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...

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...

In the past, I've written a couple of posts about songs that samples older tracks or were covers of previous songs. You can see them below: Samples and Covers:  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2021/08/samples-and-covers.html More Samples and Covers: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2023/06/more-samples-and-covers.html   My last post was nearly two years ago, so I thought it was time for another one! This post mostly features sampled songs (however there is a bonus cover! :) Note : As with the previous posts, I've listed the original song first.   Carly Simon- Why American singer-songwriter Carly Simon released the single Why back in August 1982. It was written by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards (co-founders of the band CHIC ). Why is a pop/disco style song with reggae influences. It was from the soundtrack of the film Soup for One . Although the movie didn't do so well, the single was successful, reaching Top 10 in the UK Charts and doing well throughout Europe. Th...

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-...

This week's video is PUSH 2 START ( REMIX) by South African singer Tyla and Jamaican dancehall rapper and singer Sean Paul . The original version of PUSH 2 START was released last October and is from the deluxe edition of Tyla's debut studio TYLA (called TYLA+). The deluxe album also came out in October. The remix was released on 3rd March.    For more on the original PUSH 2 START and to watch the  music video, visit my New Music Releases post from December: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2024/12/new-music-releases.html   Tyla fan? Check out these posts:   Music video for Jump with Gunna and Skillibeng, released last May (plus links to more music):  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2024/05/weekly-music-video_22.html One Call with SPINALL and Omah Lay (released last July):  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2024/08/weekly-music-video_21.html   Or want more Sean Paul? Check out these links: Music video for How We Do it with Pia Mia (2022)...

Jennifer Lopez (one of my favourite singers) recently celebrated the 20th anniversary of her album Rebirth. It was her 4th studio album and was released on 1st March 2005 (my 21st birthday!). It seems crazy that it's been so long since it came out! lol. In November 2022, I wrote a post about the 20th anniversary of J.Lo.'s This Is Me...Then album . So, I decided to do another one for Rebirth's anniversary. :)  Rebirth was Jennifer's first album following her split from then fiance American actor Ben Affleck , which was in part due to intense media attention. The couple later reunited and married in 2022 and Jennifer's most recent album This Is Me...Now (accompanied by a film of the same name) was inspired by their rekindled romance. (I got the album for my 40th birthday last year!) However, they broke-up a second time last year. At the time of the Rebirth's release, Jennifer was married to her third husband American singer and actor Marc Anthony , with whom s...

In the past few years, I've shared dance video posts from particular genres, such as K-pop in Public (dance covers of Korean songs performed in public), J-pop (Japanese pop) in Public and V-pop (Vietnamese pop) in Public . For today's post I'm featuring a variety of Dance in Public videos from different Asian music genres. :)  Dance in Public/T-pop in Public- Bad Girls Like You (Tobii) First up, some Thai pop! Last month I did a dance post sharing some dance covers of the popular single Bad Girls Like you by Swiss/Thai rapper Tobii . You can see it here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2025/01/dance-in-publict-pop-in-public-bad.html [POP IN PUBLIC LONDON] BINI- Salamin, Salamin (Dance Cover by CLIQUE) | United Kingdom Next is some P-pop (Pinoy/Filipino pop) in Public. This is a cover of Salamin, Salamin by Filipina girl group BINI , which was released in March 2024. It was the lead single from their debut EP Talaarawan, which also came out in March. The dance is by CLIQ...

Last year I wrote several dance themed posts and now here is my first one of 2025! :) The single Bad Girls Like You by Swiss/Thai rapper and singer Tobii has been a hit in recent months. It was released last September and is an R'n'B song with a mixture of Thai and English lyrics. Bad Girls Like You has also become a popular in the cover dance world, with quite a few dance covers ( Dance in Public ). The trend likely started after Thai dance studio MINIZIZE choreographed a dance version in September. You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6IF1ZLiEZg And here is the full dance version:     Tobii also teamed up with MINIZIZE for a dance performance of his latest single X Mas Love . And now here are some dance covers of Bad Girls Like You. Some of them are listed as Dance in Public and others as T-pop (Thai pop) in Public .   TOBII- 'BAD GIRLS LIKE YOU' | MINIZIZE DANCE COVER- C.A.C First up is a cover by CAC Official, a dance group from Vietnam. This is ...

Last month I wrote a post about the members of Korean boyband BTS' solo careers. I ended up splitting it into two parts because it was getting long! Part 1 featured 4 members- RM, SUGA, j-hope and Jimin. You can see it here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2024/10/bts-boys-solo-careers-part-1.html Now in Part 2 I'm focusing on the other 3 members, Jin, Jungkook and V. As I mentioned in the first post, the majority of the BTS boys are currently doing their military service. However, Jin finished in June and j-hope last month. :)  V V (real name Kim Tae-hyung/Taehyung) has released several solo songs as part of BTS and also released the single It's Definitely You (a collaboration with Jin; see below), for the soundtrack of the 2016 South Korean TV series Hwarang: The Poet Warrior Youth (in which he also made his acting debut). He has also appeared in a couple of reality shows. * In January 2019 he released his first independent song Scenery, through BTS' SoundCloud ac...