Future Pop is the weekly email featuring the hottest new pop songs and artists that you need to know about. Sign up here then read on, listen up and make sure you tweet me @poptastic to let me know what you think of my picks!
This Must Be Pop Live
This month's This Must Be Pop Live takes place tomorrow, with performances by Queen of Hearts, A*M*E and The Face. Tickets will be available on the door for £5 but it looks like it's gonna be pretty packed so it might be worth ordering online here, which means you'll definitely get in and save £2. Hopefully see you there!
Future Stars
After years of pop fans urging N-Dubz girl Tulisa to go solo, it's finally happening in 2012 and as she's now a big name UK celebrity thanks to X Factor, she stands a good chance of matching bandmate Dappy's success. It may surprise you to learn N-Dubz's highest ever chart position was no.5 (unless you count Number 1 by Tinchy Stryder, which they featured on), but Dappy has had two solo no.1s. Tulisa's debut solo single is called Young and was written by Peter Ibsen, Ali Tennant and her ex-boyfriend/bandmate Fazer. It will be released in May and is supposedly “a really big dance record” with a video involving rollerskates and possibly a small goat!
Turn First Artists is a new management company born out of Crown Management and it's also a record label imprint. They have a deal with Universal which means the artists they sign will release music through Turn First, then move into one of the frontline Universal labels if they do well. One of the most interesting artists they manage who would have been unsigned if it weren't for this deal is 17-year-old American YouTube star Mariah, who sings folky pop music yet, quite randomly, was a co-writer on Freedom by the Sugababes. She still needs a lot of work but she's talented, young and pretty so certainly one to watch.
I was surprised to see little-known English singer-songwriter Alex Clare in the US iTunes chart this weekend with his song Too Close, which was released a year ago in the UK. I later discovered it's due to the song being featured in an Internet Explorer advert. Alex's music is an unusual mix of gruff indie-acoustic sounds and powerful production from M.I.A. collaborators Diplo and Switch. Too Close is actually quite an interesting track that should have done much better in the UK, so perhaps the US buzz will give him another lease of life here too. He also dated Amy Winehouse for a year, so there's an exploitative angle to help him get the mainstream press.
Future Hits
Yesterday I noticed 7 of the iTunes top 10 tracks were songs I'd featured in Future Hits – pretty good hit rate! Hopefully these tracks, by artists I've previously featured as Future Stars, will be just as big.
Click here to watch
Tracklisting:
- EJ – Bangers and Mash
- Conor Maynard – Can't Say No
- Carly Rae Jepsen – Call Me Maybe
- fun. ft. Janelle Monae – We Are Young
- AlunaGeorge – You Know You Like It
Thanks for reading – I'll be back next Monday with more Future Pop! In the meantime don't forget to email and tweet me with your thoughts on the songs and artists above, and any suggestions for next week. Plus it would be great if you could spread the word about Future Pop to anyone you think might enjoy it and encourage them to subscribe for more.
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