Star Sparkle Blog

I'm posting the Weekly Music Video early this week because it's my birthday tomorrow, so I'm taking a computer break. :) This week's video is Away by Nigerian duo P-Square . It's their latest single and was released earlier this month as a Valentine special.

Both Mariah Carey and Ariana Grande have new songs/videos out at the moment. Ariana is often compared to Mariah, so I thought it would be good to feature them together. Mariah is my fave singer and I like Ariana as well. :) First up here's Mariah's I Don't featuring American rapper YG. It's about the end of her relationship with ex-fiance James Packer and if you watched her recent reality series Mariah's World , you would have seen her recording it in the studio. The show also documented the start of her relationship with her back-up dancer Bryan Tanaka (known as Tanaka) who she got close to during her European tour. And then this is Ariana's Everyday featuring American rapper and record producer Future  which is from her latest album Dangerous Woman. It's a lyric video but if an official music video is made in the future I'll post that as well. :) The song is explicit. Update 5/3/17: Here's the official video for Everyday: ...

Today's video is Don't Recall by K.A.R.D . They are a Korean group which consists of 4 members, J.seph (real name Kim Tae-hyung), Somin (full name Jeon Somin), B.M. (real name Matthew Kim but is also known as Kim Jin-seok or Woo-jin) and Jiwoo (Jeon Jiwoo).* I've just read that there's also a "hidden" member, Heo Younji who sings with the rest. She hasn't appeared in any videos so far. K.A.R.D are unique since they are a mixed gender group. While it's more common in the UK (3 groups I can think of off the top of my head are Hear'Say , Liberty X and Clean Bandit ), in South Korea they tend to have girl groups or boybands. There are also other European groups such as Aqua and Vengaboys . (I couldn't think of an American pop group with both male and female members but I thought there must be at least one! Let me know if you know of one). Each member represents a letter of the group's name and a card in a pack of playing cards- B.M. repre...

Thr latest update on music and videos I've been listening to and watching. :) BP RANIA- Start a Fire (K-pop) Little Mix- Touch MASC- Tina   (live on Simply K-pop) CLC- Hobgoblin (K-pop) Ariana Grande feat. Future- Everyday (lyric video) Ed Sheeran- Shape of You Martin Garrix x Dua Lipa - Scared To Be Lonely Kris Wu - Juice (from XXX: The Return of Xander Cage) Alessia Cara- Seventeen Red Velvet - Rookie (K-pop) Sam Kim and Loco- Think About Chu (K-pop) Tei Shi- Keep Running  Mariah Carey feat. YG- I Don't  M.I.A.- P.O.W.A Zara Larsson feat. Ty Dolla $ign- So Good  J-pop All these songs aren't brand new releases but they're new to me. J Soul Brothers (EXILE TRIBE)- Welcome to Tokyo * GENERATIONS (EXILE TRIBE): PIERROT * Happiness- Ordinary Girls Meng Jia - Who's That Girl (C-pop) Katy Perry- Chained to the Rhythm (lyric video) Ae Dil Hai Mushkil- Bulleya (Bollywood)* Bebe Rexha- All Your Fault Pt. 1 EP, minus I Got You whic...

This week's video is Keep Running by Tei Shi . Her real name is Valerie Teicher and she's from Argentina. She released her debut single M&Ms in summer 2013 and her debut digital EP Saudade in November that year. In 2015 she brought out her second EP Verde ("Green" in Spanish) online and also released a physical EP. One of her most successful singles is Bassically. Her debut album Crawl Space is set for release at the end of March. Tei Shi's music has been described as indie pop and she herself has called it "sensual bedroom pop" and "mermaid music"! Keep Running is the first single from Crawl Space and it's out now. For more on Tei Shei visit her official site: http://www.tei-shi.com/

I'm doing an extra post this week because I just finished a collection of stories I've been working on for ages. It's called The Book of the Sea because they're based around the sea. :)  Sacrifice , one of the stories I've previously shared, is included in the collection. You can read The Book of the Sea here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xjIopKVerikJS8uh_ZDeLDQx0VpX2fGav40suI41tjo/edit?usp=sharing Hope you enjoy it. :)

Two of my favourite genres are J-pop and K-pop. I started listening to J-pop (Japanese pop) about 10 years ago and got into K-pop (Korean pop) a few years ago as well. I don't listen to as much music from other Asian countries but the other month I came across a Vietnamese singer (Hồ Ngọc Ha, see below), so I thought it would be fun to explore different types. :) Note: I also like Bollywood /Hindi music but for the purposes of this post, I'm going to stick to East Asian music (apart from one crossover Bollywood song). Maybe in the future I'll do a post on South Asian music :) J-pop My favourite. :)  (Although there are actually more K-pop posts on here because I've been listening to more lately!). My fave singers are Koda Kumi and Namie Amuro and I also like Utada Hikaru (although I prefer her English languge music in general) and some Ayumi Hamasaki songs. I mostly know Japanese solo singers, so I'd like to listen to more groups. I like a few groups, suc...

Today's video is Pashmina from the Bollywood film Fitoor which was released last year. It's a modern adaptation of Charles Dickens' classic story Great Expectations and is about poor artist Noor (played by Aditya Roy Kapur/Kapoor ) who falls in love with rich girl Firdaus ( Katrina Kaif ). He sets out to become successful to win Firdaus' heart but her mother Begum ( Tabu ) is determined that they won't be together. I haven't seen this but it sounds good, so I'll put it on my To Watch list! Like Befikre (see New Releases post under the Aditya link below) it's had bad reviews but I'd still like to have a look, lol.* The playback singer for Pashmina is Amit Trivedi . This isn't the full song but you can listen to it here: Pashmina Full Song For more Katrina check out these posts: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2012/06/weekly-music-video.html https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2015/02/weekly-music-video_18.html https://starspar...

Series/Season 7 of American reality show Dance Moms is currently showing in the UK and I recently heard that one of the original dancers Chloe Lukasiak will be returning for the finale. Chloe and her mum Christi weren't liked by the dance teacher and studio owner Abby Lee Miller and Christi often clashed with Abby. They left at the end of Series 4. Abby treated Chloe horribly in my opinion, once referring to her as "that girl over there" instead of her name. I always disliked the way Abby punishes the girls if she falls out with their mothers. Also Abby seemed to want to Chloe to fail in competitions, which was weird because she was one of her students representing her!! I think she just wants to be proven right a lot of the time. Chloe was my favourite out of the original girls (Chloe, Maddie, Nia, Mackenzie, Brooke  and Paige, although Kendall joined quite early on) and I was glad for her when she finally left because she didn't have to put up with being treated...

Here is the new video for BANKS' song Trainwreck. It's from her latest album The Altar which was released in September. I'm not sure if it's actually a single but they've done a video. It's a bit of a weird one but BANKS' videos are often different! lol. Trainwreck is a good song. It's not one of my absolute favourites on the album but it is one I like. :) For my post about the album click here: http://starsparklex.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/new-banks-album.html