Way back in the 90's when we were just spotty teenagers and Resident Evil was still just a video game, Milla Jovovich was a burgeoning actress and model who also did some singing. Though she had a small role in the cult hit 'Dazed and Confused,' and would later shoot to fame in movies like 'The Fifth Element,' it was actually her debut album that first put Milla on our pop-culture map.
The album was called 'The Divine Comedy' and was amazing. It was released in 1994, with the brilliant lead single 'Gentlemen Who Fell' preceding it. It was folksy, earthy, catchy and grounded, and though the LP was far from polished, it was a hidden gem of 90's alt-pop that deserved more fanfare than it received from the general public. To us, though, it was the soundtrack to our year, and was hardly out of our 5-CD changer at any given time.
Of course, right after the album came and went with ABSOLUTELY NO ONE NOTICING, Miss Jovovich's film career exploded and music was understandably shoved to the wayside. And so it remained for, oh, two decades or so.
But no longer, ScopiSubjects, because she is back with a big new track called 'Electric Sky.'
It's a world away from her nearly 20-year old debut, and finds the modtress (actel?) taking up a disco-y club style that wouldn't seem at all out of place in the aforementioned 'Fifth Element.' It's all KILLER BASSLINE and ETHEREAL VOCALS and is under 3 minutes long, so requires very little commitment on the listener's part, which is always a good thing unless you're a 20-minute remix of Kylie or we're on ecstasy and have access to unlimited amounts of glo-sticks.
In short, it's a great little pop song, and is only the first track of what Milla hopes will be a "6 to 7 track EP" which will come out......sometime.
Ok so we're fully aware that this video came out like 5 days ago, but we were in Vegas trying not to die when everything "went down" and upon our return we were SO MOVED by (read: ambivalent to) the clip that we had to write something about it.
So it's Maroon 5's new single and it is called 'Payphone' and it is good, and even though it is not the heartfelt eulogy to its near-extinct namesake that we hoped for, with lingering closeups of the old rusty bacteria-hives we once were forced to use, the whole thing is still VERY GOOD. We say it is VERY GOOD not only because it is ACTUALLY VERY GOOD but also because they obviously spent quite a lot on it and made an effort so we'd feel bad saying anything else because it would probably hurt lots of peoples' feelings.
Also, Adam Levine doing hero stuff in glasses....so.......
Kids, this is what the 90's looked like. Yes. You are right to be scared.
Virtually nothing of note has come out in the last week so we've been kind of at a loss for what to talk about. Sure, The Wanted sang a song on a tv show, and some kind-of-crap tracks were foisted onto the interwebs, but nothing really piqued our overly-demanding, toddler-like interest. Until now, thanks to a band that most of One Direction was barely alive to enjoy.
No Doubt is one of those bands from the 90s who seem quaint and safe now, and also kind of like your grandmother might "like" them on Facebook because they're hip enough to score her points with the kids, but safe enough that they're not going to get her barred from the church bridge club either. It's hard to remember that when they first came on the scene, they were actually pushing the envelope in a number of ways. BUT THEY WERE.
Musically, they were part of the breakthrough of post-punk ska that acts like Sublime pioneered, and culturally, they gave the world Gwen Stefani who was the 90's Dr. Martin version of Debbie Harry - which despite how it sounds is a good thing.
The band certainly had their highs and lows throughout the years, and when Gwen went solo in 2004, it seemed like the group might be finished for good. BUT THAT IS NOT SO, SCOPISUBJECTS. For the fierce foursome are set to return with a brand new album on September 25, as this cute video featuring an inexplicably un-aged Gwen announces.
It's a pretty by-the-numbers interview thingy and doesn't give a whole lot of information but still.... yay! etc.
With the sudden and unexpected success of The Wanted (mmmm sexy) and One Direction (eh, we'll have a few drinks first) in the US, other British teen-pop artists are trying to get in on the action. The latest is X Factor non-winner Cher Lloyd, with her single 'Want You Back.' It already came and went in the UK, but for some reason her handlers think that this could be the song to break her in America. BECAUSE IT IS PROPERLY TREMENDOUS.
We already went on and on about how brilliant it was as a tune back when it was originally released, so we'll save you all that nonsense and on that score just say that the "rap" bit by something called an Astro has been taken out and the song is a billion times better because of it. The weird thing is that Astro is actually an American rapper, so they've removed the one thing US audiences might recognize. Having said that, the rap was the kind of cringe-worthy "featuring" nightmare that makes us want to sit on a knife, so regardless of how it may hurt the track's chart prospects this has to be considered a win all around.
As for the video, it's a lot like the UK version, in that it involves Cher DOING FACES and BEING SEXY and also dumping edible things on people she doesn't like but of course in this version everything takes place in a diner because what could be possibly more "America In 2012" than a 50's diner..
The key here is that as much as the whole thing is just an HD version of Mandy Moore's 'Candy,' it works (and works rather spectacularly) solely on the back of Cher's undeniable charisma. She comes off as more authentic and committed than any of the Jojos or Jessica Simpsons or Avril Lavignes, because even though we know she's faking every second of this bullshit, we can also see how much she enjoys it. She's making those faces because that's what Cher Lloyd does, not because someone told her to. Never mind the fact that someone obviously told her to.
'Want You Back' (US VERSION) is, in sum, a cute little video that serves as a neat introduction of Cher to American audiences, which is probably exactly the point. So, well done everyone, cheap champagne all around.
This is the FUTURE OF POP sucking on something, in full makeup.
Sky Ferreira is one of those artists that has been "up and coming" for what seems like forever now, and like so many other hopeful pop strumpets whose labels insist on edging their career along at a crawl, we kind of wish she'd just get it over with and come already. Because she is brilliant.
She's not had a "proper release" yet, other than her 2011 UK single 'One' which topped out at #64 on the charts, but her handlers have been chucking out buzz tracks since 2010. Which means we've been teased with this girl, the ostensible SAVIOR OF POP, for two years now without any real payoff.
During those past two years, Sky has been modeling and fashioning and posting lots of pictures on the Twitters where Terry Richardson pours mud down her cleavage and stuff for no reason, so it's kind of understandable she hasn't had time to fully dedicate herself to "her craft" until now. But still, we think we speak for everyone who has been following her under-the-radar unofficial releases when we say that IT IS ABOUT TIME TO GET ON WITH IT IF THIS IS EVER GOING TO HAPPEN.
Luckily we won't have to wait much longer, as it appears we are finally about to get the long-delayed debut album from Miss F. The album's lead single is called 'Red Lips,' and the the majority of tracks are apparently a bit darker and more artsy than her previous 80's-heavy pop ditties. But to assure us that she hasn't abandoned her mainstream roots she's chucked out a demo version of a very pop album track from the new LP, called 'Lost In My Bedroom.'
It is VERY GOOD in that way that a song can be very good but should still never be released as a single (which is why it is not being released as a single, we presume). It's the kind of thing that's not going to be a hit, but is still fun to listen to because who cares if radio doesn't play it - we can still dance our beglittered asses off to whatever the hell we want to before going out to that tragic gay bar where that bouncer drag queen thing always makes fun of us and then we spend the whole night drinking in the corner trying to suck in our guts because we had that slice of pizza yesterday even though we KNEW the first weekend at the Fire Island house was coming up for f*cks sake, but whatever, carbs are a part of life and everyone needs to come to grips with that.
Anyway, it's apparently the "most electro" sounding thing on the record, which is either a good thing or a bad thing depending on if you wanted the album to be electro or not:
As we said, though, Sky's actual new single is called 'Red Lips' and it's a kind of post-Garbage alt-pop thing that wouldn't be out of place on college radio in the 90's. Which means it is kind of amazing. She recently posted a 25-second preview, and this is what it sounds like:
As you can hear, it is VERY GOOD, and fits in very nicely to our fantasy version of the future where Sky and Lourdes Leon battle it out in a Hunger Games style chart war.
The Wanted are all of a sudden huge in America (and locked in some sort of DEATH RACE with fellow Brits One Direction) and to kick off their just-out first US EP, they recorded two BRAND NEW tracks. One of them is of course the lead single, and it is called 'Chasing The Sun.' It is essentially 'Glad You Came' but with a slightly different "OH OH OH" part, and will probably be huge without winning any awards for uniqueness. It's really what The Wanted to best - by-the-numbers pop, but executed flawlessly.
The video is the most interesting thing about the whole thing - first because it's the boys from The Wanted and let's face it they're A LITTLE BIT GORGEOUS except for the one (you know who we're talking about, don't pretend) - and second because it's actually kind of engrossing to watch. It's all about vampires, because of course, and contains a better storyline and more competent acting in 3 minutes than the Twilight movies have across the entirety of the films. It's all in keeping with the "WE ARE BRITISH AND MYSTERIOUS AND THEREFORE POSSIBLY SLIGHTLY DANGEROUS EVEN THOUGH GUNS ARE BANNED IN OUR COUNTRY" image that has been carefully crafted for the boys, and is certainly worth the watch if you enjoy sexy men doing things on screen.
If you don't then you probably shouldn't be reading this blog anyway, so we're just going to show you the video now.
Much ink has been spilled about Cheryl Cole's viability as a solo artist, and not without reason. Since her days in Girls Aloud she's been "the one to watch" and with her epic divorce, brush with malaria-death, and often-wobbly X-Factor judging, she has never exactly shied away from the limelight. But even in the throes of explosive diarrhea, she has always managed to chuck out VERY GOOD SONGS by what seems like complete accident.
In short, she's not one of those artistes who puts out a song and says JUDGE ME ON MY MUSIC, O PUBLIC but for our immediate purposes that's just what we are going to try to do. So here are some things about the big Cheryl Cole comeback single:
1. It is a dance corker with a donk on it
2. It is a thing by Calvin Harris, because of course it is
3. It is not as good as "We Found Love" but Cheryl Cole is not as good as Rihanna so that seems appropriate
4. It has a nice eastern-y feel to it sometimes which makes the track feel "a little bit different" in the way that purple cotton candy seems to taste slightly different than pink cotton candy even though it is exactly the same in every way
5. It is very good and will likely have some discowhistle shirts-off hands-up rave remixes that we'll barely remember dancing to this summer
6. Somewhat confusingly it is by someone named only Cheryl, and not by Cheryl Cole. This is ostensibly because Cheryl Cole's people feel that she is enough of an icon that she can go by one name. (She is not.)
7. It is out June 10, because apparently it's 1994 and people still release singles to radio A MONTH AND A HALF before they are available to purchase even though time and time again this has proven LITERALLY DISASTROUS to the chart prospects of "big time single launches."
Those were some things about the Cheryl Cole single. And now here it is.
After cementing her place as a duchess of pop (not quite a princess, but not a Dev either...) with hits like 'I'm Like A Bird' and 'Say It Right,' Nelly Furtado took her millions of royalty dollars and went off to a spa or something for a few years. And also recorded a Spanish language album because of course.
But now she's BACK BACK BACK and ready to show these new young whipper snappers how it's done. Her new single, the kind-of-geniusly titled 'Big Hoops (Bigger The Better)' thankfully eschews the clubland donkfest that somehow has become the droning background noise of the 2010s, and instead goes for an upbeat dancehall vibe with an unexpected drum and bass outro.
It's "very good" in the sense that it sounds like not a lot what's out right now, and also "kind of mediocre" in that it's not the catchiest thing we've heard. To be fair though, Rihanna made number 1 hits out of far less, so we're not ruling anything out.
Her last appearance on the US singles chart was way back in 2007, so if she's going on name-recognition alone she'll have her work cut out for her. But at the very least, it's nice to hear Nelly's unique vocals coming out of our speakers again. Now we just have to wait and see if the rest of the world feels the same way.
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