Star Sparkle Blog

Hope everyone had a good Christmas. :) Sorry the post is late this week, I wasn't feeling well yesterday so wasn't on the computer. This week's video (and the last one of 2015) is Korean boyband BTS' Hold Me Tight. It's from their mini album The Mood of Love Part.1 which came out in April. Like MONSTA X's One Love , the videos has Korean Hangul , Romanisation lyrics and an English translation. Update 2/11/19: I've more recently seen this mini album translated as In The Mood for Love or The Most Beautiful Moment of Life Part. 1.  Update 2- 23/6/22: I had to replace the video because it was gone, but this one also has the lyrics and an English translation. :)                     Hope everyone has a great New Year's Eve. Happy New Year! :)

It's Boxing Day today and I decided to do a Bollywood post because it's fun to have a themed day and I thought Bollywood Boxing Day sounded good! lol. So here is a round up of Bollywood posts on the blog and a few other songs I like. :) Babuji Zara Dheere Chalo from Dum: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2011/12/random-music-video.html Bardaasht from Humraaz (one of my fave Bollywood films):  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2012/03/weekly-music-video.html Zara Zara Touch Me from Race: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2012/06/weekly-music-video.html Maula Mere Maula from Anwar: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2012/12/weekly-music-vidro.html Nachle from Lakeer:  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2012/12/weekly-music-video_27.html Bure Bure from Bluffmaster (included in the post on Tweet's Call Me): https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2013/01/weekly-music-video_17.html J-pop vs Bollywood (Namie Amuro's Want Me Want Me and Aa Khushi Se Khudkhusi Kar Le fro

Since it's Christmas Day on Friday this week's video is Christmas themed! It's Ariana Grande' s Santa Tell Me. It came out a year ago but I don't recall seeing the video on British musich channels last year. They've been showing it a lot this Christmas. Santa Tell Me was the 5th single from Ariana's 2013 EP Christmas Kisses (a mix of original songs and covers of classic Christmas songs) and was released in November 2014. Merry Christmas! Hope you have a great one. :) P.S. If  you're into Christmas films check out this post I wrote last year about my Top 5 favourites: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2014/12/top-5-christmas-films.html

Posting schedule is slightly behind again, sorry about that. :) I recently featured dance reality show Step It Up on the blog. In that post I mentioned Bring It! , another dance show. They don't show in in the UK anymore (they only showed the first series/season) but it's still going strong in America, with the 3rd series set to premiere on New Year's Day. Here's a video I came across recently from the second series where the Dancing Dolls are competing against YCDT Supastarz in a stand battle . In my post on Step It Up, I mentioned how I was surprised that YCDT (Young Contemporary Dance Theatre who feature in Step It Up) and the Dancing Dolls were rivals, since I thought their styles of dancing were different. But they must directly compete because they're both in this video, lol. Anyway, here is Part 1 of the stand battle: Hope you like it. :) There's also a video here from an episode of Bring It! where you can see the YCDT Supastarz' pract

Here is Jamie Woon's latest single Sharpness. It came out in September and is from his new album Making Time which is out now. This video is a live recording at Kronk Studios.

I'm a fan of the Bollywood actor Emraan Hashmi and like quite a few of the songs from his films, so I thought I would feature a few of his videos today. :) First of all here is Aashiq Banaya Aapne from Aashiq Banaya Aapne: Love Takes Over which was probably one of the first films I saw Emraan in. The main playback singer is Himesh Reshammiya and the female singer is Shreya Ghosha l.  The story is about Karan (played by Sonu Snood who also acts in Tollywood) who is secretly in love with his friend Sneha (played by Tanushree Dutta ). When Sneha meets Karan's old friend Vikram aka Vicky (Emraan) she gets together with him and they get engaged. But when she finds out that Vicky has been seeing other woman she breaks off the engagement. Afterwards Sneha is harassed and turns to Karan for support. In this video Vicky and Karan are spending the night together for the first time. Emraan has a bit of a reputation for kissing in films, which isn't common in Bollywood! Update:

Today's video is Lithium by Evanescence . It's from their 2006 album The Open Door and was released as a single in early 2007. Lithium is one of my favourite Evanescence songs. They hardly show the video on the music channels so I forget it has a video sometimes! lol. Anyway here it is, hope you enjoy it! :)

Sorry this week's post is a bit late, I've been a bit busy lately and got behind. :) Step It Up is an American reality show about the dance team Young Contemporary Dance Theatre (YCDT) run by Traci Young-Byron, who used to be the team captain of NBA (basketball) dance team Miami HEAT Dancers . The YCDT dancers perform different styles such as contemporary,  hip hop, West African and jazz. Step It Up follows a similar format to other Lifetime shows Dance Mom s, Dance Mums with Jennifer Ellison (the UK version of Dance Moms) and Bring It! where every week the dancers prepare to take part in a performance and/or an audtiton. It's currently on Lifetime UK on Mondays at 9pm but I think tomorrow will be the last episode of the current series. YCDT is based in Miami, Florida. There are two teams, Company and Repertory (the more elite dancers). Much like Bring It! Traci cuts dancers who she doesn't think are prepared for upcoming performances or events. (Not from the scho

This week's video is Should've Been Us by Tori Kelly . She's an American singer and her full name is Victoria Loren Kelly. Tori started out by posting videos on YouTube in her early teens and then auditioned for reality show American Idol aged 16. She didn't get through but went on to release her own EP called Handmade Songs by Tori Kelly. In 2013 Justin Bieber's manager Scooter Braun took her on and she signed to Capitol Records. In October that yeat she released her second EP Forward. She featured on Brirish rapper Professor Green's song Lullaby and also colloborated with American group Pentatonix on the single Winter Wonderland/Don't Worry Be Happy in 2014. This year Tori released Nobody Love in February, the lead single from her debut album Unbreakable Smile which came out in June. A Deluxe version of the album was released in October. Tori's latest single is Hollow. Should've Been Us was the second single from Unbreakable Smile. It was

As I mentioned before Justin Bieber recently released his album Purpose . I featured Sorry as my Weekly Music Video the other week, you can watch it here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2015/11/weekly-music-video.html Here are a few more videos from the album which are listed as PURPOSE: The Movement on YouTube. First of all here is the video for No Sense featuring Travi$ Scott which is my favourite song on the album so far. It features some dancers; I think the same ones from Sorry. Justin doesn't appear in it but Travi$ does. I don't think Justin is in many of them because they're more about the dancers. It's not quite the full song. And here's No Pressure featuring Big Sean , another one I like: Also check out Company: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neSv8fjmDB0 And Mark My Words which Justin features in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjUQjq1CBi0 Hope you like them. :) Which one is your favourite?

Today's video (or rather song) is One Love by MONSTA X . They are a Korean boyband consisting of 7 members, leader Shownu (real name Son Hyun Woo), Wonho (Shin Ho Seok), Minhyuk (Lee Minhyuk), Kihyun (Yoo Kihyun), Hyungwon (Chae Hyungwon) and rappers Jooheon (Lee Joo Heon) and I.M. (Lim/Im Chang Kyun).  The group were put together after the members won record label Starship Entertainment's survival show NO MERCY and debuted in May this year. They are label mates with girl group SISTAR , who were mentors on the show along with other Korean music acts. Starship have said that the name MONSTA X refers to monsters taking over K-pop music and also comes from the French words for "my" (Mon) and "star "Sta". X is meant to "symbolise an unknown existence". Members of MONSTA X released singles with other artists as part of the show before debuting with the single Trespass and mini album of the same name on 14th May. In September they released their

Dance Mums with Jennifer Ellison is the British version of the popular American reality TV show Dance Moms . Like the American series it is centred on a dance school, this one is the Jennifer Ellison Fame Academy (JEDT) based at Jelli Studios in Liverpool and run by actress, dancer and singer Jennifer Ellison . It follows a similar format to Dance Moms, where every week the team take part in a competition. The second series is currently showing on Lifetime UK on Mondays at 9pm. The members of the team are Tayluer Amos (who's been called the UK Maddie ), Sam Dennis, Eleiyah Navis (big Eleiyah), Aleah Simpson (little Aleah), Chloe Fenton and current newest member Leah Rose. The mothers are Maxine (Tayleur's mum), Charlotte (Sam's mum), Kelly (mum of Eleiyah), Danielle (Aleah's mum), Serena (Chloe's mother) and Lisa (Leah Rose's mum). Former cast members are Chloe Greenwood (aka Chloe Senior) her mum Carol and grandma Nana Linda, and Molly Thorpe Franklin and h

Today's video is Ninguem by Angolan singer Pérola . It's a fairly new song, the video was uploaded to YouTube in September. Pérola's latest album is Mais De Min which was released this year. She's singing in Portuguese which is the official language of Angola. According to Google Translate "Nimguem" translates as "No one". And the album title is "More of Me". The Spanish word for more is "mas" and Portuguese is similar, so it's probably quite accurate. If  anyone speaks Portuguese and wants to translate the Ninguem lyrics, please let me know! Hope you like the song. :) P.S. I've found a couple of articles with more info about Perola. Her real name is Jandira Sassingui and she was born in Angola but moved to Namibia at 13. Here are the links: http://www.olamildent.com/2010/06/about-perola.html http://www.igrooveradio.com/born-in-angola-raised-in-namibia-perola-born-jandira-sassingui-has-a-beautiful-voice/ And

I've been listening to more new music, so here's an update. :) Justin Bieber's new album Purpose came out yesterday. You can listen on Spotify (sign-up or log-in):  https://play.spotify.com/album/7fZH0aUAjY3ay25obOUf2a?play=true&utm_source=open.spotify.com&utm_medium=open It sounds good, I already like Where Are U Now (with Skrillex and Diplo ) and Sorry and others I like are Company, No Pressure featuring Big Sean and No Sense featuring Travi$ Scott . I also listened to The Weeknd's new album Beauty Behind The Madness. That came out in August but I hadn't listened to it yet! You can listen here: https://play.spotify.com/album/28ZKQMoNBB0etKXZ97G2SN?play=true&utm_source=open.spotify.com&utm_medium=open I liked a couple of songs on that, like Tell Your Friends and Prisoner featuring Lana Del Ray. And BANKS' new single Better was my Weekly Music Video this week. Check it out here: http://starsparklex.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/weekly-mus

This is Better, the new single by BANKS . It's from her new album which according to comments on YouTube is due out next year. I really like her first album GODDESS and that was released over a year ago, so I'm looking forward to hearing more new stuff. It's almost exactly 2 years since I first posted about her. Didn't realise it had been so long! This is a haunting song that maybe takes a few listens to get used to but I like it. :)

Time for an update on the new music and videos I've been listening to/watching recently. :) Nick Jonas - Levels Alessia Cara- Here The Weeknd - The Hills Tori Kelly- Should've Been Us Olly Mur- Kiss Me Little Mix- Love Me Like You Justin Bieber- Sorry Pia Mia - Touch Drake- Hotline Bling Tinashe feat. Chris Brown- Player Ariana Grande - Focus Justin Bieber- I'll Show You JoJo - Say Love (video) JoJo- When Love Hurts (video) That's all for now! :)

Ok, now the (extended) J-pop and K-pop month is over so back to normal scheduling! lol. It was fun though and I'll do more themed months in the future. Today's video is the new one for Justin Bieber's single Sorry. He's not actually in this video; it's a group of girls dancing instead! The song is about apologising to a girl and saying that he's missing more than just her body. I'm guessing it's about his ex Selena Gomez but of course I don't know for sure, lol. Justin's music seems to be more introspective lately after a difficult couple of years. He has anothr song called I'll Show You which is about how people see him a certain way because he's a celebrity and how he's behaved in the past but they forget that he's human just like everyone else. It's a good song, I may feature it another week. :) For now here is Sorry (Dance Version). It's on his new album Purpose which is out on 13th November.

Since today is Hallowe'en I'm doing an extra post on scary films to watch. :) Post may contain spoilers. :)      IT (1990) This is a mini series rather than a film but I'll include it anyway! It is based on the book by Stephen King about a group of 7 kids living in the town of Derry in Maine, USA, who are all misfits in some way (because of their disability, weight, race, income etc) and come together to form the "Losers Club". Part 1- 1960 The members of the group, Bill Denbrough, Mike Hanlon, Ben Hanscomb, Beverly Marsh, Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak and Stanley Uris become friends and find strength in numbers. However, Derry is no ordinary town and the threats that reside there go beyond the local bully Henry Bowers and his gang- every 30 years a number of children are killed and the killer/s have never been found. It's only when this particular group of kids get together that they discover the killer is an interdimensional demon. They have

Popular Japanese singer Crystal Kay has teamed up with one of my favourite J-pop singers Namie Amuro for new song Revolution, so I thought I'd post about that today. :) Crystal (full name Crystal Kay Williams) is from Yokahama in Japan. Her mum is Korean (but I think born and raised in Japan herself) and her dad is African American. She can speak Japanese and English fluently and sings in both languages. Crystal started out singing for TV adverts as a child. She signed to Epic Records at 12 years old and released her debut single Eternal Memories in July 1999 aged 13 and her debut album C.LL. Crystal Lover of Light in March 2000. Since then she has released over 30 singles, some of the most well known are Hard To Say, Boyfriend Part II, I Like It (with m-flo ) and Motherland. Her 10 studio albums include C.LL., Amost Seventeen (2002), Call Me Miss... (2006), All Yours (2007), Spin The Music (2010) and Vivid (2012). Crystal has also brought out two EPS, Shining (2007) and Fl

Like I mentioned in my post about J-Soul Brothers, I tend to know more Japanese solo singers and more Korean groups, lol. So I thought today I'd feature two videos, one by Japanese girlband FAKY and another by Korean American solo singer and rapper Jay Park . First up is Girl Digger by FAKY. They are a 5 member dance and vocal group, known as the Alternative girlband. They were created to represent Tokyo. The current members are Anna, Lil' Fang, Mikako and Akina. FAKY debuted in 2013 with members Anna, Lil' Fang, Tina and Diane but Diane and Tina left and were replaced by Akina. The name FAKY comes from the word Fake but the first two letters are from the word "Fantastic" and the last two from "Tokyo".  FAKY also stands for "Five Ass Kicking Youngsters". FAKY are an international group who are billingual since leader Anna is Japanese, but was born in New Zealand and also lived in Hong Kong in the Philippines before moving to Japan, and Ak

A few weeks  ago I did a post on J-pop acts.  It was originally going to be about both J-pop and K-pop acts but was turning into a really long post, so I decided to split it up! The follow up post got delayed because of computer problems but here it is now. :) You can check out my J-pop Acts post here:   https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2015/09/j-pop-acts.html So here are the Korean acts. Some of them sing in Japanese and Chinese as well. Lee Hyori Lee Hyori, aka Hyolee, is a solo singer, who started out in the girl group Fin K.L, before going solo in 2003. Her last album was Monochrome, which was released in 2013. Video for my fave song 10 Minutes: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2012/05/weekly-music-video.html Girls vs Boys with Rain (see below):  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2013/10/girls-vs-boys-k-pop.html Rain (Bi) Rain (Bi), whose real name is Jung Ji-Hoon, is one of Korea's top solo stars. In addition to singing he dances, acts and runs the reco

September was supposed to be J-pop and K-pop month but it got a bit derailed because I had computer problems! So I'm going to extend it into October. :) The last post I did was on J-pop acts . While doing that I discovered that Japanese singers Hiromi and Jasmine have new music (and some that's not so new but I don't think I've heard before). So today I'm going to feature two videos, one from each of them! First here's Hiromi's single TEQUILA SUNRISE, which came out in July. It's available as a bonus track on her compilation album BEST- FAN SELECT, which is due out on 28th October. Her latest single is BYE BYE YESTERDAY. I may feature that another week. And here is a Jasmine song, B*TCH*S. It's on her second album Complexx (2013). According to a comment on YouTube the lyrics are sexually suggestive! Update 27/5/20: Video now gone but you can find the song on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-852044490/jasmine-btchs Hope you

I haven't been posting here for a while due to computer problems but I've got a new computer now, so hope to get back to a normal posting schedule. Hope everyone's having a good week so far. :)

Computer problems Sorry there haven't been any posts this week, I'm currently having some computer problems and Blogger won't work properly on my current browwer. I hope to get it sorted as soon as possible. Hope everyone is having a good weekend. :)

I've done quite a few posts on Japanese and Korean singers and groups, so to fit in with September's J-pop and K-pop theme I thought I'd do a round-up of my favourite acts. I was going to do both Japanese and Korean acts but it was turning into a mega post, so I'll start with the J-pop ones and do K-pop next time! Koda Kumi Koda Kumi is my favourite Japanese singer. She's very popular in Japan and this year is her 15th anniversary of being in the music business. Here are some Koda related links: Video for one of my favourite songs, Trust You: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2012/01/weekly-music-video_21.html My absolute favourite song, feel: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2013/03/weekly-music-video_27.html Top 10 Koda Kumi Songs

Recently I did a post on the Japanese boyband J Soul Brothers . Their full title is J Soul Brothers from EXILE TRIBE, since they are part of the supergroup EXILE TRIBE. The rest of the members are from other Japanese groups. According to Wikipedia the other groups are EXILE,   E-girls , Generations , Gekidan Exile and The Rampage but EXILE TRIBE appears to be mainly made up of EXILE, J Soul Brothers and GENERATIONS. EXILE are a 19 member group who were founded in the late 90s by HIRO. They were the original J Soul Brothers but later changed their name to EXILE. The current J Soul Brothers are a new group formed by Hiro and they are also known as Sandaime (Third J Soul Brothers). (See my other post for more). EXILE TRIBE  were formed in 2012. To date they have released 3 singles, 24karats Tribe of Gold, Burning Up and The Revolution (their most successful) and 2 promotional singles, Keep On Singing and 24WORLD. They released their first album, Exile Tribe Revolution in August 2014.

Korean singer BoA recently made a comeback with her new album Kiss My Lips. It is her 8th Korean studio album (she has also released 8 Japanese language albums and 1 English album) and came out in May. This year marks BoA's 15th anniversary in the music business, she released her debut Korean album ID; Peace B in August 2000. Here are the videos for two singles from the new album. First of all here is Kiss My Lips: And then Who Are You featuring Gaeko: Which song is your favourite? :)

Everything's K-pop or J-pop this month, so today's video is for the song I Need a Girl by Taeyang from the Korean boyband BIGBANG and featuring G-Dragon (also from BIGBANG). Taeyang's real name is Dong Young-Bae. His stage name Taeyang means "sun". He started out as a child actor before joining the South Korean record label YG Entertainment aged 12. He and G-Dragon (aka GD) were supposed to be a duo but ended up becoming part of BIGBANG. Taeyang's first solo song was My Girl which was released in 2006 and appeared on BIGBANG's debut album BIGBANG Vol 1.- Since 2007. But it wasn't until 2008 that he really launched his solo career with the release of mini album Hot in May. He released two singles from Hot, Only Look At Me and Prayer featuring Teddy from Korean/American hip hop group 1TYM . Taeyang has also released two full length solo albums, Solar (2010) and Rise (2014). Some of his other singles are Wedding Dress, Ringa Linhga and Good Boy

I don't know that many Japanese boybands. It's funny but I mostly know Korean groups and Japanese solo singers! I know KAT-TUN , Arashi (although they're more of a rock group, I think) and Hey! Say! JUMP but not many more. A friend recently introduced to me the band (or vocal and dance unit) J Soul Brothers , so I thought today I'd do a post about them. And of course it fits into the J-pop and K-pop theme I'm doing this month! This is a good opportunity to find more J-pop boybands too. :) The J Soul Brothers were originally formed in 1998 but have gone through two line-up changes. The current incarnation- full title Sandaime (Third Generation) J Soul Brothers from EXILE TRIBE * or J Soul Brothers III- was formed in 2010 by HIRO who is the leader of Japanese boyband EXILE (which has an impressive 19 members!) and founding member of the First Generation J Soul Brothers.  It was decided that EXILE and former Nidaimie (Second Generation) J Soul Brothers members N

I've decided to have a J-pop and K-pop month. I thought it would be good to have themed months every so often, so September is about everything K-pop and J-pop! :) To start with here is Girls' Generation's new music video for their song You Think. It's on their 5th album Lion Heart and both are available now.

On Wednesday I featured JoJo's new song Save My Soul as my Weekly Music Video. It's one of 3 singles from her new EP III and together the singles are known as a "tringle". I thought today I'd post the rest of the songs. :) My favourite is Save My Soul; I bought it on iTunes the other day. You can listen to Save My Soul here: http://starsparklex.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/weekly-music-video_26.html  Then here's Say Love:  And When Love Hurts: Tringle is available now. Which is your favourite? :)

This week it's Save My Soul by American singer JoJo . Her full name is Joanna Noelle Blagden Levesque and she started out as a child star, appearing on TV talent shows. At 12 she signed with Blackground Records and released her debut single Leave (Get Out) in 2004 aged 13, then her debut album JoJo. Leave (Get Out) and Baby It's You featuring American rapper Bow Wow were JoJo's two most successful singles from the album, Leave was No 1 in the US and No 2 in the UK. Not That Kinda Girl was the the 3rd single from JoJo but it wasn't released commercially in the US. In 2006 JoJo brought out her second album The High Road, which also did well. 3 songs were released from the album, Too Little Too Late, How To Touch A Girl and Anything. The best seller was Too Little Too Late. JoJo ran into record label problems while trying to release her third album and was set to release it through Interscope Records , but that never happened. She eventually filed a lawsuit against