All That Junk – 10/5
Published May 10th 2010
Filed under News
Maroon 5 have announced the release of their third studio album Hands All Over and a tour in support of the album. (Twitter Link)
Diana Vickers celebrated debuting at number one on the UK album charts with a cake. (Twitter Link)
Avril Lavigne finally got herself a Twitter account, even if it is hard to believe that it’s really her or that she’s 25 years old from her Tweets. (Twitter Link)
Jade Ewen thought she was driving on a motorway today but it was in fact a dual-carriageway. (Twitter Link)
Alexandra Burke’s third single from her debut album has reached number one on the Irish iTunes. (Twitter Link)
Never Judge An Album By Its Cover
Published March 14th 2010
Filed under News
Diana Vickers’ team revealed the album artwork for her upcoming debut album Songs From The Tainted Cherry Tree but unfortunately it’s a bit of a let down since everything about this project has been going so well. It looks like someone at RCA Records had some fun with Photoshop instead of portraying who Diana is as an artist on her debut album’s artwork.
As you can see it’s a bit average in comparison to the rest of the campaign and the incredible songs that are on it. The album title Songs From The Tainted Cherry Tree is no where to be seen and it looks more like a self-titled album. It even pales in comparison to the single cover for Diana’s debut single Once.
The fans on Diana’s official site are already causing an uproar over the artwork so hopefully RCA will have the sense to change it. If it doesn’t get changed, hopefully potential buyers will realise the cover has no reflection on the quality of the songs it contains which are all everything this cover is not i.e. amazing.
Diana Vickers – “Once” Video Premiere
Published March 05th 2010
Filed under Videos
The video for Diana Vickers’ debut single Once premiered today. It’s not at all like what we would have expected it to look like. It’s a studio video as opposed to an outdoors one which would have been expected and more suiting. Although it looks quite cheap, it gets better as it goes along and the editing is really well done and sticks to the pace of the music. However, it doesn’t have any reflection on the lyrics of the song.
Each scene has a different costume change. The swing scene echoes her performance of Smile on The X Factor. The scene where Diana is singing into the microphone with her band is a little Blondie-esque. She also manages to get the infamous “claw” hand movement into the video. Diana looks her best in the scene with the mirror, the scene with the bed, the scene on the rug and the scene on the bathroom floor which all show a much more grown up Diana to the one we saw on The X Factor.
Once has been uploaded to YouTube which you can view below:
Once will be released on April 19th followed by the debut album Songs From The Tainted Cherry Tree which has been pushed back to May 3rd.
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)
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.