Star Sparkle Blog

In March I wrote a post about the 25th anniversary of Jennifer Lopez's  2nd studio album J.Lo. It ended up being quite long, so I split it into two parts. You can see Part 1 here:  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2026/03/25th-anniversary-of-jennifer-lopezs-jlo.html Now here is Part 2! It's taken a couple of months but never mind, lol. In this post I'm sharing more songs I like, plus new/previously unreleased tracks from the 25th anniversary edition of the album. :)    I'm Gonna Be Alright The original I'm Gonna Be Alright is a track from J.Lo but was not released as a single. It only has vocals by Jennifer  and samples the 1980 single 8th Wonder by American hip hop group The Sugarhill Gang .  The original version is more poppy and Latin style. This is the official audio.   I'm Gonna Be Alright (Track Masters Remix)  The song was remixed for Jennifer's 2002 album J to Tha L-O! The Remixes (her first remix album) and released as a single. The rem...

This week's video is Blush by Filipina girl group BINI . It's their latest single and is from their new EP Signals, both on which were released on 9th April. It's been an eventful year for the group so far, after they became the  first Filipino act to perform at the 2026 Coachella festival in California, US, last month. It was also a milestone for  P-pop (Pinoy/Filipino pop ), which showed how the genre is becoming more popular internationally. The track is described as "an anthem for a summer crush" that "blends breezy pop energy with feel-good rhythm". It's about the feeling of excitement experienced when the person you like walks into a room, leading you to blush when they look at you!  BINI have become known as the "Summer Queens" of P-pop, due to releasing summer themed music and Blush follows in this tradition. It's also a good fit because of the early/pre-summer heatwave we're currently having in the UK! This is the official...

In the past couple of years T-pop (Thai pop) has been growing in popularity internationally and is also becoming more popular in the cover dance world. So these days there are more T-pop Dance in Public covers (dance covers of songs performed in public places), expanding beyond K-pop and J-pop . I've written a few posts sharing T-pop in Public videos, most recently last November and then  in February . However, the Feb one also featured a GIRLSET cover so here is my first all-T-pop post of the year! I've called it "T-pop/Dance in Public Videos" because some videos are listed as Dance in Public. They're all T-pop/Thai songs though. :)   [TPOP IN PUBLIC] HUH? - PIXXIE | Dance Cover by WHYNOT From Hong Kong First up is a dance cover of the single HUH? by Thai girl group PiXXiE . It was released in December.  The cover is performed by WHYNOT, a K-pop cover crew from Hong Kong. The video premiered in January and features Alice as MABELZ, Heliey as PIMMA and Belle (wh...

Today's video is Take Care Of You, the new single by American singer Alina Baraz . It's her first release since the EP Urban Flora: Lost Sequels with Danish music producer Galimatias , which came out last October. It consists of two tracks (More To Life and Blue) and was released to celebrate the 10th anniversary of their debut joint EP Urban Flora). Take Care Of You is a gentle song with Alina's usual dreamy, chilled vibes. Nice relaxing video too! It was released on 1st May.   Want more Alina? Check out this post: Official lyric video for More To Life from Urban Flora: Lost Sequels (also features links to the lyric video for Blue, plus more music):  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2026/01/weekly-music-video.html   P.S. This year's Eurovision was won by Bulgaria's DARA  with the song Bangaranga , the first ever win for the country. Congratulations! :) My favourites were Germany and Cyprus and I voted for them both (I also voted for Cyprus in the second semi-...

The Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest is tonight, so it's time for my second Eurovision post of the year! You can see the first one here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2026/05/countdown-to-eurovision-2026.html Similarly to last 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 later). Here are my favourites from this year's contest. :)    Sarah Engels- Fire (Germany) Sarah Engels is representing Germany with the song Fire. As part of the "Big 5" (the countries which contribute the most financially to Eurovision), Germany automatically qualify for the final, along with us (the UK), France, Spain and Italy. However, it's the Big 4 in 2026, since Spain is  one of 5 countries not competing due to objections over Israel's participation in the contest.  Sarah first became ...

Today's video is Certified Lover Girl, the new single by Australian girl group H3rizon . It has been a while since the girls released new music. However, they recently appeared on Star Search   (the  American TV show which was rebooted at the beginning of the year on Netflix ). They went on to release  a cover of WHERE IS MY HUSBAND! by British singer RAYE (which came out last September) as a single last month.  Certified Lover Girl was released on 8th May. It's a laid-back R'n'B song and as people have mentioned in the comments on YouTube, it has early 00s vibes!   Want more H3rizon? Check out these links: Asian/Pacific Groups- Australian Girl Group + Hawaiian Boy Band (also features CROSSING RAIN/PARTYFOUL):  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2024/03/asianpacific-groups.html Audio for WHRE IS MY HUSBAND! cover:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vitTQ4Eq--0  

Eurovision season is here once again! The 2026 Grand Final will be on Saturday 16th May. In 2026 it is the 70th Eurovision Song Contest , so a landmark year! It will be held in Vienna, Austria, after the 2025 contest was won by JJ with his song Wasted Love . The UK's entry is  LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER with Eins, Zwei, Drei .  I normally write two posts in the lead-up to Eurovision (occasionally a couple of "mini countdown" posts too). Here are my posts from last year:  Countdown to Eurovision 2025!: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2025/05/countdown-to-eurovision-2025.html   Eurovision Favourites 2025: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2025/05/eurovision-2025-favourites.html   And here is the first one of 2026! Today I'm taking a look at Eurovision spin-off contests. :)  Update 10/5/26: I've updated this post to include the Junior version of ESC! :)     American Song Contest  An American spin-off of ESC called the  American Song Con...

Sorry there wasn't a 2nd post last week, I was going through a bit of a stressful time and didn't manage to get one finished. :) This week's video is I CONDEMN by Australian singer and rapper The Kid LAROI . It was the first single from the deluxe version of his second album BEFORE I FORGET. The original album was released in January and the deluxe version came out on 24th April. It contains 9 extra tracks, including  I CONDEMN and latest single PIECES. I wasn't aware that there was a deluxe version until I saw that some new songs had appeared on Spotify! I like BEFORE I FORGET and my favourite songs from the original version are ME + YOU, JULY,  COME DOWN and RATHER BE featuring Australian rapper and singer Lithe . One of my fave songs on the deluxe version is QUIT YOU, and I also like HOLD STILL and I CONDEMN. The newest single PIECES came out on out the same day as the album. I CONDEMN was released on 17th April. As with the songs on the original BEFORE I FORGET, it...