ITS POP NEWS!-THE LAST ONE FOR 2008!-THE RETURN OF LOVESHY/CLEA!

Hey all! If your reading this-hi! I am still here! I've been on holiday for a bit. Returned a few days ago and I had no idea what to blog about so I thought I'd do the final pop news for 2008. Usually as the year comes to an end, the world of pop is filled with drivel such as X Factor winners releasing trite covers of once brilliant pop songs and Cliff Richard medleys somehow dominating the radio waves. Not now! Not December 2008! This year it seems the place is abuzz with lots of pop-deliciousness. For every dull Alex winning X Factor in Britain you've got the exciting discovery of the Melodifestivalen acts in Sweden or the birth of the new girlgroup Queensberry in Germany.

Don't get me wrong. I like Alex. I think she can sing but the only interesting things about X Factor this year were the dodgy appearances put in by some American singers, Ruth Lorenzo being absolutely amazing and the awful treatment of Dannii Minogue. If a show depends on the bullying of a judge as its running narrative and the ever so shocking mimed performances by Ms.Spears you know that its just a bit shit. The show simply isn't fun as it should be.

Thankfully pop has the form of Clea and LoveShy. & they've returned. Thank fuck! Well kind of! Thanks to their managers Denise & Simon, the release of previously unheard material is now available online. Rather than download Alexandra's new single, go and check out the poptastic single Power Of Music. The subject of the song is about the ability of music to unite the world. Forget United Nations, Gordon Brown and the credit crunch. Just download LoveShy's Power Of Music and all problems will be consequently lifted from ones shoulders.


While your there you might as well as download their single that was so nearly pressed: Gotta Love For You. Its a mighty fine cover and comes with a WideBoys Remix. As you listen to their Jomanda cover, one can actually build-up a small LoveShy album. If they'd continued to release more of this quality pop-dance stuff, I believe Booty Luv would have had a great set of rivals in the form of the LoveShy girls.

Yeah I am biased but I loved Loveshy. Sigh. But you know what...they're great & these batch of releases symbolize that. They really refused to stop the pop-even after their demise! These girls seem to have really loved giving us pop lovers what we wanted: Pop! You see and hear that with the release of Trinity but the other stuff on Itunes from the girls illustrates that too if not more so. Well, step back in time to when LoveShy were Clea! They had a little song called I Surrender. It was anthemic and became a single for Kate Ryan this year. Clea released I Surrender in Sweden but nowhere else. Until now. Not only have the LoveShy tracks come out but so has the I Surrender Mini-EP.



With all this pop brilliance I might be in pop heaven! Yet the girls have given us one extra little gem which truly is like the bonus present one finds after the christmas tree. The icing on the cake. The taking of the biscuit: the Dance Remix EP is pure pop bliss. It comes with remixes of Stuck in the Middle and Lucky Like That. All pretty much unreleased, every damn remix is special. You have the Cutfather and Joe mix of Stuck In The Middle. Cutfather and Joe! They're legends! There's also ODB on another remix, a trancetrashtastic remix of Lucky Like That (The Floorshaker Remix) and the ubercool Pool mix of the same said song. All of which making the Clea/Loveshy Itunes experience highly fabulous and bad for my credit card. Its all there on Itunes! And available internationally too!



Staying within the realm of Clea, one of their key songs Sprung has been covered by Queensberry (listen here). Its looking Antonella will be the girl in the band. You see this year, the final member of the band was decided not by telephone votes but by cd sales. Germans, Austrians and Swiss had the choice of purchasing three versions of Queensberry's first album Volume One. Each album included vocals by different contestants: Antonella, Kay-Kay and Patricia. The one with the most sales goes in the band. Simply really. I am thinking the remaining two can team up with another Popstars contestant and create a new trio ala Bisou/Clea/Liberty X. The cover of Sprung isn't bad. Not as good as the two originals by Clea but its worth checking out. Antonella doesn't quite say the lyric "smell of eggs cooking in my kitchen" properly and instead it sounds like she's saying "the smelly bags cookin in me kitchen". Yummy. The Queensberry album is full with covers but taken altogether, its a fine body of work.

Soraya of Spain has a new song out on Itunes especially recorded for the compilation album Fama! A Bailar! The song, Hasta El Final, is a camp re-working of Fame & well worth purchasing.

Isabel Guzman is currently finishing her new album as I type and the first proper debut single should be with us by March!

Robyn wrapped up her seminal year with a beautiful performance of Be Mine and With Every Heartbeat at the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony (see here). To me it sounds like she's putting this period to an end. And what a great way to tie it all up. It seems like a millennium ago that Robyn premiered the song back on SVT circa January 2005! (See here). What a journey!

LOVESHY GO TO NO.1! (Oh yes!)

Yeah I am gonna say it: 'Soooo. Told. You. So'. The girls' debut single, the reworked Am To Pm, has gone to no.1 in the club charts. I'm currently clickin' my fingers in a z formation. Yeah, that felt good. They've had a bit of a bumpy ride recently. I don't know what it is about girlbands who, oh my gosh, arn't shockingly called Sugababes or Girls Aloud. More the merrier is my belief and I couldn't be more happy with the success of LoveShy. The club charts arn't anything to mock at. They've beaten the likes of the beloved September who releases her amazing Cry for You later this month, the over-lauded Duffy, the well-financed David Jordan and the super cool-and very overhyped-Sam Sparro. You can check out the chart for yourself here.

They are also no.1 in the all important Music Weekly Commercial Pop Club Chart and the M8 Club Chart. Their label AATW must be quite pleased. What this means for a mainstream release of Am To Pm only time will tell. There is a lot of international markets regarding the LoveShy track. Perhaps a summer smash is on their hands? LoveShy also have Mr.Gorgeous just screaming to be released & plus their brilliant garage take on Jomanda's Gotta Love For You which you can listen to on their myspace. The impending album is certainly sounding like the most exciting pop releases of 2008.....

LOVESHY DEEMED TOO MODERN FOR EUROVISION!

LoveShy revealed themselves tonight (and their dancers!). And, they were absolutely amazing. It was their first ever performance and they look like a force to be reckoned with. Amazing outfits, stunning hair and excellent performance-the girls (Aimee and Emma) rocked it. But they were deemed too modern for Eurovision and sadly they didnt get through. Instead Britain picked someone called Andy. Who lifts no shirt (or rips them) and no quirky lyrics about eating too much man.

What? Yes. The BBC right royally fucked it up for Britain and two girls' dreams. Some woman called Carrie said the girls were shaky on the vocals. Which being the first act on and the youngest on the show is understandable but Carrie-no relation to the horror film character-has an amazing career as a successful singer so she didn't blink when she curled her lips with her critiques. Known as Carrie Grant, she has had an amazing career in the long-lost band Sweet Dreams whose single "I'm Never Giving Up" is a fine moment in British pop history. Interestedly it too was rebuffed at the national heats in 1983 (the year I was born!). It truly makes Carrie a fine one to judge on what should go forward doesn't it? Do you think she holds a grudge? Not for me to say. Still, what is the point of judges on a show called "Eurovision: Your Decision" pray-tell? Perhaps its ironic? Are BBC truly that clever these days though? I think not. More on that though below.

Alas, am I being too harsh? To be sure, I am very fond of Loveshy. It makes me blighted with bias. Actually no. My bite is with the judges. One had the audacity to say Mr.Gorgeous was too modern ("more of a pop song than a song for Eurovision"-what!?) for the audiences of Eurovision. Wait? Is the entire of Europe (including Isreal) is backward? I mean that is essentially what is implied in the suggestion. Still, whats wrong if the song was too modern? Europe is not some backward place! Half of the song was made in Europe. Germany, one of the biggest pop markets, would have absolutely lapped up Mr.Gorgeous. Nearly most of our pop music is made in European studios these days. Take a look at Robyn! Take a look at Mirwais! These are European scene-setters. And don't harp on about East Europe is different. Right now, DJ Ella is riding high with her amazing track DJ Take Me over in Poland. Russia gave us Tatu. Eurovision is ready for modernity. It can even do post-modern acts (LT United). These are countries are not dancing to folk music or scrubbing out Communist scraps from a forgotten era where the songs celebrate the Bolshevik revolution of yesterday.

Now to the concept of the judge on the show. Look at Sweden. Its left to the people to decide. Tonight they picked the glorious Linda and Charlotte (with the NuPagadi-esq Nordman & the Westlife belter sort of song by Sibel going to Andra Chansen). I absolutely disagree with the idea that it should be up to a panel to preside on matters. Especially if that panel consists of people not quite connected to Eurovision. It should be left up to the people to decide. The thing is, the BBC wanted to change the format. The show tonight now reflected its other shows (namely its god awful reality outings). So, acts were put together into categories. The judges would then decide which act from each category would go forward to the national vote. This means the judges blocked LoveShy from going to the public vote.

As such, LoveShy can hold their heads up high. They did what they had to do. So they didn't appease the judges. They can be proud of what they did tonight. Their new single is out this week and as people from Australia and U.S emailed me, its wet their appetites for more. Get downloading people! Its rather wonderful! In the future, people are gonna wish Loveshy were the band the UK picked. But thing is, we won't even get the chance to regret because of the judges. Which is a bit sombre and I can't quite understand what i mean right now. The judge system has to abolished! Oh and Loveshy really were amazing tonight. I welcome the new band and can't wait to see and hear more......