New Pop on the Block

Soundgirl – Don’t Know Why (Watch)
I was so pleased when I heard that new UK girlgroup Soundgirl had covered Carly Simon’s super-catchy 1982 hit, as I always thought it was a shame that early 2000s Danish singer Natasha Thomas’ version never made it over here. Thanks to the genius of Xenomania writer Miranda Cooper, Soundgirl have provided us with the best version yet. Big compliment alert: It actually reminds me a lot of Amy Diamond! Listen to What’s In It For Me and compare. It’s really cute and fun and will undoubtedly be loved by the pop fan community, but how it will be received by the teen audience they are hoping to target is far less certain. Touring with Pixie Lott and Justin Bieber doesn’t seem to have drummed up the buzz you might expect, showing that however many appropriate audiences an act performs to, they won’t turn into fans unless they’re properly engaged in the moment and kept on board afterwards. But Soundgirl are sweet and talented and they have great songs, so I hope for the best for them.
83% Poptastic!

FutureProof – One More Chance (Watch)
No, the fairly good X Factor boyband from 2007 haven’t reformed. Instead they’ve been so completely forgotten that a new boyband has chosen the very same name. This isn’t their only point of unoriginality: their plan is clearly to be a British, poppier version of 3OH!3, but unfortunately they have missed the mark a bit. The band they have instead emulated is limp Blazin’ Squad spin-off trio Friday Hill. Unlike Friday Hill, they actually do have a couple of good-looking members, but unfortunately this fact is undermined by the rather less attractive choice of frontman. I shouldn’t be so mean though, since their song is not actually terrible. It has a nice, bouncy energy to it and if they released songs in this style that were a bit stronger, they would at least stand more chance of success than their rivals such as Twenty Twenty who are trying to jump on a bandwagon that was last seen about seven years ago.
56% Poptastic!

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