http://www.youtube.com/p/97F05572DA0A483E
Kidtonik – Aller plus loin
How exciting – I have just discovered the French version of S Club Juniors/8! They are a group called Kidtonik, and their debut single ‘Aller plus loin’ (which I think means Going Further) is currently no.4 in the charts. They were created on a show called Iap Iap (no idea) on Canal J, the French answer to CBBC, and there are 6 members: 4 girls, 2 boys, all aged 12 to 14. The song really sounds like SCJ/8 and they are just as cute and jolly. They have the best French song in the top 10 by far, proving that age is just a number when it comes to achieving poptasticness.
Cat5 – Sexy
Sweden has made some brilliant electropop singles over the past few years, and here is one fine example. Cat5 are a girl duo who had a few small hits in 2005-6 with songs like Sexy and Stretch and Bend, and are basically like Pay TV’s cooler cousins, or a pair of Annies. Sexy is definitely their best single, with its cheeky chorus lyrics about being too sexy for their jeans. Before Cat5, Christina and Hanna were in the ace 3-piece The Lightbulb Project, who had loads of good songs with especially good titles, my favourite being If I Liked Sports I’d Be One. It should be my theme tune.
Lady GaGa – The Fame Mini-Movie
To encourage excitement about her upcoming album release, Lady GaGa has made a video showcasing her fabulous self and some of the songs from the CD. I’ve heard quite a few of the songs on the tracklisting now, and I must say it’s shaping up to be one of the albums of the year. I was surprised though, that the style was not just r’n’b-dance-pop but also has some rockier elements. One song in particular, the possibly not Teletubbies-inspired Again Again, could be mistaken for Lillix very easily. Beautiful Dirty Rich is expected to be the next single, and it is definitely worthy, although I think my personal fave apart from Just Dance is Boys Boys Boys.
Katerine – Catfight
‘Je t’adore’ secured Kate Ryan’s place as Belgium’s pop princess forever, but with songs like this and Here Come All The Boys, Star Academy winner Katerine did her best to snatch the title. Anyone who likes Girls Aloud (presumably all of you!) should give a listen to some Katerine singles, because they’re quite GA-ish in style – if the girls didn’t have enough ace songs of their own already, I’d suggest a cover or two. Recently Katerine moved to a new record label and released some singles with a new dancier style, which is unfortunately far less poptastic than her previous output. Shut Your Mouth was a hit, but I can’t really think why, when Catfight only got to no.32 in the charts. I can only presume the Belgian charts are as meaningless as the Swedish ones.
I’m From Barcelona – Paper Planes
Hooray! The Swedes from Barcelona are back, and soon visiting my local music venue on their tour, so I’m not too bothered that there is a noticeable dip in jolliness level between their last album and this new single. It’s not bad, but where have the “lalala”s, the smiley videos and lyrics about building treehouses got to? I expected from their first new album single something that would somehow manage to out-jolly all of their past hits put together. I can only hope they’re saving that one for the second single. Anyway, Paper Planes isn’t bad at all, it’s just a bit more like what I’d expect from an album track than a first single.
Now for this week’s top 5…
5. David Archuleta – Crush
4. The Ting Tings – Shut Up And Let Me Go
3. Rihanna – Disturbia
2. Alphabeat – Boyfriend
And this week’s number one, is yet again…
Kylie Minogue – The One
I’m quite relieved that this one has had its third week at no.1 and will now be retired, because I have entirely run out of things to post, what with it not having a video and only having been performed once on TV as far as I can tell. Therefore, I have just had to post the Kylie Show performance again. Boring!