Star Sparkle Blog

Today's video is Seema by Romaine Willis . She is a Sri Lankan singer/songwriter from Colombo. Romaine had a passion for music from a young age and started out by performing in local talent events.  She released her debut single Milk & Sugar during the pandemic (August 2021). Later singles Pem Kekula with DJ MASS and Tharunai with APZI and DJ MASS) from Sri Lankan romantic comedy film Yaaluwoda Yaaluida (released in November 2021 and March 2023 respectively) were hits on streaming platforms. In 2022, Romaine released the remix album Mel Peththak Mashup Vol 1. Her other singles include Jealous, Delawan Banda with Sri Lankan rappers Randhir and APZI, Thani Manasaka, Dan with DJ MASS and Seema. In addition to original songs, she does covers. Romaine’s music is a mix of R'n'B and other genres, including pop and jazz. She has been called Sri Lanka's version of South African singer Tyla by fans!  Seema is Romaine's most recent single. It was released last Novembe...

In recent years there have been some interesting collaborations and music crossovers between artists from different countries and music genres. I think it's cool to see diverse styles coming together, so today I'm featuring a few. :)   CKay/Nora Fatehi- IT'S TRUE Nigerian singer and record producer CKay teamed up with Canadian dancer, actress and singer  Nora Fatehi for the song IT'S TRUE in 2024. It's from his album EMOTIONS which was released in October 2024. IT'S TRUE is an Afrobeats song with a mix of English, Pidgin and Hindi lyrics. Nora has Moroccan heritage but is based in India due to her work in Bollywood (and also South Indian film industries ) hence the Hindi lyrics.  I featured the audio (it wasn't released as a single) as a Weekly Music Video last year and it was No. 8 on my Top 10 African Songs post in January. Watch it here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2025/01/weekly-music-video_22.html   LISA feat. Tyla- WHEN I'M WITH YOU In Jun...

Note: I'm currently having trouble with video previews displaying on the blog. But if you click through, it works fine. :) Time for another instalment in my Asian Groups series! Today I'm featuring new Thai girl group NAMP . :) They are a 4-member group signed to Thai record label and entertainment agency XO Entertainment  (whose other groups include boyband ATLAS and girl group 4EVE ). Their name comes from the first letter of each members' name and stands for "Not A Minor Player".  The members are Nita (full name Pranita Utaichalurm), Azarra (real name Sasithorn Twaits), Miles (Natthamon Obboon) and Pammie (Pimpicha Charoensak). Azarra is Thai-Australian and the others are Thai.  NAMP made their debut in January with the release of their first single KAKA. In March they brought out their second single HURRICANE.    KAKA KAKA is the girls' debut single. It was released digitally in January.  It's a high energy pop song with a mix of Thai and English lyri...

Today's video is Playboy by Shevya . Her full name is Shevya Awasthi and she is an Indian American singer, originally from San Diego, California and now based in New York City.  A rising star in the Indian pop (I-pop) aka Desi pop genre, Shevya describes herself as "Your new fav pop star" in her YouTube bio! She started learning Hindustani classical music as a child and also sang in acapella groups, plus wrote and composed her own music. In 2021 she released her first single Aao Na. Since then she has released several singles including Nasha, Chaand, Shah Rukh Kaun?, Parasite and Playboy.  Shevya's music is a mix of Hindi and R'n'B. She also posts covers of Western and K-pop songs on social media but with a difference- she writes her own Hindi lyrics and adds them to the songs .  Playboy is her most recent single and was released in April. It's a  high energy Indian pop song , with a mix of English and Hindi lyrics and is about difficulties in love.  This ...

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 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...

 Last month I started a mini series called New Generation Girl Groups, which features new girl groups. You can see the first post about American group GIRLSET here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2026/03/new-generation-girl-groups-girlset.html Now here is the next post in the mini series! Today I'm featuring American/global group fiveALIVE . :) fiveALIVE is a 5-member independent girl group, formed in 2023. They describe themselves as a global pop group and are also called an Asian American group because the members all have Asian heritage (Ciara is Eurasian).  The members are Jia (who is has Chinese and Vietnamese heritage), Ellie Park (Korean), Nini (Filipina/Vietnamese), Ciara (British/Filipina) and Bay (real name Bailey Park; Korean). All the girls are American and from California. They are currently based in Orange County, Southern California. Note: As mentioned in the comments on their  Kprofiles profile , I don't think that Ellie and Bailey are related, despite...

Today's music video is 2GOOD4U by Filipina singer Denise Julia . It's her latest single and was released on 11th April.  Denise's most recent mini album is Sweet Nothings (Chapter 2) which came out in November 2024. Last November she released an anniversary video for sweet nothings with popular Filipino singer Jay R , which is on the mini album. 2GOOD4U is Denise's first release of 2025. It's a chilled R'n'B song about moving on from a relationship. Denise uploaded a short visualiser to YouTube on 8th April. This is the official visualiser, which followed on the 11th. Please note that the song contains swearing. :)       Update 30/4/26: There's now an official video for the song. It premiered yesterday (29th April).   Want more Denise? Check out these links: Music video fo r bet (stand-alone single released in 2024): https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2024/06/weekly-music-video_27.html Anniversary video for sweet nothings: https://www.youtube.com/wat...

Yesterday was Star Sparkle's 15th birthday! I started the blog on 17th April 2011. You can see my first ever post here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2011/04/welcome-to-star-sparkle-blog.html I've previously written two birthday posts- in 2018 for the 7th "blogiversary" and in 2021 for the 10th. (I didn't mark the 5th but I had celebrated the birthday of my blog Falling Petals that year, so decided to do one here too). You can see them at the links below: 7th bday:  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2018/04/star-sparkles-birthday-fave-posts.html 10th bday: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2021/04/star-sparkles-10th-birthday-fave-posts.html Back in 2021, I wrote that it seemed strange that I'd been blogging for 10 years. Now it's been 15 years, so even more time has gone by! Star Sparkle is my main blog about entertainment.  As I've previously said, starting it gave me the confidence to branch out into other areas and I went on to start two more bl...

Sorry the 2nd post is later this week; I didn't manage to get it finished yesterday. :) During the past couple of years I've shared quite a lot of dance videos. I plan to feature more in 2026, so here's the first one of the year! Here are some Dance in Public (dance covers of songs performed in public places) videos. :)   [DANCE IN PUBLIC] 'SAXO LOVE' - TOBII | TADA TEAM DANCE COVER & CHOREOGRAPHY First up, some  T-pop (Thai pop) in Public . Swiss/Thai rapper and R'n'B singer Tobii's songs have become popular in the cover dance world in the past couple of years and I've featured covers of his songs Bad Girls Like You ,  Hotel Lobby and most recently Saxo Love . Here is another cover of Saxo Love, which was released in June last year. It's performed by TADA TEAM, a dance team from Hanoi University in Vietnam.  The dance was originally performed by Thai dance studio MINIZIZE (it was choreographed by  Earth_prompen ). (MINIZIZE have also previ...

It's Valentine's Day, so today's post is love themed! Here is a round-up of some previous posts on the blog relating to love and romance, plus a couple of  songs I haven't posted. (Not every single post featuring a love song because there would be too many!) lol. :)   My Favourite Love Songs  Back in 2022, I wrote a post just before Valentine's Day featuring my favourite love songs. You can see it here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2022/02/my-favourite-love-songs.html   Coco Jones- On Sight American singer Coco Jones released the single On Sight in April last year. It's a smooth R'n'B song, with a music video that sees Coco become fixated on potential love interests! It was a Weekly Music Video in May 2025: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2025/05/weekly-music-video_21.html   LONA-  VÌ YÊU ANH ( Dance Version) In April 2024 I included Vietnamese singer  LONA's single  Vì Yêu Anh (Dance Version) in my V-pop Music and Dance 2023-2024 round-u...

Last month I wrote a post featuring some new music for the new year. You can see it here: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2026/01/new-music-for-2026.html Now we're in February, so here are some more new releases, from various genres. :)    Pia Mia- Underneath Guam born singer Pia Mia brought out the single Underneath on 29th January. It was  originally released unofficially 10 years ago but has now been officially released. (Perhaps inspired by the current social media trend "2026 is the new 2016" !) Underneath is an R'n'B song with sexy lyrics! The original version was only 1 minute, 55 seconds but this one is a bit longer at 2 mins, 4 secs. There's only an audio currently.     B Young- Playdoh British rapper and singer B Young released his latest single Playdoh on 30th January. It was this week's Weekly Music Video: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2026/02/weekly-music-video.html   ZAYN- Die For Me Next up is some brand-new music from ZAYN (real na...