Star Sparkle Blog

Time for another instalment of C-pop Saturday, my semi- regular series sharing Chinese music! I've only done one other post this year ( in February ), so this is the 2nd one of 2025. Today I'm featuring C-pop and R'n'B. :)   ELL&s- Elevatah First up, a Taiwanese girl group! This is Elevatah by  ELL&s , who are signed to KJM Entertainment. The group consists of 5 members- 4 of whom were previously in pre-debut girl group SUNNY PARFUM . According to their Kprofiles , they are a sub-unit of SUNNY PARFUM. The members are lead vocalist Ashlee (real name Chan Hsai-chen/Xinchan), Theia (Zheng Yuhsin), Cherry (Chen Chen-wei/Huang Xiuwan/), Rosie (don't know her full name yet) and Shan/Shanshan (Chen Yu-shan).   All the girls apart from Rosie were members of SUNNY PARFUM * ELL&s debuted in July 2024 with the digital single Elevatah. They also released the special single Ride or Die (2024 Remaster Version) last September, a remake of a song originally released by ...

Today's video is ALL I WANT IS YOU by Australian rapper and singer THE KID LAROI . It's a recent single and was released on 6th June. It precedes his latest single HOW DOES IT FEEL? which came out later this month. ALL I WANT IS YOU is a laidback pop/R'n'B song with romantic lyrics. It marked LAROI's  first solo release of 2025 , following his single I know love with his girlfriend Canadian singer Tate McRae (released in February). This is the official audio.   The Kid LAROI fan? Check out these posts: Music video for I know love with Tate:  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2025/04/weekly-music-video_9.html Video for his newest single HOW DOES IT FEEL? (released on 20th June):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIDRLLVaLlQ

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...