Trina feat Diddy and Keri Hilson - Million Dollar Girl
'Ms Keri Baby' returns with her 94th featuring credit of the past month, this time on the new single by female rapper Trina and legend Diddy, who doesn't really add an awful lot to this song to be honest apart from a phoned in rap segment. Trina, best known here for her top 20 hit with Kelly Rowland, the surprisingly mellow (for her) Here We Go Again, returns to what she does best here - an uptempo club banger. Trina and Diddy alternate the verses but it's the chorus that really makes this song - provided by the ever underrated and fantastic Keri Hilson. Ridiculously and brilliantly catchy after just one listen, this has all of the ingredients of a hit - apart from the fact that the three artists featuring on the song are hardly the most fashionable hitmakers of 2010...maybe if it had been released in 2000...
Caro Emerald - A Night Like This
Dutch jazz singer Caro Emerald has been causing quite a stir in her homeland in recent months, after A Night Like This was featured in a Martini commercial. Not being a fan of jazz myself in particular, Caro's music retains a pop edge that makes it just accessible enough for just about anyone. A typically classy production, Caro's smooth and clear voice is perfect for this type of music and A Night Like This has a triumphant chorus that demands attention. Add this to the list of songs that are recent massive European hits that I want released here, along with Jungle Drum, If A Song Could Get Me You, I Will Love You Monday and countless others...
Mika - Kick Ass
After the flop of largely underwhelming second album The Boy Who Knew Too Much, in comparison to the mega success of the debut at least, Mika seems to have quickly pushed it aside to launch into a new side project. One of my favourite artists in 2007, Mika pushed pop boundaries at the time, bringing a flamboyancy back to an increasingly serious genre. Since then, with the likes of Alphabeat and the comeback of pure pop acts in the charts spearheaded by the likes of The Saturdays, Pixie Lott and Katy Perry, Mika doesn't seem quite so ground breaking anymore and his second album almost felt pedestrian in comparison to the first. Thankfully, despite Melodifestivalen act NEO's best attempt to steal his style, look and voice, Mika is back on top form with the Red One produced Kick Ass, the title track to the film of the same name. Essentially the same backing track as Remedy and Fire Burning, it doesn't matter here because Mika puts his own stamp on the song with a confident 'we are young, we are strong' chant as the chorus. More like this for album number three please!
THe boy who knew too much wasn't a flop, it entered in the top 5 in England and was number 1 in france, not to mention the singles that came from it. WE are golden reaching n 3 in italy and n 4 in england.
ReplyDeleteBlame it on the girls being n 1 in japan. Rain being a smash with other european countries AT NUMBER 3 in belgian singles charts and number 4 in italy, number 5 in france. Its already sold above 2 million copies
How is the boy who knew too much a flop?
I was talking about how he's perceived in the UK, going from one of the biggest artists in the country scoring constant big selling top ten hits to a top five lead single that dived down the charts after the first week and the follow up singles, both of which got to No.72. And saleswise, in the UK at least, The Boy Who Knew Too Much has sold a fraction of what the debut sold.
ReplyDeleteI'm aware he's done better with it in other territories, who aren't so fickle. The UK tends to go off a lot of artists once the initial hype has died down, but they remain ever popular in Europe - see Amy MacDonald for another example of this. I love Mika and I want nothing more than for him to return with a great, massive selling third album - he still has huge potential, Kick Ass proves this.