Star Sparkle Blog

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about the 20th anniversary of my favourite singer  Mariah Carey's  The Emancipation of Mimi album. I ended up splitting it into two parts. You can see Part 1 here:  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2025/06/20th-anniversary-of-mariahs.html I'm planning to write Part 2 soon. But today I thought I'd share a special live performance that Mariah did to celebrate the anniversary.  In addition to releasing a deluxe 20th anniversary edition of The Emancipation of Mimi (or TEOM for short!) on 30th May (see Part 1 ), Mariah also recorded a live performance of select tracks from the album.  It's called Mariah Carey: The Live Sessions and is presented by MC and musical director  Daniel Moore . Daniel accompanies Mariah on the piano.   The songs featured are Don't Forget About Us, Circles, Say Somethin', Your Girl and We Belong Together. My faves are Don't Forget About Us and Say Somethin', although I like all of them....

This week's video is Heaven, the latest single by American singer Nija . It follows her previous single 32nd Floor, which came out in March. Heaven is a chilled R'n'B song. Someone in the comments on YouTube describes it as "outer space R'n'B"! It's one of my current favourite songs and I bought it on iTunes.  The single came out on 30th May. This is the official audio. I'll update this post if there's a music video in future. :)   Visit my Weekly Music Video post from April to see the visualiser for 32nd Floor:  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2025/04/weekly-music-video_23.html  

Sorry the 2nd post is later again this week; I didn't feel well yesterday and didn't manage to get it finished. :)   In recent months I've seen several K-pop in Public (dance covers of Korean songs in public places) to older songs by girl groups. So today I'm sharing some K-pop in Public covers of girl group classics! :)   AOA- Miniskirt In my Asian Dance in Public post in February, I shared a couple of covers of Miniskirt by AOA  (a  3rd generation K-pop group , I believe). They debuted in 2012 but they have been inactive since 2020. Miniskirt was released back in January 2014 and was the lead single from their 5th single album of the same name. As I mentioned in that post, I  featured the music video on the blog  10 years ago! The Miniskirt covers are by OnePear Dance crew from Australia and STARMINA from France, plus I shared a couple more links (scroll down):  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2025/02/asian-dance-in-public-videos.html Now h...

Today's video is LaSalle Ave by American singer  Jay Chang . His real name is Jay Steven Kapossy and he has a Filipino Chinese mum and Irish/Hungarian dad.  Jay was born in the US but moved to South Korea for his music career. He followed in the footsteps of his dad, who was a musician in the 80s .  He started out by competing on the Korean survival programme Under Nineteen in 2018 and while he didn't make the final group, he went on to make his solo debut with the digital single Is you in November 2020. He released two other digital singles- LIAR and I'd do anything. Jay later signed with FM Entertainment . In 2023 he competed on another audition programme,  BOYS PLANET and although he didn't make it in to the final line-up for the project boyband ZEROBASEONE , he became well known and it kickstarted his career.  He made his official solo debut in October 2023 with the EP LATE NIGHT , which is a mixture of Korean and English tracks. The lead singles were I'll...

My favourite singer Mariah Carey is celebrating the 20th Anniversary of her 10th studio album The Emancipation of Mimi. It was released back in April 2005. I'd planned to write just one post about the album but it was turning into a really long one, so I've decided to divide it into two parts! Here is Part 1. :) The Emancipation of Mimi (or TEOM for short!) was considered Mariah's "comeback album" at the time, following on from her previous two albums, Glitter (2001) which was accompanied by the film of the same name and Charmbracelet (2002). Neither the Glitter movie or album were very well received and after going through a difficult time in general, Mariah had an emotional and physical breakdown and checked into hospital that summer. She was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder , although didn't feel ready to speak about it pubicly until several years later .  Although Charmbracelet (MC's first release after leaving Virgin Records America and singing w...

This week's video is Mine by American singer Amerie . It's her latest single and was released in March. It's been a long time since Amerie has released music, so it's good to see her back! :) Her last studio album was almost 16 years ago (!!), In Love & War which was released in November 2016.  She has brought out 2 EPs in the years since though- (Drive (2016) and the double album 4AM Mulholland/After 4AM (2018). The latter was called an album at the time of release , but it was actually more of an EP. In recent years, Amerie has also become an author, having written children's book  You Will Do Great Things (2023) and contributed to/edited several anthologies, Her first adult book This Is Not a Ghost Story: a Novel is due out in July. In addition, she hosts a book club . She is set to release a new album  (her 5th studio one) this year. Mine will likely be on it, along with another song called Undeniable. Mine is a romantic ballad co-written by Amerie and re...

Sorry the 2nd post is later this week; I didn't manage to get it finished yesterday. :)   It's been a while since I've done a New Music Releases post (apart from my New Music for 2025 posts at the beginning of the year, my last one was in December ). So here is some new music for spring (almost summer) 2025! :) LISA feat. Tyla- WHEN I'M WITH YOU First up, an Asian/African crossover! :) Thai rapper and singer LISA (member of Korean girl group BLACKPINK turned solo star) recently brought out the single WHEN I'M WITH YOU, a collab with South African singer Tyla .  LISA's full name is Lalisa Manobal (her birth name is Pranpriya Manobal; she  changed it to bring herself good luck ). She started her career becoming a trainee with YG Entertainment (one of South Korea's biggest entertainment companies) and debuted at a member of BLACKPINK in 2016. In September 2021, LISA made her solo debut with the single album Lalisa and single of the same name.The single album...

Today's video is Princess GaL (Harajuku Y2K ver.) by Japanese singer Hamano Haruki (or Haruki Hamano in Western terms). She is a Japanese singer-songwriter from Fukuoka. Haruki's music is a mixture of J-pop, hip hop and rap and her lyrics are described as  "sensual and realistic, with a touch of venom" . Born in 2000 herself, she is popular with Generation Z women and has stated that her goal is to "be a friend to all women". Haruki released her debut EP 2000 in 2021 and has since released 4 more- nichijounonakaniaruhinichijou (2022), To the past me, so that I can laugh. (2022), Hamano Haruki "Re:Arranged (2023), LovE ToXic (2023). She just brought out her 1st album NET BaBy on 7th May. Her singles include WATASHI NO MONOSASHI, Tokyo, sexless, Princess GaL, CuL and her most recent, Chu <3 (a collaboration song with the lip brand CHOOSY ) which came out last month.  Princess GaL (Harajuku Y2K ver.) is a new version of Haruki's digital single Prin...

Time for another instalment of my Asian Groups series! Today I'm featuring two Thai groups- girl group THX  and boyband/boy group NEVONE . :)   THX THX are an 8 member girl group from Thailand. Their name stands for "Together, Heading to the Xtraordinary". The group was formed through E29 Trainees , by Thai record label E29 Music Identities . The members are leader Bambam (real name Butree Kaljurek), Tata (Punnawan Leelaburanatanakul), Barrie (Apichaya Mollin), Fresh (Jibhassorn Laoluechai), Cindy (full name Cindy Schmid), Cheer (Jiyapat Tantikittichaikul), Ray (Ravisara Chiewvej) and Puttjung (Napassanan Ronnakiat).   THX debuted in November 2024 with the digital single HORIZION LOVE. They released their 2nd single You Like Me Too? in February. HORIZON LOVE This is Horizon Love (also stylised as HORIZION LOVE), the girls' debut single, which was released last November. It's a pop song with a mix of Thai and English lyrics.     You Like Me Too? And here is...

Today's video is On Sight, the latest single by American singer Coco Jones . It's the 5th single from her debut album Why Not More?, which was released on 25th April. On Sight is a smooth, R'n'B song. It follows previous singles from the album, Here We Go (Uh Oh), which has a solo version and a remix featuring American singer Leon Thomas III , Most Beautiful Design with record producer and rapper London on da Track and rapper Future , You and Taste.  As well as On Sight, I like Taste (I featured it as a Weekly Music Video last month; see below) and AEOMG (my favourite song from the album). The music video for On Sight (which sees Coco becoming fixated on potential love interests!) was uploaded on the same day that the album came out. Please note that the song contains mild swearing. :)     Visit this link to stream/buy Why Not More? here: https://cocojones.lnk.to/WhyNotMore   And watch the music video for Taste (released in February) here, plus find links to more so...

The Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest is tonight, so this is the second of my annual posts. You can see the first one here:  Countdown to Eurovision 2025!: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2025/05/countdown-to-eurovision-2025.html     This year I saw the second semi-final (the one the UK could vote in) and some of the first one. I don't always watch them both because then I've heard all the songs beforehand (I listen to the ones that didn't get through afterwards). Here are my favourites from this year's contest. :)   Klavdia- Asteromáta (Greece) My favourite song in the second semi-final was Greece's entry, Asteromáta by Klavdia . I voted for her and she got through, so will be in the final.  Klavdia (full name Klavdia Papadopoulou) took her first steps in the entertainment business aged 15 appearing on Series/Season 5 on Ellada eheis talento (Greece's Got Talent). She then competed on S5 of The Voice of Greece , reaching the final and was ment...

This week's video is MONA LISA by Korean rapper and singer (and member of K-pop boyband BTS ) j-hope (real name Jung Ho-seok, or Ho-seok Jung in Western terms). It's his latest solo single and the third one to be released since he completed his military service (mandatory for men in South Korea) last October. It's a stand-alone single, not appearing on j-hope's EP/soundtrack HOPE ON THE STREET VOL.1 (VER.1 PRELUDE), which was released in March 2024. It follows LV Bag with American rapper and singer Don Toliver , Speedy ( Don's Louis Vuitton bag !) and American musician and singer Pharrell Williams , which came out in February, and Sweet Dreams featuring American singer Miguel , which was released in early March. MONA LISA is a laidback R'n'B and hip hop track, with all-English lyrics about how j-hope likes his girls! It's described as a "love song that pays tribute to celebrating one's unique beauty" . It was released on 21st March.    Fo...

It's Eurovision season again! This year's final will be on Saturday 17th May, a bit later than the past couple of years . The 69th Eurovision Song Contest will be held in St. Jakobshalle, Basel, Switzerland, after Nemo won with The Code last year. The UK's entry is country pop girl group Remember Monday with What The Hell Just Happened? . I normally write two Eurovision posts (and occasionally a couple of extra "mini countdown" posts), so here is the first one! Today I'm featuring previous Eurovision posts, plus a few new music videos from former contestants. :)   Eurovision Round-up (features posts from when I first started writing about the contest in 2012, up to 2017):  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2017/05/eurovision-round-up.html Eurovision Round-up 2 (posts from 2017 to 2023; includes the countdown posts):  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2023/05/eurovision-round-up-2.html Eurovision 2023 Favourites: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2023/05/eur...

Today's video is Az Sum Ti by Bulgarian Russian singer Kristian Kostov (who represented Bulgaria in the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest , 8 years ago now!). Az Sum Ti is Kristian's latest single and his first time singing in Bulgarian for almost 10 years. It's part of an audio-visual project.  The song title translates as "I Am You" in English. The video premiered on 15th March.   Want more Kristian? Check out these posts: Music video for Iris, his 2023 single with VOSTOK (plus links to more music): https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2023/06/weekly-music-video_14.html Audio for Espresso (released last year): https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2024/05/weekly-music-video_15.html   P.S. Speaking of Eurovision , this year's contest is coming up! The Grand Final is on Saturday 17th May (with the semi-finals on the Tuesday and Thursday before). Keep up with Eurovision  news here:  https://eurovision.tv/event/basel-2025

Nearly 3 years ago, I wrote a dance videos post featuring couples' dances (plus one group dance). You can see that here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2021/07/dance-videos.html I thought it would be fun to do another edition, so here it is! :)   Sonali X Aadil- Dhoom Dhoom  First up, some Bollywood! Here is a dance to Dhoom Dhoom by Thai singer Tata Young , from the 2004 Bollywood film Dhoom . There's also another version called Dhoom Machale . It's performed by Sonali of LiveToDance with Sonali and Aadil. It's a YouTube short and was uploaded a couple of months ago.   Visit this post to see the videos for both Dhoom Dhoom and Dhoom Machale: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2013/10/weekly-music-video_23.html    Sonali X Aadil- Dhadhand Dhang- Rowdy Rathore And here is another dance by Sonali and Aadi, this time to Dhadhang Dhang from Rowdy Rathore (2012), an action film that stars Akshay Kumar . This is also a short and was uploaded last month.  ...