Loick Essien ft. N-Dubz – Stuttering (Listen)
His debut single Love Drunk was one of the best R&B songs of the year and deserved to be a massive hit, but unfortunately (much like Talay Riley) Loick got lost in the onslaught of Tinie Tempah wannabes. I expected him to follow it up with another great single, which hopefully would be a hit and allow him to re-release Love Drunk, meaning it could achieve its rightful place at no.1 in the charts. However, his new single Stuttering is actually a cover of an unreleased Mario track and it features N-Dubz! What a disaster! I’m not totally against covers, but when I valued Loick for his original, intelligent previous single, I don’t want to hear him covering a song by another male R&B singer. On top of that, Stuttering is incredibly dull. He at least could have covered Let Me Love You! Or Stuttering by Fefe Dobson!
30% Poptastic!
G*Mania Stars – Don’t Stop Believing (in Christmas) (Watch)
Although I had already seen the list of amazing has-beens who are set to star in the new stage show G*mania (it was called Gleemania until copyright stopped them), I still got very excited seeing them each appear in the video for the charity Christmas single they are releasing together. There are members of S Club 8, Clea and 3SL here, all in one video! WITH KAVANA!!! Not to mention all the forgotten almost-stars of pop talent shows past, ranging from Pop Idol 1’s Aaron to BGT’s Shaun Smith and even 2 members of the choir behind this fantastic performance. The best bit of this video, however, has to be Stacey McClean recreating her look from the Puppy Love video. The awful fake tan from her X Factor appearance last year seems to have faded and she’s the adorable young Blackpool girl once again! Still, despite all the excitement of seeing our long lost pop pals, no-one wants to hear another version of Don’t Stop Believing. Couldn’t they have done a Christmas song instead?
68% Poptastic!