Star Sparkle Blog

Time for another instalment in my Asian Groups series! Today I'm featuring Indonesian girl group no na . :)  Note: Currently, Indonesians are going through a difficult time, after the killing of a delivery driver led to protests in several cities , which have spread to some other South East Asian countries. Thinking of people in those countries. :)  They are a 4-member group and were formed by American record label and mass media company 88rising , with 3 of the members meeting at their 2022 Head in the Clouds festival in Jakarta in 2022 and the 4th joining later. Their name (which is written in lower case) comes from the Indonesian word "nona", which means "young lady" or "miss" in English.   no na joined several other Indonesian acts on 88rising, including Rich Brian ,  NIKI  and  Stephanie Poetri . The members are Christy (full name Denial Christian Gardena), Esther (Esther Geraldine Simanjuntak), Baila (Bailia Shaquanda Fauri) and Shaz (full name ...

We're moving into mid-August and late summer, so before the season is over, I'm sharing some summer themed songs/videos! :) I've written several summer themed posts over the years. Here are 2024's: Vibes for Your Summer!:  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2024/07/vibes-for-your-summer.html Island Vibes!:  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2024/08/island-vibes.html     Similarly to last year , I struggled a bit to think of a title for the post, lol. I've called this one Late Summer Vibes.    Afgan feat. Jessi- Escape In June 2024, Indonesian singer Afgan released the single Escape. It was the 1st single from Sonder, his 2nd English language mini album, which also came out in June. Escape was preceded by Shallow Water  (released in February 2024) and followed Criminal (Over You) featuring American singer  thủy  (released this January). For Escape, Afgan teamed up with South Korean based American rapper Jessi , whose 2017 single Down feature...

Sorry the 2nd post is later this week; I didn't manage to get it finished yesterday. :) I haven't done that many general dance videos posts (featuring more than one more genre) lately. My last one was Dance Videos- Couples' Edition 2! in May but apart from that, I haven't written a lot this year. So today I'm featuring a variety of videos from different genres. :)   [TPOP IN PUBLIC | ONE TAKE] FEAT- PIXIE | SINGAPORE DANCE COVER OPEROSE First up, some T-pop (Thai pop) in Public ! This is a dance cover of FEAT by Thai girl group PiXXie . It was released in May last year as a digital single. The cover is performed by OPEROSE. They are a dance cover crew from Singapore.  The video premiered in April and features MEGZ as Mabelz, JIAYI as Pimma and REENA as Inghko. It' s a one-take video, meaning it was filmed all in one go.       Watch the music video for FEAT here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FztEbqElt0 Follow OPEROSE/subscribe to their channel here: ht...

Here is another instalment of my Asian Groups series! Today I'm featuring Indian boyband  FIRST5 . :) They describe themselves as India's first next gen pop boy group ("next gen" meaning a new generation). They are like a male counterpart to W.i.S.H , India's first girl group in 22 years, who debuted last year. FIRST5 (also written as First5) was founded in 2023 by Indian singer/songwriter and content creator Aksh Baghla , who held online auditions on his  social media channels. The group consists of 4 members- Yoshi, Tan, Elton and Daksh. Aksh (who is from Himachal Pradesh) was originally part of the band (hence the name "FIRST5) but decided to take a backseat (due to investment and management challenges ) and take on a mentor/captain role for the others. The boys come from Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Assam and Uttar Pradesh but moved to Chandigarh to focus on the group. Inspired by international pop and K-pop in particular, FIRST5 started out by coverin...

Sorry the 2nd post is later this week; I didn't manage to get it finished yesterday. :)   It's been a while since I've done a New Music Releases post (apart from my New Music for 2025 posts at the beginning of the year, my last one was in December ). So here is some new music for spring (almost summer) 2025! :) LISA feat. Tyla- WHEN I'M WITH YOU First up, an Asian/African crossover! :) Thai rapper and singer LISA (member of Korean girl group BLACKPINK turned solo star) recently brought out the single WHEN I'M WITH YOU, a collab with South African singer Tyla .  LISA's full name is Lalisa Manobal (her birth name is Pranpriya Manobal; she  changed it to bring herself good luck ). She started her career becoming a trainee with YG Entertainment (one of South Korea's biggest entertainment companies) and debuted at a member of BLACKPINK in 2016. In September 2021, LISA made her solo debut with the single album Lalisa and single of the same name. The single albu...

Time for another instalment of my Asian Groups series! Today I'm featuring two Thai groups- girl group THX  and boyband/boy group NEVONE . :)   THX THX are an 8 member girl group from Thailand. Their name stands for "Together, Heading to the Xtraordinary". The group was formed through E29 Trainees , by Thai record label E29 Music Identities . The members are leader Bambam (real name Butree Kaljurek), Tata (Punnawan Leelaburanatanakul), Barrie (Apichaya Mollin), Fresh (Jibhassorn Laoluechai), Cindy (full name Cindy Schmid), Cheer (Jiyapat Tantikittichaikul), Ray (Ravisara Chiewvej) and Puttjung (Napassanan Ronnakiat).   THX debuted in November 2024 with the digital single HORIZION LOVE. They released their 2nd single You Like Me Too? in February. HORIZON LOVE This is Horizon Love (also stylised as HORIZION LOVE), the girls' debut single, which was released last November. It's a pop song with a mix of Thai and English lyrics.     You Like Me Too? And here is...

As you'll know if you follow the blog, I've often shared Dance in Public (dance covers of song performed in public places) videos in recent years. I'd say that the most popular genre is K-pop in Public (Korean dance covers). I think that's where the trend started. J-pop in Public (Japanese) dances are starting to become more popular lately too. Also, there are some C-pop in Public videos.  In the past couple of years, I've been coming across more dance covers of South East Asian songs as well. Last year I wrote a post featuring V-pop and P-pop in Public dances (Vietnamese and Pinoy/Filipino) but I don't think I've shared that many P-pop covers. So today's post is all about P-pop in Public! :)   [POP IN PUBLIC] BINI "Karera" dance cover by Principium || Philippines First up is a dance cover of Karera by Filipina girl group BINI . It was released in September 2023 and was the first pre-release single from the group's debut EP Talarawan (re...

I've often featured Bollywood music (and films) on Star Sparkle (and sometimes South Indian music , such as Tollywood and Kollywood . However, I haven't featured music from the Indian music industry outside of films as often.  So today I'm sharing a quick round-up of previous posts on the blog, plus some newer Indian pop music. :)    Here are the posts previously shared: Prasad Bhandarkar playing Ragashivranjani on the bansuri (Indian bamboo flute):  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2013/02/weekly-music-video_13.html Raja Kumari- Meera (Indian American): https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2018/01/weekly-music-video_31.html   Celina Sharma (Indian/Italian Australian)- CHALO: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2021/02/weekly-music-video.html   Kenishaa Francis and Tejas Agarwal- Blue Naina: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2022/02/weekly-music-video_9.html   Sukriti and Prakriti Kakar, Badshah- Kya Say?: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2023/03/weekly-...

In the past few years, I've occasionally written posts about my current favourite songs (about once a year). In recent years I've also done ones about my fave songs from the year in general (like my Current Favourite Songs of 2024 post). So here they are for 2025! You can see my previous posts at the links below: June 2019: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2019/06/current-favourite-songs.html May 2020: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2020/05/current-favourite-songs.html April 2021:  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2021/04/current-favourite-songs.html Feb 2022: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2022/02/current-favourite-songs.html April 2024:  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2024/04/current-favourite-songs.html   So, here's what I've been liking lately! :)  Gen Neo- I Wanna Know Singaporean singer Gen Neo released his latest EP Push&Pull back in November. To date he has brought out 4 singles from it- Tell The Truth, Like I Do, ONTW and The Test. While I li...

Here is another instalment of my Asian Groups series! Today I'm featuring Taiwanese girl group GENBLUE and Thai boyband LYKN . :) GENBLUE Girl group GENBLUE are from Taiwan and signed to TEN ENTERTAINMENT (Taiwanese entertainment company). They were formed through the reality TV survival show NEXT GIRLZ (whose other winners include Twinkle Black and Twinkle Black member/solo artist Ally Shen ) in 2023.  Their group name is short for "Generation" and "Blue" and is inspired by the blue crystal, symbolising courage . It also reflects GENBLUE's Generation Z spirit and attitude. The group consists of 6 members- leader XXIN (real name Wang Xin Ming), Ayeon (Lee Ayeon), Yuan (Hsu Yuan Yuan), Lili (Wu Yu Hsuan), Ayako (Wang Tsai Chen) and Nico (Chen Yi Han). Ayeon is Korean, Ayako is Taiwanese and Japanese, and the other girls are Taiwanese. Several of them already had experience in the entertainment industry. * Pre-debut members Rong Rong (Huang Hsaio Rong) a...