All That Junk – 26/2

Published February 26th 2010
Filed under News

Nadine Coyle has recorded over 40 songs for her debut solo effort according to her manager Bruce Garfield. (Twitter link)

Diana Vickers will be sending out some important news on Monday afternoon through her newsletter which is expected be the music video for her debut single Once or an announcement about its premier date. (Twitter link)

Lady GaGa’s The Fame has gone diamond worldwide with sales of over 10,000,000. The Fame is the first album to do so since Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black. (Twitter link)

Lily Allen is postponing her retirement from music until June when she will be supporting Jay-Z at the Wireless Festival in London. (Twitter link)

Frankmusik believes his work-in-progress second album is sounding “crazy”. (Twitter link)

Latest Sugababe, Jade Ewen has promised she will take her top off on Twitter if Sugababes’ new single Wear My Kiss peaks in the top 5 of the UK singles chart. (Twitter link)

Annie is going to an exhibition. (Twitter link)

Ke$ha – “Blah, Blah, Blah” Video Premier

Published February 24th 2010
Filed under Videos

Ke$ha’s music video for her second international single Blah, Blah, Blah featuring 3OH!3 premiered today. The video, like TiK ToK, shows Ke$ha as a wild, party “animal” once again.

Blah, Blah, Blah is set in a bowling alley with shots of Ke$ha bowling, rolling around the bowling lanes, getting photos taken unsubtly with a Nokia phone, jumping around like Katy Perry in the middle of 3OH!3, tying a guy up, ripping a wig off a bald man’s head and flying up and down outside the building.

As an album track, Blah, Blah, Blah isn’t the song that stood out as being second single material but having seen the video, it is clear why it was chosen over the other (better) songs. To the general public it won’t sound like a rehash of TiK ToK and will give people the impression that Ke$ha isn’t just churning out the same song again (although they will come to realise this by the time singles three and four arrive).

3OH!3 are a bit out of place in both the video and the song and don’t add anything except looking awkward and irrelevant. The Starstrukk reconstruction scenes are completely unnecessary and the duo probably should have been cut from the song completely for the radio edit.

However, the video does its job which is to yet again showcase Ke$ha as a party girl while also being fun and showing off her rebellious personality.

Blah, Blah, Blah is set to be released on March 1st through RCA Records.

Diana Vickers Album Sampler Review

Published February 21st 2010
Filed under Reviews


Diana Vickers’ debut album has been much anticipated since she finished The X Factor in 4th place in 2008. This week her album tracklist was released via her official website along with the album title Songs From The Tainted Cherry Tree. Today the album sampler for Songs From The Tainted Cherry Tree leaked onto the internet two months in advance of the scheduled release date.

The sampler includes the following five tracks:

01. Once – The Cathy Dennis and Eg White penned debut single which puts everything people loved about Diana on The X Factor into its 3 minutes, 12 seconds while also defining her sound as a artist. While Once is a debut single, Diana’s unique quirky vocal makes her recognisable and it seems like you are listening to an established artist rather than a new one.

02. Remake Me And You – A Diana co-write with Brit Award winner Ellie Goulding and Guy Sigsworth which sounds a bit Alphabeat-esque. It’s very repetitive and doesn’t seem to reach where it’s trying to go but instead sounds like it’s going around in circles.

03. The Boy Who Murdered Love – Another Diana co-write with Chris Braide. The verses sound like a good Gwen Stefani ballad while the chorus escalates into another one-word repeating spree similar to Once but with a darker, melancholic melody.

04. My Hip – A Harmony Boucher and Tobias Karlsson track. After a few listens, My Hip is definitely the weakest song on the sampler but it’s still listenable. It just seems to plod along with nothing really interesting about it. The production is nice but the song lacks a stronger melody.

05. Put It Back Together Again – A Nerina Pallot track and the best song on the sampler. It’s very melancholic and atmospheric. It’s by far Diana’s best vocal to date. It builds like a big Snow Patrol ballad. The only thing to fault with this track is the mouthful in the chorus when Diana tries to squeeze “put it back together again” into such a small time frame.

Overall, the album is shaping up to be quite a strong debut and possibly the best debut to come from an ex-X Factor contestant yet. It proves that spending time to develop a sound instead of rush-releasing an album off the back of The X Factor pays off as Diana is demonstrating with this album.

Songs From The Tainted Cherry Tree is set for release on April 26th through RCA Records.

Fergie Plans Sophomore Album

Published February 20th 2010
Filed under News


Fergie is planning her follow-up to 2006’s The Dutchess while touring with The Black Eyed Peas on their world tour in support of The E.N.D. Her sophomore album will apparently see her go in a rockier direction having just collaborated with Slash on his upcoming solo project.

In an interview with Metal Hammer magazine Slash said:

I might actually do a rock record with Fergie, because she wants to do a rock record so I might get involved with her on that. She’s got this killer rock ‘n’ roll voice.

Fergie’s album will either have to wait until after, or coincide with, her upcoming plans with The Black Eyed Peas who are set to release something this summer.

Owl City – “Ocean Eyes” Album Review

Published February 20th 2010
Filed under Reviews

Owl City’s sophomore album Ocean Eyes has been around for a while but it only really came to our attention over the last week. It seems to be unpopular to like Owl City despite Fireflies topping the UK singles chart in January.

It’s understandable that people could easily find the songs on Ocean Eyes quite annoying. The sound is very repetitive for twelve tracks (nineteen tracks on the deluxe edition). While it’s repetitive, it’s also coherent and the melodies on every track are really strong. So strong that they will get stuck in your head for hours after listening to any track on Ocean Eyes, which is probably the reason people find Owl City annoying.

Each track is watered down, electro-pop delivered with a somewhat comic, auto-tuned vocal. The lyrics are also quite funny and nearly every track has references to the “ocean” including track titles such as Umbrella Beach, The Saltwater Room, Tidal Wave and The Tip of The Iceberg.

One of the best tracks on the album is The Saltwater Room. The chorus probably contains the strongest melody on the album and either features a female vocalist or Adam Young (Owl City’s sole band member) increased the pitch of his own voice. Number one single Fireflies is also a highlight with another addictive chorus.

The good and bad thing about Ocean Eyes is, you can decide if you like the album after listening to one track. So whether you like Fireflies or not can determine your opinion of the album as the whole album has the same sound. This can be a good thing as the singles really showcase the sound of the album unlike other artists where it usually takes a few singles to showcase the sound of their albums. But it can also be a bad thing as anyone who doesn’t like the singles definitely won’t like the album.