Star Sparkle Blog

The Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest is tonight, so it's time for my second Eurovision post of the year! You can see the first one here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2026/05/countdown-to-eurovision-2026.html Similarly to last year , I saw the second semi-final (the one the UK could vote in) and some of the first one. I don't always watch them both because then I've heard all the songs beforehand (I listen to the ones that didn't get through later). Here are my favourites from this year's contest. :)    Sarah Engels- Fire (Germany) Sarah Engels is representing Germany with the song Fire. As part of the "Big 5" (the countries which contribute the most financially to Eurovision), Germany automatically qualify for the final, along with us (the UK), France, Spain and Italy. However, it's the Big 4 in 2026, since Spain is  one of 5 countries not competing due to objections over Israel's participation in the contest.  Sarah first became ...

Today's video is Certified Lover Girl, the new single by Australian girl group H3rizon . It has been a while since the girls released new music. However, they recently appeared on Star Search   (the  American TV show which was rebooted at the beginning of the year on Netflix ). They went on to release  a cover of WHERE IS MY HUSBAND! by British singer RAYE (which came out last September) as a single last month.  Certified Lover Girl was released on 8th May. It's a laid-back R'n'B song and as people have mentioned in the comments on YouTube, it has early 00s vibes!   Want more H3rizon? Check out these links: Asian/Pacific Groups- Australian Girl Group + Hawaiian Boy Band (also features CROSSING RAIN/PARTYFOUL):  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2024/03/asianpacific-groups.html Audio for WHRE IS MY HUSBAND! cover:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vitTQ4Eq--0  

Eurovision season is here once again! The 2026 Grand Final will be on Saturday 16th May. In 2026 it is the 70th Eurovision Song Contest , so a landmark year! It will be held in Vienna, Austria, after the 2025 contest was won by JJ with his song Wasted Love . The UK's entry is  LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER with Eins, Zwei, Drei .  I normally write two posts in the lead-up to Eurovision (occasionally a couple of "mini countdown" posts too). Here are my posts from last year:  Countdown to Eurovision 2025!: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2025/05/countdown-to-eurovision-2025.html   Eurovision Favourites 2025: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2025/05/eurovision-2025-favourites.html   And here is the first one of 2026! Today I'm taking a look at Eurovision spin-off contests. :)  Update 10/5/26: I've updated this post to include the Junior version of ESC! :)     American Song Contest  An American spin-off of ESC called the  American Song Con...

Sorry there wasn't a 2nd post last week, I was going through a bit of a stressful time and didn't manage to get one finished. :) This week's video is I CONDEMN by Australian singer and rapper The Kid LAROI . It was the first single from the deluxe version of his second album BEFORE I FORGET. The original album was released in January and the deluxe version came out on 24th April. It contains 9 extra tracks, including  I CONDEMN and latest single PIECES. I wasn't aware that there was a deluxe version until I saw that some new songs had appeared on Spotify! I like BEFORE I FORGET and my favourite songs from the original version are ME + YOU, JULY,  COME DOWN and RATHER BE featuring Australian rapper and singer Lithe . One of my fave songs on the deluxe version is QUIT YOU, and I also like HOLD STILL and I CONDEMN. The newest single PIECES came out on out the same day as the album. I CONDEMN was released on 17th April. As with the songs on the original BEFORE I FORGET, it...

Today's video is MURAL by American singers Swae Lee and  Jhené Aiko . Swae (one half of hip hop duo Rae Sremmurd , along with his brother Slim Jxmmi) and Jhené previously teamed up a couple of times before- first for the single/song Sativa in 2018 (from Jhené's album Trip; the single version features both Swae and Slim Jxmmi as Rae Sremmurd) and again for In The Dark back in 2021. In The Dark was from the soundtrack for the Marvel film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings .  MURAL is from Swae's debut studio album SAME DIFFERENCE, which was released on 3rd April. It's his  first official solo album (although he previously released one as part of Rae Sremmurd's triple album SR3MM in 2018). MURAL is the third single from the album, following FLAMMABLE and DON'T EVEN CALL featuring rapper  Rich The Kid (released in February and March respectively). It came out on 6th April and is a chilled hip hop song. The music video is somewhat "trippy" with Swa...

 Last month I started a mini series called New Generation Girl Groups, which features new girl groups. You can see the first post about American group GIRLSET here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2026/03/new-generation-girl-groups-girlset.html Now here is the next post in the mini series! Today I'm featuring American/global group fiveALIVE . :) fiveALIVE is a 5-member independent girl group, formed in 2023. They describe themselves as a global pop group and are also called an Asian American group because the members all have Asian heritage (Ciara is Eurasian).  The members are Jia (who is has Chinese and Vietnamese heritage), Ellie Park (Korean), Nini (Filipina/Vietnamese), Ciara (British/Filipina) and Bay (real name Bailey Park; Korean). All the girls are American and from California. They are currently based in Orange County, Southern California. Note: As mentioned in the comments on their  Kprofiles profile , I don't think that Ellie and Bailey are related, despite...