Star Sparkle Blog

Here's the next song from Plan B's The Defamation of Strickland Banks . This is Love Goes Down, my favourite song on the album. It was the 5th single and was released in December 2010. In the video Strickland is performing on a TV show ( Top of the Pops ?) but the police come to arrest him for the alleged rape. I don't know what time period this is set in but the clothes look old (the styles seem a bit more dated in this video), maybe from the 70s or 80s (some look 60s even?) and the policemens' uniforms look like an older style. Also the presenter looks familiar like he used to be a real life presenter but I don't know. Update: My mum said it was Andy Crane ! I looked him up and it mentions on his Wikipedia page that he appears in the video. So I would think that the setting is the late 80s, around the time period when Andy really presented Top of the Pops. Here are the links to the other posts: Love Goes Down (song)/Writing's On The Wall Stay ...

I'm posting the Weekly Music Video a day early because it's Christmas tomorrow. Can't believe it's Christmas Eve already! Today's video is Christmas themed; it's White Light by Japanese singer Namie Amuro . It was Namie's first Christmas love song and was released as a double A-side along with Violet Sauce in 2005. (I have to post Violet Sauce sometime; it's one of my favourite Namie songs!). White Light also appeared on her best of album BEST FICTION (2008). Update 15/12/24: Namie's offical music has now been removed from a lot of music platforms. :( However, here is a lyric video (with English translation!) from a live performance, uploaded by Final Space:                                     Merry Christmas! :) Update 15/4.15 : I can never seem to find the original version of Violet Sauce on YouTube! Mayb...

Continuing my series of posts on Plan B's album The Defamation of Strickland Banks , here's the next video. This is Stay Too Long and was the first single from the album and was released in January 2010. In this video Strickland goes out partying with his manager, friends and hangers on after a successful concert and meets the girl who later accuses him of rape. He sings about how he always stays too long when he's out and if he does stay out, then something tends to go wrong!

Today's video is Zindagi Jeene Ka Naam Hai, which is from the Bollywood film James (2005). It's about a man named James ( Mohit Ahlawat ) who moves to Mumbai looking for work and gets a job as a nightclub bouncer. One night he saves a woman called Nisha ( Nisha Kothari ) who is being molested but this sets off a chain of events which end in tragedy and revenge. Nisha Kothari (real name Priyanka) also appears in a video from the 2007 film Darling. You can watch it here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2013/06/j-pop-vs-bollywood.html

The Defamation of Strickland Banks is an album by British rapper/singer Plan B (real name Ben Drew). Released in 2010, The Defamation (that's what I'm calling it for short, lol) is a concept album which tells the story of fictional soul singer Strickland Banks (played by Plan B), who becomes famous but loses it all when he is falsely convicted of rape and sent to prison. It was Plan B's second studio album and debuted at No 1 on the UK Album Charts . Strickland finds success with his singles Love Goes Down and Writing's On The Wall. After performing at a concert, he goes out to celebrate and has a one night stand with an obsessed fan (played by actress Kaya Scoledario ). When Strickland rejects her the next morning, she accuses him of raping her. He's convicted of rape and sent to prison. Strickland becomes a recluse and is later abused by other inmates. He trades in his cigarettes for a shiv (prison knife type weapon) to protect himself. It comes in handy when ...

Today it's Spirits by Jamie Woon . This video is a live BBC performance from 2010/2011 (it's listed as 2011 but says 2010 at the end of the video)  and is from Jamie's album Mirrorwriting, which was released in 2011. There's also a video from 2008 and that version might be slightly different. I can't post the 2011 video but you can watch it here: Jamie Woon- Spirits (2011) Also here's the 2008 one:

This is another one of my favourite Are You Afraid of the Dark? episodes, The Tale of the Dream Machine. It's from the second series and is the story of teenage boy Sean Hackett ( Michael Hong ),who is passionate about writing and Jennifer Johnson ( Nicole Lyn ), a girl in his class. One day Sean and his best friend Billy ( Joel Gordon ) stumble upon an old typewriter in a secret room in Sean's house. He decides to use it to write a story for his English assignment.  But the typewriter is no ordinary machine- when Sean writes on it, the subjects of his stories dream about themselves in the very situations he creates. Jennifer is shocked when she dreams about herself as a victim of the vampire Sean at a school dance. But that's not all, when the story is read out loud, even stranger things happen!

Today it's Return of the Mack by Mark Morrison . He's a British singer, most well known for this single (Return of the Mack) and the album of the same name, both of which were released in 1996. Mark has been in and out of court due to various criminal charges and went to prison in 1997 but despite that he had a fairly successful career in the mid to late 90s. Other hits of his include Crazy, Trippin and Moan & Groan. Mark re-launched his career in 1999 when he signed  to American record label Death Row Records and has since released another album called Innocent Man (2006). His latest album is I Am What I Am but I don't think it's actually been released. It was meant to come out this year. His latest single is N.A.N.G 2.0 feat. Crooked I & Shonie. Return of the Mack was sampled by American rapper Mann for his single The Mack featuring Snoop Dogg and Iyaz in 2011. Check out the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YYF0j-FV3c Visit Mark...

In 2008 Japanese singer Namie Amuro released 60s 70s 80s,  her 33rd solo single on Avex Trax . It was a triple A-side (Namie's first) and featured the songs NEW LOOK, ROCK STEADY and WHAT A FEELING, which all reflected those decades. They were also used as part of ad campaign FashionxMusicx for hair care line Vidal Sassoon . 60s 70s 80s was a very successful single. American designer/stylist Patricia Field did the costumes for the videos. Update 1/5/19: The original uploads were removed and then re-uploaded to Name's official YouTube channel, so I've replaced them. These aren't the full versions. 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. :)   Update 2- 27/12/23: Most of Namie's videos have now been removed from YouTube, likely due to her 2018 retirement . It's disappointing, I do think they could leave her music up on platforms. :( It's not just YouTub...