New Pop on the Block

Melody Club & Anna Järvinen – I Don’t Believe in Angels (Listen)
Melody Club’s latest album, released early 2009, kind of came and went without notice. I enjoyed it and have listened to it quite a lot, but none of the singles were especially memorable. Now they’re releasing a special Christmas song with an up-and-coming Swedish singer whose name is more familiar than any of her songs. I Don’t Believe in Angels is just a typical Melody Club song with Christmassy lyrics and some female vocals, but that’s no complaint as I do love the Melody Club sound. It’s nice to have a Christmas song from one of my favourite bands, and it’s certainly more interesting than Alcazar’s pleasant but uninspired Last Christmas cover.
84% Poptastic!

Stan Walker – Black Box (Listen)
Last weekend Stan won the 7th season of Australian Idol (although he’s actually from New Zealand!), and immediately his debut single was released. Unfortunately it only got to no.2, but no.1 was Ke$ha’s Tik Tok, which I would happily let beat me in the charts if I was a popstar. Anyway, Stan’s debut is actually pretty good for an Idol winner’s single. It’s better than most Australian pop music (admittedly, that’s not hard) and better than any of the X Factor or Pop Idol winners’ songs. It’s fun and current-sounding, and you could even dance to it! Stan clearly has a great voice. Sadly his forthcoming album is just a collection of songs he covered on Idol, but I look forward to hearing the follow-up if it sounds at all like Black Box.
88% Poptastic!

Marina and the Diamonds – Hollywood Infected Your Brain (Watch)
I’m sure it was only a couple of weeks ago that Marina released the video for Mowgli’s Road, but here she is with another one and apparently this time it’s for real. This will be her proper, big label push debut single at the start of 2010 and I think there’s a very good chance she could be one of the UK’s biggest stars by the end of the year. For starters, all her songs are good, unlike Florence with her 90% boring 10% ace approach. Marina really looks like a star in the video and the song is a bit poppier yet still distinctively her. She will undoubtedly be fighting Ellie Goulding for the top spot on every ‘big for 2010’ poll in January. With Marina and Daisy Dares You both on the verge of success, I have to wonder if Amy Studt was just 6 years too early?
89% Poptastic!