New Music : An icon, a newcomer and a charity ensemble

Freak Asylum - You Better Leave

Kelly Llorenna is a legend, the dance diva provided the vocals on my all time favourite song, Set You Free by N-Trance and I also hold True Love Never Dies, Tell It To My Heart and Brighter Day in incredibly high regard. Since her brief flashes of solo stardom in 2001/2002 when she managed four UK top ten hits in the space of a year, Kelly seems to have spent a decade pushing out random dance covers to no fanfare whatsoever. Thankfully the icon is back on form with new band Freak Asylum which leaves the dance behind and focuses more on pop with rocky influences. Debut single You Better Leave has been a long time coming but it was well worth the wait. An 80s influenced synth pop stormer, written by legendary Grammy award winning songwriter Toby Gad, it ticks all of the boxes and is the best thing that Kelly's done for almost a decade. What a shame then that the video, complete with Kelly rocking a new bleach blonde look as alter ego 'Lola Leethal', has had barely any views then, this song deserves to be a huge hit!



Reece Mastin - Good Night

Fresh from winning X Factor Australia for his mentor Guy Sebastian, a talent show winner himself, 17 year old Reece Mastin has bagged himself a shockingly excellent debut single. Shocking because in the UK we're used to the debut singles by X Factor winners being ballads about striving for hope and achieving their dreams - yes this means you That's My Goal, A Moment Like This, When You Believe and The Climb. But Reece, who originally hails from English town Scunthorpe - he moved to Australia six years ago with his family - has been given something much more contemporary to launch his career. In fact it could easily pass as the first post competition single rather than feeling like a contracted post-show winner's single. Good Night can best be described as a mix of Pink's Raise Your Glass and something that you might find on the new One Direction album. It's a bold and strong instantly infectious pop/rock song that looks set to go straight to the top of the charts in Australia. Hopefully it will make it over to the UK at some point too, he could definitely be marketed in his home country!



X Factor Finalists 2011 feat JLS and One Direction - Wishing On A Star

Talking of the X Factor, the UK series is winding down with only five acts left now, the favourites to win being Liverpudlian soul-pop singer Marcus Collins, Irish balladeer Janet Devlin and the surprise package of the competition, girlband Little Mix. Misha B and Amelia Lily are the remaining contestants and all five acts feature prominently on this year's charity ensemble single, along with all of the other finalists, apart from Frankie naturally! Following 2008's Hero, 2009's You Are Not Alone and 2010's We Could Be Heroes, this year's offering is a cover of the Rose Royce classic Wishing On A Star. In an attempt to ensure that sales are higher than the last two, which have suffered from the law of diminishing returns in terms of total sales, the producers have enlisted the help of top UK boybands, and former X Factor finalists, JLS and One Direction to sing on the final chorus. They bring very little to the song and are clearly only there to ensure that the loyal fanbases of those groups rush out to buy it too to boost sales and raise as much money for the charity, which can't be complained about really. It's a nice enough cover that does its job and will be a UK #1 single but it won't be remembered for long and will have left the charts by early 2012. Nice for all of the finalists to have a chart topper to their name though.