Star Sparkle Blog

A while ago I had an idea to start a series featuring Bollywood playback singers. It's taken me a bit to get round to it, but here's the first one! :) A playback singer is someone who records the music for films. In Bollywood, which is the Hindi language Indian movie industry, most actors don't sing (although some do) so singers provide the vocals for them in the films. Some of the most well-known Bollywood playback singers are sisters Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle , Sonu Nigam, Alka Yagnik , Himesh Reshammiya , Sunidhi Chauhan and Shreya Ghoshal. In this post I'm featuring Sunidhi Chauhan . Sunidhi is from Delhi and began performing at local gatherings at a young age. She made her first start in the Bollywood music business aged around 12, when she was a co-vocalist on the song Ladki Deewani Ladki Deewana (something like "Girl Crazy, Boy Crazy" in English)  from the 1996 film Shashta. The other singers were father and son Udit and Aditya Narayan. She...

This week's video (well, audio!) is Me tana by Albanian singer Elvana Gjata . It was an entry in Festivali i Këngës, an Albanian music competition which is held every year to choose the country's representative for the Eurovision Song Contest . Elvana was a favourite to win but came 2nd in the Grand Final. The winner was Arliene Ara with Fall From The Sky . Sadly this year's contest was cancelled due to the coronavirus , but the event Eurovision: Europe Shine A Light was held instead. Me tana was released as a single in December. The title translates as "With all" or "With everything" in English. This is the official audio. You can find an English translation of the lyrics here: https://lyricstranslate.com/en/me-tana-everything.html-0 For another song by Elvana visit this post: Music video for Off Guard feat. Ty Dolla $ign: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2019/09/weekly-music-video_11.html And for more Albanian music check out these posts: Albania...

Today is the first official day of summer of the Northern Hemisphere. It's the Summer Solstice (also known as Litha ) which occurs around 21st June every year. If you're interested in reading more about it check out this Litha + Summer Inspiration post over on my other blog The Seasonal Life: https://livingseasonal.blogspot.com/2020/06/litha-summer-inspiration.html For the past few years I've done posts featuring summer songs, so this year  I thought I would do a round-up of previous blog posts plus share a couple of new ones. And later on in the summer I'll probably do a new post. Although this summer is likely to look different to previous ones, due to the coronavirus pandemic , and resulting lockdowns/quarantines and restrictions still in place in many countries, hopefully we can still enjoy it. So here's the round-up and I hope the songs get you inspired for summer. :) Top 10 Summer Songs: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2016/08/top-10-summer-songs.html More...

Today's video is I No Go Give Up On You by emPawa Africa and Mr Eazi . emPawa Africa is an Africa wide mentorship programme run by Mr Eazi, who is originally from Nigeria but based in Ghana. I No Go Give Up On You is the lead single from the new EP One Day You Will Understand, a joint release from Mr Eazi and members of emPawaAfrica. The song was co-written by Mikel and was released in May. This is a visualiser (or visualizer) video. It has a nice, summer vibe. I think it's sung in Pidgin . You can see the lyrics in the info box on YouTube. :) Mr Eazi launched emPawa Africa in 2018. He asked for demo submissions from artists across Africa. 100 artists were chosen and their videos were funded, then 10 finalists were chosen to take part in a masterclass in South Africa. Check out a video by finalist by Bey T (from Kenya) here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2019/06/weekly-music-video_26.html And for more on emPawa Africa visit these links: Official site: https://empawaafrica...

It's been a while since I featured new K-pop releases on the blog. Actually, I don't think I've done a post with just new K-pop songs since the beginning of last year ! I did share some K-pop videos from my YouTube playlist last month though. So today I'm sharing some new Korean releases. :) Chung Ha- Stay Tonight First up is Chung Ha (also written as Chungha), a solo singer (who was also a member of now disbanded project group I.O.I . This is Stay Tonight which was released in late April, so it's new-ish, lol. Chung Ha- Be Yourself And here is Chung Ha's latest release Be Yourself, which came out on 9th June. It's an upbeat dancey pop song, and is actually an ad for Sprite as part of the Korean Sprite summer campaign! The man in the video is model Jung Hyuk . Read more about the song here: https://www.soompi.com/article/1405290wpp/watch-chungha-says-be-yourself-in-colorful-new-mv-teaser Slightly off topic question: Which do you prefer 7Up or Sprite ? 7Up ...

Today's video is ONLY by ZHU featuring Tinashe . ZHU (real name Steven Zhu) is an American musician and singer who started his career by releasing music on Soundcloud in 2014. He released his song Moves Like Ms Jackson (a mashup of OutKast songs) anonymously in February 2014. In March that year ZHU released his debut single Faded, followed by his debut EP The Nightday in April. Since then he has brought out 3 more EPs- Genesis Series (2015), Stardustexhalemarrakechdreams (2017) and Ringos Desert Pt. 1(2018). In July 2016 he released his first album Generationwhy. ZHU's other singles include Automatic with AlunaGeorge , Generationwhy, Nightcrawler, Coming Home with Majid Jordan , Came for the Low with partywithray and ONLY. His latest album is Ringos Desert, released in September 2018. ONLY which features American singer Tinashe, is ZHU's latest single and came out in May. For more on ZHU visit these links: Official site: https://zhumusic.com/ Official FB: https://www.face...

With recent events and a lot of division and unrest in the world, I think we could all do with some relaxation! Several years ago I did a post on my other blog Falling Petals called Alternatives to Meditation and included some relaxing songs I liked, but I don't think I've ever done a post grouping them all together on Star Sparkle. So today I'm sharing some "chillout" songs. Years ago I made a playlist of relaxing songs for myself, so I'll share some of those, plus some newer music. Maybe not all of these are strictly in the chillout genre, but they do have calming vibes. Hope it helps you to relax, even if only for a little while. :) Ivo Sedlacek- Dance of Autumn Lights I don't listen to much classical music, but one of my favourite pieces in that genre is Dance of Autumn Lights by Ivo Sedlack . It's long at around 16 minutes but great if you just want to relax for a while, or maybe use it for meditation! I featured it as a Weekly Music Video back...

Hope eveyone is doing ok. It's been a difficult few months, not only with the coronavirus and lockdown/quarantines , but also with the recent killing of George Floyd (RIP) and subsequent events. It is really important that things change . It can all feel a bit too much and de-stressing is really needed right now. As I said back in March I hope music is able to cheer you up a bit (although of course it won't solve anything). I do truly believe music is universal and reaches across borders. :) Today's video is Désolée by Ronisia. Her full name is Ronisia Mendes and she is a French urban pop and R'n'B singer. I can't find much info about her online, but will update in future if I find some. :) To date she has released the songs Plus de peine (something like More Pain in English, I think), Désolée, Pourqoi (Why) and her latest Loin de moi (Far from me). Désolée translates as "Sorry" in English. It was released last September. I don't listen to muc...