Video Premiere: Anjulie is a 'Brand New Bitch'

If you eat enough hair you can clog your intestines and die.  Look it up.

Ok here's the thing.  We had this entire article prepared about how we had no idea Anjulie existed and how everything we knew about her came from Wikipedia (which really is not a lot - seriously, Anjulie's people, get on that.).  Then we realized we actually wrote about her back in January 2010, when she had a new song called 'Headphones' out and was gearing up to be "the next big thing" and then we felt a little sad because OBVIOUSLY THAT DID NOT GO WELL.

Well now she's back and hopefully more memorable - if only for the title of her new single, 'Brand New Bitch.'  It's a dance song but also a pop song, and includes a lot of SHOCKING LYRICS in the form of swear words that are not shocking in the least.  It also has a video that looks like it is from 2004.  Which kind of says something about the whole project.

Back in 2004, a video featuring a girl saying swears while some backup dancers in ridiculous hats flail around might have been diverting.  But this is 2011 and A LOT HAS HAPPENED in the last 7 years (we don't want to say Gaga ruined everything, but for most female pop artists Gaga ruined everything).  So while 'Bitch' is a nice little track and the video isn't terrible, it's gonna take a bit more to break Anjulie into the big leagues.

Here's hoping she gets the chance, though, cause the girl has promise.  And hopefully it's sooner rather than later, lest we forget all about her again.




"Adequate"

Nicola Roberts has a 'Lucky Day' all over New York City - watch the premiere now!

"one does like a lovely hat."

We've come to the sad realization that Nicola Roberts will never be the HUGE ALL-CONQUERING POP STAR she deserves to be.  We reached this conclusion after a lot of thought (read: alcohol) one night, just as London was becoming engulfed in anarchy and a few days after we heard 'Lucky Day' for the first time.

It's not that people don't like Nicola.  In fact, it's not that people won't buy her records.  It's just that she's a "grown up" pop star.  She'll no doubt be lauded with praise by "the critics" and such - as she should be - and all the bougie types will say "my, isn't she so much better than Cheryl Cole," but all that praise will probably end in a long string of mid-tier chart hits while some autotuned ringtone avatar rules the pop scene. 

It's the same thing that happened to such brilliant pop divas as Lykke Li and Roisin Murphy.  And while Nicola CLEARLY has the more normal name of the bunch, her music is no more appealing to the kids who are out terrorizing half the UK right now.  And it's those kids who buy things off the iTunes these days.

So - and we're talking directly to Nicola now, because she totally reads this site (citation needed):  When 'Lucky Day' winds up barely scraping the top 20 and you're crying into your Nutella jar, take some consolation in this:  It's not that you suck.  It's just that no hooligan on this earth wants to torch a Nando's at 1am while blaring 'Lucky Day' out of his Droid.

Jessie J's 'Who's Laughing Now' video is kind of great - watch now!

"Is there something on my face?"

At first we didn't like Jessie J, because she put out 'Do It Like A Dude' and we were worried that "the industry" was returning to that horrible time in the 90's when R&B was all shouty and tuneless, but this time with autotune so it'd be 10x as horrible.  Then we liked Jessie J but worried that no one else would, because she's kind of quirky and the FEMALE POP DIVA GREEN ROOM is a bit crowded at the moment.  Then 'Price Tag' was a hit and we worried a little bit less.

Now we love Jessie J and SO DOES EVERYONE ELSE, and with good reason.  She is amazing.  And as it happens, so is her new song. 

It's kind of a Pink-meets-Lily Allen thing, about BULLYING and how bad it is to be BULLIED.  Which means she's a bit late to the party - Gaga, Katy Perry, Ke$ha and the aforementioned Pink have all trod that ground recently - but this track is a lot more on the nose about the subject than any of those were.  It's less "you're awesome just the way you are" and more "DON'T BE A DICK TO PEOPLE," and though it isn't strictly autobiographical, Jessie herself was victim of some hella harshness after her skin turned green (!!) from some heart pills as a kid.  About the incident Jess said, "(k)ids at school nicknamed me Alien and they threw rocks at me."  Rocks?  Seriously?  Those kids are hardcore.  Well at least she grew up to be pretty great and they're probably restocking the Tesco adult diaper aisle.

The video is pretty great too, following a young fictional Jessie through a day at school, during which attractive blond children call her names and make her feel bad about herself even though 8-year-old Miss J looks FIERCE.  These kids have clearly never seen a NYLON magazine because Jess is totally bang on trend right now - these children should be asking her for tips on where to buy vintage broaches, not flicking boogers at her.

It's a great tune and a great video and everyone should watch it and make it a hit.  Because bullying is bad and Jessie J is good, and...well, that's all really.

Adam Levine is naked and Xtina is in a floppy hat in the 'Moves Like Jagger' video - watch the premiere now!

Yes.

FINALLY, right?  They teased this thing like, last year or something, it seems like.  We totally understand it takes time to put a video together, especially with Adam off at the gym all the time and Christina busy taste-testing every item in her local supermarket bakery section, but COME ON.

Our personal impatience aside, though, the record execs upstairs clearly know what they're doing.  The song has sat at #1 on iTunes for a good many days now, and this might be the extra bump the song needs to stick around. 

Clearly the execs knew their visual strengths going into this too.  Ten years ago a video for this track would have been easy - just stick an underage Xtina in a bikini and make her dance like a stripper for a few minutes.  But this is 2011, and Xtina is.... "healthier," and the gays buy all the records.  So the suits had some meetings, talked it all out, stripped down Adam Levine in front of a camera and DID WHAT THEY NEEDED TO DO. 

And for that we will be eternally grateful.

The video is actually pretty interesting aside from Adam's peen pointers, too.  It has dancing!  It has Mick Jagger impersonators!  The ACTUAL Mick Jagger!  Xtina standing in front of a microphone!  And Adam effing Levine in a state of significant undress.

Well played.  Well played indeed.

Sky Ferreira is now Fiona Apple - listen to a clip of "song 3"

"I'm like Ke$ha but cleaner."

Remember when Fiona Apple was all awesome and popular and she did 'Shadowboxer' and 'Criminal' and then she yelled stuff at the MTV Awards and birds started living in her hair? Good times, right?

Well that was a very long time ago - especially by pop standards - and though she's put out a couple of really good (read: REALLY GOOD) albums since then, the world has kept spinning and a slew of new, young, hip and impossibly on-trend girls have come up to take her place.  Like Sky Ferreira.

Sky's musical style up to now has been a world away from Fiona's brooding pop/rock, but it seems Miss Ferriera has turned over a new leaf.  She just posted a snippet of a track inventively titled "song 3" on Soundcloud, and it wouldn't feel at all out of place on the Daria soundtrack from 1999.  In fact, if you told us it was actually a Fiona Apple demo from way back when, we'd totally believe you.

Yes, it's a huge departure from Sky's usual sunny synthpop, but considering the resounding thud her buzz singles have landed with, maybe that's a good thing. And who knows - maybe Fiona will get all jealous and finally put out something new.  Or....OR - and hold on because this would be amazing -  Sky and Fiona could do the track as a duet at a b-list awards show (we're thinking the Billboard Awards) and then put the performance on iTunes.  Then Glee would sing it as part of a "don't be a cutter" episode or something and the song would be number one for three years, and Sky and Fiona would form an AMAZING band called - wait for it - SKY AND FIONA, and everything they did would be phenomenal and life-changing.

Or - as will obviously happen - the Sky song will turn out to be a one-off demo thing, she'll keep doing amazing but underrated dance pop, and continue on her current path, having to list being one of Allure's "style icons" as her greatest acheivement. 

Sad face.

song 3 by Sky Ferreira Official

Today is the day The Saturdays got a budget for a video - watch 'All Fired Up's' teaser now

"there is a lot of sex at our college."

The Saturdays have crap videos.  That's just something we have all accepted and learned to deal with.  Which is why it came as such a shock to see this teaser appear on the interwebs for their new single 'All Fired Up' - which became available for download yesterday in the UK. 

It's almost classy looking (!), and has a cool water bit to boot (!!).  It's not going to end up on Twitter associated with tags like #AMAZEBALLS or #GROUNDBREAKING or #WERKYOURPUZZY, etc., but we're talking about the band who gave us the American Eagle-advert that was 'Missing You,' for chrissake, so let's have some perspective.  Seriously, look it up.  You'll vomit.  (yay skinny!)

We already talked about how 'Fired' is one of those songs you have to let grow on you - a bit like a slow-moving fungus that is completely innocuous until it reaches your brain stem, at which point it makes you do a few booty bumps, rip off your clothes and TWIRL TWIRL TWIRL on the dancefloor - but the video at first glance is an in-your-face, moderately-budgeted clip that isn't really special in any way but can at least keep up with whatever botoxed-miming that the Sugababes have coming down the pike. 

AND THAT'S ALL WE EVER REALLY WANTED FROM THEM.

Nicole Scherzinger getting 'Wet' is kind of great - watch the new video now

"what do you mean your mom doesn't like me"

Nicole S has a new video and it is porn.  Like, straight up, full on, tits out/ass up porn.  Which is fine we guess - who are we to judge - but lord, she could at least have some subtlety right?  After all, the song is called 'Wet' and is about 'getting wet' and then going off to a dark corner to 'have some fun.'  So the whole thing just comes off as a bit on the nose if you ask us.

But no one DID ask us, so what we have essentially ended up with is a super skinny Kardashian look-alike shoving her box at the camera alongside a group of girls who look exactly like the Pussycat Dolls but are not the Pussycat Dolls because they're totally broken up and that would be stupid.

And all this happens to a kind of strange song that sounds like something we would have called ACTUALLY AMAZING until Lady Gaga ran the sound into the ground 2 years ago.  It's not bad, but it's one of those tracks that has really good verses but doesn't bother with a catchy chorus.  Which is ridiculous because THE WHOLE POINT OF A SONG IS THE CHORUS.

But whatever.  It probably won't even be released here anyway.  So all of our straight male readers (who clearly ended up at this site by complete accident) go ahead and enjoy this clip.  The rest of us will move on to something a little less crass.

Listen to Jason DeRulo's brand new track - 'It Girl'

I seem to have misplaced my shirt.

Jason DeRulo has done some very nice pop songs.  We know this because we named one of his tracks in our top 10 of 2010.  And we obvs have impeccable taste.

His current single didn't really set the charts on fire - 'Don't Wanna Go Home' petered out at #14 in the US - but nevertheless our expectations were pretty high for his new output.  In fact, when 'It Girl' was announced as the follow up single from his sophomore album, we got super excited for a minute and ate some carbs in celebration. (Ed: Don't lie.  No one believes you ate carbs.  Delete.).  Because come on.  "'It Girl.' It's such a great title, with so much potential! Something fierce (fingersnap/hip pop) or sassy (shouts of "werk") could have been on tap.  Or even something with a donk on it.

BUT IT WAS NOT TO BE.

To be fair, it's not bad.  It just wasn't anything (read: ANYTHING) like we were imagining in our unicorn-glittered minds.  When it starts out it sounds like it's going to be all OVERSUNG R&B SCHLOCKFEST FROM HELL but develops nicely into a decent little jam.  Jason sidesteps the plague of oversung vocal trickery in favor of a straightforward delivery, and turns what could have been an R.Kelly nightmare into a decent little filler track.  DeRizzle certainly has a talent for a hook, and while it's nothing groundbreaking, 'Girl' is executed pretty damn well.  And at the end of the day not everything can be an amazing club banger.  They have to play SOMETHING in doctors office waiting rooms don't they...

It's the kind of song that really won't change anything, and besides serving as the soundtrack for some middle schoolers' first "over the shirt action" in a 2002 Chevy parked outside a Friendly's,  no one is going to remember it.  But still - if we have to listen to one boring ballad this summer, this might just be it.

Maybe just give us a donk next time, eh J?