Our new obsession is Die Antwoord - prepare to be very very confused

Sometimes things are good.  Sometimes things are bad.  Sometimes things are so bad they are good, or vice versa, and sometimes things are so TERRIFYINGLY STRANGE that they defy any categorization whatsoever and explode your brain into a fine white powder that Ke$ha would pay a lot of good money for.

This is the latter.  The Ke$ha cokewhore one.  It is a thing called Die Antwoord and it is South African, but not in a 'District 9' mainstream-y way.  More in a "some people in the southernmost reaches of the African continent are BATSHIT INSANE and have made a music video that defies all coherent thought" way. 

The group has put out a couple tracks (notably, one called 'Fish Paste') but this particular gem of mental instability is called 'Enter The Ninja' - Ninja being the name of the lead male rapper, and thus a QUITE CLEVER play on the phrase if they do say so themselves.  It is quite literally stunning, in that one can't help but sit in an uneasy stupor for several full minutes after watching the clip, but there's a raw (crazy) and obvious (crazy) talent there that suggests we might be hearing a lot more from these guys.

Enrique Iglesias and Nicole Scherzinger have a 'Heartbeat' together - watch the video now!

Enrique Iglesias has become somewhat of a mainstay on the music scene, having been knocking around the charts off and on for over a decade in the US, and nearly 20 years in the Spanish speaking world.  Not so for Nicole Scherzinger, however, as her much-hyped solo career never really took off.  Originally launched by the famous-for-their-singing-talent girlgroup Pussycat Dolls, Nicole struck out on the solo path in 2007 and struck out quite literally on the charts.  None (seriously, not a single one) of her solo singles have charted in the U.S., and the best her collaboration with Will.i.am could muster was a middling #14 in the UK.

Speaking of Will.i.am, one can't help but feel that 'Heartbeat' is a bit of a rip off of his song with Cheryl Cole, '3 Words,' off her debut solo album.  Both have a similar vibe and male-female mix, and both are well on the right side of VERY GOOD.

The video itself is pretty simple, albeit with some big-budget lighting tricks having to do with hearts and beats and heartbeats and such.  It's adequately cool without blowing the doors off the place, but coupled with the song should help Enrique sustain his 'I Like It' momentum and give Scherzinger her very first US chart placing. 

Rihanna is ACTUALLY BACK with a BLAZING new single - listen to 'Only Girl' now in full!

Rihanna's brooding and challenging 'Rated R' experiment worked out about as well as Kylie's 'X' did (ie NOT VERY WELL AT ALL), proving that regardless of how big a star you are, naming your album based on a letter is just a stupid idea.  Sure it sold decently, but it moved nowhere near the numbers expected.  Worse, it tarnished the Rihanna brand a bit, as she had always been known for her 'jamz' and such.

Well all that mess is behind her, Proper Rihanna is back with a brand new single called 'Only Girl.'  It is dancy, anthemic and has "smash" written all over it with Dr. Pepper Bonne Bell lip gloss, and we couldn't be more pleased.  It's just the thing RiRi needed to give her career a kick and remind the casual listener just why she's such a huge superstar in the first place.

'Rated R' wasn't an outright disaster, of course, and it will add a certain credibility to her career from here on out (which is likely exactly why it was released), but much like Kelly Clarkson, whose 'My December' was also all dark and angsty and met with tepid sales, Rihanna's post-downer-period is shaping up to be her best.  It just goes to show, a pop star is never better than when they're on the comeback trail.




Welcome back, RiRi.

Girls Aloud's Nadine Coyle is 'Insatiable' in debut solo single - listen now!

Well that didn't take long, did it? 

It's been a full year since Girls Aloud announced their "one year" hiatus, and it's been about two full lifetimes since member Nadine Coyle (who has the enviable honor of being "the hot one" in a band consisting entirely of very, very "hot ones") announced her solo plans.  Accordingly, it came as quite a shock to us when we found out this whole "career launch" thing is going to ACTUALLY HAPPEN, and it nearly killed us when we learned a healthy snippet of Coyle's debut single 'Insatiable' had surfaced.  It's a rocking showcase for Nadine's vocals that chugs along with a fair amount of swagger  Like Coyle herself it's all sultry and seductive, and while it doesn't exactly shout "NUMBER ONE SMASH" from the rooftops, we're sure the song (and what is sure to be a steamy video) is going to make quite a few boys into men. 



The album and single are out in November on grocery store chain Tesco's new record label (?!)

Let's all take a look at how the Katy Perry album did, shall we? (Hint: NOT VERY WELL)

We here at ScopiSat have mixed feelings about Miss Perry and the ridiculous things she says/wears/does/has sex with, and apparently the record-buying public does as well. 

Just a week ago, "industry insiders" and the like were championing Katy Perry's new LP 'Teenage Dream' as one of the sure-fire can't-misses of the year.  Accordingly, her label EMI shipped a million physical copies to retailers all over the country, in the standard practice of shipping twice the product you expect to sell the first week out.  Analysts had predicted anywhere between 400,000 and 700,000 sales, so the million unit shipment would be about right on.

Well, we're guessing some of those analysts will be serving you your double tall mocha capp with no whip at Starbucks next week, because Miss Perry's first week album sales came in at....wait for it... 192,000.  Now, keep in mind this includes about 35,000 digital downloads of the long-play, meaning that out of those million units sent to shops, about 160,000 were sold.  That is.... less than spectacular.

It's a shame on one hand, because the album has some great moments on it.  On the other hand it's actually a perfect outcome - an album that is half good sold half of the projection.

Kylie's 'Get Outta My Way' video is SPECTACULAR - watch the full leaked video now!!

So Kylie had this big plan to premiere her new video tomorrow at 11am BST, but as most things of these sort tend to do it all went tits up and the clip has landed on the interwebs in its entirety.  She's probably not worried though, because it is ACTUALLY BALLS TO THE WALL BRILLIANT.  And not in that "we love everything Kylie does" kind of way because lets face it she's done a few mediocre things.  'Get Outta My Way,' however, is in no way mediocre.  It's what Lady Gaga might do if she had an ounce of restraint, and what Madonna would do if she could still move without a walker. 

There are LIGHTS and DANCING and WATER and some EPIC FINGERNAILS. 

Your new favorite popstar is Ed Drewett. Here is a song by him. You're welcome.

Ed Drewett is "up and coming" in that way that someone on a blog somewhere said he is "up and coming" and so he is already more famous than most people can hope to be in their lifetime.   He is also "up and coming" in the way that he hasn't had a hit or anything yet, but many people in the know are guessing this debut track 'Champagne Lemonade' is poised to change that.  It's got a very "now" sound about it, with electronic squiggles and effects somehow melding with a more organic sound.  It's sort of what a hipster discotheque on poppers would sound like if hipsters liked decent music and could afford to go to clubs.  In a totally good way.

Drewett - who is obviously quite objectionable, physically - is "tastemaker" Popjustice's number 1 pick on their sort of arbitrary and irregularly updated "PJ Almighty," thereby automatically placing him among the lofty ranks of SMASH HIT ARTISTS such as Dollyrockers, Same Difference (who have a new single we may soon tell you about, funnily enough), and Frankmusik.  Don't ring a bell?  Well if you want to remind yourselves, take a trip down to your local grocer where you can see any one of the aforementioned artists happily bagging up your baked beans and dandruff shampoo as they hum to themselves the tunes that made them the HUGE STARS that they are today. 

How about we don't let that happen to this one, alright?



"Alright."


...and yeah, we'd totally do him too.

Oh look, it's a brand new Lady Gaga song - watch now!

Lady Gaga has been pretty quiet since she hit the road for her Monster Ball tour, but in keeping with her fondness for trying out new tracks in front of live audiences, a piano ballad called 'Living On The Radio' has surfaced in dodgy YouTube form.  It's not going to change the world, and for those of us a little bit over the Gaga schtick it's not going to make us reconsider, but it's certainly pleasant enough. 

The new material raises an interesting question, though - if the Lady returned with a new album of ballads and rock-oriented tracks, would her Little Monsters still love her?  Maybe it's just the mechanics of performing on the road, or a conscious choice for her image, but Miss Ga seems less and less interested in the 'Just Dance'ing and more into being 'Speechless.'