Star Sparkle Blog

I've often featured Bollywood music (and films) on Star Sparkle (and sometimes South Indian music , such as Tollywood and Kollywood . However, I haven't featured music from the Indian music industry outside of films as often.  So today I'm sharing a quick round-up of previous posts on the blog, plus some newer Indian pop music. :)    Here are the posts previously shared: Prasad Bhandarkar playing Ragashivranjani on the bansuri (Indian bamboo flute):  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2013/02/weekly-music-video_13.html Raja Kumari- Meera (Indian American): https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2018/01/weekly-music-video_31.html   Celina Sharma (Indian/Italian Australian)- CHALO: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2021/02/weekly-music-video.html   Kenishaa Francis and Tejas Agarwal- Blue Naina: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2022/02/weekly-music-video_9.html   Sukriti and Prakriti Kakar, Badshah- Kya Say?: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2023/03/weekly-...

Sorry the 2nd post is later this week, I didn't manage to get it finished in time. :) I've actually had this post in mind for a while now but just getting round to it! Fifth Harmony (also known as 5H) is an American girl group, consisting of 5 contestants from the 2nd season (or series) of The X Factor USA . The members- Camila Cabello, Normani Kordei, Lauren Jaregui, Ally Brooke and Dinah Jane- all auditioned solo for the reality show. Not all the girls got through to the next stage but they were brought back as a group to enter the Groups category. They came 3rd place in the contest in December 2012 (behind runner up Carly Rose Sonenclar and winner Tate Stevens ). The group signed a record deal with Syco (the record label of The X Factor creator Simon Cowell ; now defunct) and Epic Records , and released their debut single Miss Movin On in July 2013. Their debut EP Better Together followed in October that year. In January 2015 they brought out their first studio album Refle...

Today's video is Dance The Night by British/Albanian  singer Dua Lipa . It's her latest single and is from the upcoming live action  Barbie film  starring Australian actress Margot Robbie  as the iconic doll/character ! It also stars Ryan Gosling as Barbie's boyfriend Ken.  Side note : I still think of Margot as Donna in the Australian soap Neighbours , lol. I was sad to see it end last summer, but it's now coming back  and will be on Amazon Freevee in the autumn/winter! Dance The Night is  the lead single from Barbie The Album, which is set to be released alongside Barbie The Movie on 21st July. It's a dance/disco and pop song, and came out on 25th May.  Watch the trailer for Barbie The Movie here:  https://youtu.be/pBk4NYhWNMM   Dua fan? Check out this post: Video for last year's Potion with Calvin Harris and Yung Thug (plus links to other songs):  https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2022/06/weekly-music-video_8.html

Sorry the 2nd post is later this week; I didn't manage to get it finished yesterday. :) Something a bit different today! In the music world songs often get "recycled" or certain music inspires new songs. I think it's cool how music is interpreted in a new way. Here are a few songs I like that are covers, or sampled older songs. In most cases I hadn't heard the original before the newer one, so it was good to discover something new. :) Note: I've listed the original songs first, apart from Sugababes' single, which sampled more than one.   Summer Madness by Kool & The Gang The instrumental Summer Madness by American soul/jazz/disco band Kool & the Gang is a very popular song for sampling! It was on their 1974 album Light of Worlds and released in 1975 as a B-side to the single Spirit of the Boogie. It's been called one of the most sampled R'n'B compositions of all time and according to Wikipedia , it was estimated to have been sampled 14...

Time for the first C-pop Saturday of 2021! It's become a "semi-regular feature since I started it in 2018 , because I tend to only do a few posts a year, lol. So, here's a selection of new Chinese music. :) Gen Neo- HOLD BACK Last week I featured Singaporean singer Gen Neo's new single HOLD BACK in my first New Music for 2021 post. It's from his first mini album AD ADTRA. Visit the post to listen: https://starsparklex.blogspot.com/2021/01/new-music-for-2021-part-1.html Jolin Tsai- Sweet Guilty Pleasure Next up is a new song from Taiwanese singer Jolin Tsai . (Or new-ish since it came out in December!). It's about sex basically, and the video features an unusual love story. According to the translation of the Chinese (thanks Google!), it's a dark fairy tale mermaid prequel. YouTubers Mr & Mrs Gao appear in the beginning. Sweet Guilty Pleasure is from Jolin's 14th album Ugly Beauty, which was released back in December 2018. The video premiered on 16t...

I was going to do this week's post on New Year's Eve because it was New Year's Day yesterday but I wasn't able to get online, so I'm doing it today instead. :) This week's video is All Night Long by the Mary Jane Girls .They were a 1980s girl group formed by musician/composer Rick James . The original members were Joanne "JoJo" McDuffie (lead singer), Cheryl Ann "Cheri" Bailey/Cheri Wells, Candice "Candi" Ghant and Kimberly "Maxi" Wuletich, session vocalists the Water Sisters (Maxine and Julia Water) were also part of the group. Cheri left in 1985 and was replaced by Yvette "Corvette" Marine. Apparently Mary Jane Girls was basically a launching pad for JoJo to get her career off the ground and the other members couldn't sing very well! Kind of like how the Pussycat Dolls was said to be a vehicle for Nicole Scherzinger. The Mary Jane Girls released two albums Mary Jane Girls (1983) and Only Four You (1985)...