Star Sparkle Blog

We're coming to the end of 2024, so here is my annual round-up of the best posts from the year! :) You can see my previous Best Of posts (dating back to 2016) at the links below:  2016's Best Of:  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2016/12/best-of-2016.html 2017's:  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2017/12/best-of-2017.html 2018's: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2018/12/best-of-2018.html 2019's:  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2019/12/best-of-2019.html 2020's: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2020/12/best-of-2020.html 2021's: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2022/01/best-of-2021.html 2022's: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2023/01/best-of-2022.html 2023's:  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2023/12/best-of-2023.html   And now here is 2024's! :) Music  I carried on my tradition of sharing some new music for the new year:  New Music for 2024: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2024/01/new-music-for-2024.html More New Music for 2024:...

Hope everyone had a good Christmas! (Or any other festival you celebrated.) :) This week's video is on a Thursday instead of the usual Wednesday, because yesterday was Christmas Day.   This is The Test, the latest single by Singaporean singer Gen Neo . It's from his new EP Push&Pull, which was released on 8th November.  Push&Pull is English language and mainly R'n'B style. Gen calls it both an album and an EP. I suppose it's kind of in the middle, since it consists of 8 tracks.  The first 3 singles to be released were Tell The Truth, Like I Do and ONTW (released in August, September and October respectively). I like most of the songs but my favourites are Ain't The Same and I Wanna Know. The Test is the focus track of the EP. It's an R'n'B and soul ballad that "explores an intimate and sensual conversation between lovers". In the video (which premiered on 7th November) Gen plays the piano as the sun sets, before setting it on fire! ...

Sorry the 2nd post is later this week; I didn't manage to get it finished yesterday. :) It's only 3 days till Christmas, so today I'm sharing some festive entertainment! It's a mixture of music, books and TV. :)  Last year I wrote my 3rd Christmas Round-up (a follow-up to posts in 2016 and 2018). You can see it here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2023/12/christmas-round-up-3.html Music   Coco Jones- Santa Is Me/Call On Christmas This week's Weekly Music Video is Santa Is Me/Call On Christmas, two new songs by American singer Coco Jones. Both songs are from her new Christmas EP Coco By The Fire. Watch the video here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2024/12/weekly-music-video_18.html CHUNG HA- Sleigh Korean singer CHUNG HA /Chungha (a former member of now disbanded K-pop girl I.O.I turned solo star) released the special Christmas digital single [Christmas Promises] on 3rd December. It consists of 2 tracks- Sleigh and There Goes Santa Claus. This is Sleigh. It...

It's a week till Christmas already, so today's video is festive themed! It's Santa Is Me/ Call On Christmas by American singer Coco Jones . Both songs are from her new Christmas themed EP Coco By The Fireplace, which was released on 22nd November. The EP (Coco's 6th) consists of 4 tracks, the other two are My Presence Is A Present and String of Lights. The title of My Presence Is A Present reminds of me a scene from the film Christmas Do-over where Todd (the new boyfriend of main character Kevin's ex-Jill) makes a pun on "gifts/presents" and presence" and later, Kevin steals it ! lol. Coco has previously brought out Christmas music-  original song Home for the Holidays in 2020, a cover of the 2021 classic Christmas song Silver Bells in 2022 and A Timeless Christmas in November 2023 (see below). Santa Is Me and Call On Christmas are both R'n'B songs This is a live performance video. Although Santa Is Me is listed first in the video title, Call ...

I've written quite a few dance posts this year (about one a month) and as we're now coming to the end of 2024, I thought it was time for a round-up! So here are the previous dance posts on the blog this year, plus a couple of new videos. :)    Dance in Public Videos- One Take Edition!: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2024/01/dance-in-public-videos-one-take-edition.html Dance/Performance Videos (dance covers and dance performances by the artists themselves): https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2024/02/danceperformance-videos.html New(ish) J-pop Music and Dance:  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2024/03/newish-j-pop-music-and-dance.html V-pop Music and Dance 2023-2024 (Vietnamese pop): https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2024/04/v-pop-music-and-dance.html K-pop (and J-pop) in Public- Boys' Edition 2!:  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2024/05/k-pop-in-public-boys-edition-2.html Dance in Public- V-pop and P-Pop Videos (Vietnamese and Pinoy/Filipino pop): https://starspa...

This week's music video is Edge Of Us by Natasha Hamilton , a former member of British girl group Atomic Kitten . She was one of the original members of the group, having replaced Heidi Range , who went on to become a member of Sugababes ). The group debuted with Natasha, Liz McClarnon and Kerry Katona in 1999 but after Kerry left, she was replaced by Jenny Frost (a former member of girl group Precious ).  I've just read today that Natasha recently announced that she's leaving Atomic Kitten after 26 years. I was a fan of the group, so it feels a bit sad to hear that, although they haven't released much music in recent years. But it's cool that Natasha is going solo. While they haven't released a studio album since 2003's Ladies Night (or a compilation since Whole Again- The Best of Atomic Kitten in 2015), the group did bring out a single more recently- Southgate You're the One (Football's Coming Home Again. It was a reworked version for their hit 2...

Sorry the post is a bit later this week, I didn't manage to get it finished yesterday. :)   It's now December and less than a month is left of the year, so here are some new music releases for the end of 2024!  You can read my previous New Music Releases post (written in October) here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2024/10/new-music-releases.html Today I'm sharing new music from a variety of genres. :) Tyla- PUSH 2 START First up is PUSH 2 START by South African singer Tyla . She has had a very successful year , with achievements that include continuing to top the charts with her single Water and songs from her debut album, and receiving nominations and winning awards at several international award shows, such as the GRAMMYs , the MTV Video Music Awards and the MTV Europe Music Awards . She is rounding off her year by appearing as one of the guests on the Netflix holiday special A Nonsense Christmas with Sabrina Carpenter (hosted by American singer Sabrina Carpenter...

Today's video is bottomline by American singer Tori Kelly and featuring American singer JoJo . It's from the deluxe edition of Tori's 5th studio album TORI. which was released in April.  The deluxe edition of the album is called TORI (+ a lil more) and came out on 11th October. It  features 4 extra tracks- distance, bottomline, u and beautiful war featuring American singer Pink Sweat$ (all written in lower case).  Tori also teamed up with  Korean singer Kim Chaewon from the K-pop girl group LE SSERAFIM  and Nigeran singer Ayra Starr on the songs spruce and unbelievable respectively. (Both appeared on the original version).  bottomline is a pop/R'n'B song which also has a bit of a reggae vibe. While several singles have been released from TORI. (including missing u, high water and thing u do),  I think bottomline is the first single from the deluxe edition. The official audio was released on 11th October and the music video was uploaded on 25th Novem...

I've written several Bollywood posts this year but I don't feature South Indian music/films as much. So today I'm sharing some music and dance videos from Tollywood ( the Telugu language film) and Kollywood (the Tamil language film industry). :) Oo Antava Mawa- Pushpa- Dance Cover by Sonali First up is a dance cover of the song Oo Antava Mawa..Oo Oo Antava from the 2021 Tollywood film Pushpa: The Rise- Part 1 . I previously featured a dance cover of Oo Antava Mawa in a Dance Videos post in August last year. That one is by Rang De and you can see it here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2023/08/dance-videos.html This cover is by Indian choreographer Sonali Bhaduria, from LiveToDance with Sonali and was uploaded in January 2022. It's a shorter video.   For more on Pushpa and to watch the official Oo Antava Mawa video, check out my Tollywood Videos Round-up 2 post from September 2023: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2023/09/tollywood-videos-round-up-2.html Pushpha 2...

This week's video is YOU DID IT by Filipina girl group KAIA . It is a non-album single and was released in May. YOU DID IT is a dance-pop song with Persian influences. It's sung in a mixture of Filipino and English. The music video showcases how KAIA have grown since their debut. It also features KAIA's origin story of a dragonfly , which symbolises their journey as a Filipino girl group trying to make it in the music industry.  Click "Closed captions/subtitles" on YouTube for English subtitles! :)       There's also a performance video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sESEg17KJaw   Want more KAIA? Check out these links: My Asian Groups post which features the music videos for their pre-debut single KAYA and their official debut single BLAH BLAH (released in 2021 and 2022):  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2023/03/asian-groups-filipina-girl-group.html The video for their latest single Walang Biruan (released in September): https://www.youtube.com/wat...

Last month I wrote a post about the members of Korean boyband BTS' solo careers. I ended up splitting it into two parts because it was getting long! Part 1 featured 4 members- RM, SUGA, j-hope and Jimin. You can see it here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2024/10/bts-boys-solo-careers-part-1.html Now in Part 2 I'm focusing on the other 3 members, Jin, Jungkook and V. As I mentioned in the first post, the majority of the BTS boys are currently doing their military service. However, Jin finished in June and j-hope last month. :)  V V (real name Kim Tae-hyung/Taehyung) has released several solo songs as part of BTS and also released the single It's Definitely You (a collaboration with Jin; see below), for the soundtrack of the 2016 South Korean TV series Hwarang: The Poet Warrior Youth (in which he also made his acting debut). He has also appeared in a couple of reality shows. * In January 2019 he released his first independent song Scenery, through BTS' SoundCloud ac...

This week's video is Love You Down by Charmonty. She's an American singer/songwriter. Charmonty has released 4 albums to date- Toxicity (2020), Rose (Colored) (2021), Closure (2022) and her latest, Heart Pieces. She has also brought out two EPs, Good Enough (2021) and something to hold you over (2023).  I think she started releasing singles in 2020 and her early singles include I Can Be Lonely, Maybe I Just Wanna Be Yours and Naive. A couple of more recent ones are Keep You Around (released in May 2023) and Honesty (released last December). Love You Down is Charmonty's latest single and is from her newest album Heart Pieces, which came out in April. I came across Love You Down randomly on YouTube. It was released in May and is a smooth, slow R'n'B song. Listen to/stream Heart Pieces at the links below: Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/heart-pieces/1742300079 Spotify:  https://open.spotify.com/album/3M2q3NCnAEEb61tmmnbk3W YouTube:  https://www.youtube.co...