Star Sparkle Blog

In June I wrote a post about the 20th anniversary of my fave singer Mariah Carey's The Emancipation of Mimi album. It ended up being a long post, so I split it into two parts! You can see Part 1: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2025/06/20th-anniversary-of-mariahs.html I also did another post featuring a special live performance that Mariah did to celebrate the anniversary:  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2025/06/mariah-carey-20th-teom-anniversary-live.html Now here is Part 2! Today I'm featuring some songs from The Emancipation of Mimi: Ultra Platinum Edition and the new 20th anniversary edition. :)   Don't Forget About Us Don't Forget About Us was the lead (and only) single from the re-released version of the album (the Ultra Platinum Edition) and came out in October 2005, ahead of the re-release in November 2005. It's one of my favourite songs from TEOM. :) Don't Forget About Us is about a past relationship, although Mariah has stated that the  true mean...

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...

Time for another instalment of C-pop Saturday, my semi- regular series sharing Chinese music! I've only done one other post this year ( in February ), so this is the 2nd one of 2025. Today I'm featuring C-pop and R'n'B. :)   ELL&s- Elevatah First up, a Taiwanese girl group! This is Elevatah by  ELL&s , who are signed to KJM Entertainment. The group consists of 5 members- 4 of whom were previously in pre-debut girl group SUNNY PARFUM . According to their Kprofiles , they are a sub-unit of SUNNY PARFUM. The members are lead vocalist Ashlee (real name Chan Hsai-chen/Xinchan), Theia (Zheng Yuhsin), Cherry (Chen Chen-wei/Huang Xiuwan/), Rosie (don't know her full name yet) and Shan/Shanshan (Chen Yu-shan).   All the girls apart from Rosie were members of SUNNY PARFUM * ELL&s debuted in July 2024 with the digital single Elevatah. They also released the special single Ride or Die (2024 Remaster Version) last September, a remake of a song originally released by ...

My favourite singer Mariah Carey is celebrating the 20th Anniversary of her 10th studio album The Emancipation of Mimi. It was released back in April 2005. I'd planned to write just one post about the album but it was turning into a really long one, so I've decided to divide it into two parts! Here is Part 1. :) The Emancipation of Mimi (or TEOM for short!) was considered Mariah's "comeback album" at the time, following on from her previous two albums, Glitter (2001) which was accompanied by the film of the same name and Charmbracelet (2002). Neither the Glitter movie or album were very well received and after going through a difficult time in general, Mariah had an emotional and physical breakdown and checked into hospital that summer. She was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder , although didn't feel ready to speak about it pubicly until several years later .  Although Charmbracelet (MC's first release after leaving Virgin Records America and singing w...

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...

This week's video is MONA LISA by Korean rapper and singer (and member of K-pop boyband BTS ) j-hope (real name Jung Ho-seok, or Ho-seok Jung in Western terms). It's his latest solo single and the third one to be released since he completed his military service (mandatory for men in South Korea) last October. It's a stand-alone single, not appearing on j-hope's EP/soundtrack HOPE ON THE STREET VOL.1 (VER.1 PRELUDE), which was released in March 2024. It follows LV Bag with American rapper and singer Don Toliver , Speedy ( Don's Louis Vuitton bag !) and American musician and singer Pharrell Williams , which came out in February, and Sweet Dreams featuring American singer Miguel , which was released in early March. MONA LISA is a laidback R'n'B and hip hop track, with all-English lyrics about how j-hope likes his girls! It's described as a "love song that pays tribute to celebrating one's unique beauty" . It was released on 21st March.    Fo...

It's Eurovision season again! This year's final will be on Saturday 17th May, a bit later than the past couple of years . The 69th Eurovision Song Contest will be held in St. Jakobshalle, Basel, Switzerland, after Nemo won with The Code last year. The UK's entry is country pop girl group Remember Monday with What The Hell Just Happened? . I normally write two Eurovision posts (and occasionally a couple of extra "mini countdown" posts), so here is the first one! Today I'm featuring previous Eurovision posts, plus a few new music videos from former contestants. :)   Eurovision Round-up (features posts from when I first started writing about the contest in 2012, up to 2017):  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2017/05/eurovision-round-up.html Eurovision Round-up 2 (posts from 2017 to 2023; includes the countdown posts):  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2023/05/eurovision-round-up-2.html Eurovision 2023 Favourites: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2023/05/eur...

Nearly 3 years ago, I wrote a dance videos post featuring couples' dances (plus one group dance). You can see that here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2021/07/dance-videos.html I thought it would be fun to do another edition, so here it is! :)   Sonali X Aadil- Dhoom Dhoom  First up, some Bollywood! Here is a dance to Dhoom Dhoom by Thai singer Tata Young , from the 2004 Bollywood film Dhoom . There's also another version called Dhoom Machale . It's performed by Sonali of LiveToDance with Sonali and Aadil. It's a YouTube short and was uploaded a couple of months ago.   Visit this post to see the videos for both Dhoom Dhoom and Dhoom Machale: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2013/10/weekly-music-video_23.html    Sonali X Aadil- Dhadhand Dhang- Rowdy Rathore And here is another dance by Sonali and Aadi, this time to Dhadhang Dhang from Rowdy Rathore (2012), an action film that stars Akshay Kumar . This is also a short and was uploaded last month.  ...