Star Sparkle Blog

In the past few months or so I've been coming across K-pop in Public dance videos on YouTube. They are dances to Korean pop songs performed by dance groups (some are listed as K-pop in Public Challenge). Since I've previously done general and Bollywood specific dance posts, I thought today it would be cool to do one featuring K-pop dances. :) (KPOP IN PUBLIC) KARD- Dumb Litty Dance Cover by DARE In my first Dance Videos post of the year I featured a cover of K.A.R.D's Dumb Litty by Australian dance group DARE Crew Official. Watch it here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2020/01/dance-videos_24.html Kill This Love cover by B-Wild Official  In April I shared Vietnamese dance team B-Wild's dance to BLACKPINK'S Kill This Love. Visit this post to watch it:  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2020/04/dance-videos.html   DUN DUN by EVERGLOW Dance Cover- RISIN' And last month I featured a cover of EVERGLOW's DUN DUN by French dance group RISIN':  https://star...

Haven't done one of these in a while, the last one was in June , and the last J-pop themed Girls vs Boys was in 2013 ! Today's it between Japanese girl group E-girls and boyband THE RAMPAGE from EXILE TRIBE . Note:  Avex videos are now blocked from being shown on third party applications. If you click on the videos you can watch them fine on YouTube. :) E-girls My Way For my first post on E-girls (who are the sister unit of EXILE) visit this link: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2016/11/more-j-pop-acts.html In 2017 E-girls changed their line-up and there are now 11 members instead of  the original 19. Also they are part of the larger collective E.G. Family, which consists mainly of female members. This is My Way featuring Japanese reggae groups FIRE BALL and MIGHTY CROWN  and dance/electro group PKCZ® . It was released in August and is a reggae type song. I'm not sure if this is the full song. THE RAMPAGE- HARD HIT RAMPAGE are part of the super...

Sorry for the late post, I've had personal problems and haven't been feeling well the past couple of days. I haven't done a Girls vs Boys post for a while so here's a new one. :) Today's it's between Turkish singers Cem Belevi and Ayshe. Ayshe 's full name is Ayşe Akın. (I think this is the right Ayshe, I translated this from Turkish with Google Translate!). She was born in Belgium and speaks 4 languages. Although her real name is Ayşe, she uses Ayshe as a stage name becauuse it's easier for people abroad to pronounce. One of Ayshe's most well known songs is Kim Ne Derse Desin with Cem Belevi (see below). She's also an actress, having been in TV series.  This is Ben Bile Şok which came out in September.              For more on Ayshe check out these links: Official site: http://ayshemusic.com/ Official FB: https://www.facebook.com/ayshemusicofficial/ Cem Belevi learnt to play the piano when he ...

I'm on a K-pop kick at the moment! It's time for another Girls vs Boys post and I'm featuring the Korean groups Red Velvet and GOT7 . Update 25/11/24: I've deleted old links/updated them. Red Velvet are a 5 member girl group made up of Irene, Wendy (who is originally from South Korea, later moved to Canada and also lived in the US, Seulgi, Yeri and Joy (who all grew up in Korea). The name Red Velvet represents two sides to them- Red is the more girly, excitable side and Velvet is the more grown-up, toned down one.  They were formed by South Korean entertainment company S.M. Entertainment (who are responsible for lots of the K-pop groups) at auditions over several years and debuted in August 2014 as a 4 member group with the single Happiness (digital release only). The music video for Happiness was very popular. In October that year they released their second single Be Natural featuring rapper Taeyong, who is now part of the K-pop group NCT . In March 2015 Yeri jo...

As you'll know if you follow this blog, I'm a J-pop and K-pop fan. I haven't heard as many C-pop (Chinese pop) songs though, so I thought I'd check some out. :) I like CoCo Lee and it was actually an iTunes recomendation of Chinese singers who are similar to her that gave me the idea to do a C-pop post! I was originally going to do a post about several artists but it was turning into a long post and I don't have time to do it this weekend, so I decided to do a Girls vs Boys one instead. I'll write about more C-pop stars in the future. :) Today's post is about Taiwanese singers Jolin Tsai and Jay Chou who were romantically linked at one time, although it was never confirmed. Jolin Tsai (birth name Tsai l-ling) is very popular in Chinese speaking countries and other places too. Known as the "Queen of C-pop" she has had a 17 year singing career so far and is also a dancer, actress and entrepreneur. She sings in the Chinese language Mandarin...

I'm having a Korean theme this week, so here is a Girls vs Boys post featuring K-pop group U-KISS and K-pop/C-pop group miss A. These groups also sing in Japanese and Chinese but these are Korean songs. :) U-KISS are a boyband who currently have 7 members- Soohun (full name Shin Soohyun), Kiseop (Lee Kisop), AJ (real Kim Jaeop), Eli, (Kim Kyoungjae),  Hoon (Yeo Hoonmin), Jun (Lee Junyoung) and Kevin (Woo Sunghyun).* Their name stands for Ubqutious Korean International Superstar. Former members are Kibum, Alexander Lee Eusebio and Dongho. U-KISS was formed in 2008. The boys speak 4  languages between them, Korean, Japanese, Mandarin (Chinese) and English and former members were also multilingual- Dongho speaks Korean and Mandarin, Kibum knows Korean and Japanese and Alexander can speak an impressive 7 languages, including Korean, English, 2 Chinese dialects and Spanish! They sing in both Korean and Japanese and debuted in Korea in 2008 with their first mini album New Ge...

Here is another Turkish Girls vs Boys post. :) This time it's Kenan Doğulu vs Atiye. Aytie (full name Atiye Deniz) is a popular singer in Turkey. She has a Turkish dad and a Dutch mum and was born in Germany. She also lived in America and Turkey as a child and teen. Atiye released her debut albu m Gözyaşlarım in 2007. It had both Turkish and English lyrics and the album title translates as "My Tears". The video for her first single Don't Think was popular on YouTube. Two years later she brought out her second album, which was self titled. A few of her biggest hits are from the Atiye album, the singles Muamma, Salla and Kal (with the Turkish singer Teoman ). Atiye has released 3 albums since, Budur (2011), Bring Me Back (2012) and Soygun Var (2013). Some of her other singles are Don't Think, Budur and Bring Me Back. In 2011 she won Best Turkish Act at the MTV Europe Music Awards. Her latest single is Come To Me. It's her US debut song This is Ya Habibi...

Time for another Girls vs Boys post, this time from the UK and Ireland! It's between girl group The Saturdays and boyband The Wanted. Each group has four British members and one Irish member. The Saturdays formed in 2007. The members are Rochelle Humes, Vanessa White, Una Foden, Frankie Bridge and Mollie King. (Rochelle, Vanessa, Mollie and Frankie are English and Una is Irish). They released their debut single If This Is Love in summer 2008 and their debut album Chasing Lights in October 2008. Since then The Saturdays have released 5 studio albums, Chasing Lights, Wordshaker (2009), Headlines! (2010), On Your Radar (2011) and Living For The Weekend (2013) and 18 singles. Some of their most well known songs are Up!, Work, All Fired Up and Higher featuring American rapper Flo Rida . What About Us featuring Jamaican rapper Sean Paul was their first UK No 1 in 2012. In 2014 they brought out their first Greatest Hits album called Finest Selection: The Greatest Hits. The Saturdays...

Here is the first Girls vs Boys post of the year. :) It's between K-pop groups AOA and BTS . AOA are a girl group/band who formed in 2012. Their name is short for Ace of Angels. AOA has 8 members altogether but they are divided into 2 halves. One half is an idol dance group with 5 members and the other half is a band who play instruments (guitar, drums, keyboard and bass).  Seol Hun, Cho A, Hye Jeong, Chan Mi, Yu Na,  Ji Min, Min A and You Kyung make up the whole group, all of the members except You Kyung are in the idol group, and then You Jyung, Yu Na, Mi Na, Cho A and Ji Min are in the band. AOA describe themselves a 7+1 group. It's a bit confusing but I think I get it now! There are also two sub units, AOA Black (made up of Ji Min, Cho A, Yu Na, Mi Na and You Kyung)  and AOA White (made up of Seol Hyun, Hye Jeong, and Chan Mi). The concept is that 7 of the members are full angels and You Kyung is half angel and half mortal. You can read about it here: http://ww...

I thought it would be good to do a Bollywood Girls vs Boys, so today it's Katrina Kaif vs Akshay Kumar . Katrina and Akshay have been in several films together, including Humko Deewana Kar Gaye (2006), Namastey London (2007) and Singh Is Kinng (2008). Katrina started acting in 2003. She is half Indian and half English (her dad is a Kashmiri from the UK and her mum is English), and was born in Hong Kong. She lived in various places while growing up, including Asia, Europe and Hawaii. Her birth name is Katrina Turquotte/Turcotte but she took on her father's surname after she started acting because she thought it would be easier to pronounce. Katrina started out as a model and went into acting after being cast in Bollywood film Boom (2003). She moved to India and went on to star in many films, including Welcome, Race and Dhoom: 3 . She has also acted in the South Indians film industries Tollywood and Malayalam . When Katrina first started out she couldn't speak Hindi...

This week I thought I'd do another K-pop Girls vs Boys post. It's between Korean girl group SISTAR and Korean/Chinese boyband EXO . I did a post on EXO in April, which you can read here: http://starsparklex.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/weekly-music-video_30.html This is the video for Mama, their debut single which was released in April 2013. This is EXO-K's version and it's in Korean. :)                                                             EXO-K- Mama If you can't be bothered with the narration watch it without here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fc3__KmrlnU And here is EXO-M's version (Chinese):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPJBe5eWbQc SISTAR are a 4 member group who debuted in June 2010 with the song Push Push. The members are Hyolyn (real name Kim Hyo Jung), Bora (full name Yoon Bora), Soyou...

I haven't done a Girls Vs Boys post for a while, so here is another Turkish one. Today it's Murat Boz vs Tugba Yurt. I can't find anything on Tugba Yurt in English but here is her song Agir Yarali, which I presume was released late last year/early this year, since the video was posted on 5th December 2013. Visit her site and Facebook page here (Turkish language): Official site Official FB Murat Boz is a popular singer who has been releasing solo music since 2006. His debut single was Aşkı Bulamam Ben and he has released 3 albums Maximum (2007), Sans (2009) and Aşklarım Büyük Benden (2011), as well as a remix album called Dance Mix (2012). This is Bulmaca from Aşklarım Büyük Benden and it came out in 2012. For more on Murat visit his site (Turkish): www.muratboz.com Who's your favourite?

Today the competition is between Korean solo singers Lee Hyori /Hyolee and Rain /Bi. This is Stealing A Glance (M.A.R.S. Remix) featuring Sunny (Shyne) and is from Hyori's second album Dark Angel (2006). It sounds similar to TLC' s Creep. Someone on YouTube commented that it's a remake of a song by Young Turks Club. (I couldn't find the song to listen). Quite a few of Hyori's songs sound similar to other people's and 7 of the songs on her 2010 album H-Logic were plagiarised. This is a good song though! Lee Hyori- Stealing A Glance Update 15/9/15: The Stealing A Glance video had gone from YouTube in November 2014 but there's another on there now, so I've linked to it above. This is It's Raining which was the first single from Rain's third studio album of the same name and was released in 2004.                               ...

Time for another Girls vs Boys! Today the competition is between Turkish singers Hadise and Davut Guloglu .  Hadise- Kahraman (Hero) This song is from the album of the same name (2009). There is also an English version called Hero. According to comments on YouTube, it's a cover of (or similar to) a Macedonian song called Fati go ritamot by Jovan Radnjanski.                                                                              Click here to listen to: Hadise-Hero And watch the video for Fati go ritamot here: Jovan Radnjanski- Fati go ritamot Davut Guloglu-Yarali Kalbim This song is fr...

Today it's between Japanese singers Ayumi Hamasaki and GACKT. Ayumi Hamasaki is one of Japan's most popular singers and has been named the "Empress of Pop". She launched her career in 1998 with the single Poker Face and went on to release her first album on record company Avex, A Song for xx in 1999. (In 1995  she brought out a mini-album Nothing from Nothing on the record company Nippon Columbia, which failed to chart). Since then Ayumi (Ayu to her fans) has released 50 singles and 14 studio albums, 8 of which have topped the Oricon charts.She is ranked by Oricon as the 3rd best selling Japanese artist of all time, behind rock duo B'z and pop rock band Mr. Children . She is also popular throughout Asia. As well as being a singer, Ayumi has her own fashion brand MLTRG (Material Girl), a cartoon version of herself called Ayupan, has  hosted a talk show Ayuready? (from 2002-2004) and also opened a restaurant called Rainbow House. She is considered a fashion...

It's time for another K-pop  Girls vs Boys post! Today it's between solo stars BoA and Se7en . BoA (full name Kwon Boa) is a massive star in Korea and Japan and also popular in other Asian countries and America. Her stage name stands for Beat of Angel. She debuted in 2000 (aged only 13) with her first Korean album ID; Peace B and went on to release  her debut Japanese album Listen To My Heart in 2002. In 2008, she released her first US single Eat You Up, followed by her debut English album BoA. She speaks Korean, Japanese and English and has also recorded a song in the Chinese language Mandarin. BoA has released 7 Korean studio albums and 7 Japanese so far. Her latest album is Only One (Korean). Here is the video for the Only One single (Dance version). For the Only One Drama version video, click here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucJ95RzLHvA And for more on BoA, visit these websites: Official site (Korean/English language) Official Japanese si...

Korean girl grop EXID vs boyband MBLAQ. EXID are a 5 member group who released their first single in 2012. The current members are Solji, LE, Hani, Hyerin and Junghwa. There were also 3 other members, Yuzi, Dami and Haeryung who left shortly after the group debuted and were replaced by Solji and Hyerin. This song Every Night is another verson of Call, from EXID's HIPPITY HOP mini album. MBLAQ are a boyband created by Korean singer/actor Rain (Bi). MLBAQ stands for Music Boys Live In Absolute Quality. There are 5 members, Seunghoo, G.O., Lee Joon, Cheondung and Mir. There were originally 6 members but the 6th member Kim Sang Bae left the group in 2011. The group debuted in 2009 at Rain's concert Legend Of Rainism and have released one full studio album BLAQ Style (plus a re-packaged version) and several single albums/EPs.   Last year two of the members Mir and G.O. formed their own duo separate from the group. Stay is from BLAQ Style (2011).      ...

More girls vs boys! Korean boyband Dong Bang Shin Ki/Tohoshinki/ Tong Vfang Xien Qi (who are sadly no longer all together) and Korean girlband Girl's Day. Perhaps the song titles should have been the other way around! lol. Girl's Day were formed in 2010. The current members are Sojin, Minah, Yura and Hyeri. Past members are Ji Sun, Ji In and Jihae (who left the group in October). They've released 3 mini albums, Girl's Day Party #1, Everyday and Everyday 2. (The video is from when they were a five piece). Visit their official site (Korean language) at: http://girlsday5.com/ For more on Tohoshinki go here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2011/12/weekly-music-video.html                                                      ...

So I thought I'd do a girls vs boys post! Today it's the Korean boyband Big Bang vs  Korean girl group Girls' Generation .                                                         Big Bang- Bad Boy                                                                                          ...