Girls' Generation talk about 'The Boys' in new video - watch the teaser now!

Let's all talk about how Korea is going to take over the world. 

No, not that one.

That one.

That right there, folks, is Girls' Generation, which is a band that consists of nine attractive girls because eight would not be enough, who all have their own "personalities" and quirky manner of dress.  They are one of those manufactured girlgroups - like Pussycat Dolls, or N'Sync - and have had a great deal of success in their home country and Japan.  A lot of success.  Like, every single since their second one has gone to number 1. 

All you really need to know, though, is that they are about to launch their first worldwide single called 'The Boys,' and it is amazing. 

This is what it is like:



"Amazing."

After 'Bubble Pop' and now this, we're starting to get very worried about "the Korea problem."  Our pop girls better start stepping it up, lest the Axis of Amazing overthrow us for good.

Kelly Rowland wants you to 'Lay It On Me' in new video - watch the premiere now!

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Sunday Girl wants to 'Love U More' in new video - watch now!

I AM A MOODY POPSTAR WITH A RIDICULOUS (AMAZING) NAME

You know what was a great song?  'Love U More,' by Sunscreem.  You know, that dance song that came out in the 90s that everyone would recognize if they heard it but haven't thought about for years because they haven't heard it since that one rave in Detroit where the warehouse burned down and Donna got pregnant by that high school sophomore? 

You know, this one:





 Yes.  That one.


And you know who else thought it was great?  Something called Sunday Girl, which is a girl, or a day, or something, which has done a remake of 'Love U More' with a QUITE STYLISH video to boot.  And when we say stylish we mean literally stylish, in that we're pretty sure it was cobbled together from b-roll of a Gilt Groupe sale page shoot.  But whatever, the slo-mo bits are kind of cool so it's fine.

If anyone cares, Sunday Girl is actually a woman by the name of Jade Williams, but we think we can all recognize that Sunday Girl is a much better name for a pop star than Jade Williams which at the end of the day is probably why she is called Sunday Girl and not Jade Williams. 

Long story short, though, 'Love U More' is still amazing and Sunday Jade Girl-Williams's version of it is very good, and also just FYI, Doc Martens are coming back so that's something we all need to make peace with.

VV Brown is back and somehow more amazing - listen to 'Children' now

This is a picture of a very good pop star

It's frighteningly rare that we get blown away by a single, especially when the artist is one of our favorites and subject to our PERFECTLY REASONABLE EXPECTATIONS.

But the actually amazing VV Brown has managed to do it with her comeback single 'Children.'  It's one of those 'schoolchildren shout-singing over an urban beat with a straightforward melody' things but with enough of a twist that it manages to sound new and fresh and fantastic and all the other things a young brilliant artist needs to break into the mainstream. 

Hopefully this time around she will do just that because let's face it, the mainstream needs something to shake it the f up.  The Ke$ha/Britney/Katy Perry/Gaga formula of slick polish and overwrought production was great for a while, but for chrissakes people, we need a LITTLE bit of variety.  The world of pop has become pretty monochromatic as of late, and VV brown might be the one to add a splash of musical color to it.  



"yes."

Florence + The Machine 'Shake It Out' in the new video - watch now!

Florence did not react well when shown a mirror.

So Steve Jobs died last night and we're kind of really sad about it.  He was awesome, visionary, groundbreaking, and also TOTALLY A HOT PIECE OF ASS back in the day. 

Oh, the things he could do to us with that apple...

 But the thing we appreciate Jobs most for is his uncanny sense of how to make things do exactly what they needed to but also look elegant and classy.

Which is why we're talking about him in this post.  Not just because we were looking for ANY EXCUSE to laud the man, but also because the new Florence + The Machine video is a great example of something that does just what we want it to, but is classy as f*ck as well.

FloMo has always had a bit of bite to her, and a sort of wildness, like she was raised in the woods and didn't even see an indoor toilet until a few months ago.  But she also has a polish and sheen to her, which in the age of Ke$ha is an accomplishment in itself. 

Not Steve Jobs.

Flo's two sides shine through on almost every one of her songs.  New track, 'Shake It Out,' is the one that will officially launch the new Florence LP, and, as per usual, encapsulates both faces of Miss F.  It's certainly got an edge, but also has a soft underbelly.  The video, for its part, is gorgeous in its own way.  It's beautiful, classy, and streamlined, but also sexy and carnal at the same time, what with its masked orgies and all.

It's pretty much a home-run of style and substance, but whether it will sell like her past tracks is yet to be seen.  The song is knocking around the lower reaches of the UK top 20 at the moment, but we have a feeling no one will really care as long as the album sells bucketloads.  And it will.

For the moment though, before all the chart positions come rolling in, we can all sit back and enjoy a great tune by a great pop star in a great video.  It's shiny, pretty, sexy and tantalizingly restrained. 

And it'll look great on our iPad. 

Beyonce's 'Countdown' preview is rather amazing

"I told you I'm not Tyra Banks, so stop calling!"

Beyonce is probably the most consistent pop star on the planet these days.  We say that not because she's necessarily our favorite, but because no matter what she does or when she does it, we all know well ahead of time that it will be UH MAY ZING.

But beyond the raw talent, B has something that most other acts don't have anymore - a little bit of subtlety.  Sure, everything is highly stylized, and yeah, a lot of the stuff is over the top, but this is pop for chrissake, it has to be.  What we're talking about is Bey's ability to make a point without beating the listener over the head with it, or get a message across without ramming it down our throats.

Like in her new video preview for 'Countdown.'  Where the message is 'THIS IS GOING TO BE AMAZING.'  And rightly so.  It's the best song on the album and arguably one that could have started things off a tad better for the campaign.  The LP wasn't the flop some were predicting, but it didn't exactly blow everyone away with its sales either.  But had 'Countdown' led things off, we have a feeling history would be VERY DIFFERENT INDEED.



"Yes."

Jessie J's is 'Who You Are' in her new video - watch the premiere now!

I am Jessie J and I have an angular haircut

Two things.

1.  We love Jessie J.  She's got a buttload of talent and is generally amazing in most every way in which a popstar can be amazing.  However, her new song 'Who We Are' is kind of a bit too much.  It's not a bad song at all, mind you, but during 85% of the track we are overcome with the urge to throw our speakers against the wall while screaming "IT ISN'T A SHOUTING CONTEST, CALM DOWN."  Seriously.  Dial it back a little.  We know you can SANG and all that but you don't have to beat us over the head with it.  Take a page out of Pink's book. She knows how to take it to the edge and push right up against it, but also knows that NOT EVERY BALLAD NEEDS TO BE SLEDGHAMMERED INTO A MICROPHONE. 

So are we saying that Pink would have done this song better?

Yes.  Yes we are.

Ok 2.  This whole "WE R WHO WE R ARE BECAUSE WE ARE BORN THIS WAY AND EVERYTHING IS FINE BECAUSE WE ARE ALL FIREWORKS" thing is great for the kids but how many times do we have to hear this song?  Does anyone else remember a time when EVERY SINGLE SONG ON THE RADIO was not about either going to "the club" or about telling us how amazing we are?  We're not even going to go into the fact that NOT EVERYONE IS AMAZING and that telling a bunch of selfish, immature, bratty 13 year-olds who have never been punished by their "best-friend" parents and who think being successful in life only requires a great audition on a reality show that they are perfect already just the way they are is MAYBE THE WORST IDEA EVER, or that your cousin who slapped her teacher and then got arrested shoplifting from Wet Seal listens to 'Born This Way' and takes away the message that it's EVERYONE ELSE'S PROBLEM.  No, that's a whole different issue and this is simply about the music and how maybe it's time someone wrote a song about something else like trees, or mideast political policy or something.

Whatever, here's Jessie's video.

The Saturdays put down the poppers for 'My Heart Takes Over' - listen to the premiere now!

Not Girls Aloud.

The Saturdays, in all their handlers' infinite wisdom, decided to chuck in the R&B-lite sound they had since their inception, and go for a full-on club attack on their new album 'On Your Radar' - a new album which has already had three singles taken from it, and won't even be out until next year.  So basically it will be a compilation album of a bunch of singles you've already heard, and some filler tracks that after hearing you'll wish you hadn't.

But insane state-of-the-industry rantings aside, we're totally fans of The Sats' new direction, albeit in an apathetic "meh" kind of way.  Sure, they're chasing the Britney/Rihanna/Everyone Else trend, and yeah, they haven't put out even one song in their entire history that could qualify as a "classic," but is anyone really expecting any sort of artistic achievement from these ladies?

The answer is no.

To be completely fair (AS WE ALWAYS ARE Ed: this is blatantly false. Delete.) the album's second single 'All Fired Up' was a bit of an underrated masterpiece of forward-thinking pop, but again, to be completely fair (Ed: STOP SAYING THIS) the band themselves really had nothing to do with it other than showing up for a few minutes and yelling into an autotune machine.

For album single number 3,  the girls have done one of those songs that happens during a concert right after the band has said something like "if it's all right with you, we're going to slow it on down."  Inevitably, in those situations, it most certainly is NOT alright with us, but it's something we all have to deal with and sometimes we all have to realize not everything can be glitterbomb donk fierceness all the time.  As mid-tempo ballads go, it's actually not half bad, but it's got a shelf-life of about a week on our iPod after which it will fade into oblivion only to be recalled in the context of the group's Wikipedia discography.  

Long story short, at the end of the day we're left with some girls who sing what their told to, some label execs who have made relatively wise decisions regarding their repertoire, and the comforting personal knowledge that the Sats' new track is fine and that when the album FINALLY comes out after another six singles and a stadium tour, it will be fine too.

Which is good enough.