DONTSTOPTHEPOP IS BACK OUT THE HELLFIRE!

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Well that was fun! Coughing up blobs of blood is not nice but things are better now. The worst part of the entire surgery thing? The anesthesia! The effects last quite some time and just when you think your free they'll hit you one more time right out of blue. So now I am in a fighting mood. And that reflects my favourite song of the moment. They are German. They are fierce. They got nude for their debut record. The boys touch each other in the album sleeve. They use guitars. They are a tiny bit scary. But oh they are so so so good.

As a pop group they could be described as the ABBA of gothrock world-I love them. If you loved it when Cher got dirty with Meatloaf you'd love the Nu Pagadi album. It features Billy Idol covers, songs with names like Queen of Pain (think a brilliant cross between Robyns with Be Mine and Anastasia's Left Outside Alone) and Moonlight Pogo (think Jonah's Summer High with a bit of T-REX). A few years ago, Finland was seen as groundbreaking for bringing gothrock to the holy pop church of Eurovision however Nu Pagadi were miles of ahead of them. And far more catchier too.

Mike of PoptrashAddicts and Poppostergirl have often professed a love for songs that, despite being sung in a different language, manage to transcend such boundaries. Well, listen to Nu Pagadi. The same applies. And if you like a little bit of English in your songs they bend to your desires by generally throwing in a chorus in English (actually, I think theres not one song on the album thats all in German).

The 1st single with their member Doreen who'd already gone AWOL!

Nu Pagadi are exactly what I need at the moment. Catchy, unforgiving and hardcore pop. The track Hellfire retraces the brilliant ABBA b-sides Rock Me and That's Me while owning one of the most dramatic choruses I've heard in yonks. It rips through the speakers and into your popbrain. Wait till they get to the English chorus! Its soooooooo camp. Written by Jorn-Uwe Fahrenkrog-Peterson and Lukas Hilbert, Hellfire takes on some wonderfully anthemic qualities. I'm quite surprised Cheyenne Records didnt release Hellfire as the follow-up to the sublime lead single Sweetest Poison (footnote: if you buy the album you'll hear an amazing electropop version Sweetest Poison!).

I myself was quite worried. Whatever next? My Chemical Romance? No not quite. Nu Pagadi recalls the brilliant rifts of nearly operatic rock outfits by Jim Steinman but also throws in some glamrock for good measure while never ever forgetting their pop routes. For a Popstars band, their songs played with their listeners. At moments coyly celebrating the penis (Moonlight Pogo) and at others obviously rejoicing death (Dying Words). Nu Pagadi's album "Your Dark Side" is something to be heard....

While I've been away so many things have happened!

Alcazar got back together as a 3some and this is the new cover of their brand new single:

Classy no?! I totally forgot to add a link to a snippet to the new song last night so here goes. One is very excited with the return of the fab3. Staying in Sweden, Lykke Li released her album yesterday and performed this with Robyn. Its gloriously kooky.

No Angels revealed their brilliant new song Disappear. Its not a Eurovision song but its makes me warm inside. Hear it here. It will feature on the timely re-release of their album Destiny. The popstastic duo Same Difference have picked Breaking Free as their debut single. Sadly that one wont secure a second single deal. They need to think out of the box. As in fly to Sweden or Denmark and record a most bubblelicious delicious new song that will warm up our February blues much in the same way Kylie's Wow is getting us all upbeat and perusing the summer deals to Ibiza. Methinks their X Factor sisterband Hope might have the upperhand at the moment. Rumour has it they are working with Remee (of Jamelia's Superstar) and Hanne Sorvaag (of the No Angels song above Disappear).

The brilliant girl due Milk And Honey have completely changed their direction with their new single Beschutzen. The new sound is more rock and less of the middle eastern thing. Watch the exclusive play below. Not only is some of it in German but theres a Tic Tac Toe (one of Germanys finest girlbands) feeling to it.

Popjustice explores the ramifications of Alesha Dixons new tactics to promote her music career. While many find the car advert hilarious, I just see it as powerfully degrading for some reason. Its left me with a bitter aftertaste. Moving on to much sweeter things, TheZapping has called it a day but it seems the blog has just gone on one of those lush and executive sabbaticals with champaign and rays of sunshine to compliment its semi-retirement. I hope so anyway. Come back soon when fully refreshed! The superband Natural Ex are preparing themselves for the eventual release of their album. I can't wait!

After Basehunter, who will be the 2nd Swedish to go to no.1 this year? Fuentes?

Dontstopthepop favourite Michel Fuentes has some brilliant gems up his sleeve this year and I await his new album with great anticipation. Its dripping pop. You can hear his first two massive singles through his myspace. I've got that funny feeling that he might be the second act from Sweden to go to no.1 this year.....(watch this space!).

Its cosmic!

FRESH*N*JUICY Dub-I-Dub

Buy Fresh*n*Juicy's singles here
Buy the Greatest Hits of Me&My here

Today is a real celebration of 2001! It doesn't feel like it was 7 years ago but there you go! Oh the memories! Ok, this one is for the boys of Vauxhall, the dancing queens of Denmark and party princesses of Berlin. Its electro, its pumping and it recalls some brilliant early 2000 baselines that Europe is famous for. No Angels are considered as the mighty German girlband of the family of Popstars shows. Monrose have nothing on them (yet!) and lets not even talk about The Preluders. The fact that they’ve had huge successes both musically and commercially proves this point. Not only have No Angels survived the fate that befalls many girlbands (where are Expose, Eternal and SWV?) and Popstar bands (where are Excellence, Truebliss and Bardot?) but they’ve reached the pinnacle of producing a greatest hits album-something which very few bands produced out of the Popstar format ever manage to reach.

However, to me it’s all about the girlband that wasn’t the winning band. The German “Phixx” if you will. You see, while No Angels produced some great albums, Fresh*n*Juicy produced two great singles that I treasure quite madly. If I had to save either debut singles by each band from a burning flat, I’d choose the Fresh*n*Juicy Cd over Daylight In Your Eyes every time.

Take their track Dub-I-Dub. As you can see it’s a cover! A full set of A star marks awarded to the band for covering the pop legends Me&My but they also manage to actually improve on the Danish original. You’ve got to take your mind back to 2001. No Angels had released Daylight In Your Eyes. Despite not being chosen to be in No Angels, for being too poptastic I suspect, Fresh*n*Juicy decided to put on their hotpants, sequins and dig out their favourite Danish pop tracks. They released two singles. Dub-I-Dub and Life Is What You Make Of It. Both of which are poptrash anthems. Their version of Dub-I-Dub is just sublime and will always be my Ipod favourite. Yes it was probably far too clubby to ever reach the charts. Even for Germany! But its wonderfully trancy. If only No Angels had as been poptastic! Just think of the possibilities!!!

Fact: They consist of Franzi and Juana

Fact: Life is What You Make Of It sounds like a cross between Gina G’s Just A Little Bit, Boney M and Army of Lovers.

Fact: Their song “Touch” is a piece of Europop gold-dust.

I Wanna Be A Popstar!

The brilliant Title sequence/Bop Bop Doo Waaah (mp3)

On my mp3 player is a multitude of songs from around the globe and over the Christmas period I escaped the insanity of moving house to the safe-haven of the ipod. Without internet connection and most of my belongings in boxes tucked away in storage or out of reach it was great to focus on something absolutely poppy and random. I then constructed a playlist. This playlist was decidedly titled the “The History of Popstars”. The T.V show that cynics cried out as the final nail in the coffin for pop music. I ruled out all acts that partaked in the spin-off shows (Fame/Star Academy, Pop Idol, X Factor) as the playlist would’ve enveloped my entire ipod. I’ve ended up with roughly 42 tracks consisting of the winning groups and those groups that teamed up and created a career despite not being in the final act.

The result? A very surprising and varied sounds coming out of my earphones. While some veered towards traditional pop there was not one hegemonic strand of pop that reigned above the others. One moment you’d be skiing down the cheesy mountain of “Whole Lot of Lovin” by Irelands Six and then you’d be glamrocking it up with the German group Nu Pagadi with their brilliant track “Poison” which sounds like a tribute to Black Sabbath. Germany has really taken to the notion of Popstars with each act doing something unexpected, new and tantalising. It is the vocals of No Angels that blast every other Popstar act apart. Check out their 2007 comeback album track “Back Off”. It literally reinvigorates the feminist anthem-the type we’ve not seen since those power ballad days of Cher and Bonnie Tyler. They’ve certainly got the strongest lungs amongst the genealogy of Popstar acts. Another German popstar girlband, Monrose, took another route and produced two electro rnb albums that sit very well next to Timbalands recent experimentations. Indeed, their no.1 single “Hot Summer” is a brilliant side-kick to Nelly’s “Maneater”. Then there was the band Preluders who took the 1950’s and 1960’s bubblegum approach.

Popstars and their acts faced-and continue to-far too much negative criticism by those who failed to actually listen to the overall and multiple sounds consequently produced. For sure, I can understand the tension that the show brought as it unveiled the music industry for what it was-completely managed. All acts whether it be the grand gods of music or the wannabes are constructed and Popstars simply exposed the cogs that make the magical wheel of pop keep turning. It was unfair to level this at the bands though.

Still, the cynics attacked and went for the lack of originality citing the impact on those talented songwriters who would somehow be blocked by this novel format. However the producers and songwriters of Europe have done very well out of “Popstars”. Take the song-writer Linnea Handberg whose song “This is Who I Am” was first released by her, then by the French Popstars band L5 and then by the Swiss girlgroup Tears on their LP “En Rouge”. On the very same album, “I Tatoo You” later appeared on the Preluders album. The recent comeback album by No Angels contains no less than six songs that were previously given to other acts. The Swedish singer Robyn once said a good pop song is a good song and the acts of Popstars know this moto only too well. In the age of recycling, Popstar acts and their AnR teams constantly sneak a peak at their fellow bands and record their version for their own. The “Veneno No Olhar” by the Portuguese girlband NonStop just happens to be one of Australia’s biggest singles by the Australian Popstars group Bardot albiet with the title “Poison”.

There is however one aspect of the format which one can make a successful critique and that’s perhaps the many examples where in which bands failed to get beyond the initial burst of stardom. To my knowledge only 5 acts ever achieved a greatest hits package (L5, No Angels, Girls Aloud, Rouge, Liberty X) and many failed to release a second album and if they did it was their last. The fact that the final band OneTrueVoice never released their album puts the three albums by the runner-up girlgroup Clea in perspective but also reveals their belief in themselves and those people around them and ultimately attests to their staying power. However, generally speaking this does not just occur with acts not only from Popstars shows but evidence of longevity amongst pop acts from T.V reality shows is sadly rather rare.

The truth is, the T.V show produced a myriad of great and versatile pop products, sounds and acts. All of which kept the world of pop very much alive...Moreover, Popstars brought the music directly to the consumer and revealed its DNA. It was a brand new way of "doing music" much in the same revolutionary ways Myspace and Protools are currently allowing singers live out their dreams and gain fans....

Key Popstars Bands/Videos:

Nu Pagadi (The Sweetest Poison)
Bandana (Sigo Dando Vueltas)
Rouge (Brilha la Luna)
Lollipop (Batte Forte)
EyeQ (The World Outside My Door)
Diadems (Celle que je Suis)
Tears (M.u.s.i.c)
L5 (Reste Encore)
Whatfor (L'amor n'a past de loi)
No Angels (Someday)
Supernatural (Supernatural)
True Bliss (Number One)
Girls Aloud (No Good Advice)
Monrose (Hot Summer)
Hear'say (Pure & Simple)
Excellence (We Can Dance)
Liberty X (Just A Little)
Eden's Crush (Get Over Yourself)
Clea (Download it)
Bardot (Poison)
Bro'sis (I Believe)
Scene 23 (I Really Don't Think So)
Hi-5 (I Will Rise Again)
Phixx (Love Revolution)
Nonstop (Tudo Vai Mudar)
T'De Tila (Dejarte Ir)

WHATFOR Qui manquent à tes rêves.......

While the world is celebrating the brilliance of Britney, Dannii, Girls Aloud and so on, I thought I'd take a little moment to celebrate the French band Whatfor. Their first single Plus Haut was a hit but like many popbands formed from a reality TV show, the public went cold after the debut single, ignored the second single and the album vanished. However, Whatfor were perhaps the first and only camptastic mixed-gender band France has ever had. You get whiffs of Steps, Hear'say, S Club and of course the Young Divas. Why the last comparison? Well Whatfor were simply so poptastic that you could imagine the Australian girlband covering most of their material on their 2nd album (whenever that comes!). The significance of their first single Plus Haut (a number one in France) is that it might have been the only moment in France's recent chart history where a bubblegum pop band soared to the top of the charts. As you can see, its legacy is secured amongst the many youtube many Plus Haut "tributes" which you can check out if you really have the inclination and the time. This one is brilliant!

So what happened next? Well this is a bit difficult for me to extrapolate as I am no French speaker but they were dropped six months after the album flopped. This despite the fact that the second single was written by Swedish icon Carola (the song was also recorded, and bettered, by Rosa Lopez of Spain in 2006). Trust the Spanish to take a Swedish song and make it better! Like their first single, the cover too has received the "DIY-Youtube Tribute" treatment (see it here-i think this ones actually quite good)


In 2004, two of Whatfor's singers (Cyril et Erika) created a new band called Everton. Suddenly guitars were brought in and silly dance routines were unceremoniously chucked out! Nicholas Vitiello came out and released the brilliant cover of the discotastic 80's anthem Chercher Le Garcon under the name "Nicholas O".


He later then starred in many successful TV shows, films and on stage won brilliant reviews in the French take on Love! Valour! Compassion (this clip includes a nude Nicholas and some very raunchy moments from the stage show). I highly recommend the purchase of Nicholas O's single for it includes an amazing b-side called Tout N'est Pas Perdu which you can hear here. He is currently a successful comedian.....


After Everton did there thing, Erika dusted herself down, rejected offers to join a German girlgroup and released her album, parts of which you can here and here. Cyril went all boring and is now touring France with his soul, guitar and philosophy. Check out the elevator music here.


No, I am being too harsh. Cyril has simply gone all acoustic and in his new band (named Selli") he's having medium success! Shows at the Zenith no less. Thats the same place Kylie did her Showgirl tour so its pretty big. If you check out this clip you'll certainly hear he's got a good voice that deserves to be heard. His cover of My Girl is very sweet. And to the last member: Monia? Sadly I have no idea!

Key site: Amazon France, FNAC
Coming Up: The Pop Awards

NKD QuickSand

The girls - Nicky de Lange, Kesha Charlton-Perkins and Deidre Visse - have just won their first award in South Africa for best musical newcomers. They got their name much in the same way fellow girlbands Clea/RAEN/EMMA got their names. NKD hail from South Africa and were formed out of its first Pop Idol shows. As they've featured online quite a lot recently for their biography I'll give you these two links as they drive home the girlbands genealogy much better than I could ever do. So instead I'll point you in the direction of a brilliant music store where you can purchase really cheap South African musicians like DSTP icons Shine 4, Hi-5 and of course NKD's debut album where QuickSand comes from.

The track itself is a perfect slice of pop that recoils in a musical seizure of Stock, Aitken and Waterman with electronic bouts of Transvision Vamp, Sophie Elis-Bextor and Giorgio Moroder thrown in for excellent measure. The result of which makes QuickSand a poptastic anthem and must for your playlists...Its everything that Girls Aloud would wish to be and sounds like everything Kylie's tenth album must contain!

You can listen to the entire brilliant album on NKD's album on their official website.

NO ANGELS RETURN AND COVER DANA GLOVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No Angels-A Reason
Dana Glover-A Reason

A few months ago DSTP covered one of my favourite acts Dana Glover. In a few days No Angels will be given the title DontStopthePop Girlband Legends. Now, out of nowhere the girlband from Germany has regrouped and released their studio album Destiny today! It features a number of brilliant pop songs including covers of Agnes Carlsson and L5 gems!

What is even more jaw-dropping is the fact that the girlband has covered the song "A Reason" which was originally available on the Dana Glover totally underrated debut album "Testimony". If you have no idea who the hell the singer is just check this link to recall our feature...this is what we said-


"Today's act is one of those artists that makes you weep a thousands tears, move mountains, sends your nervous system into shock and taps into anger ever so deep when you find out she's without representation. Her name is Dana Glover and she's my all time favourite act. I feel quite strange sharing her with others as her music is so special to me but shes the reason why I started this blog so here goes..."

In a very "PopEatsPop"-esq way I have included both versions of the songs. All I can say is this-DANA GLOVER FUCKING ROCKS!!! And it would be a girlband legend like No Angels that recognised Dana's brilliance.


No Angels-Make A Change
L5-Reste Encore

Extending the PopEatsPop madness I have also included the L5 original version of the No Angels track "Make A Change". I've always loved the original by the French girlband, who like No Angels were a produce of the TV series Popstars, but the German foursome make the song just a little bit better. The same can't be said for their cover of "A Reason" but they have a try. When the original is by Dana Glover your setting yourself a huge mountain to climb. A mountain of absolute perfection.....

Buy Dana Glover at Amazon and check out her Myspace
Buy L5 at Fnac
Buy No Angels at Amazon.

**Does a little dance of joy around the bedroom! I love Girlbands! I love Dana Glover!**

P.S-Don't you think Dana Glover gives us another album?

P.P.S-Don't you think PopEatsPop should come back?

Credits: Amazon Germany for sending the No Angels to my door on the day of release and Pinkie for the pic.