Star Sparkle Blog

After reading this post on Hope & Sugar about Life List goals you can do by yourself: http://www.hopeandsugar.com/2014/03/lone-up-life-list-goals-to-accomplish.html I was inspired by No 17, which is to listen to 1000 new songs. So I decided to listen to 1000 new songs in a year and blog about it on here. :) I started on Monday (24th March). I'm counting music videos on TV and YouTube, as well as songs I hear on Spotify or elsewhere. And they don't have to be new releases; they just have to be new to me. Here are the songs I've listened to so far:  1. Ken Hirai- Hitomi wo tojite 2. Brooke Hyland ( Dance Moms )- Mean to Me 3. BANKS - Brain 4. Girl's Day- Female President 5. Girl's Day- Expectation 6. Apink- NoNoNo 7. Girls' Generation- Galaxy Supernova 8. EXO-M- Mama (Chinese version) * 9. EXO-K- Mama (Korean version) * 10. Super Junior- Sexy, Free & Single I went on a K-pop kick! lol. * EXO are a Korean/Chinese boyband with 12 membe...

Today's video is for Something, the latest single from Girl's Day . It was released in January as part of their comeback and is the title track from their latest mini-album Everyday 3. I really like this song. It's more R'n'B sounding than other songs of theirs I've heard and it's got a good beat. :) Just discovered there's also a dance version of this video, so here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdma5UiMaEQ

Update 5/7/24: This post is now 10 years old (!), so I've had to update/replace some links. Dance Moms is an American TV show about a group of girls who are students at dance school The Abby Lee Dance Company , their mums and teacher and owner of ALDC Abby Lee Miller. The programme centres on the classes at the studio (in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) and the dance competitions around the country that the group take part in. It's on the Lifetime TV channel and there have been 4 series (or seasons) so far. The original girls were Maddie, Chloe, Nia, Mackenzie (Maddie's little sister) and sisters Brooke and Paige, and the original mums were Maddie and Mackenzie's mum Melissa, Christi (Chloe's mum),  Holly (mother to Nia) and Brooke and Paige's mum Kelly. In the first series fellow dance teacher Cathy brought her daughter Vivi-Anne to the studio, but she clashed with Abby and later left to concentrate on her own classes and dance group Candy Apples, based in Ohio. ...

Here is another one of my favourite songs from Jessie Ware's album Devotion. It's called Sweet Talk and it's my second favourite song (after Running). There is a music video, so I think it was released as a single but I can't find details on it.  The video was posted on YouTube in December 2012.

Here's Prayin', the next song from The Defamation. It's No 9 on the album and was the 3rd single, coming out in July 2010. The story continues with Strickland being attacked by a fellow prisoner, just like he feared. He ends up killing the man in self defence but there is another prisoner who also tries to kill him. Then another man gets involved in the confrontation, kills the second prisoner and saves Strickland's life. He offers to take the blame, since he is in prison for life while Strickland is only serving a 5 year sentence. Strickland agrees to let him do it but now he lives with the guilt of having killed someone and he prays to God to help him and forgive his sins. Here are the rest of the videos in the series so far: Love Goes Down (song)/Writing's On The Wall Stay Too Long   Love Goes Down  She Said Welcome To Hell Hard Times  The Recluse Traded in My Cigarettes

I'm having an issue with the videos not loading on the blog. I'm trying to sort it out and will update this post later. :) Update: Videos seem to be working again now, not sure what the problem was but will keep an eye on it.

This week the video is for the single Maxstep by Korean "supergroup" Younique Unit, which consists of members from other K-pop groups on the SM Entertainment record label. The group was formed as part of a collaboration with Hyundai PYL. The members are Eunhyuk (from Super Junior ), Henry ( Super Junior-M ), Hyoyeon (part of Girls' Generation and the only female member of Younique Unit), Taemin ( SHINee ), Lu Han ( EXO-M ) and Kai ( EXO-K ). I'd say it's actually more of a Korean/international group since Henry is Canadian and Lu Han is Chinese. :) I think Younique Unit started off as a dance group but they debuted as a singing group in 2012, releasing their debut single Maxstep on the mini album PYL Younique Album Vol. 1 on 31st October. The other songs on the album were Lookin' by BoA featuring The Quiett and My Lifestyle (Hyundai i30's theme song) by Jessica Jung (another Girls' Generation member) featuring Dok2 . Younique Unit don't appea...

I haven't done a Girls Vs Boys post for a while, so here is another Turkish one. Today it's Murat Boz vs Tugba Yurt. I can't find anything on Tugba Yurt in English but here is her song Agir Yarali, which I presume was released late last year/early this year, since the video was posted on 5th December 2013. Visit her site and Facebook page here (Turkish language): Official site Official FB Murat Boz is a popular singer who has been releasing solo music since 2006. His debut single was Aşkı Bulamam Ben and he has released 3 albums Maximum (2007), Sans (2009) and Aşklarım Büyük Benden (2011), as well as a remix album called Dance Mix (2012). This is Bulmaca from Aşklarım Büyük Benden and it came out in 2012. For more on Murat visit his site (Turkish): www.muratboz.com Who's your favourite?

Today's video is for Dreamum Wakeupum from the Bollwood film Aiyya (2012). It stars Rani Mukerjee as Meeknakshi Deshpande, a film fan from a Marathi family, who has an extra sensitive nose. Her heightened sense of smell puts her on the trail of Surya ( Prithviraj ), a man from a Tamil family. She is intrigued by his scent and wants to find out who he is but her parents would prefer her to marry Madhav ( Subodh Bhave ). I haven't actually seen this film, only the videos but it sounds mad, so will have to watch it sometime! lol. This video seems a bit weird; apparently it's a parody of South Indian films. I've seen some Tollywood videos but not many Marathi or Kollywood (Tamil language) ones. It does remind me of Tollywood.

Here's the next song from The Defamation of Strickland Banks. This one is called Traded in My Cigarettes and tells the story of Strickland using in cigarettes to buy a "shiv" (prison knife), in order to defend himself from other prisoners. It's the 8th song on the album and wasn't released as a single.                                     Watch the other videos in the series here: Love Goes Down (song)/Writing's On The Wall Stay Too Long   Love Goes Down  She Said Welcome To Hell Hard Times  The Recluse