Marina And The Diamonds’ Starring Role

When Marina And The Diamonds (Marina Diamandis) came to the world of pop she was distinctively unique with the tone qualities in her voice. When she got signed over from Atlantic Records to Chop Shop Records there was a worry that her music would be thrashed to common pop.

However, her hidden gem is an acoustic of Starring Role (see link underneath) from the second album “Electra Heart”.  It is a song about games within a relationship; no matter how much a girl will love her man he will never love her back as long as he has other hearts to please – and she knew this from the beginning before their love began.

Lyrics from this particular song show the thoughts of a girl when she understands that things are falling in s relationship and the man will always want to be centre of attention where her love is not enough. The whole idea of the album is to portray the thoughts and opinions of different characters and personalities of girls. 

Taking tips from Katy Perry, after helping her with her California Dreams tour in 2011, with Marina’s change of hair colour from dark brunette to 20s blonde styling, a striking new image, the recent release is an unmistakable intense and emotional lullaby - extremely different from when Marina first made it big with her smash single Hollywood.

The studio version of the single was released on the 30th April to the public however the demo and acoustic can be played back online.

With new wave electro pop elements to give her music a chart topping chance, the album includes catchy dance tunes with appealing melodies to a wide market.  Primadonna is the newest release which you can dance to and is almost as good as Starring Role.  Both great to listen to; look at the links below to listen!
NEW Primadonna
Starring Role (Acoustic)
An interview from The Guardian with Marina from earlier this year can be found here

Nouvelle Vague celebrates their sixties song style with Dancing with Myself.

Taking Generation X’s 1981 hit Dancing With Myself and incorporating it into a sassy, sixties ‘new wave’ soundtrack, French band Nouvelle Vague have created something marvellously different to the generation of music.

While the lead singer holds their French infused melody with the simple, happy guitar riff remaining constant, in their video she cherry-picks that track from the jukebox and brings another ‘bossa nova’ with a smooth and slinky solo strut through a diner café.

All the men within the cafe, whether sitting in the booths chatting and having a meal or playing at the pool table while she is twirling, arms in the air, looking extremely pleased with herself, they barely acknowledge her. Their blank expressions of uncertainty with this female character portray that she is indeed, dancing with herself.

Comparing this to Billy Idol’s (Generation X) original, it is incredible to see the different takes on both the style and tone of the music and the actual ideas behind the music video.

Billy Idol’s zombie infested video, blasting the tune in an industrial basement of some sort is a complete contrast to Nouvelle Vague’s slowed down, higher octave version.  The girly prancing along a black and white checker floor is quite diverse from the rocky horror thriller show who all want a piece of Billy as this is not the case for the Nouvelle Vague’s girl as it seems that nobody wants to dance with her.

In another scene she lights up a cigarette looking a bit more than unimpressed at the fact that nobody is willing to dance with her no matter how much she hints and insinuates in front of the surrounding men. 

By the end she realises it is not going to happen.

This line sums up a lot about people in life:

“If I had the chance I’d ask the world to dance and I’d be dancing with myself”

Take note, dancing can be fun - have some fun!

Click to see Nouvelle Vague, Dancing with Myself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5j-ipGFcko

When Whitney taught the world to dance.

When Whitney Houston died on the 11^th February 2012, it was a big shock to us all.  Another drug infused battle with another cherished celebrity.

If we look back on the great work she had produced, some of her greatest hits include “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” and “How Will I Know”, where she worked with the talented choreographer Arlene Phillips.

This was the time of the eighties, where pop masters such as Madonna and Michael Jackson were at the peak of their career, and Whitney was not far behind their success.

In an interview with the BBC, Arlene Phillips relives the memories of her time spent with Whitney in the eighties when producing the two favourite Whitney music videos.

 “How Will I Know” (1985) incorporated elementary dance moves into what used to be just staged performances by Whitney.  Arlene described her ironically as shy and charming and “didn’t wanna dance”. Filming and teaching the choreography in London, Whitney was not used to this, yet Arlene encouraged her to reach her full potential and her moves influenced many around the world thereafter to get up and dance.

“I Wanna Dance With Somebody” was shot in New York and released in October, 1987 and won the 1986 MTV Music Awards for the Best Female Video.  On this date, Arlene still described Whitney as “the sweetest person you could meet”, however the singer began to spin into the whirlpool of the music industry’s disadvantage with dependency on drugs and alcohol.

Arlene states that there is always a protective ring around any music icon, so the value is like having a gold bar to keep people out and they think that the way to handle this and escape reality is to take drugs. The reason for such disasters happening is that managers are merely afraid of telling their artist to stop – with the fear of being sacked. Even when she met in New York a couple of years from first working with her, she noticed a difference – there was “no stopping her”.

The last 5 years of Whitney’s life probably did not help.  The influence stems from who you surround yourself with aswell.  Her marriage to R&B singer Bobby Brown ended in 2007 and her focus in life was distorted since then from her shared bad habits influenced by him.

 Arlene was honoured to have worked with Whitney, but it is still very unfortunate to lose another great music icon.

Arlene has worked on many different music videos including Kiss, Queen, Robbie Williams, The Bee Gees and Duran Duran, to name a few.

BBC interview with Arlene Phillips:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yrx4qviqNmc

Rihanna - when is her act of sexualisation too much?

Many girls and boys of all ages all over the world are Rihanna fanatics who adore her sense of music and style.

As bias as it may be, I personally I do not like her.  What bothers me is her changeover from Caribbean sweetheart to the confident town slut who releases a good song every now and then.

Even when Rihanna was playing as ‘the sweetheart’, I was never too keen for her music – or voice for that matter.  When I did a little research on where she came from and how she became a star it bedazzled me to find a clip of her singing terribly out of tune in a talent contest, yet here she is, one of the biggest female stars of today.

Although we saw snippets of her growing confidence and increased sexual content in her music videos through her early years, it seems that even before her break up with Chris Brown had her image and personality turned from this ‘angel’ to a dirty weed-smoking icon who kids look up to.

The Disturbia video was indeed disturbing but was there really any need for the sort of bondage type of activity of her sexually portraying herself to be some sort of possessed animal?  Not really.  There is a line.  She crossed it long ago. As did many others however these hold stories for another day (ahem Lady GaGa!).

Now not saying she is the only culprit, but there must be someone who is behind the allowance of these videos.  Being distributed to the public, -which include adolescent male (who may expect to seek this in a female companion), young children (who will find this as normal behaviour growing up), and of course (not parents) but the dirty perverted generation of men out there (who get pleasure out of watching this kind of entertainment which is broadcasted in daylight for the normal modern times who may find in themselves a horniness or arousal which leads to all other sorts of tragedies), - this type of music video has a lot to be blamed for in relation to having a pleasant society.

Rihanna is under management who help her increase her stardom, but she does have a voice to say when enough is enough – remember that time she got told off for wearing just a bra while shooting the video in that farmer’s field?  Yes, completely unacceptable.  And as the gossipy magazines may disagree and find the farmer to be an old codger of ill tastes, is he really? Or does he just think that girls should be respecting themselves a bit better in this day and age?

For someone who can’t sing that well, how do they get famous in the first place? (TAKE YOUR CLOTHES OFF!) Secondly, using her ‘S&M’ song lyrics and video as an example, why allow children to hear and see such nonsense? And thirdly, why do the big shot managers of the music industry encourage the incorporation of sexual behaviour in every possible way? Lastly, why do we allow it?

There are a majority who feel uncomfortable with what is shown on music videos so widely available to public sight, but nothing is ever done about it. There are of course restrictions but that will never be enough to stop the cause of a disturbance or media attracting behaviour within some of these music videos.

Apparently, if we continue to believe everything that the media shows us, we will all be dancing around in next to nothing, acting rowdy and slutty, and will all become ‘bad girls’ or ‘bad boys’. Not a healthy society.

But on that note, here is a song I quite like from her, excluding the smoky drug-infused love affair video, getting high with her lover, legs a-spread, to be left quivering in a corner bottom-naked at the end… "We Found Love" featuring Calvin Harris.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg00YEETFzg&ob=av3e

Beyonce and a taste of Fosse…

Beyoncé.

R&B queen, dance-pop diva, and a whole lotta sexy lady - Beyoncé is one female artist who knows how to bust a move.  The like of Rihanna has nothing on her.

When nowadays things are so sexually orientated, who can blame the new mother for coming up with innovative motives to keep her career on top form?

When the Single Ladies video was released, the Fosse dancing used looked so unusual and almost awkward to a viewing audience, although, immediately it was a hit.

When you think of the cabaret influenced style of dance we think of Bob Fosse.

This man was the absolute master of all things weird and wonderful in dance.  His death in 1987 proved that his legacy would live on to the best performances. Films such as Chicago have inherited the style of dance – All That Jazz as the major influence from a Bob Fosse technique.

Now continuing to apply the dance style in modern ways, Beyoncé has truly allowed the fixation of Fosse to be remembered for many years to come.

From winning a Grammy, Best R&B Song and Song of the Year awards, the choreographing of the music video was a major influence which helped her achieve this.

The power of dance has spread worldwide.  It is good to know that by stepping back to traditional moves that they are still as good as they were, and can maybe only get better as time goes on!  Beyoncé we love you!

Check out this clip from "Sweet Charity" (non-English) to get a better feel of traditional Fosse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyXrwxs9rHA