We're totally on board with this Toni Braxton comeback thing. Having said that, her weepy ballad tracks she chucked out a couple months ago left us a bit cold. While both were moderate successes on the R&B charts, the songs apparently had the same effect on the record buying public at large - they both failed to impact the mainstream.
One imagines that in recent weeks much shuffling of papers and consulting of consultants has occurred in the Atlantic Records offices, trying to figure out how to drum up support for Braxton's new album before it arrives May 4. In ScopiSat's opinion they made the right choice, and decided to release an upbeat, catchy track with a spunky-but-not-too-edgy-for-middle-America video.
It really ticks all the boxes for a BIG POP COMEBACK - it shows viewers the comeback star still looks great, includes some 'progressive' dance moves, and features a dodgy catsuit outfit that will divide the pop world and create blood feuds between the 'love it' and 'hate it' camps. Marketing WIN.
ScopiSat reader Ryan asked this morning "what are these low mumblings of a Vengaboys comeback?" We, being the cynical assholes we are, prepared to write a fun and bitchy article about the band - who we naturally assumed was not coming back - with the expected backhanded compliments and throwbacks to the 90's. Imagine our surprise, then, when we began contacting our sources (Wikipedia) and found that there ACTUALLY IS A COMEBACK SINGLE BEING READIED FOR RELEASE.
Let's all sit and think for just a moment about how LITERALLY AMAZING that is. God, life can be good to us pop fans sometimes, no?
Anyhoodle, because this was all starting to sound a bit too good to be true, and because we are SERIOUS JOURNALISTS, we were not content with the recklessly thrown about statements of a few industry insiders. So, we dug deeper. So deep in fact that we hit the Vengaboys Twitter account, and were honestly more than a little surprised to find a recent update saying "So excited! Shooting the new video this week..."
Granted, there are a number of things that this could be referring to, so in the name of due diligence we parsed out some of the options, ranked from most likely to least likely:
1. A Vengaboys sex tape (AMAZING)
2. Some sort of nature documentary like "Vengaboys Live With Vengabadgers" or something (MORE AMAZING)
3. A home video of one of the Vengachildren learning to walk or speak or eat udon noodles or something (TOTAL SHIT)
4. An actual music video for an actual new song (AMAZING)
To sum up then, either we're going to see Vengasex in a porn called (rather brilliantly, we might add) "Rocket To Uranus," or we might actually get what we have all wished for lo these 9 years of Vengasilence - A NEW VENGABOYS SINGLE.
Swirling with excitement but still not content with our research and reasoning skills, we checked the Vengaboys' official website (which is actually a little amazing, by the way), which basically confirmed everything we had found. Checking the official page probably would have been a much easier and time efficient way to find out what was really going on but whatever, hindsight is 20/20 and all that bullhockey. The site did have these extra tidbits, however:
- the single will be released in May in the UK, with other territories' release dates pending
- the video will have a cameo by a top 10 pop artist
- the video will also have a cameo by a notorious media personality who BETTER NOT BE PEREZ HILTON OR WE WILL START A FACEBOOK PAGE IN PROTEST
The site says it's too early to reveal the title but says the single is about 'personal freedom and interplanetary travel' (no we're not making that up) so "Rocket To Uranus" is probably a safe bet. We of course will keep you posted of any and all new developments as soon as we get them, but in the interim we'd like to remind you just what kind of stakes we're talking here:
The 'Glee' Madonna episode just gets better and better, as pictures have leaked of none other than Sue Sylvester recreating the iconic imagery of 1990's 'Vogue.' What do you readers think of how 'Sue C's It'?
Eliza Doolittle is an up-and-coming British singer being tipped by all "the blogs" and such. She does a cute little blend of pop and folk and singer-songwritery stuff and it's pretty listenable by any standard. Eliza is the daughter of West End/Broadway institution Frances Ruffelle (who drama club geeks will remember as the voice of Eponine on both the London and Broadway 'Les Miserables' soundracks) and some theater director guy we couldn't be bothered to Wikipedia.
Eliza's got the pedigree and the talent, so it will be interesting to see how this debut single fares. As for the song itself, Doolittle says it's: "a funny scenario if you didn’t like someone, if they were really annoying, but you had a good time under the sheets."
On April 20th something VERY AMAZING will happen. It doesn't sound as good to break it down - essentially some adults playing children will be singing the songs of a woman who is old enough to be their grandmother but dresses like she is 19. See, not as good right. But still, Gleeks rejoice, as we witness the sampler of the Glee kids singing Madonna's repertoire of some of the best pop hits of all time.
The episode will get its own album (conveniently available on for preorder on iTunes), but here are clips of the highlights:
It is a thinly-veiled truth that ScopiSat wishes it was still 1993. Not because we'd be young and carefree, but because we would be surrounded by really good music ALL THE TIME. In a vain but oddly fulfilling attempt to relive that golden period, here is a video by Don Henley and Patty Smyth.
Rarely can a single sentence sum up an entire song, but somehow one of our like-minded readers has done it: This song is amazing. Anyone who says different is clearly a spy and must be "dealt with."
The duo released this gem in 1992 and we think it goes without saying that it is FAR SUPERIOR to the duets we get these days. 'Telephone' isn't exactly the best offering from Gaga or Beyonce, and the less we say about Ke$ha's mess with 3OH!3 the better.
Interesting (read: interesting to only 3 people, two of whom are Patty Smyth and Don Henley) fact - the song spent six weeks at number 2 on the Hot 100, behind Boyz II Men's "End of the Road."
We love Tegan and Sara. We're indifferent about Tiesto. But put the two together and something magical happens, apparently. T&S's alt-folk-rock thing lives in a place worlds away from the land of the laser-soaked dance floor. For some reason, though, Tiesto's bleeps and blips mesh perfectly with the duo's close harmonies and indie sensibility and the whole creates something far greater than the sum of its parts. We never thought we'd say it, but if the Canadians/lesbians/identical twins want to add a balls-to-the-wall dance album to their discography, we'd be totally on board.
The girls have never managed a top 20 album in the States, though their last two LP's went top five in their home of Canada. Maybe a full-scale collaboration could be just the thing to push them into the mainstream, and then there will be arena tours and reality shows and museum retrospectives and everyone will realize they are better than Justin Beiber and there will be no war or starvation or Michael Bay movies.
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