent to jail. "SAY WHAT OLLY HAS BECOME A BAD BOY?" Unfortunately, it's not exactly shaving his head and attacking the paparazzi with an umbrella. In a romantic gesture, Olly took a car for a spin, to show up at a girl's house inviting her to dance with him, what with fireworks and all. Of course, it's in the night, so the poor Granny next door can't take all that noise, calling the police in. Hey ho, Olly's in jail.
"Help! Someone help! We can't breathe!" - Olly Murs' testicles in his tight pants.
The Saturdays - My Heart Takes Over [Music Video Premiere]
Usually when it comes to proper anthemic ballads, filming a music video, especially one for a girl group has a pretty standard fomula, chuck the girls into a pretty country with a pretty backdrop as scenery while they look wistfully into the camera drowning their sorrows in song.
And it's exactly what The Saturdays have done for the music video for their brand new single My Heart Takes Over which will be released a week before their upcoming fourth album On Your Radar will hit stores. The song by itself is strong, but a little bland and forgettable, but the video is absolutely stunning and suits the song very well, with Vanessa emoting really well while the other girls look either stunning (Una, Mollie) or in pain from the harsh weather (Frankie, Rochelle). Nevertheless, Queen Vanessa owns the entire clip and song.
After the release of the music video for Someone Like You a while back, it's put the Adele track right atop the Hot 100 once again, pushing Maroon 5 and Moves Like Jagger to #2. Thanks to Airplay Gains, Rihanna vaults straight into the Top 10 at #9 this week with We Found Love after its debut at #16 last week. Jason DeRulo sneaks into the Top 20 with It Girl moving up to #18 this week while Bruno Mars' new track It Will Rain for the Twilight film debuts at #28 with Kelly Clarkson's Mr. Know It All two places behind at the rim of the Top 30. Colbie Caillat's Brighter Than The Sun moves to a new peak of #69 this week, then there's the weekly Glee chart invasion with Somewhere at #75.
Over on the albums chart, J. Cole runs to #1 with Adele sitting at #3 behind the new Blink 182 album. Demi Lovato's Unbroken takes a ten spot slip to #14.
Pixie Lott - What Do You Take Me For [Music Video Premiere]
This week saw Pixie Lott premiere the music video for her new single What Do You Take Me For which features Pusha T and comes after her UK chart-topping but totally generic All About Tonight. What Do You Take Me For takes things into a more soulful direction, dabbling with a bit dubstep without being desperate (Sugababes' Freedom) and is completely snazzy and all sorts of amazing. I'm even liking the album title of Young Foolish Happy now. Girl just needs to use a different picture for the album cover.
Nevertheless, the music video sees Pixie sometimes rather awkwardly trying to pussy pop and everything, but she still looks hot. Well, when she's not looking awkward. The music video as itself is quite stylish, with some part looking like high fashion photoshoots rather than a new music from one of Britain's most talked about female pop artists.
It's a good video, yes. It's an even better song, yes. However, I can't help but think all the personality and soul has been sucked out of her. What happened to the 2009 Pixie Lott?
Big News: Listen to Kelly Clarkson's "What Doesn't Kill You"!
When people were anticipating, Kelly Clarkson's comeback, everyone was hoping she'd return with another manbashing tune ala Since U Been Gone or a ginormous pop song with a stadium sized chorus in the vein of My Life Would Suck Without You. And with reports the first single to be released off her fifth studio album Stronger was called Mr. Know It All, speculation hit the roof.
However, with the soulful sounds of Mr. Know It All being instant radio food and a slow grower, the single has so far done a peak at #18 on the Hot 100 in its debut week and has started to shuffle down the charts. People started to turn away from softly sassy Kelly, but Kelly has recently uploaded album cut What Doesn't Kill You (Stronger) to her YouTube channel, saying a lot of variations of this song has been leaked online and wanted everyone to hear the real one - basically what she's saying is this is the real one, it's the new single, now listen to it.
And it's good. It's not as outrightly pop/rock as Since U Been Gone or Never Again, though it may start out like it could, once it hits the chorus, it takes a more pop lane right smack into P!nk territory.
If people didn't like Mr. Know It All, they might warm right back to Kelly with this. Take a listen below.
Big News: The Saturdays unveil album title + tracklisting!
The Saturdays are getting bigger and bigger with each release, as evident by the first week sales of their last track All Fired Up which managed to shift about 70, 000 copies, landing at #3 on the UK Singles Chart behind Pixie Lott's 88K-selling #1 All About Tonight and Hot 100 #1 Maroon 5's Moves Like Jagger. Clearly, their label are trying to place the girls in the competitive chart release weeks so when they finally get a #1, it will actually mean something unlike some of JLS' mindless tunes that nab top spot easily.
The girls have announced the album title for their fourth album, which takes a line from All Fired Up, and is officially called On Your Radar. Personally, it's a bit of a meh title, it doesn't hit hard like Chasing Lights, Wordshaker or Headlines!. Personally, if they were going to take the title from a lyric, then in my opinion, Against The Speakers would be slightly better. But no worries.
The Sats have also unveiled the album's tracklisting which you can take a look below: 1. All Fired Up (Xenomania and Space Cowboy) 2. Notorious (Ina Wroldsen and Steve Mac) 3. Faster (Ina Wroldsen and Steve Mac) 4. My Heart Takes Over (Ina Wroldsen and Steve Mac) 5. White Lies (Ina Wroldsen, Carl Falk and Rami Yacoub) 6. For Myself (TBA) 7. The Way You Watch Me - Tanya Lacey and Lucas Secon 8. Do What You Want With Me - (Jaz Rogers and Bryn Christopher) 9. Promise Me - (The Saturdays, Steve Daly, Jon Keep and Ali Tennant) 10. Wish I Didn't Know (The Saturdays, Steve Daly, Jon Keep and Ali Tennant) 11. Get Ready, Get Set (TBA) 12. Last Call (Una, Lucie Silvas and Chris Holmes) 13. I Say Ok (The Saturdays, David Eriksen and Nina Woodford)
A lot of "me, myself, and I" going on here. Eh?
Nevertheless, the girls will be releasing the album on November 21st, a week after third single My Heart Takes Over gets released, where the album will face competition from JLS and Pixie Lott the week before, then One Direction and Westlife on the release week itself. Hopefully The Saturdays know what they're doing because that massive competition could spell danger for the album's chart run.
The album cover should be unveiled any time soon, but meanwhile, check out the girls blasting Forever Is Over for Ireland's Arthur's Day.
The Christina Aguilera-assisted single Moves Like Jagger may be still on top of the Hot 100, but come next week, Adele and Rihanna could overthrow Maroon 5 and Xtina, especially with Adele's Someone Like You collecting the Airplay Gainer Title while staying firmly at #2. Rihanna's new single We Found Love makes a Top 20 appearance, debuting at #16 this week while Jason DeRulo's new track It Girl rises to #24. Kelly Clarkson's Mr. Know It All takes a three spot slip down to #38. Disney starlets Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez move up the chart with Demi's Skyscraper standing at #55 while Selena's tune Love You Like A Love Song is right behind with #56. Glee is back for a new season and so are its tunes, with It's Not Unusual debuting at #65, You Can't Stop The Beat at #67 and We Got The Beat at #83. It's the release weeks of Demi Lovato's Unbroken album, and album cuts Fix A Heart and title track Unbroken land on the chart at #69 and #98 respectively.
Over on the albums chart, Tony Bennett's Duets II album opens at #1, trailed by Lady Antebellum's Own The Night, Adele's 21 and Demi Lovato's third studio album Unbroken in that order to #4.
We review the latest in 21st century. Mostly we do pop, but it doesn't really matter, along with new music premieres, video premieres, album premieres. If the links don't work, please notify me in the cbox right below and I will post a new link in the cbox. Thanks.
Artist Of The Month. (November 2011)
The Power Rangers of British pop, The Saturdays, are returning this year with a more mature sound and image, with the girlband taking a stab at the pop/dance wave with their fourth album On Your Radar's first single Notorious being a total flip in direction in their sound, and was noticeably more clubby compared to their previous singles and albums. They then took things a level further with the complete rave-tastic All Fired Up, which is without a doubt their best single release, not surprising since the track was produced by production powerhouse Xenomania, the machine behind pretty much all of Girls Aloud's discography. The pop five-piece are charging forward with the Christmassy ballad My Heart Takes Over before their album On Your Radar drops November 21st!
