Maroon 5 & Avril Lavigne – “Smilephone”

Published September 03rd 2012
Filed under Videos

Plenty of songs are recycled over and over by producers and given to different artists with new lyrics. Examples of this are Dr. Luke with About You Now by Sugababes and My Life Would Suck Without You by Kelly Clarkson, Ryan Tedder with Kelly Clarkson’s Already Gone and Beyconcé’s Halo, Dr. Luke with P!nk’s U + Ur Hand and The Veronicas’ 4ever.

The latest of the bunch is Shellback recycling his track Smile by Avril Lavigne and turning it into Payphone by Maroon 5.

I’ve created a mashup of the two. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get my hands on the official vocal track for Smile but it still shows how easily Smile and Payphone fit together. You can listen to it below:

You can listen to my mashup of Kelly Clarkson’s Already Gone and Beyoncé’s Halo below:

One Direction Announce New Single “Live While We’re Young”

Published August 23rd 2012
Filed under News

One Direction have announced their new single is called Live While We’re Young. From midnight tonight you can pre-order the track which will be released on September 30th. The new album will follow in November. The single will get its first play on BBC Radio 1 on September 1st and One Direction will perform it at MTV’s VMAs.

Live When We’re Young is written by Savan Kotecha, Rami Yacoub and Carl Falk, who also wrote What Makes You Beautiful. The album will feature providers such as Dr. Luke, Shellback, Toby Gad and Ed Sheeran.

You can watch One Direction’s announcement below:

Nelly Furtado – “Parking Lot” Lyric Video

Published August 22nd 2012
Filed under Videos

Nelly Furtado’s lyric video for Parking Lot has been released, strangely before Spirit Indestructible has even been released. This album campaign really is turning into a mess. You can read my thoughts on Parking Lot here.

The lyric video is for the album version of Parking Lot and you can watch it below:

Leona Lewis feat. Childish Gambino – “Trouble”

Published August 21st 2012
Filed under Reviews

20120821-100714.jpgLeona Lewis’ Trouble, featuring Childish Gambino, premiered today on UK radio. So far, I don’t know what to make of it. It sounds like a Leona track without sounding what you’d expect a Leona track to sound like. By that I mean, it doesn’t sound like anything she’s done before but at the same time it suits her perfectly.

Trouble isn’t very instant. On first listen, it’s not the most memorable track. It doesn’t have a catchy melody but it has “something”. So while it’s not the kind of track that gets stuck in your head for hours, it’s interesting. And for that reason, it makes you want to listen to it again. It’s also nothing like Collide. It’s not a dance-pop song. It’s a ballad, but more interesting than a typical Leona ballad.

Childish Gambino’s verse on Trouble is actually surprisingly fitting and sounds good. I was expecting it to sound like “oh, we’ll put a rapper on this track for the sake of making it more credible”. But it doesn’t sound like that at all.

Overall, while I don’t love the track yet, it’s definitely a song that will grow on me after a few more listens. It’s hard to know what to expect from Leona’s upcoming album since both singles have been completely different to each other. I don’t know how this will fair in the charts but with the right video to accompany it, the song might make more of an impact.

You can listen to Trouble below:

Trouble is out on October 7th following an X Factor performance.

Tulisa feat. Tyga – “Live It Up” Music Video

Published August 20th 2012
Filed under Videos

Tulisa’s video for her second single, Live It Up, premiered today on her official VEVO.

You can watch the video for Live It Up below: