Hello Everyone! In these last few hours of wrapping up Christmas presents and getting ready for the Christmas Eve it’s easy to get a little bit stressed in the rush. Here I come with an ultimate solution for that! Just play Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas (released in 1960) and you will get into joyful chilled out mood. Highly recommended!

Just look at the tracklis:

1. “Jingle Bells”
2. “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town”
3. “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”
4. “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?”
5. “Sleigh Ride”
6. “The Christmas Song”
7. “Good Morning Blues”
8. “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!”
9. “Winter Wonderland”
10. “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”
11. “Frosty the Snowman”
12. “White Christmas”

And now imagine the one and only Ella Fiztgerald singing them… Doesn’t is sound like Christmas already? Just a little hint below…

(check out ‘related videos’ for more!)

Merry Christmas to all of You!

R.I.P. Brittany Murphy

As most of you know by now, Brittany Murphy died two days ago from cardiac arrest, aged 32. I don’t know her acting skills that much as I’ve only seen Sin City and Clueless with her, but the song with Paul Oakenfold ‘Faster Kill Pussycat’ in which she sings (and she does it quite well I must say) is one of my dancefloor favourites. Let’s watch the music video for that song once again – as you may remember, I wrote about it in ‘Sexiest Music Videos’ series.

Last.fm created a list presenting top 40 of hottest new music based on users’ scrobbles. It is revealed in parts, here are positions 40-21 with a number of tracks scrobbled by me this year (so far):

40. Little Boots (146)
39. Florence + The Machine (45)
38. Kasabian (0)
37. Regina Spektor (6)
36. The Fray (not in my library)
37. Metric (not in my library)
34. The XX (not in my library)
33. Eminem (not in my library)
32. Fever Ray (58)
31. Depeche Mode (11)
30. U2 (not in my library)
29. Guns N’ Roses (not in my library)
28. Nickelback (not in my library)
27. The All-American Rejects (not in my library)
26. Bat For Lashes (99)
25. Passion Pit (not in my library)
24. Röyksopp (145)
23. A Day To Remember (not in my library)
22. Arctic Monkeys (not in my library)
21. Grizzly Bear (not in my library – I’ve listened to them on iPod, though!)

I find this ranking really reasonable and I can’t wait for the next part that will be out on Wednesday. I wonder where will be artists such as Imogen Heap, Lily Allen, Basement Jaxx. I’m sure that Lady Gaga will be really high, but on the other hand she’s released The Fame in 2008, so maybe they don’t take her under consireadtion…

If you have a minute, please share your number of scrobbled tracks – it’s all available for you when you will flick through the full article on Last.fm while being logged in.

Recently I discovered Japanese bonus track for Röyksopp’s Junior. ‘Were you ever wanted?’ is actually one the best tracks from the album and I can’t understand why they decided to give this as a bonus and poor ‘Happy Up Here’  as a leading single… Japanese people get so many good tracks, there is always super fancy edition of every album there…

Lykke Li sounds great on this cold raw tune, doesn’t she?

Is anyone excited about 52nd Grammy Awards? Personally, I don’t find them that interesting, but I know they are a big deal in music industry. Just in case you’re not that willing to go through all nominees from 109 categories of Grammy Awards, I will let you know about the most exciting ones in a second.

Let’s start with the most important information… Imogen Heap is nominated in two categories! Best Pop Instrumental Performance for ‘Fire’ and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical for Imogen as an engineer of her ‘Ellipse’, so this is really big one for her! Immi’s brilliance and creativity was noticed, I just wonder why only in two categories…

Record of the Year
Beyoncé – ‘Halo’
The Black Eyed Peas – ‘I Gotta Feeling’
Kings of Leon – ‘Use Somebody’
Lady Gaga – ‘Poker Face’
Taylor Swift – ‘You Belong With Me’

My vote goes to ‘Halo’ – it’s a great song with lots of power and drama in it, and Beyoncé somehow managed not to go over a top with this one. Doubtlessly, it’s the best song from her album (actually, there are only three good songs there – count in ‘Single Ladies’ and ‘Diva’ – the rest of the tracks are awful).
However, the award may go to Lady Gaga, but – I can’t believe I’m saying that – she deserves it as this song was everywhere this year… To be honest, it was definitely Lady Gaga’s year in pop industry.
Taylor Swift is a terrible American vomit, boring and absolutely plain. She’s a big no-no in this group.
And the other two songs – whatever.

Album of the Year
Beyoncé – I Am… Sasha Fierce
The Black Eyed Peas - The E.N.D.
Lady Gaga – Fame
Dave Matthews Band – Big Whiskey And The Groogrux King
Taylor Swift – Fearless

Hmm… I’ve no idea who Dave Matthews Band is and I assume that Taylor Swift doesn’t get any better that her single nominated for the Record of the Year award which means that the whole album is ish. BEP album is really bad and Beyoncé has only three good songs on hers. Lady Gaga – no way. All the nominated albums make no sense to me.

Song of the Year (this award is for songwriters, the Record of the Year goes to artist + producer + recording engineer)
Why is Taylor Swift’s song here AGAIN? There is nothing special about this song, I can’t understand it. The reasonable possible winners are Beyoncé a few guys for ‘Single Ladies’ or Lady Gaga and RedOne for ‘Poker Face’. I’d vote for ‘Poker Face’ – at least it was more interesting than ‘Single Ladies’ that echoes Beyoncé’s previous work heavily.

Best New Artist
The Ting Tings? OK. MGMT? OK. Definitely not Keri Hilson. I’d go for MGMT.

Best Female Pop Vocal Performance
Beyoncé – ‘Halo’
Adele – ‘Hometown Glory’
Pink – ‘Sober’
Katy Perry – ‘Hot N Cold’
Taylor Swift – ‘You Belong With Me’

I have no problem here – Taylor Swift!
And seriuosly, I love ‘Hometown Glory’ and ‘Halo’ so I’d vote for one of these. ‘Hot N Cold’ was a good tune, but vocally it was… well, it wasn’t that bad actually. Still, I’d vote for the two singers mentioned before.
It’s good that Lady Gaga isn’t nominated here.

Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals
MGMT for ‘Kids’ or BEP for ‘I Gotta Feeling’? MGMT, that’s an easy one!

Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals
Ciara and Justin Timberlake for ‘Love Sex Magic’ – I don’t see any other other option here.

Best Dance Recording
The Black Eyed Peas – ‘Boom Boom Pow’
David Guetta & Kelly Rowland – ‘When Love Takes Over’
Lady Gaga – ‘Poker Face’
Madonna – ‘Celebration’
Britney Spears – ‘Womanizer’

Whatever. All of them are equally good, objectively speaking. Unless we’re talking about remixed version of ‘Celebration’ – then the award should definitely go to Madonna!

Best Short Form Music Video
‘Boom Boom Pow’ or ‘Wrong’ by Depeche Mode would be my choice here.

Producer Of The Year, Non-Classical
If Greg Kurstin isn’t getting an award for Lily Allen’s It’s Not Me, It’s You and The Bird and The Bee’s Ray Guns Are Not Just The Future, the jury should be fired.

So, this is just a little extract, I selected information that were interesting to me. Oh, I should mention Yeah Yeah Yeahs It’s Blitz! nomination for Best Alternative Album as my beloved one has just returned from their gig (but seriously, how alternative they are?…).

If you want to see full list of nominees, visit Grammy’s official website.

Just a little poor excuse for not writing for such a long time: studying! I enjoy it, though. The Video Production module especially! I still have loads to do as I’m working with my group on press conference that will take place in a week and a half, so I’m here just to post a couple of new music videos you may enjoy. I have quite a few drafts of nice posts (at least I find them interesting), but I can’t find time to finish them… Hopefully, I will find some time just after I’m done with this conference. No worries, this blog is here to stay!

Basement Jaxx
My turn

Have Jaxxes ever made a poor music video? If they did, I must have missed it – let me know about it, please. I absolutely love this one, it’s so cosy! Simple, colourful, and engrossing. And funny – maybe not in a way that you burst with laughter, but I’m sure you’ll smile a bit (at least inside) while watching it.

Keep an eye on Tomek Ducki who directed that music video, he’s a really talented guy. His videos on his vimeo profile are worth looking at, just give it a shot – click here (I highly recommend ‘Life Line – Életvonal’ – a short movie with touching story and great visuals).

Finally, the song. Brilliant. That’s why I love Basement Jaxx: there is something special about each and every of their songs. No exception here. Irresistably catchy melody, killer beat, and most importantly – soul. Perfection.

Lily Allen
Who’d have known

Lily and Greg Kurstin created an amazing album this year, here’s just another single to prove that. Good concept for a music video; I really liked it, even though not much was happening in there.
I  hope Lily wasn’t serious about quitting the music industry! Who’d be voice of our generation then?

***

And just to combine the artists above, here’s another perfect song by Basement Jaxx that features Lily Allen on  backing vocals (just listen carefully and you can hear her):

There are artists that over the years lose distinction between shaping their original sound and being repetitive, like Röyksopp, and there are artists that copy their own ideas shamelessly all over again and get away with that, like Timbaland.

Timbo is gonna release Shock Value 2 in a month and the lead single was just released. ‘Morning After Dark’ features Timaland himself and some oh-so-boring new artist SoShy from Timbaland’s label.

Timbo says the song is

“very interesting. The song, I can’t describe it, it’s so different. It’s not different for me, but I can tell you this — it fits everything going on with the vampire theme.“

I say it sounds not different at all; it sounds exactly like everything else he has done over last few years. Come on, it’s ish! Really ishy ish I shall say.

The worst thing is that once the album comes out, Timbo is going to be everywhere again. People, wake up! He’s so four years ago! Just to make things clear: I really appreciate his old work with Aaliyah, Missy Elliott and more recently – Nelly Furtado and Justin Timberlake. I just can’t stand how he’s stuck on repeat and people are still so excited about him. And maybe I’m wrong but I’ve got a feeling the whole album is gonna be just as I’ve-heard-it-all-before as this single.

Blah.

Read more for the answers.

Look closer before you answer:

Overload - first single from Sugababes

About a Girl - latest single from Sugababes

The question is: if there is no original member in the group anymore, can they still call themselves Sugababes? For these who are not up to date – Keisha left the group and was replaced by Jade Ewen (whoever she is, I don’t really care anymore).

My favourite squad was Sugababes 2.0 – Mutya, Keisha and Heidi. They released three albums together, three really good albums I should say. ‘Freak like me’, ‘Round round’, ‘Stronger’, ‘Hole in the head’, ‘In the middle’, ‘Push the button’, ‘Too lost in you’… – ring a bell?

However, there are rumours about a possible reunion of the original lineup. I can’t really see it happening, though.

I’ve found this nice short clip about Sugababes history:

It’s time to rename the group.

Scroll to 2:17 in the clip below:

For more amazing fashion shows visit Victor & Rolf official website – I discovered them thanks to Róisín and I’m absolutely impressed! Fashion has never made me feel this way. When you visit their website just go upstairs…

Róisín Murphy performing at Victor & Rolf spring/summer 2010 show

Hello everyone! I wanted to return for the new season with some big news and now it’s the time. Róisín Murphy performed a couple of new songs at Victor & Rolf spring/summer 2010 show and they are killers! Instantly, I got so excited about the new album that I could hardly fall asleep that night. Seriously! I’ve got some clips from the show and two another songs from her set at Burlectric, and there is a sleek download for you too, so keep on reading.

By the way, a few days ago – on 5th October to be precise – this blog turned 1 year old! Now let’s celebrate it by listening to Róisín’s new stuff…

Before watching clips from the show have a look at what Róisín herself has to say:

Oh my lord that was terrifying on so many levels, not lest of all health & safety! Standing up on that pedestal in that dress of torture, in sky high heals in front of the fashion world, seven and a half months pregnant, if you listen carefully you can hear the fear in my voice. But I got through it and felt like a super hero, ha!!

By the way, what I performed exactly was a kind of Mega-mix, four tracks in total but only two songs. The first song is Royal T and it will appear on the Crookers album due out soon. Hold Up Your Hands dose not appear here, it is a totally different track but also a Crookers collaboration. The second is Demon Lover and I used two different Mixes crossing over on my second verse. The first version you hear is the original, Co-written and produced with Seiji. The second is a Donaeo remix. Funny how some fans really don’t like the MCing, but you know I love it.

Expect some news about a release very soon and I will be giving you guys song to download for free also, probably “Orally Fixated”. It’s a funny old time what with being up the Duff an’ all and I know this is all running a bit later than expected, so thank you for staying with me, not long now.

Okay, now here are the clips of ‘Royal T’ and ‘Demon Lover’ (the dresses are awesome too – Victor & Rolf designed a dress for ‘Overpowered’ single artwork):

You can download the audio track from the show here.

It’s not the end yet! Below, there are two more new tracks – ‘Momma’s Place’ and ‘Hold up your hands’ – from Róisín’s gig at Burlectric.

Momma’s Place

Hold Up Your Hands

I bet you’re just as excited as I am! I guess we have to wait for the new album a few more months as Róisín will have a baby in a month and a half, so I’m sure that is a priority for her. Unless she wants to have both the baby and the album out simultaneously…

Now that I’ve returned I hope you keep on visiting me more often.
See you soon.

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