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 ...

Canadian singer Justin Bieber released a surprise new album last month. It's called SWAG and is his 7th studio album. News of SWAG  only emerged just before its release on 11th July. I think I came across songs from it on YouTube and realised they were from a new album. It had been quite a while since Justin had brought out new music, so I was pleased to find out about it! :) SWAG follows Justin's 6th album Justice and 2nd EP Freedom (both released in 2021). To date it has reached No. 1 in several countries , including Canada, Australia, Norway and Portugal and charted within the Top 10 in more, including the UK, US, Australia, Spain and Japan. The release of SWAG comes after Justin has been through a difficult time in his personal life. There have been rumours of problems in his marriage with wife American model and businesswoman  Hailey Bieber (daughter of actor Stephen Baldwin, one of the Baldwin brothers ) and worries over Justin behaving erratically as well as...

Today's video is DIED A LITTLE by  LEWY . Her full name is Mariah Lewy and she is an Australian singer-songwriter. Born in Sydney,  LEWY was into music from a young age, after being introduced to American girl group  Destiny's Child by her parents. She started singing lessons aged 5 and also learnt to play the piano and guitar. She likes a wide range of genres from pop to R'n'B and her musical influences include  Lady Gaga , Billie Eilish , Christina Aguilera and Whitney Houston .  In the past few years, LEWY has done live performances, recorded at studios in several countries and posted song covers on YouTube. In addition to singing, she is an actress, having studied acting at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in Sydney and been selected for the callback stage of Moana (I presume the 2026 live action remake ). Now aged 19, LEWY has been recording an album (scheduled for release this year) and just released the single DIED A LITTLE. Her next ...

 Today's video is 12 to 12 by American singer sombr . His real name is Shane Michael Boose and his stage name (which is written in lowercase) is based on his initials. He also  chose it because of how he was feeling at the time. ("Somber"- or "sombre  as we spell it in the UK- means to feel down/sad and serious.) sombr released his debut single nothing left to say (also written in lowercase) in October 2021 and 4 other singles followed, including through it all and caroline. Then in 2023, aged 17, he signed to Warner Records and released the single weak. He also has his own independent record label SMB.  In September that year, he brought out his debut EP in another life. Two more singles from the EP were released, silhouette and my house is warm, plus several more non-album singles.  However, it was this year that sombr's career really took off, when his singles back to friends and undressed (released in December 2024 and March 2025 respectively) went vi...

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...

I last shared a New Music Releases post at the beginning of June . So now that we're well into summer, I thought I'd share some new music from a mix of genres, for the current season! :)   KARD- Touch  First up, some K-pop! This is Touch, the latest single by Korean mixed gender/co-op group KARD . It's the lead single from their 8th mini album DRIFT and both came out on 2nd July. DRIFT features 7 tracks, including BETCHA, Touch, Pivot and instrumental versions of Touch and Pivot. Touch is an English and Korean language song with sexy lyrics, which reinterprets 2000s music . Click "Subtitles/closed captions" on YouTube for English subtitles! :)    There's also a performance video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKRAgL7THOg   Stream/buy DRIFT here:  https://lnkfi.re/KARD_DRIFT   And for more music from KARD, visit my New Music for 2025 post from the beginning of the year (features the visualiser for stand-alone single Detox):  https://starsparklex....

Today's video is All I Got by Maro . His real name is Marwan Daou and he is a Lebanese singer-songwriter and YouTuber. He was born in Beirut and has a Lebanese dad and Ukrainian mum. Maro's grandma taught him to play the piano and he also taught himself to play the guitar. He started his career by posting cover videos on his YouTube channel (inspired by Justin Bieber ). In 2018 his cover of Falling Down by the late American rappers  Lil Peep and XXXTenation  reached  over one million views and led to him going to Northern Europe , where he got a music manager and signed to tech music record label  SNAFU Records  the following year. In August 2020, Maru released his debut single carsick, which is about an on-off relationship . His 2nd single Take It Back followed in January 2021. He has released several other singles to date, including Addicted to Her Sadness, start again, Never Let You Go and All I Got. In November 2022, he brought out his debut album Words Fro...

It's been ages since I've shared some Turkish music (apart from Weekly Music Videos, my last Turkish music post was back in 2019!), so today I'm featuring some. :) You can see my last Turkish music post here:  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2019/03/turkish-music_30.html     First of all, here are a few posts featured on the blog since 2019: Otilia- Deli Gibi (Otlilia is Romanian but it's a Turkish language song): https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2021/04/weekly-music-video.html Eurovision Countdown- Past Contestant Hadise (update on Turkey's 2009 Eurovision contestant): https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2022/04/eurovision-countdown-past-contestant.html Murda feat. Hadise- Imdat: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2022/09/weekly-music-video_21.html   Now here is some music I haven't previously shared! :)     Hadise-  Fırtınam This is  Fırtınam, the most recent single by Turkish Belgian singer Hadise (my favourite Turkish singer!), who was Tu...

Sorry the 2nd post is later this week; I didn't manage to get it finished yesterday. :) I've previously written several posts about the solo careers of band members, ( Fifth Harmony and BTS ). Today I'm focusing on the members of Korean girl group BLACKPINK . :)   BLACKPINK are one of the most internationally successful Korean girl groups (and groups in general, along with the likes of BTS), and were branded "the biggest pop band in the world" in 2020.  The group consists of 4 members-  4 members- JISOO (full name Kim Jisoo, or Jisoo Kim in Western terms), JENNIE (Kim Jennie),  ROSÉ  (real name Roseanne Park/Park Chae-young) and LISA (born Pranpriya Manoban but she has legally changed her first name to Lalisa). Despite JISOO and JENNIE having the same surname/family name (Kim), they aren't related (at least not recently)!  Random fact: Kim is one of the most common family names in South Korea , along with Park and Lee. Some of them may be dist...

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...