Girls On Pop!

The Party - In My Dreams

2006-04-23T13:55:00.000+02:00

The Party were a US group who had some success in the 90s in their homeland. Formed from The Mickey Mouse Club TV show - (the show which Britney and Christina came from) - the 5 members released 4 albums in the early 90s. Dee Dee Magno, Tiffani Hale, Chase Hampton, Albert Fields and Damon Pampolina brought their own brand of pop to kids all over the USA. They were pretty famous, and were on the cover of many a teen mag at the time. Oddly enough they only had one top 40 hit, but plenty of minor hits, including "That's Why", "I Found Love", and "Summer Vacation"

Their biggest hit "In My Dreams" was a cover version of an old rock hit by Dokken - but with lead vocals sung by Dee Dee, the track became a pop number which did fairly well over in the US. The track was even touted for release in the UK, but never materialised. The group split in 1994 and since then the members have been very quiet. Dee Dee has appeared in numerous versions of Miss Saigon, and very little has been heard of the others!

I remember hearing this track on Atlantic 252 (remember that?) many years ago and could not find the song anywhere until I stumbled across the first The Party album in a record store, and bought it on impulse. Imagine my surprise when I took it home and played "In My Dreams"!

Birgitte Einarsen - Saturday

2006-04-16T18:45:00.000+02:00

Since it's Eurovision season again, when all the competing countries are busy choosing their song to represent them in Athens on May 18th, I thought I would get you all in the mood by choosing one my favourite songs of the season so far.

To those of you whol follow Eurovision, Birgitte Einarsen may be a name familiar to you. Born in Larvik, Norway, Birgitte starred in musicals all around Norway until she got her break in the 2003 Melodi Grand Prix, the competition for choosing Norway's entry in the Eurovision. Singing a pop-ditty "Good Evening Europe", a song about Eurovision itself, the song did well to come third overall.

Birgitte entered MGP (as it's known for short) again this year with the disco-stomper "Saturday" written by a Swedish/British team. She competed in the third semi-final and made it through to the second chance round where she duly won her place in the final proper for a second time. Alas it wasn't to be Birgitte's night, and she finished outside the Top 4 and therefore did not make the Superfinal, which was eventually won by the only Norwegian language song in the whole competition, Christine Gulbrandsen's "Alvedansen". Still "Saturday is an excellent song with that all important key change, and would have probably won some other country's national final. I hope you enjoy the track, and I plan to post more Eurovision songs as the season continues...

Kate Ryan - The Promise You Made

2006-04-09T11:00:00.000+02:00

To celebrate the fact that Kate Ryan is the Belgian entry for Eurovision with her fabulous slice of pop "Je T'adore" - I'm posting one of her previous hits.

Belgian born Kate (Real name Katrien Verbeeck) first appeared on the pop scene in 2002, with her dance cover of French chanteuse Mylene Farmer's hit "Désenchantée", which was a massive hit in the Belelux countrues, France and Spain. This was swiftly followed by "Mon Coeur Resiste Encore / Scream For More" and "Libertine", the latter of which was also another Farmer cover. Her debut album "Different" was released to much success and contained a mixture of French and English songs, most of them in her trademark Europop style.

In 2004, Kate was back with her second album "Stronger" and scored hits with "Only If I" and "The Promise You Made" - which was also recored in French as "La Promesse". "The Promise You Made" was a cover of an old 80s hit by German pop group Cock Robin and is my favourite Kate song (apart from Je T'adore of course!) Kate will compete in the semi-final for Belgium on May 18th, let's hope she does well!

Celine Dion - (If There Was) Any Other Way

2006-04-02T16:30:00.000+02:00

Celine Dion is one of the worlds biggest selling female artists - and everyone knows her so I'm not going to talk about her career in detail. What a lot of people may not know about is Celine's early English language material, recorded in the early 1990s before her breakthrough hit "The Power Of Love" in 1993. "Unison" was released in 1990, and "Celine Dion" in 1991, and both were successful in her native Canada and the US, to some extent.

The decision to record music in English after many years of French language albums was definitely down to the fact that Celine won Eurovision in 1988 with "Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi" which became a hit all over Europe, including places where she'd never released music before.

Neither of her first two albums were big successes in the UK, and apart from "Beauty And The Beast", all the singles released from the albums stalled in the lower half of the Top 75 but they did help establish Celine.

"(If There Was) Any Other Way" was Celine's debut English language single, and was a minor hit in North America. "Unison" is one of my favourite Celine albums, and this track is representative of the type of pop music that was around then. Who would ever think that back then Celine would turn out to be as massive as she became?

Emilia - Playing It By Heart

2006-03-26T21:25:00.000+02:00

Emilia Rydberg was born in Sweden on January 25 1978 and was discovered in 1996 by Lars Anderson, son of ABBA manager Stig Anderson. In 1998 she had a massive hit all ovger Europe and the Far East with her debiut single, the cute ballad "Big Big World", including the UK, where it peaked at #5 in December 1998, and reached the top spot in Sweden. Her follow up single "Good Sign" failed to capatilise on that success and failed to kake the top 40 in early 1999. Still, her debut album "Big Big World" was released, and a few other singles ("Twist Of Fate" and "Like Chocolate") were released across Europe, including her native Sweden and Spain.

In 2000, Emilia returned with her sophomore album "Emilia" and she was also back with a new sound. Gone was her cute style of pop, and in was the typical pop sound of the day - and her hits included "Sorry I'm In Love" and "Kiss By Kiss".

After the release of this album, things went quiet for Emilia until she appeared on a German reality TV show, similar to "Baby Hit Me One More Time" - she didn't win but lasted a few weeks.

"Playin' It By Heart" is taken from Emilia's second album, and I first heard this on a compilation tape in my work! Weird eh? It's a really nice summery style pop track that makes me feel good when I hear it! Hope you feel the same!

No Angels - Forever Yours

2006-03-19T18:55:00.000+01:00

No Angels were a product of the world famous Popstars show, which originated in New Zealand and has provided the world with such acts as Bardot, Hear'say, Bellepop and of course Girls Aloud. No Angels were the band from the first series in Germany, and the lucky 5 who made the band were Jessica Wahls (Jess), Ludmilla Diakovska (Lucy) (born in Bulgaria) , Nadja Benaissa, Sandy Mölling and Vanessa Petruo (Vany).

The band had instant success with their debut single "Daylight In Your Eyes" which reached #1 in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. This was then followed by many other hits including "Rivers Of Joy", "Something About Us", "Still In Love With You", "Someday" and "Feelgood Lies" over a three year period. Three albums were also released in various versions - "Ellements", "Now...Us!" and "Pure" - the latter of which was released after the departure of Jessica from the band who became pregnant and decided to look after her baby. Jessica wasn't replaced, and the 4 others carried on to produce their strongest album yet.

The girls decided to call it a day in 2003, and went their seperate ways on a high with the release of their Greatest Hits, containing all of their 13 hit singles in their short but impressive career.

Most of the girls' material was very strong, and it's a shame they could not make it over in the UK - "Daylight In Your Eyes" sadly failed to set the charts on fire.

Since then, all 5 girls have released solo material in Germany, and most have met with success. So now fans of No Angels have 5 acts to follow instead of 1!

"Forever Yours" is taken from the girls third and final album "Pure". It's my favourite track on thw album, and it was recently covered by Swedish Pop Idol winner Agnes Carlsson on her debut album. If you haven't listened to any of the girls' material, then give it a go, as I think you will be pleasantly surprised...

Vanilla Ninja - Heartless

2006-03-12T19:50:00.000+01:00

Any fan of the Eurovision Song Contest will know this band, as they represented Switzerland in the 2005 contest, coming a respectable 8th - despite hailing from Estonia!

The original line-up of the band was Maarja Kivi, Lenna Kuurmaa, Katrin Siska and Piret Järvis, and their first forage into music was when they appeared in Eurolaul 2003, the contest to choose Estonia's entry in the Eurovision. Despite gaining the most televotes for their song "Club King-Fu", the song was chosen by an international jury, and the song finished 9th out of 10 in the contest. Undeterred, the girls released their debut album "Vanilla Ninja" in Estonia with a mixture of Estonian and English language songs.

The girls' second album "Traces Of Sadness" was recorded in 2004 completely in English, and the girls began releasing music all over Europe - with particular success in the German speaking countries, where their first single "Tough Enough" became a huge hit. This was followed by "Club Kung-Fu", "Don't Go Too Fast", "Liar" and "When Indians Cry". Just before the release of the last single of their album, Maarja left the band due to falling pregnant, and she was quickly replaced by Triinu Kivilaan - who bore an uncanny resemblance to her!

The girls' third album was released in early 2005. Entitled "Blue Tattoo", the singles released included the title track, and "I Know", as well as their Eurovision song "Cool Vibes". At the Eurovision itself, the girls managed to get Switzerland's best result in the contest for 12 years!

After the contest, things went rather quiet from the band, with only a release of a Best Of at the end of the year. Around this time Triinu left the band, leaving the band as a three-piece, who have vowed to continue as a band. We'll see if 2006 can bring the band any more success, but they will forever be remembered as one of the more contemporary acts of Eurovision 2005...

"Heartless" was taken from "Traces Of Sadness" and is typical of their pop-rock style. An extended version appeared on the album as a bonus track, so maybe the track was touted as a single release at some point, but sadly, this never materialised...

Alex Cartañá - Out Of My Shell

2006-03-05T21:10:00.000+01:00

Brighton born Alex Cartañá was brought up on the Spanish island of Majorca and appeared on the British music scene in 2004 when she appeared on the Lee Cabrera dance hit "Shake It (Move A Little Closer) which reached #16 in September 2003. She then released her debut single "Hey Papi" - a track about her father, the following year. The song was a minor hit, reaching #34 in May 2004, but many thought that Alex was capable of more. A few months later, a second single was promoed - "Lost Ur Mind?" was more poppy than the previous release, but all was not well in the Alex camp as the single was pulled from release despite the video being aired on the usual music TV channels.

A different song was due to be released, but to this date, nothing else has been released from Alex, and it looks as if "Hey Papi" will be the only single she will get to release...

"Out Of My Shell" is a track which appeared on a 5 track promo of her album, and is a soulful ballad - I could easily see someone like Beverley Knight singing this, and shows off Alex's songwriting skills. Maybe the track will turn up on someone else's album like many forgotten classics do...

DaYeene - And It Hurts

2006-02-26T21:00:00.000+01:00

I don't know too much about this next act, but DaYeene are a Swedish due consisting of 2 sisters, Diane and Jeanette Söderholm. The girls, of Jamaican origin released a few albums in Sweden in the 90s, with their biggest hits being "Alright" in February 1991 and "Revelation" in November 1993.

Jeanette is also known for working with the Chieron team in the late 90s and early 00s, where she sang backing vocals on many of the production team's tracks including songs of Britney Spears and Jessica Folcker, as well as helping Ace Of Base out on most of their albums.

"And It Hurts" was released as a single in the summer of 1999, and also got a release in the UK. Whilst not being a hit, the track was a success on the dancefloor, and continues to be a classic to this date...

Helena Paparizou - If You Believe Me

2006-02-19T22:40:00.000+01:00

Swedish born Helena Paparizou is of Greek origin and is best known for winning the 2005 Eurovision song contest with her song "My Number One", but for some years previous to this, Helena was known as a member of the Sewedish/Greek duo "Antique" with Nikos Panagiotidis, and they had various hits in Sweden and Greece in the early part of this decade, including hits such as "Opa Opa" and "Die For You" - which was the Greek Entry in the Eurovision in 2001 wheere it came a respectable third, at the time Greece's best ever placing.

Antique split in 2003 and Helena (or Elena as she is known to the Greeks) recorded her first solo album "Protereotita", completely in Greek which became a massive success in Greece with the hits "Anapantites Klisis" and "Antithesis". In 2005, Helena was chosen as the Greek representative in Eurovision for a second time, and travelled to Kiev as the favourite with her uptempo track "My Number One". After a slow start in the voting, Helena soon pulled away from the others and went on to win the whole contest, the first time for Greece. "My Number One" then duly became a hit all over Europe, including her native Sweden where it reached the top spot. New album "My Number One" was released which featured some new English language compositions, some of her older tracks trabslated into English, and some Greek language tracks too. She continued the success with the hits "The Light In Our Soul" and "A Brighter Day", both of which became hits in Sweden. Her latest release, "Mambo" was the Christmas number 1 in Greece, and is set to be her new single in Sweden.

"If You Believe Me" originally started life as "Anamniseis" on the Greek version of her album, and the track is very typical of Helena's style. If you like this track then I'd suggest checking out some of her other material as I think you will be pleasantly surprised. I'm sure 2006 will have lots in store for Helena, but it will take a lot to beet her amazing year of 2005. Good luck to her though in trying...

Kim Wilde - Can't Get Enough (Of Your Love)

2006-02-12T20:40:00.000+01:00

Kim Wilde was born on 18th November 1960 in London, and she has to be regarded as one of the most successful UK female solo acts in chart history, having many hits throughout the 80s and early 90s. With her first single "Kids In America" rocketing to #1 in 1981, Kim continued to have hits throughout the decade, including "Cambodia", "You Keep Me Hanging On" (A US #1 no doubt), "You Came" and "Never Trust A Stranger". Kim's style varied from the New Wave of the early 80s, to a more SAW sound in the late 80s. Kim continued to release music until 1995, when she stopped with her 9th and final album "Now And Forever", and went off to have a family, and she now has 2 children, Harry and Rose.

These days Kim is better known for being a gardener and has appeared on various TV shows, releasing her first book "Gardening With Children" in 2005, as well as being the face of health store Holland & Barrett (they have a better than half price sale you know!) Kim has released a song or two since 1995 though, most notably "Loved" a new composition which appeared on a re-release of her Greatest Hits in 2002, and "Anyplace, Anywhere, Anytime", a duet with German singer Nena which went all the way to the top spot in Germany, and she has also toured round the UK as part of the Here And Now tour along with other 80s pop icons including Five Star and Belinda Carlisle.

Kim has recently signed a brand spanking new recording contract with EMI, so expect some new material from her this year. In order to celebrate this fantastic news, I have chosen to share with you one of my favourite Kim songs.

"Can't Get Enough (Of Your Love)" is taken from Kim's 1990 album "Love Moves", which although wasn't a commercial success, still contained a few gems. "Can't Get Enough" was released as a single in Europe, though not in the UK, and features some excellent synths as well as my favourite guitar solo in a song ever! Enjoy!...

The Pussycat Dolls - Flirt

2006-02-05T18:55:00.000+01:00

Nicole, Melody, Carmit, Kimberley, Jessica and Ashley make up The Pussycat Dolls - one of the biggest girl groups around at the moment with 2 UK #1's under their belt so far. Not bad for a group who were originally a burlesque act who became a bona fide music group as a second thought. Fronted by Nicole Scherzinger, formerly of the US TV Popstars band Eden's Crush, the girls have attained success not only in the UK and US but also around Europe too, with their debut album PCD attaining respectable sales, and massive hits with "Don't Cha", and "Stickwitu" - though the girls could do with an English lesson or two! Their next single "Beep" featuring will.i.am. of The Black Eyed Peas, is due out later this year. Time will tell if it can reach the top spot like the previous 2 singles.

The track I have chosen, "Flirt" is a bonus track on the re-release of their album, but is probably one of the best things the girls have recorded. With lead sung mostly by Melody, the black girl in the group, it makes a change from having Nicole sing all the vocals. The track is a blistering uptempo number which would be worthy of a single release, but in the day and age where R&B dominate the US airwaves, this seems rather unlikely, though would be a fantastic surprise...

Lois - I Just Wanna Make Love 2U

2006-01-26T21:10:00.000+01:00

This next track is a bit of a rare one. I don't know much about the band at all apart from the fact that they were 4 girls: Georgia Lewis (lead vocals) and Jan Mayo, Michelle DuVerney and JJ Kundi. "I Just Wanna Make Love 2U" was one of the 8 finalists in The Great British Song Contest in 1996, which as we all know was won by Gina G. Sadly, Lois' song failed to qualify from the semi-final, which was a shame as it's a very good dance number reminiscent of Livin' Joy and Alex Party who were very big on the dance music scene around that time. Maybe the fact that the lead singer had a scary haircut put off the televoters.

The track was co-written by Mike Connaris who went on to write Cyprus' Eurovision entry in 2004, Lisa Andreas' "Stronger Every Minute", and he has also competed a few other times in the British National Final. JJ from Lois was a dancer for Louise on her tour way back in 1997, but apart from that I don't know what else happened to the girls.

Sadly I don't have a pic of Lois, so one of the cover of the CD single will have to do!

Cher - The Look

2006-01-19T19:00:00.000+01:00

Cher is one of pop's biggest icons. She's been making music for just over 40 years and is still going strong. I've been lucky enough to see her in concert twice and she always puts on a fantastic show - especially her wigs and costumes!

She has gone through many musical changes from her days with Sonny Bono, through her understated 70s period (Dark Lady is a classic), 80s stadium rock through to her dance reinvention of the late 90s and early 2000s, which rejuvinated her career, with hots such as "Believe", "Strong Enough", "All Or Nothing" and "The Music's No Good Without You". Cher recently toured the world with her Farewell Tour which seemed to go on forever! I wouldn't put it past her touring or releasing music again...

The track I have chosen is taken from the Japanese version of Cher's 2003 album Living Proof. "The Look" has more of a latin vibe to it (reminds me a bit of Santana) than the dance feel the rest of the album has, so maybe that's why it was left off the UK/US release, but it's still a fabulous track, complete with key change!

Lola - No Strings

2006-01-12T23:45:00.000+01:00

25 year old Lola Zaidline-Delon is from the city of Paris in France who moved to the bright lights of New York City when she was 20. In the past, Lola has worked with artists sich as Snyder's Market anmd After landing a deal with Warner Bros., Lola released her first single in the US in November 2005. The original version of "No Strings" the song is a slow R'n'B ballad, but it was thanks to the dance remixes that has helped the song become an underground club hit in the US, peaking at #2 on Billboard's Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart. This was no doubt helped by the song's risqué lyrics about the pleasures of getting right down to "it"!

Lola's debut album "Take It Like I Give It" is due out sometime in 2006, and "No Strings" has become one of those songs that people either love or hate. The version I have posted is the dance mix by Peter Presta, also featured in the video. Maybe the track will become a hit in the UK this year. Who knows?....

Kym Sims - Take My Advice

2006-01-05T22:40:00.000+01:00

Kym Sims comes from Chicago in the US, and enjoyed a brief spell in the UK charts in 1991 and 1992. Her biggest hit was the massive "Too Blind To See It" which was released in December 1991 and peaked at #5. The track also made #31 in the US. This was followed by "Take My Advice", and "A Little Bit More" which reached #30 in June 1992. Kym's debut album, also called "Too Blind To See It", peaked at #39 in April 1992. Kym's hits were very representative of dance music at the time, with her biggest hits being produced by Steve "Silk" Hurley who has also produced for many other successful artists, including Dannii Minogue's "Baby Love".

After the relative success of her debut album, Kym released a further few singles, "I Must Be Free" in 1995, "We Gotta Love" and "Keep On Keeping On" in 1996, but none of these were chart hits. A new track "Just Can't Get Enough" appeared on Mp3.com in 2000, but since then, Kym's been quiet!

"Take My Advice" was the Kym's second single in the UK, and was almost like "Too Blind To See It" Part 2! Whilst not matching the success of her debut single, it was still a moderate hit, reaching #13 in March 1992.

It's been a while since Kym released any music, but continues to perform across club venues across the US today...

Sarah Whatmore - Don't Let Me Go

2005-12-25T19:15:00.000+01:00

Sarah Whatmore was born in 1980 and hails from Manchester. She first appeared on our screens in 2001, when she took part in the talent show Pop Idol. She made it to the top 40, but fell short of making the final. Nevertheless, she was one of Simon Cowell's favourites, and she was given a recording contract by BMG, releasing her first single "When I Lost You" (originally meant for Kylie's "Fever" project) in September 2002, making #6. Her follow up "Automatic" stalled at #11 in February 2003, and the planned debut album "Living Proof" was postponed so that Sarah could work on some more material. "Don't Let Me Go" was planned as the third single from the album, and like her previous singles, sounds similar to Kylie...

Since then things have been very quiet for Sarah, with only a writing credit on Zoe Birkett's "Treat Me Like A Lady", and an apperaance on the Greasemania soundtrack singing "Look At Me, I'm Sandra Dee" since the release of "Automatic" almost 3 years ago. Sarah's website is still live, and she is still signed to her record label, with rumours of a release sometime in 2006. Whether that happens remains to be seen, but hopefully we've not seen the last of Sarah....

Melodi Brown - Skin

2005-12-18T21:00:00.000+01:00

Melodi Brown go down in history as a group who never actually released anything. The 4 piece all girl group promoed their debut single "Naked" back in 2003, with the video receiving play on The Box, but ultimately the single was sadly never released. The only music released by the girls was on a CD sampler of their debut album, including "Naked", "Never Knew My Baby", "Spin The Record", and the chosen track "Skin" - which is my favourite track from them, sounding a little like Blu Cantrell's "Hit 'Em Up Style (Oops!)" from 2001.

Three other Melodi Brown songs have ended up being recorded by other people - "DJ" by Samantha Mumba which was never released either, covered later by Jamelia. "Spin That Bottle" was a B-Side on Rachel Stevens' "Some Girls", and "Do Somethin'" was a single for none other than Britney Spears herself!

I wonder if any other Melodi Brown songs will turn up somewhere?...

Girls Aloud - Lights Music Camera Action

2005-12-11T20:40:00.000+01:00

Girls Aloud - arguably one of today's finest girl bands. We all know the history of how Nadine Coyle, Sarah Harding, Nicola Roberts, Cheryl Tweedy and Kimberley Walsh got together, and we all know of their impressive chart statistics - 10 top 10 singles in 3 years with a new single released in a few weeks.

To celebrate the release of their third album "Chemistry" - out tomorrow, I've posted one of their rarer tracks for you to enjoy. "Lights Music Camera Action" was recorded for their debut album "Sound Of The Underground" - but only appeared as a B-Side, and even then only on the "Life Got Cold" cassette single (remember them?) back in August 2003. However, the track did make an appearance on the Dutch CD single of "Life Got Cold" - which is where this version is taken from. Many of you will have heard the track, but many of you will have the inferior cassette version - this one's in full digital! So if you already have it, here's the proper version!

It's a pretty nice track with some good lyrics back in the days when the girls worked with other artists than Xenomania. You can really tell how the girls have changed their musical style over the few years since, but it doesn't take away the fact that this is a great song!

Hazell Dean - Love Pains

2005-12-04T23:25:00.000+01:00

Hazell Dean has often been hailed as the "Queen of NRG" and this claim may have some grounding. Born in Essex on October 27, 1958, Hazell had hits all over the world with her brand of pop music throughout the 80s, , and it was especially popular in the gay clubs, not least because much of it was written and produced by the dynamite trio Stock, Aitken and Waterman.

Hazell started her career back in the 1970s. Then known as Hazel Dean (with only one L), she released a few singles which didn't manage to chart, including "I Couldn't Live Without You For A Day" (Which competed in A Song For Europe in 1976) and "Look What I've Found At The End Of A Rainbow", but it wasn't until 1984 when Hazell stuck gold.

Hazell (now with 2 L's - seemingly the change in name was due to Hazell's belief in numerology - the number 10 being lucky) had her first chart hit in 1984 with "Jealous Love/Evergreen" which reached the dizzy heights of #63, but it was her next single that propelled her to stardom. "Searchin' (I Gotta Find A Man)" became a massive hit, and a gay anthem, and reached #6 in April 1984. She then teamed up with SAW on her next release "Whatever I Do (Wherever I Go)" which made #4 in July of the same year. An album, "Heart First" was released in 1984.

She continued to release singles over the years, including "Back In My Arms (Once Again)", "No Fool (For Love)" and "They Say It's Gonna Rain", but it wasn't until 1988 when Hazell would grace the top 40 again. "Who's Leaving Who" started a trio of hits in 1988 when it peaked at #4 in April 1988, followed by "Maybe (We Should Call It A Day)" (#15 in June 1988) and "Turn It Into Love" (a cover of the Kylie Minogue track - #21 in September 88). All these tracks appeared on Hazell's second album "Always" in 1988.

After this, Hazell left EMI records and signed with Lisson Records, and released a further 2 singles "Love Pains" and "Better Off Without You". Since then, Hazell hasn;t had a chart hit, but has written tracks for the likes of Bad Boys Inc. and Sinitta's mum, Miquel Brown.

Hazell continues to perform all accross Europe, and still has a bug following on the gay scene!

"Love Pains" made #47 in August 1990, and is a cover of the 70s track by Yvonne Elliman (of "I Can't Have You" fame. It was also covered around the same time by Liza Minelli. Hazell's version of the track is an uplifiting typical late 80s/early 90s sound, which was produced by Harding & Curnow, from the PWL stable. I regard it as one of my favourite tracks from that era, and I hope you enjoy it too!

Lulu - Independence

2005-11-27T20:20:00.000+01:00

Lulu (real name Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie) was born in Lennoxtown, just outside of Glasgow on November 3rd, 1948. She's had a career spanning five decades, and it would take forever to go through, so here are some of her highlights:

- Her debut single "Shout" (with The Luvvers) reached #7 in May 1964 when she was just 15!
- She starred in the film "To Sir With Love" and singing the theme tune in 1967 (Making #1 in the US)
- She married Maurice Gibb of The bee Gees in 1969 (and divorced him in 1973)
- She won the Eurovision song contest in 1969 with "Boom Bang A Bang" (albeit sharing it with France, the Netherlands and Spain)
- She sang the theme to the bond movie "The Man With The Golden Gun" in 1974
- She reached #1 with Take That on "Relight My Fire" in 1993
- She was awarded an MBE in 2000
- Released the albums "Together" (a Duets album including tracks with Atomic Kitten, Ronan Keating and Samantha Mumba in 2002, "Back On Track" in 2004, and "A Little Soul In Your Heart" in 2005

The track I have chosen, "Independence" was taken from the album of the same name. It had been her first proper release for over 10 years, and the single peaked at #11 in January 1993. It's still a classic after almost 13 years, and is very representative of the dance music around at that time!

Moonbaby - Kitsch Bitch Cool

2005-11-20T22:45:00.000+01:00

Moonbaby is probably better known to you as Miranda Cooper - one of Brian Higgin's talented team at Xenomania working with amongst others, Girls Aloud.

What you may not know is that Miranda herself once had a crack at pop fame. Way back in 1996, she was a backing dancer for Gina G at Eurovision in 1996 with "Ooh...Ahh! Just A Little Bit!" which has gone on to become a Eurovision classic. Miranda even starred in the video.

The following year, Miranda and her friend Chloë, who was Gina's other dancer, landed themselves a record deal with Gina's label, Eternal Records. The girls, called "T-Shirt", released one single, a cover of Hot Chocolate's "You Sexy Thing" complete with girly raps, but the single didn't do any business at all in the UK, but became a hit in the unlikely place of Australia!

After this, Miranda surfaced again as Moonbaby, with a new track called "Here We Go", produced by Brian Higgins. Despite TV appearances, and a PA at Gay Pride in 2000, the track was ultimately never released, until it surfaced on Lene (from Aqua) Nystrom's album "Play With Me" in 2003, and then again on Girls Aloud's "What Will The Neighbours Say?" in 2004, with all versions produced by Xenomania, and Girls Aloud's version of the track being practicallyt the same, except for being in a different key.

"Kitsch Bitch Cool" appeared on the promo for the "Here We GO Single". Other tracks recorded were "Deadlines & Diets & Devious Men" which was also later covered bt Girls Aloud. "Kitsch Bitch Cool" is typical Xenomania in style, and there are shades of the track in a few of the tracks on Girls Aloud's new album "Chemistry".

Jaki Graham - Step Right Up

2005-11-13T21:05:00.000+01:00

80s time! Jaki Graham is from Birmingham and was born in 1956. During the 80s she enjoyed some chart success with her style of typical 80s dance-pop.

Her first single was released in 1984, but it wasn't until 1985 when she had her first chart hit, "Could It Be I'm Falling In Love", a duet with David Grant who had been in a band called Linx, and has since gone on to be a voice coach on both Fame Academy and Pop Idol, along with his wife Carrie Grant. The track made #5 in March 1985.

Jaki then had a further 5 top 20 singles, including another with David Grant called "Mated" (#20 in May 1985), and 4 solo hits, "Round And Round" (#9 in June 1985), "Set Me Free" (#7 in May 1986), "Breaking Away" (#16 in Aug 1986) and "Step Right Up" (#15 in Nov 1986). She also released a number of albums over the years, and continued to release material all through the 80s and into the 90s. Her latest single, a cover of the Stevie Wonder classic "Superstition" was only released last month, and she appeared on the infamous "Hit Me Baby One More Time" earlier this year.

"Step Right Up" was Jaki's last proper hit, and it remains one of my favourites, 19 years later!

Kristine Blond - Love Shy

2005-11-06T22:15:00.000+01:00

Kristine Blond hails from Denmark and signed her first record deal at the age of 19, but despite finishing the album, it was never released. She bounced back with a new record deal a few years later, and released her first single, "Love Shy" in the UK in April 1998, and reached #22. The track was originally a pop/R&B number produced by Cutfather & Joe, who have priduced for lots of other artists including Precious and Ace OF Base.

A few years later, the track became an underground smash in the clubs in a remixed garage version, and it eventually led to a re-release of the single, making #28 in January 2000. Kristine's only other chart entry in the UK is "You Make Me Go Ooh", released in May 2002 and making #35, the UK main mix was again a remixed version of the original superior version. However one of the mixes, the Supa' Flyas Mix, was fantastic and was the main mix over in Germany!

Since then, Kristine has continued to release music, having some success in her homeland and also Germany, where an album "All I Ever Wanted" was released in December 2002, featuring her 2 Uk singles (Sadly "Love Shy" in the remixed form), and "A Day Without You", "You Belong To Someone Else" and "Teach Him", which were all released as singles in Germany.

According to her official website (link below), Kristine is in the studio recording her new album, and a few of the tracks can be sampled online.

The version of "Love Shy" which I have posted is the original Cutfather & Joe version. I didn't like any of the remixes, of which more surfaced in 2004! If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Sandrine François - After The Rain

2005-10-30T18:30:00.000+01:00

Sandrine François was born in Paris in December 1980. She is best known as the French representative at the Eurovision Song Contest in Estonia in 2002. Her track "Il Faut Du Temps" ("It Tskes Time") was a typical French chanson, not disimilar to Céline Dion. With one of the best performances of the night, Sandrine did fantastically well to come 5th behind Estonia (Sahlene), the United Kingdom (Jessica Garlick), Malta (Ira Losco)and the winners Latvia (Marie N) - to make an all female top 5! Hurrah!

Sandrine also released her album "Et Si Le Monde" to acclaim, and has worked amongst others with producer Erick Benzi who has worked with the likes of Céline Dion and Indonesian star Anggun.

"After The Rain" is the English version of her Eurovision entry, and as far as English language versions go in Eurovision, it's definitely one of the better ones. Since then, I'm not sure what Sandrine has been upto, but hopefully we will hear more from her soon...

She Moves - Just For Tonight

2005-10-23T22:30:00.000+02:00

She Moves were a 3 piece American girl group from the late 90s consisting of Carla Duren, Danielle Flora and Diana Bologna. All three girls met while they were dancers for the New York Knicks basketball team. They had a fairly short career which saw the release of their only album "Breaking All The Rules" in November 1997, which spawned 3 singles, the title track "Breaking All The Rules", "Just For Tonight", and "It's Your Love" - a cover of an old country track which has also been covered on Jo O'Meara's recently released debut album "Relentless". The girls also covered Nik Kershaw's "Wouldn't It Be Good", and "Forever Young" (a Japanese and European bonus track) which was also released as a god-awful dance song by Interactive in both 1996 and 2003.

The whole album was written and produced by the German team The Berman Brothers, who also worked with The Real McCoy ("Run Away") and Amber ("This Is Our Night"), with the album having a diverse range of styles such as pop, ballads, drum and bass and unashamed Europop.

"Just For Tonight" is one of these Europop tracks, and was the third and final single to be lifted from the album. The track never fails to get me bopping along, especially with the dramatic synths in one part - and the girls have good voices for a dance track for a change! The 2 released singles also had Berman Brothers Dance Mixes, turning them into Europop tracks not unlike "Just For Tonight"!

After the album was released, the girls sadly disappeared but I'm sure they are out there somewhere, a short but sweet stay in showbiz!

Lena Philipsson - Jag Ångrar Ingenting

2005-10-16T18:00:00.000+02:00

Hello everyone and welcome back to Girls On Pop! I'm sorry I haven't updated in a while but my old PC died on me and I had to start again and buy an brand new one, as it wasn't worth the hassle of trying to fix it yet again. So I have a brand spanking new one with loads of Hard Drive space and a 19 inch monitor - as they say bigger is better!

Anyway we're back with the blog with a brand new track taken from the new album by Swedish diva Lena Philipsson, or Lena Ph for short. I'm sure most of you will know who she is, but for those of you who don't, Lena is one of Sweden's biggest pop stars at the moment, enjoying a resurgence in popularity over the past year or so. Lena was born on 19th January 1966 and will be celebrating her 40th birthday in a few months!

In fact Lena has been going since taking part in a Swedish TV talent show in 1982, and has been releasing music since 1986, when she took part in Melodifestivlen with "Kärleken Är Evig" where she came 2nd. She tried again in 1987 with the now classic "Dansa I Neon" which could only come 5th, but went on to be a massive hit. After coming 2nd in 1988 with "Om Igen", she concentrated on releasing albums every few years including "Talking In Your Sleep" in 1988 and "Fantasy" in 1993, recording in both Swedish and English, with her later output in mostly English.

In 2004, after a break of a few years, Lena took part in Melodifestivalen again with "Det Gör Ont" ("It Hurts") which went on to win (beating Girls On Pop! fave Shirley Clamp) and Lena's popularity exploded, helped immensley by a fantastic new album "Det Gör Ont En Stund På Natten Men Inget På Dan" (what a mouthful!) and she had further hits with "Delirium", "Lena Anthem" and "På Gatan Där Jag Bor" ("On The Street Where I Live"). The album went on to be one of the biggest sellers in Sweden in 2004.

Cut to 2005, and Lena is back with a brand new album, "Jag Ångrar Ingenting" ("I Regret Nothing") and has just had a hit with "Unga Pojkar Och Äldre Män" ("Young Boys And Older Men") and is about to have another smash with "Han Jobbar I Affär" ("He Works In A Shop"(!) Thomas Orup, whom Lena has worked with on the last 2 albums is known for his lyrics, which may be lost on those of you who don't speak any Swedish, but take it from me, even although my Swedish is still at a basic level, they certainly are funny!

"Jag Ångrar Ingenting" is the title track from the album and is an uptempo Electro-pop stomper. Hopefully it will be released as a single at a later date, but if you like what you hear, please buy the album as it is completely ace or as Swedes say "Jättebra!"

Marta Sanchez - Soy Yo

2005-10-09T23:55:00.000+02:00

Marta took a break for a few years, but bounced back with her fifth solo album in 2002. Entitled "Soy Yo", it was a mostly ballad heavy album with a few pop tracks inbetween. The biggest hit was the title track "Soy Yo", the second release from the album.

After this, Marta took some more time out and got married and had a little boy, and her most recent release was a best of album "Lo Mejor De Marta Sanchez", which included pretty much all of her singles as well as some new tracks, and new remixes of some old ones. Since then, she's gone a bit quiet, but there are rumours she will be back in 2006!

"Soy Yo" was written by the team behind Cher's "Believe" (originally in English and translated into Spanish by Marta.) You can certainly hear the similarities between the two, but Marta has the added advantage of having a few hotties in her video!

So there's my quick tour of some of my favourite Spanish music. Sorry I haven't been updating as reguarly as I should be, but now we go back to normal and I'll be posting some of my favourite tracks over the next few weeks! I will try to post on regular days, usually Wednesdays and Sundays (time permitting) so check back reguarly for some good stuff!

Marta Sanchez - Perfect Stranger

2005-10-02T23:00:00.000+02:00

"Azabache" was Marta's third album and on this, she collabarated with Slash from Guns 'n' Roses on the track "Moja Mi Corazon" (in English as "One Step Closer). On this album, Marta's styles ranged from sweeping ballads on "Amor Perdido" to almost rock on "Moja Mi Corazon" to pop on "Ya Ves" The English version of the album was called "One Step Closer" and only around half of the album was translated into English. The other half of the album was sadly padded out with tracks from "My World". This was the first sign that Marta was moving away from recording in English.

Marta's next album came a year later with "Desconocida", which was probably her most polished album to date. Only the title track was recorded in English as "Perfect Stranger", (the track I've chosen to share with you) but she also had a hit with "Quiero Más De Ti". After this album, Marta decided to take a break and it would be 4 years before she released new material...

"Perfect Stranger" was released in the US, and a video was made of the track at the same time as the Spanish version - this is a regular occurrence when an artist releases music in different languages for different territories...

The third and final part of Marta's career will be in the next post...

Marta Sanchez - Such A Mystery

2005-09-25T12:00:00.000+02:00

Marta Sanchez comes from Madrid and Spain and began her career as a member of the band Olé Olé who started out in 1985. Their hits included "Lilli Marlen" and "Bailando Sin Salir De Casa" and they enjoyed a successful career until 1991 when Marta decided to try her luck at a solo career.

Her debut solo album "Mujer" was released in 1993, and the biggest hit from it was the first single "Desesperada". An English version of the album was also released in some territories. "Woman" contained translated versions of the tracks on the Spanish version, in fact some of the tracks were originally written in English and translated to Spanish! "Desperate Lovers" was the name of the English version of her debut single.

Marta's second album was released in 1995. "Mi Mundo" was a bit more mature than her debut and one of the tracks dealt with AIDS on a track which Marta wrote herself, quite daring for a very Catholic country like Spain. "Dime La Verdad" was the first and most successful single, which was "Such A Mystery" in it's original English version. Other hits included "Arena Y Sol" ("I Want Your Love") and "La Balleza", a typical Spanish track which remained in Spanish on the English album.

The song I've chosen is "Such A Mystery", the English version of "Dime La Verdad". See if you can work out what the lyrics mean. I'll be back later this week on Friday with the second instalment of Marta's career.

Mónica Naranjo - What About Love

2005-09-19T21:07:00.000+02:00

The last Mónica track I'm posting was taken from her 2003 hard to find English-language album "Bad Girls". The Spanish version "Sacrificio" appeared on "Chicas Malas" in 2001, and was released as a single.

"What About Love" was written by Sam Watters and Louis Biancaniello from the band Color Me Badd. They have written for many other acts such as Jessica Simpson ("I Wanna Love You Forever") and Anastacia ("I'm Outta Love" and "One Day In Your Life"). In fact "What About Love" sounds like it could be a sister to the Anastacia tracks!

So there's three of my favourite Mónica songs. In a few days, I'll post some tracks from my other favourite Spanish diva, Marta Sanchez. Let me know what you think of the Mónica tracks and I'll see you soon....

Mónica Naranjo - Enamorada

2005-09-12T11:45:00.000+02:00

Here we go with another track from Spanish diva Mónica. This track was released in 2000 on her third album "Minage", and was originally supposed to appear on her first English album, but the album was never released. I'm not sure how many tracks Mónica recorded for it, but only this and "If You Leave Me Now" appeared on the album, with both being released as singles. Both were produced by Brain Rawling who has worked with numerous other artists including Cher and Tina Turner to name just a few.

Of course, being Spanish, Mónica also later recorded both tracks into Spanish due to great demand, and they both appear on the re-release of Minage.

I've decided to go with the English version of the track this time, just to be a bit different. "Enamorada" means "In Love" and despite the Spanish title, only has a few words in Spanish. It's a nice typically Latino track, and I hope you enjoy it!

I'll have one more track from Mónica later in the week and then we will move on to a triple header from another of my favourite Spanish acts!

Mónica Naranjo - No Voy A Llorar

2005-09-05T16:50:00.000+02:00

Welcome back to the blog after a break and we are back with a track from one of Spain's biggest gay icons! Mónica Naranjo Carassco hails from Figueras in Spain and was born in 1974. She has been releasing music since 1994 when her self-titled debut album was released, and was an instant hit, and included a cover of Donna Summer's "Love's About To Change My Heart" translated into Spanish as "Fuego De Pasion".

Mónica returned in 1997 with her sophomore release "Parabla De Mujer" which really broke her in the Spanish market and no less than EIGHT singles were released from the 10 track album, including "Desétame", "Pantera En Libertad", and "Entender El Amor". The fusion of uptempo gay anthems and Spanish ballads worked well, and when I visited Spain at the tail end of 1997, I heard her alum being played everywhere, and that's where I got my first Mónica CD!

After a break of a few years, she returned in 2000 with her next album "Minage" which was a tribute album to an Italian singer called Mina, and was a bit of a departute from her usual pop style. It also included 2 English language tracks, "Enamorada" and "If You Leave Me Now" which were originally meant for her first English album which was aborted, and it would be a further few years before her first English album was released. The tracks were also translated into Spanish for the Spanish audience and both were hits, along with "Sobrevivré".

A year later and Mónica was back with the pop she was famous for. "Chicas Malas" was clearly Mónica's attempt at going mainstream and was another success in Spain with hits including "No Voy A Llorar" and "Sacrificio", the latter of which was written by the same team behind Anastacia's "I'm Outta Love". Every track on the album was also recorded in an English version, the album of which was due to come out some time later. Diane Warren and Gregg Alexander also contributed to the album, so Sony Music were really pulling all the stops out.

The lead English single "I Ain't Gonna Cry" was remixed for release and was due to be released all over Europe, but ended up only being released in a few countries. Due to record politics, the album "Bad Girls" only received a limited release on the internet, and in Russia, Greece and Italy. Sadly, I was not able to get a copy and the album now goes for big bucks on Ebay. Guess I will have to make do with the Spanish versions for now...

Since then, Mónica has been rather quiet, but a greatest hits compliation "Colección Privida" was recently released in Spain containing all of her big hits, and an accompaning DVD was also released with a live concert and all her videos. A new track "Enamorada De Ti" featured on the album. She has now parted company (amicably) with Sony and is currently negotiating a deal, but I'm sure she will be back as she still has a large gay following, which was confirmed when I heard some of her music being played in a bar in Gran Canaria, the Spanish went wild!

"No Voy A Llorar" which means "I'm Not Going To Cry" (I think) was the biggest single from her "Chicas Malas" album, and the intro and chorus sound rather similar to Alcazar's "Not A Sinner, Nor A Saint" - but Mónica's track was released over a year before! I've posted the Spanish version, as I'm in a Spanish mood, but if anyone wants the English version too, let me know. The version I've posted is the single remix which was remixed by Eliot Kennedy. Mónica is due to make her comeback in 2006, and it will be interesting to see what she comes up with next!

Charlotte Perrelli - All By Myself

2005-08-14T23:35:00.000+02:00

Charlotte Perrelli (née Nilsson) is best known for winning the Eurovision Song Contest in 1999 for Sweden with the Abba-tastic "Take Me To Your Heaven", but since then, she has forged herself a musical career and continues to release music to the day in her homeland...

Charlotte was born in Stockholm on October 7th, 1974, and began her career singing with various Swedish "dansband" acts, before finding the biggest success with Wizex in 1998 and 1999. She then decided to go solo, and after winning Melodifestivalen in 1999 with "Tusen Och En Natt" (A Thousand And One Nights) with her band Wizex, she then appeared at the Eurovision Song Contest as a solo act with the song now in English, called "Take Me To Your Heaven" which she went on to win, beating off Icelandic singer Selma into second place.

After this, Charlotte released her debut solo album "Charlotte" in Sweden which was followed by "Miss Jealousy" in 2001. After this, Charlotte took a break to get married and have a baby, and she bounced back with her new name and new album "Gone Too Long" in June 2004, which featured the hits "Broken Heart"(#7) and "Million Miles Away" (#11). The album also featured a few covers including "What A Feeling" from the movie Flashdance, and "Gone Too Long" which was originally by Gloria Gaynor. The album peaked at #11 in the Swedish charts, and is her most successful selling album so far.

"All By Myself" is featured on Charlotte's latest album "Gone Too Long", and is pretty typical of her style - breezy pop with dramatic key changes. I'm not exactly sure what Charlotte is up to right now, but hopefully she'll be back with another album soon...

Sam Obernik - Mr Butterfly

2005-08-12T23:10:00.000+02:00

Despite the foreign sounding surname, Sam Obernik is Irish, and she is perhaps best known for providing the vocals for the dance hit "It Just Won't Do" by Tim Deluxe, which got to #14 in July 2002 but Sam also recorded her own solo album, which sadly was never released.

"Stellify" was due to come out in 2003, but after her debut solo single "Mr Butterfly" could only reach #83 in May 2003, the project was canned, and all that remains of the album are promo copies which are floating around, one of which I was lucky to get my hands on in a second-hand store last month. The album itself is an eclectic mix of pop sprinkled with various other genres, including country, and features the aforementioned single "Mr Butterfly", as well as a new version of "It Just Won't Do" which has been turned into a lounge-style song! If you like your female singers who are just that little bit different, have a search for her album, and I think you will be pleasantly surprised, she reminds me a little of Nelly Furtado in a way.

Since the aborted solo-project, Sam provided vocals for another dancefloor smash, featuring on Linus Loves' "Stand Back" which got to #31 in November 2003. It's gone a bit quiet for Sam since then, but you never know where she might pop up next...

Lisa Lougheed - Run With Us

2005-08-10T18:45:00.000+02:00

Most of you will not be familiar with the name of the singer, but you will most definitely be familiar with the song.

Lisa Lougheed was born in Canada in 1969 and enjoyed a mildly successful career in her homeland, releasing three albums in total: "Evergreen Nights" in 1988, "World Love" in 1992 (featuring the hits "Running Out Of Love", "Love Vibe", "World Love" and "Love You By Heart") and "Peace And Harmony" in 1993 (featuring the hit "Won't Give Up My Music") on which she worked with legendary producer Jellybean Benetiz.

"Run With Us" was a minor hit in Canada in 1988, and it gained her a 1988 Juno nomination as Most Promising Female Vocalist. It is a classic 80s pop track, with synths and a guitar solo, and an infectious chorus. It became known in the Uk as the theme tune to Canadian cartoon show "The Raccoons", which during the late 80s was a massive hit on Saturday morning kids TV. The song was so popular that people wrote in to ask the announcers not to talk over the end credits, so they could hear the song in full! Lisa also sang most of the other songs featured on the cartoon series

"Run With Us" has since been covered into a dance version by Spray, but the original version still conjures up images of my childhood. It's crying out for one of today's popstars to cover it and release the track...

Kaci - I Will Learn To Love Again

2005-08-08T21:15:00.000+02:00

Kaci comes from the USA, and started her career in the UK when "Paradise" reached #11 in March 2001 when she was just 13 years old. Subsequent hits included "Tu Amor" (#24 in July 2001), and a cover of The Partridge Family's "I Think I Love You" which reached #10 in February 2002, and her album "Paradise" reached #47 a fortnight later. A song from her album "I'm Not Anybody's Girl", was featured on the soundtrack to the Gwyneth Paltrow movie "A View From The Top" - and reached #55 in August 2003.

After this, Kaci took a break, and she turned her hand to songwriting - she co-wrote "Wrong", sung by Kimberley Locke, a contestant on American Idol 2. She also sang a track which won BBC Radio 2's "Sold On Song" songwriting competition in 2004, "Txt Me" is about the joys of texting (!), and interestingly has recently re-appeared on Radio 2's playlist!

Now 17 years old, Kaci is releasing her first new material for 3 years, and has recently resurfaced with "I Will Learn To Love Again" - a fantastic dance/pop anthem written by Diane Warren from the soundtrack to "The Perfect Man", starring Hilary Duff and Heather "Amanda Woodward" Locklear. Sounding unlike anything in the US charts at the moment, it's a refreshing change to the mundane R'n'B which rules the US charts, and has slowly but surely been taking over the UK charts too. The video has been playing on satellite music station B4, but it's yet to be seen whether the track gets a release over here. We need more music like this in the UK charts to keep the spirit of pop alive...

Crush - Penthouse Girl, Basement Boy

2005-08-06T21:00:00.000+02:00

Donna Air is perhaps known more for her TV presenting and drunken antics back in the day, but not many people know that she once had a stab at pop stardom. Back in 1994, Donna released a single with 2 of her fellow Byker Grove actresses. Called Byker Grooove!, their single "Love Your Sexy...!" reached #48 in December 1994. Donna and Jayni then went on their own and formed a duo called Crush, and released 2 singles in the UK, "Jellyhead" (with it's fabulous Motiv8 Remix!) in Feb 1996, and "Luv'd Up" in August of the same year.

Jayni was then replaced by Luciana Caporaso, who herself had released some material in 1994 (and has since gone on to front Portobella), ahd the band released their debut album "Crush" in 1997 - which was made up of songs that Donna and Jayni had recorded (an album was released in Japan), and some new songs that Donna and Luciana had recorded. Sadly, the album did not fare too well and it was not released in the UK, and Donna moved on to TV presenting.

"Penthouse Girl, Basement Boy" was one of the tracks that Donna recorded with Jayni. Co-written by Sarah Cracknell of St Etienne, it's one of the strongest tracks on the album, and reminds me a bit of Bananarama with both girls singing in unison...

Kathrine Strugstad - Velvet Blue

2005-08-04T22:25:00.000+02:00

Kathrine is an up and coming singer from Oslo, Norway and has appeared in a number of stage shows in Norway, including "Evita" and "Grease". She is currently recording her debut album, and was a participant in this years Norsk Melodi Grand Prix - Norway's version of Making Your Mind Up. Her entry, "Velvet Blue", sung in English, made the final 8, but did not make it through to the final 4.

"Velvet Blue" is a haunting dance/pop track, and was co-written by a Norwegian with the lyrics by Gerald James Borg, a Maltese guy who has written a few of Malta's Eurovision entries in the past. It would have been interesting to if Kathrine would have fared any better in Kiev if the Norwegian public had chosen Kathrine over the eventual winners, glam-rock band Wig Wam.

I haven't heard anything else of Kathrine's material yet, but if it's as good as "Velvet Blue", I'll soon let you know...

Jessica Garlick - Whatever

2005-08-02T11:35:00.000+02:00

Born in 1981 in Wales, Jessica Garlick was one of the final 10 in the first series of Pop Idol, where she was voted off on the second show just before Christmas in 2001. She had previously featured on "Star For A Night" and "My Kind Of People", and she caught the eye of a Martyn Bayley, a songwriter who had written a track for the UK Eurovision heats, and he asked her to sing on his track. Jessica then found herself in the readio heat of the Song For Europe competition just a week later with the ballad "Come Back", and made it through to the final, where she beat off stiff competition from Heartbeat's Tricia Penrose, singing a euro-pop ditty, and Alistair Griffin who would go on to compete in Fame Academy a few years later.

This meant that Jessica went on to fly the flag for Britain at the Eurovision Song Contest in Tallin in May 2002, but she was drawn the "position of death" - 2nd, a position that Gina G, and most recently Javine have unluckily sang from. No song has ever won from that position, and the odds were stacked against Jessica, but she went on to come a respectable joint third with host nation Estonia after a great performance, with only Malta in 2nd and Latvia in 1st ahead of her. Jessica is the only top 10 appearance for the UK since 1998!

Since Eurovision, things have been quiet for Jessica, at least on the music side. She has appeared on various Eurovision TV shows including "The Weakest Link Eurovision Special", and has been one of the voting announcers in A Song For Europe. She has been recording material for the past few years, and time will tell if we get to hear any of it.

"Whatever" was featured on the "Come Back" single, which reached #13 in May 2002, which to date is her only chart appearance...

Amanda - Can't Stop My Love

2005-07-31T20:10:00.000+02:00

Amanda was one of the many female solo singers launched in the US in the early part of the decade, during the teen-pop boom, to try to steal some of the limelight from Britney, Christina and the others. She was born in France but grew up in Taby, Sweden, where she caught the eye of some record producers whilst in a talent show. She was then signed to Madonna's Maverick label in 2000, the first female pop singer on their roster (well apart from Madonna herself!)

She featured on the "Rugrats In Paris" soundtrack, with "You Don't Stand A Chance", and her next single "Everybody Doesn't" was released in April 2001, followed by the album of the same name in June. "Everybody Doesn't" incidentally was covered by Thai popstrel Tata Young on her "I Believe" album..

Sadly, the album was not a commercial success, and like many of the other US popstars, she never made it to a second album, although her album was released in Japan! (They get everything over there!)

"Can't Stop My Love" was geared up to be the second single release from the album, but got cancelled. The track is written and produced by BAG and Arnthor of the Murlyn stable who have also worked with Samantha Mumba and Precious in the past. It's a rather good slice of teen-pop, and could easily have been recorded by Jessica Simpson and the like. Since then, all has been quiet on the Amanda front, but strangely, her official website is still up and running on Maverick Records website...

Mariah Carey - Weakness Of The Body

2005-07-29T23:15:00.000+02:00

A bit of a rare one for you today. I'm not going to bore you with a bio on Mariah as everyone knows who she is, and to celebrate the fact that she is currently enjoying some of her biggest success of her career, both in the UK and abroad, I'm presenting a track from the very beginning of her career.

Way before Mariah even had a deal, she sang on the demo for this track back in 1986. Originally supposed to be recorded by 80s popstar Brenda K. Starr, for whom Mariah had sang backing vocals for (and also covered one of her tracks "I Still Believe"), the song was eventually recorded by Judy Torres. The track is very typical US dance/pop of the 80s, often called Freestyle, and it's very similar to the style of bands like Exposé, who were one of the biggest bands of that genre.

It's interesting to hear how Mariah's voice evolved over the years, there are parts where you can really tell that it's her singing (especially some of the ad-libs, and the talking in the middle 8), but there are other parts where she soulds totally different. It's also funny to hear Mariah singing something other than the R'n'B she does these days, and it harks back to the more "pop" feel of her first few albums...

Nina & Kim - Universe Of Love

2005-07-27T20:15:00.000+02:00

Nina Inhammar and Kim Kärnfalk first came together back in 1999 when they became members of the band Friends along with 3 guys in a Swedish reality-TV show a bit like Popstars. The band were so popular that they went on to represent Sweden in Eurovision in 2001 with "Listen To Your Heartbeat", coming 6th. The band continued to be fairly popular for a few years until they split in 2002.

However by this time Nina & Kim were very close friends and rather than try to have a solo career, they decided to stay together and become a duo. Known simply as Nina & Kim, the girls released their first single "Om Du Stannat Hos Mig" in October 2003, which shot straight to #1! They then competed in Melodifestivalen with "En Gång För Alla" in February 2004, but alas, didn't make it through the heats, but their second single "Bortom Tid Och Rum", which included their Melodifestivalen track, got to #2 in March 2004, and their album "En Annan Tid" performed well, reaching #12 soon afterwards.

The girls final release from the album was a AA-side of "Hallå Hela Pressen" a famous old Melodifestivalen track from 1982, and their first English track "Universe of Love", which did well to reach #14 in a land where later singles never do too well on the charts. The brave move of going solo seems to have paid off for the girls as they are now more successful than they were whilst in Friends!

Since their last single the girls have been rather quiet, but we should hopefully hear something more from them soon...

"Universe Of Love" is in fact an English version of their second (and best) hit "Bortom Tid Och Rum" (which translates as "Beyond Time And Space". The track was the official anthem for Stockholm Pride 2004 (previous official songs include Alcazar and Shirley Clamp) and the video (view it here) for the track is rather funny and features the girls looking gorgeous, and a rather interesting wedding taking place!

Alsou - Let It Be Me

2005-07-26T20:40:00.000+02:00

The absolutely gorgeous Alsou Safina Tenisheva (her name means "Rose Water") was born on the 27th June 1983 in Bugalma, Eastern Russia, but moved to London when she was 12. She is a big star in her homeland, so big in fact that she is arguably the biggest music act in Russia, selling loads of albums.

She represented Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest in Stockholm in 2000, where she came an impressive 2nd with her Britney-style stomper "Solo", which was her first English release, after releasing a couple of Russian language albums in Russia. The song became a hit all over Europe, and is the biggest selling single ever in Russia. This was followed by a duet with Enrique Iglesias, "You're My #1", neither of which were released in the UK.

So far, she has had one solitary UK Top 40 hit with "Before You Love Me", which got to #27 in May 2001, despite getting #1 on the Daily MTV chart shown with it's Matrix-style video. A second single produced by one half of the Artful Dodger "He Loves Me", was promoed but eventually canned, and the album "Alsou" never got a release outside of Russia and the Far East.

Since then, Alsou concentrated on releasing music in Russia with continued success, but has recorded another English language album, which is supposed to be out sometime later this year. A single "Always On My Mind", was promoed but not released, and she has worked with Nelly on the album. She is also starring in a Brit horror flick "The Spirit Trap" with Billie Piper, which is due for release in the UK on August 12th.

"Let It Be Me", is taken from her aforementioned English language debut, and was written by Jorgen Elofsson and Kara DioGuardi, who have both written many other tracks from such artists as Britney, Kylie (Spinning Around) and more recently, Ashlee Simpson. 2005 certainly looks to be a busy year for the young Russian...

Lara Fabian - No Big Deal

2005-07-25T19:50:00.000+02:00

Something slightly slower for you today, just to show that I can love a ballad too!

Lara Fabian was born on January 9, 1970 in Etterbeek, near Brussels in Belgium. She first appeared on our TV screens in 1988, when she represented Luxembourg at the Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Croire", coming a respectable 4th, the year Céline Dion won for Switzerland. This paved the way for her to release her debut album "Lara Fabian" in 1991 which went on to sell over 100,000 copies around the world, and was followed by successes with other French language albums including "Carpe Diem" in 1994, "Pure" in 1997, "Nue" in 2001 and "En Toute Intimité" in 2003. Her latest French release "9" (as it is her 9th French album release including a few live albums) was released earlier this year.

Lara was also the voice of Esmerelda in the French version of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", and her song even appeared on the English language version of the soundtrack, and she also appeared on the soundtracks for other films such as "De-Lovely" and "AI: Artificial Intellegence".

Lara continues to be popular all over the French language world, and has her own wax model in the Grévin Wax Museum, and was also named "Revalation Of The Year" by Paris Match magazine in 1998.

With having such massive success, Lara signed a recording contract with Sony in 2000, and started recording her debut English language album. Released in 2000, "Lara Fabian" was another success and Lara had hits with "I Will Love Again" (written by the same guys as Cher's "Believe") and "I Am Who I Am". "I Will Love Again" was even released in the UK, but with poor promotion, it could only get to #63 in October 2000.

Lara's second English album "A Wonderful Life" was released in 2004, and the lead single from the album was "No Big Deal" and it was co-written by Lara herself and Gary Barlow of Take That fame. It's very typical of Lara in style, and the album went on to be another success for her.

Lara may not be as well known as Céline in the English language world, but over in France and Canada, her star burns just as bright...

Shirley Clamp - Min Kärlek

2005-07-24T21:55:00.000+02:00

Shirley Natasja Clamp comes from the poptastic land of Sweden, or Sverige as it's known to Swedes (Jag lärar mig Svenska!) She was born in 1973 in Stockholm. She started out singing backing vocals for Swedish acts such as Ace Of Base and A-Teens, and she sang backing vocals for in Eurovision 2001 for Greece with Antique and "Die For You" which came third.

Shirley branched out on her own and competed in one of the semi-finals in the Swedish heat of the Eurovision Song Contest national finals, known as Melodifestivalen in 2003, with "Mr Memory". She only came 7th and so didn't qualify for the final, but this didn't stop her trying again in 2004.

Singing in Swedish this time with "Min Kärlek" (pronounced Shar-lek) which means "My Love", she finished 4th in her heat which meant yet again, she hadn't qualified for the final. However she did make the "Second Chance" round which was for the songs which had finished 3rd and 4th in their heats, in which she came second, which meant she had made the Melodifestivalen final! On the night, Shirley came from nowhere and came second, behind Lena Philippson with "Det Gör Ont".

With the release of her album "Den Långsamma Blomman" not long after the contest, which included the 2 Melodifestivalen tracks (albeit "Mr Memory" in it's Swedish version "Äntligen") plus the singles "Jag Fick Låna en Ängel", "Eviga Längtan" and "För Den Som Älskar", she spent the majority of the year in the Swedish charts, ending with a dance cover of "Do They Know It's Christmas" which was miles better than the Band Aid 20 effort! Fred Bronson of Billboard, even called Shirley's album the best of 2004!

Shirley competed in Melodifestivalen again in February this year with the track "Att Älska Dig" ("To Love You"), which came 4th, and her second album "Lever Mina Drömmar" was released in April.

"Min Kärlek" means "My Love" and was one of the biggest hits of the Summer in Sweden last year, spending months in the chart, and was nominated at for an award at the Swedish Grammis. In case you are not fluent in Swedish, you can follow the lyrics of "Min Kärlek" at this website, which also has loads of info on every Melodifestivalen ever, if you like that sort of thing...

Tata Young - Sexy, Naughty, Bitchy

2005-07-23T11:45:00.000+02:00

Tata Young (real name Amita Marie Young) was born on the 14th December 1980 in Thailand and is one of Thailand's biggest pop sensations over the past few years. With a Thai mother and American father, she has been recording music in the Thai language since 1994, and has now released 10 albums! She has also won numerous music awards over the years, including the Thai Music Organisation's best singer in 1999, and was named as one of Thailands 10 most influential people by Elle Magazine.

Tata released her first English language album "I Believe" in 2004, which she recorded mostly in Sweden with a number of well known producers and writers such as Martin Ankelius and Aleena. Some of the tracks had previously been recorded by other artists, such as "I Believe" which was originally sung by Carola, (which I posted last week on the blog), "Cinderella" which has been recorded by a few other artists including i5 and Play, and "Everybody Doesn't", originally by US singer Amanda.

The album was a massive success all over the far east, and spawned 3 hit singles - "Cinderella", "I Believe", and "Sexy, Naughty, Bitchy", which was the first single off the album. She also sang the English version of "Dhoom Dhoom" the title track to the Bollywood film Dhoom in 2004, which saw Bollywood crossed with Hollywood in a film about motorcycle robbery!

"Sexy, Naughty, Bitchy" is a fun pop song with great lyrics, and is a track I could have seen Britney sing back in the day. Ironically Tata herself seems a very sweet girl, and the lyrics are probably suited to a few other female singers I daren't mention! The track was co-written by Savan Kotecha, who used to be a regular on the Popjustice messageboard, and has co-written various other tracks for the likes of Holly Valance Geri Halliwell and Dannii Minogue! Tata hasn't yet started her assault on Europe yet, but as there are a lack of Asian artists over here, she'd be a refreshing change!

Kakko - We Should Be Dancing

2005-07-22T17:50:00.000+02:00

Kakko (real name Anju Suzuki) was born in Japan in 1969 and is one of Stock/Aitken/Waterman's most infamous acts. She started off as a tea-girl for the PWL studios, like Rick Astley, and eventually she got a record contract. S/A/W wanted a Japanese act to have success in Japan, but it didn't quite go the way they planned...

She released 2 singles in 1990, "We Should Be Dancing" which was written and produced by S/A/W, and "What Kind Of Fool" which was from the PWL stable of Harding/Cunrow/Clift.

"We Should Be Dancing" hit the dizzy heights of #101 in February 1990. S/A/W called it one of the biggest mistakes they ever made, and some S/A/W fans have called it the worst S/A/W song ever. (A Bit harsh in my opinion!) Even so, it's one of the rarest S/A/W CD singles, and has been known to go for three figures on Ebay. Rumour has it that Kakko couldn't pronounce the letter "R" properly, and Mike Stock had a hell of a time trying to figure out lyrics that didn't feature the "R" sound prominently!

Somehow, she managed to get a second single "What Kind Of Fool" (no, not the Kylie song) which was written and produced by Harding/Cunrow/Clift, who at the time worked at the PWL studios. The song didn't chart. And that was it for dear Kakko...

Apparently, locked away in the vaults of PWL HQ is about half an album's worth of unreleased Kakko songs that will never see the light of day. Whether you think that's a good or a bad thing is your opinion!

These days, Kakko goes by her real name and she has done a lot better over in her native Japan, and is a popular TV actress, and has appeared in lots of dramas. She even appeared on the Japanese version of "This Is Your Life", on which Pete Waterman even appeared!

"We Should Be Dancing" was released in February 1990, and I can still remember her performing it on TV-AM all those years ago. I still can't work out what the hell she is singing though...

Kerri Ann - Irreplaceable

2005-07-21T10:00:00.000+02:00

Irish girl Kerri Ann was born in 1978 and comes from Dublin. She was fairly well known in Ireland for a short period of time, and had a brief pop career which spanned 2 singles in 1998. She was managed by Louis Walsh, of Boyzone and Girls Aloud fame.

Her debut single was the salsa-tinged "Do You Love Me Boy?" (written by the same guy who wrote "Ooh Ahh...Just A Little Bit" for Gina G), and it reached an impressive #2 in Ireland, but it could only stall at #58 in the UK when it was released in August 1998. Her second single "Irreplaceable" went one better in her homeland and went all the way to #1 - but after being delayed a few times, the single was never released in the UK, though it did chart on import, reaching #163(!) in November 1998. Despite having hits in Ireland, Kerri Ann was dropped by her UK-based record company, and never got to release an album...

In 1999, Kerri Ann was in the British press in a story in which she was apparently set to marry Boyzone singer Stephen Gately - but we all know this was a complete hoax, and as both parties had the same manager, it looked a bit suspect. At one time, she was also in the running to be a presenter on The Big Breakfast, but nothing came of that either. Since then, info on Kerri Ann has been a little bit thin on the ground, but I'm sure she's out there somewhere...

Irreplaceable was produced by Mike Stock and Matt Aitken (them again!), and it wouldn't sound out of place on a Louise album. Kerri Ann also recorded a couple of other unreleased tracks with Stock/Aitken - the fab "It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This" which was played on LBC Radio a few years back, and "That's For Sure" which went on to be recorded by Scooch in 2000!

Puff Johnson - Over And Over

2005-07-20T20:45:00.000+02:00

Puff was born in 1975 and hails from Detroit in the USA. She had a relatively short musical career, cumulating with one album release "Miracle" which was released in the US in 1996, and the UK in 1997. She had 2 top 40 singles in the UK from the album "Over And Over" (#20) in Jan 1997 and "Forever More" in April 1997. A third single "All Over Your Face" was released in the US only.

Since then, Puff has disappeared from the public view and has not released any other material, despite the album being well received in the US. I've not been able to find out anything else about her, apart from the details on her official website which hasn't been updated in 8 years and now looks ancient!

"Over And Over" was taken from the soundtrack to the film "The First Wives Club" which starred Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn and Diane Keaton, and appears on the end credits. It was added to the UK release of the album, and does not appear on the US version. The version of the song I have posted here is the one taken from the soundtrack, and not the version which was on the single and her album. The only difference is that the soundtrack version is about a minute longer and has a proper ending, unlike the shorter version which fades out, a bit like Puff herself...

West End - It's Raining Men

2005-07-19T13:00:00.000+02:00

West End were another 90s girl group and consisted of Dawn, Sheryl and Lorraine. They have one appearance in the top 75, when "Love Rules" made #44 in August 1995. The track was a dance track sampling the speech made by King George VIII in 1936 when he abdicated the throne to marry Wallis Simpson.

After this, the girls appeared on the 1995 charity single "The Gift Of Christmas" alongside some 90s popstars such as Dannii Minogue, Deuce and Michelle Gayle! The track made #9 in December 1995. The girls then returned the following year with a cover of the Weather Girls "It's Raining Men". Unfortunately the single was never released in the UK, despite a video being made, and being shown on cable music channel The Box reguarly. I even saw it a good few years afterwards! After this, the girls split, though I have a suspicion that a few of them have sang on other records, but I haven't been able to find anything out. Incidentally, the girls are not the same West End who appeared on "The Love I Lost" featuring Sybil, who were not even a group, and were just a fictional band!

The version of "It's Raining Men" I have posted is the Extended Radio Mix, which was supposed to appear on one of the CD singles. It was produced by Mike Stock and Matt Aitken of SAW fame, and is a pretty good version of the track, I even think it's better than Geri's attempt a few years later. There was also a Motiv8 mix, which is amazing! Yet another girl group consigned to history, but I'm glad they gave us this little gem!

Jennifer Paige - Make Me

2005-07-18T21:30:00.000+02:00

Jennifer Paige was born in Atlanta in 1973, and first burst on to the Pop Scene in 1998, when she released the classic "Crush" which got to #4 in September 1998. Taken from her eponymous debut album, (which peaked at #67) she also released the singles "Sober" (#68) in March 1999 and "Always You" (#97) in August 1999, neither of which were promoted very well, resulting in poor chart performances. She also sang "Beautiful", which was the theme from the Winona Ryder/Richard Gere movie "Autumn In New York" in 2000.

After taking a break from the music scene, her next album "Positively Somewhere" was released in the US in September 2001, and in the UK in September the following year. The lead single in the US was "These Days" which had previously been sung by those Aussie Popstars Bardot on their debut album, and had been released as a single in Australia. For the UK release, the record company chose "Stranded" in August 2002, which had terrible promotion, and could only get to #85. No more singles were released from the album.

Although she has parted company with her record label Hollywood Records, she is currently recording her third album, and Hollywood Records recently released "Flowers: The Hits Collection" in some territories, which features all her singles, some album tracks, and some previously unreleased tracks, as well as a DVD with all her videos. Check out her official website, where she has posted clips of some new songs she has been working on.

"Make Me" is taken from "Positively Somewhere", and was written by Andy Goldmark and Mark Mueller, the same team who wrote "Crush". Originally recorded by girl group Solid HarmoniE (of "I Want You To Want Me" fame) for their unreleased second album, it was given to Jennifer when the group split up. Apparently, Jen was quite tipsy when she recorded this track, especially when she did the ad-libs at the end! Oh and in case you are wondering, the lyrics are "Let you in my private thoughts" and not something rather ruder, as I first thought...

Carola - I Believe In Love

2005-07-17T20:30:00.000+02:00

Carola Häggkvist is one of Sweden's biggest popstars, and has been recording music for over 20 years. Born on tht 8th September 1966 in Stockholm, she took her first step on the road to stardom when she won Melodifestivalen, the Swedish selection for their Eurovision song entry in 1983 at just 16 years old with the song "Främling" (Stranger) and consequently went on to represent Sweden in that year's Eurovision in Munich, coming a respectable third. After that she released her debut album, also called "Främling", ehich went on to sell half a million copies in Sweden and to this day holds the record for the biggest selling album ever in Sweden!

Carola continued to release albums over the following years including "Runaway" in 1986, which was her first foray into the English language and was produced by the Bee Gees.

After a four year break, Carola then tried her luck in Melodifestivalen again in 1990, but could only come second with "Mitt I En Äventyr" ("In The Middle Of An Adventure"), but her biggest success was to come in 1991 when she won Melodifestivalen for the second time with "Fångad Av En Stormvind" ("Captured By A Lovestorm") and then won the Eurovision in Rome after a close contest with the French entry which received the same number of points, but Carola won as she had received more higher marks. Carola was now established as a massive star in Sweden and continued to release albums over the following years includong a gospel album "My Tribute" in 1994, and a Christmas album "Jul I Bethlehem" ("Christmas In Bethlehem") which is still a big seller in Sweden every Christmas. She returned to pop music in 2001, with the English language album "My Show", and celebrated her 20th Anniversary in music with the release of her greatest Hits album "Gold, Platina och Passion" in 2003. In May this year, her newest album "Störst Av Allt" ("Biggest Of All") was released, and once again was another big hit. Carola today is still a massive star in Sweden and with her albums covering a vast range of styles from pop to rock to gospel to hymns, and even children's songs she is also one of the most versatile.

"I Believe In Love" is taken from her 2001 album "My Show", and is probably one of her most poppiest tracks she has ever recorded. It reached #13 in the Swedish top 60 in May 2002. Since then her style has changed again, but this is a pretty good represenative of Swedish pop. The song has also recently been covered by Thai singer Tata Young, and it sounds as if she has used the same backing track as Carola's version!

Benefit - What's It Gonna Be

2005-07-16T12:45:00.000+02:00

Benefit are Lucy Harrison and Judy Hulme who live together in a flat in Camden, London. Born in 1979, they have been friends since the age of 10, and went to the same performing arts school together.

The girls haven't had any chart success in the UK, but their first single, "Sex Sells" was released in the Lebanon in 2002, and spent 6 weeks at #1. The follow up single "What's It Gonna Be" achieved the same feat later that year. On top of this, the girls performed at a few music festivals in the Middle East, and they have the distinction of being the first western group to ever perform live in Syria.

The girls had problems with their UK record company Edel. Both singles were promoed in the UK, but neither got a proper release. I did however manage to pick up a copy of "What's It Gonna Be" online. Their album was also due to be released in the Middle East, but I haven't been able to locate it anywhere.

"What's It Gonna Be" is a Latino-tinged track, which reminds me a little of something that Geri Halliwell would do. Shame the girls never got the proper chance to try to repeat their foreign success in their homeland...

Paperdolls - Gonna Make You Blush

2005-07-15T19:15:00.000+02:00

It's girl group time again, and this next band released their only single in 1998. Consisting of Lucy Pargeter, Debbie Cresswell and Hollie Johnson (!), "Gonna Make You Blush" was written by Steelworks (Eliot Kennedy, Mike Percy and Tim Lever) and the girls themselves, and is a pretty good slice of disco-pop. Unfortunately, the single flopped, peaking at #65 in September 1998. Such a shame, as of the 4 tracks I heard from them, they sounded quite promising. The girls had also toured as a support act for Boyzone, but it was to no avail and after a couple of years together, the band split.

I'm sure some of you have heard of the group before, but what a lot of you probably don't know is that apart from never having a top 40 hit, Paperdolls have something else in common with Milan, one of them later went on to become a soap star. Lucy from the band now plays Chastity Dingle in Emmerdale, and she has just had a baby girl!

Danni'elle Gaha - Secret Love

2005-07-14T22:00:00.000+02:00

Danni'elle Gaha was born in 1967 and hails from Sydney, Australia. In her youth she appeared on TV shows "Star Search" and "Hey, Hey, It's Saturday" in the 80s, before tasting chart success when she duetted with John Farnham on "Communication" in 1989, which was a hit in her homeland.

She also sang backing vocals for Jason Donovan on his "Doin' Fine" tour in 1990, duetting with him on "Especially For You" each night.

This attention won herself a solo deal with Epic Records a few years later, and her debut single "Stuck in The Middle" (#68) was released in August 1992. This was followed by "Do It For Love" (#52) in February 1993 and "Secret Love" (#41) in June of the same year. Due to the disappointing performances of these singles, an album was never released, although the singles did fare a little better on the dance charts.

Danni'elle was also part of a duo in 1995 called The Nissan Cedrics along with Louise Anton. They were the house band on an Australian TV variety show, called "Club Buggery" (oo-er!) and they released an album of cover versions in 1997, called "Going For A Song".

Her second single "Do it For Love" was later covered by Australian Popstars Bardot in 2000 appearing as a B-side to their debut single "Poison".

In 2002, Dannielle (without the apostrophe) finally released her debut solo album in Australia. Called "You Don't Know Me", it was a departure from her previous style of dance/pop - an album of jazz standards, which won critical acclaim. She has also recently duetted and toured with John Farnham.

"Secret Love" was released in June 1993, and peaked agonisingly one place short of the Top 40, however it was a bigger hit on the club charts thanks to some Joey Negro mixes. The song nevertheless has the distinction of being chosen as one of Martine McCutcheon's top 10 records of all time, in an interview in Top of The Pops Magazine in 1996...

Milan - Lead Me On

2005-07-13T22:05:00.000+02:00

Way back in 1993, there were very few girl groups around. The Spice Girls were a few years off, and Eternal were just beginning. Milan were a 3 strong group consisting of Dionne, Martine and Claudia. Signed to Polydor in 1992, their debut single was a cover of the Rose Royce classic "Is It Love Your After?", which was followed in 1993 by "Affectionately Mine" and "Everytime". None of these singles set the charts alight, but Polydor stuck by the band and released another single in 1994 - "Lead Me On". When this fell short of the top 40 - the girls decided to call it a day, and went their seperate ways.

I'm not sure what happened to Dionne and Claudia, but we all know what happened to Martine. She went on to play Tiffany in Eastenders in 1995 and had a fairly successful stab at a solo pop career, with the #1 "Perfect Moment" in 1999 and had 4 other top 10 singles including "I've Got You" and "I'm Over You", and released 3 albums. She also went on to play opposite Hugh Grant in the smash hit film "Love Actually".

"Lead Me On" reached #82 in June 1994 and features Martine on lead vocals. The track was co-written by John Reid (of the Nightcrawlers fame), Ian Levine, and Nigel Stock, both whom have written for loads of other artists over the years. The track only got to #82 in Milan might not have set the charts alight, but at least it was the springboard for Martine's success...

Hooverphonic - The World Is Mine

2005-07-12T21:30:00.000+02:00

Something a little bit different for you today, showing another side to my tastes. I don’t just like trashy pop…

Hooverphonic come from Belgium and are fronted by singer Geike Arnaert. (The G is pronounced like the "ch" in the Scottish word "loch"). The band have been going since 1997, since when they have released 5 albums: “A New Sound Spectacular” (1997), “Blue White Power Milk” (1998), “The Magnificent Tree” (2000), “Hooverphonic Presents Jackie Cane” (2002) and “Sit Down And Listen To Hooverphonic” (2003). Geike joined the band in 1998, replacing former lead singer Liesje Sadonius, who handled the vocals on the band's debut album.

Originally a trip-hop/ambient band, with comparisons made with Portishead and Australian band Single Gun Theory, they made it big in their home country and had some success in parts of Europe and the US with their successive releases. With the release of their fourth album “Jackie Cane”, the band embarked on a different style of music, with some controversy, which lost them some fans but gained others. "Jackie Cane" is a "pop musical" as the band call it, and tells the story from start to finish of the life of lounge singer Jackie Cane as she is catapulted from obscurity to stardom, and back down again, expanding from a song of the same title from their previous album.

“The World Is Mine” was the first single lifted from the album, and is from the part in Jackie’s life when she is famous and happy, (but of course this doesn't last forever). Some of you may recognise the song as the theme tune to Sky One’s drama “Mile High”, about flight attendants, which is where I first heard of the band. The song fits the TV show perfectly: both are bold, brassy, camp, and both put a smile on my face…

Bianca Kinane - The Woman In Me

2005-07-11T22:05:00.000+02:00

Bianca Kinane hails from Tipperary in Ireland, and got her first shot of fame in 1995 at the age of 17, when she appeared on TV show "Stars In Your Eyes" as Mariah Carey, singing Hero. She won her heat and got through to the final, but despite not winning, she caught the attention of Pete Waterman and was signed to Coliseum Recordings and began work on her debut album.

She released 2 singles, "All The Lover I Need"(#59 in May 1996) and "The Woman In Me" (#73 in Sept 1996) Both were minor chart hits, and despite a promo sampler featuring another 3 tracks, including "On The WIngs Of Love", which was later a B-Side for Westlife, but Bianca's album never materialised.

Jump forward a few years to 1998 and Bianca was back with a new record label, Coalition, a new style, haircut and name, and was now known as Kinane. She released 3 singles "Business" (#97 in Feb 1998) "Heaven" (#49 in May 1998) and "So Fine" (#63 in Aug 1998) and another promo sampler was released, but it was second time unlucky for her, and she never got to release an album. I did however manage to see her do a PA in a Glasgow club around the time of "So Fine" and I managed to meet her and she was lovely, and she sent me a signed photo a few weeks later! Bianca featured on another dance track "Talk 2 Me" by K-Klass in 2002, but since then she has been rather quiet.

"The Woman In Me" was written and produced by Mark Topham and Karl Twigg, who have written for many other artists such as Steps, Tina Cousins and Solid HarmoniE, and sounds very 90s style Stock/Aitken/Waterman in style, and ironically with shades of "Emotions" by Mariah Carey.

Roser - Don't Come Back

2005-07-10T22:15:00.000+02:00

Roser Murillo was born on the 9th May 1979 and comes from Barcelona, Spain, where she was first noticed in the Spanish version of the Popstars show. She made the final 10, but quit when she was offered a solo deal, the cheeky thing. She released her first album "Desperté" in 2003. Whilst the eventual girl band formed from the Popstars show, Bellepop, split after just one album, Roser released her second album "Fuego" in 2004. Roser is fairly big on the Spanish gay scene and has had hits called "No Vuelvas" ("No Return"), "Quiero Besarte"("I Want To Kiss You"), "Dueña De Mi Corazon"("Owner Of My Heart") from her first album, and "Fuego" ("Fire"), "Boca A Boca" ("Mouth To Mouth"), and "La Trampa", which despite it's title is not a ditty about a tramp, but a man trap (oo-er!)

Roser's musical style is best described as pop/dance with more than a dash of gayness and a hint of the 80s. The featured track "Don't Come Back", is an English version of her first hit "No Vuelvas", and I discovered this track whilst dancing in a bar in Barcelona. Funny where you discover new music...

Gina G - Tease

2005-07-09T13:25:00.000+02:00

Gina Mary Gardener will forever be known as the girl who sang "Ooh Ahh...Just A Little Bit" for the UK at Eurovision 1996, it became one of the most successful Eurovision songs ever.

Gina was born on the 3rd August 1970 in Queensland, Australia, and whilst working as a DJ in her homeland, she had a hit in Oz with "Love The Life" by fronting dance act Bass Culture. The track was often played in the coffee shop in Neighbours, but it wasn't until she moved to the UK where her career really took off.

After recording some demos in London, she found herself chosen as one of the final 8 for the Great British Song Contest in 1996, by Jonathan King, who was trying to bring Eurovision up to date in the UK. The final had a wide variety of songs, but but was Gina with her Europop stomper with an instantly recognisable intro that won through to represent the UK in Oslo that May.

Despite being the pre-contest favourite, Gina could only come 8th in the end, and was hampered by the orchestra and jury voting. Some say that if televoting was used that year, she may well have gone on to win it. Nevertheless, "Ooh Ahh!" reached #1 the following week and it paved the way for 5 other chart hits - "I Belong To You" (#6), "Fresh" (#6), "Ti Amo" (#11), "Gimme Some Love" (#25) and "Everytime I Fall" (#52), plus the album "Fresh!" (#12) with its infamous cover of Gina dressed in nothing but chocolate body paint, with thr album launch party held in G-A-Y (surpisingly!) She also won the Boyz award as Best PA for 2 years running. She also had a sizeable hit in the US, reaching reached #12, making it one of the biggest Eurovision songs ever over there, and her album was released too.

After this Gina disappeared from the music scene for a number of years, largely due to contract problems, meaning she was unable to release anything for a long period of time.

After a few years away, Gina participated in the TV reality show "Reborn In The USA" in 2003, and sang guest vocals on 2 tracks on dance act Soda Club's album, but the first signs of new material from her surfaced in late 2003 when a track "Heaven" credited to Elemental feat Gina G was promoed around. After marrying her boyfriend Charlie, and having a son Dylan in early 2004, Gina then tried to recapture her Eurovision glory when she participated in "Making Your Mind Up" in March 2005 with "Flashback", but she could not repeat her success.

Gina's sophomore album was finally released via her website in June 2005. "Get Up & Dance" features tracks she has recorded over the years since her last album, and has a variety of styles from her signature dance sound to ballads and poppy numbers.

"Tease" is taken from "Get Up & Dance" and was co-written by Gina, like the majority of tracks on her new album. It is a departure from her trademark dance sound, and combines a bit of pop with R&B. It's one of those songs to get down and dirty to! Gina is still a bit of a gay icon, and that status will probably stay with her for a long time!

Girl Thing - Sometimes You Hit, Sometimes You Miss

2005-07-08T23:15:00.000+02:00

We all know the sad story of the failure of Girl Thing, the 5 piece girl group who burst onto the pop scene in the summer of 2000, a year in which countless girl bands emerged hoping to steal the crown of the UK's biggest girl band from the Spice Girls.

With the girls managed by Simon Cowell and hit producers Absolute, Steelworks and Stargate on board, success looked likely, especially when the girls managed to blag the cover of an issue of Smash Hits before their debut single was even released. However when said single "Last One Standing" was released in July 2000, it could only reach #8, despite having a wacky video in a church, which itself was reminiscent of the Spice Girls' "Wannabe". This was where Girl Thing's problem lay. People kept comparing them to the Spice Girls. True their music was similar and they were aiming for the same market, but the public didn't really give them a fair chance and they had practically written them off before they had even begun.

When their second single "Girls On Top" which was arguably better than their debut could only stumble to #25 in November 2000, the writing was on the wall for the girls.

Despite appearing at The Smash Hits Roadshow in December of 2000, claiming that their third single "So You Wanna Have Sex" (an ode to keeping your knickers on), would be released in early 2001, it never materialised, and the girls never released another single in the UK.

They managed to have a little success in Australia, where a third single "Young, Free And Happy" was released in early 2001 along with their self-titled debut album, which was also released in the Far East and Japan (where practically everything gets released!) The album itself is a rather solid piece of pop. Some of the tracks stray dangerously close to Spice Girls territory, but on the whole there are a number of strong tracks! As far as I ama aware "So You Wanna Have Sex" has never been released, it was not on the album released in the Far East, probably due to the nature of the song.

When Hear'say hit #1 in March 2001, it became news that "Pure And Simple" which appears on their album, was originally recorded by Girl Thing and it had been earmarked as a single. In my opinion, Girl Thing's version was better than Hear'say's and the girls were understandably not happy when the song was given to someone else. This was the final nail in the coffin for Girl Thing. So much was expected of them and this was partly their downfall. It would be a tall order for ANY group to live up to the name of the mighty Spice Girls. Countless other girl groups launched in 2000 failed too, and noticeably the number of girl groups launched in the few years following were considerably fewer.

Since the disappearance of Girl Thing, a few of the other tracks on their album have turned up on other artists' albums: "From All Of Us" was covered by S Club Juniors on their "Together" album, with different lyrics and retitled "You Are The One",and "Last Goodbye" was covered by another failed band, Irish Popstars Six on their debut album. Neither are as good as the original.

Sometimes You Hit, Sometimes You Miss was written and produced by Norwegian hitmakers Stargate, and the title of the song is quite apt in the pop world. Sometimes you get it right, and sometimes you really do miss the mark by miles...

Bananarama - Love, Leave, Forget

2005-07-07T20:05:00.000+02:00

Bananarama hardly need an introduction. As one of the biggest British girl-groups ever, they have been recording for almost 25 years. Their biography alone could take up pages and pages, but here is a brief summary of their career.

Originally consisting of friends Siobhan Fahey, Sarah Dallin and Keren Woodward, they first burst onto the charts with the Fun Boy Three with "It Ain't What You Do It's The Way That You Do It" in 1982 and over the years the girls have provided us with classics such as "Cruel Summer", "Robert De Niro's Waiting" and the Stock/Aitken/Waterman classics of "Venus" (a US #1) and "Love In The First Degree" to name a few. Siobhan left the band in 1988 to be replaced for a short while by Jacqui O'Sullivan, who left the band herself in 1991, leaving Bananarama as a duo of Keren and Sarah.

The girls last release in the UK was in 1993 with the album "Please Yourself" which contained the original version of the Steps hit "Last Thing On My Mind", but the album didn't sell too well, and the girls parted ways with London Records. Despite losing their record deal, the girls released 2 further albums "Ultra Violet" (1995) and "Exotica" (2001) in Europe and Japan, to some success.

Now it's 2005 and the girls are finally releasing material in their homeland, with the single "Move In My Direction", a fine piece of pop, released later this month in the UK. Time will tell if the girls, both now in their early 40s, can capture any of the success they enjoyed back in the 80s. They're still looking rather good for their age!

"Love, Leave, Forget" was the theme tune to Sky One's holiday rep drama "Is Harry On The Boat" back in 2002. Credited to Multitude starring Bananarama, the track was written and produced by Ian Masterton, who has worked with Dannii Minogue amongst others, with the track appeared on the compilation album for the show.

Welcome to Girls On Pop!

2005-07-07T20:00:00.000+02:00

Hello everyone! I'm back! After an attempt to start an mp3 blog back in January, my efforts sadly fell by the wayside due to other commitments, but now I have more time on my hands, I am detetmined to give it my best shot this time!

Pop music is done best by girls. End of. This blog is for me to share some of my favourite tracks from my collection with you for a limited period of time. Downloads are valid for about 2 weeks, as they are now posted on my own webspace, but you'll still have to be quick! (Although if you miss a track, let me know and I might repost it) With each post, I will try to give you a little bit of info about the artist themselves. Some of the artists you may already know very well, others you won't - but they will all have a few things in common - great pop from great female artists from all over the world!

I hope you enjoy my postings, and please feel free to drop me an email or post a comment on the board about any of the tracks or artists concerned. I will also be reposting all the tracks which I posted to the board in it's first incarnation in January. I will try to post as often as I can, but you should expect at least a few per week.

To download a track, click on the title of the song and you will be taken to the URL. At the end of each post there are a few icons. The country flag is an obvious one: this is the country from which the artist comes from. Clicking on the CD icon will take you to a site selling the artist's CD from which the track comes from, if you would like to hear more of that artist. Also, clicking on the mouse icon will take you to the artist's official homepage, or the best fanpage I can find on the web, if they don't happen to have an official page.

So now the introductions are out of the way, let the posting begin!

Take care

Danniiboy
xxx

Paola & Chiara - Viva El Amor!

2005-01-29T18:50:00.000+01:00

Paola and Chiara Iezzi are 2 sisters from Milan, Italy and are one of Italy's biggest music stars. They got their first big break on San Remo, the popular Italian Music Festival, not unlike Eurovision, where they won the Newcomers Award in 1997 with their song "Amici Come Prima" ("Friends Like Before") which catapulted them on the road to stardom. Chiara is the blonde haired sister and was born on 27 February 1973 and her younger sister Paola was born on 30th March 1974.

To date the girls have released 5 albums in Italy: "Ci Chiamano Bambine" (1997), "Giornata Storica" (1998), "Television" (2000), "Festival" (2002) and "Blu" (2004) with a Greatest Hits released in 2005. Their music has ranged from rock to pop, and on their 2000 release "Television" the girls embraced pop and had hits with "Vamos A Bailar (Esta Vida Nueva) and "Viva El Amor!" which despite the title of the tracks being in Spanish, were sung in Italian. However, Spanish language versions of the tracks were also released in Spain, and there was also an English language version of the album released across Europe with the lyrics of "Vamos A Bailar" written by Spandau Ballet's Gary Kemp.

"Viva El Amor!" was written by Paola and Chiara themselves, and I have posted the English version for you to enjoy! The girls will be releasing their new album later this year, and is sure to meet with success in Italy once again...