Come with me, it doesn't matter who you are

I was surprised to open my mailbox today and find a package from Germany inside--I didn't remember ordering anything from Germany lately! As it turns out, it actually contained a number of South African CDs I'd ordered about a month ago, so expect to finally see my thoughts on that Mandoza and Danny K collaboration soon. For now, though, I'm thrilled to finally have my hands on the NKD album--I'd barely been able to contain myself to buying just a couple of songs before, but I knew I wanted the whole album, so I decided to actually order a physical copy. It's nice coincidental timing, too, given Pinkie's excellent tracing of the history of one of their songs over at A Kind Of Love In--the life of "Poptrash," from written by ex-Bardot member Katie Underwood to its reincarnations on the NKD album and by a Serbian singer, is fascinating. I know I've written about "What I Believe" before, and I still really like that, but since you can hear that song on YouTube, here's another song instead.

A few more prefacing remarks, though: I am really impressed with the quality of the songs on the album. South Africa has some great music, but a lot of the straight-up pop comes from Afrikaans language groups and is made up of cover songs. This album doesn't manage to avoid covers entirely--there's a cover of Transvision Vamp's "I Want Your Love" (and I still feel like they are more to these songs' stories than I know, perhaps even some more covers, so please let me know if you know any more). If you like girl groups that are working the electro-poppy vibe, you'll definitely find things to enjoy on this album.

Another reason I wanted an actual physical copy of the album was to find out who wrote the songs on it. I would love to know what went on behind the scenes in the making of this album--how did it come about? How did they find out about these songs? Were any of the songs written for them or were they pre-existing? It will probably not surprise pop fans at all to learn that several of the songs come from Swedish writers. The song I'm posting, for example, has writers who also were involved in the Poodles' last Melodifestivalen entry and apparently are usually pretty rock--but don't hold that against it, because it's thoroughly pop. "What's That Noise" and "Whenever Love Comes Around" are written by the same people who created Andreas Lundstedt's "Lovegun." There are also some American and South African writers and, as mentioned before, at least one Australian one. I haven't had time to check everything out yet, but I'm planning on it.

Anyhow, if you like your girl bands who aren't afraid to mix a little electro into their pop occasionally but not always, I recommend checking them out--I'm not promising you'll love every song on the album, but I really, really like some of the songs on it. They may not be as revolutionary as Girls Aloud are credited to be, but I have a feeling I'll be championing them for a while.

Shooting Star--handclaps! Yes! The song opens with those as well as a guitar riff and the vocal part of the chorus, but we soon get into the somewhat more electro-influenced parts of the song. Given that the chorus is neither very fast nor made up of rapidfire words, it's not a song that feels very speedy--you're not going to get the insistent "you-must-dance" feel of something like Girls Aloud's "Something Kinda Oooh," but it's very catchy and very singalongable. It'd also be pretty suitable for some nice popstar pointing and gesturing.

To buy NKD's debut album, What's That Noise (not to be confused with Part Six's What's That Sound), go here (physical) or here (digital). If you want to go the digital route and just pick up their best songs, at first listen I'd say you should get "What's That Noise" (video here, useful mainly for hearing the song, not watching) "What I Believe" (video here) "Snakebite," "Shooting Star," "Cannonball," "Forget Forgetting Me," and maybe "Poptrash."

(I'm still upset about them losing out on that SAMA, by the way.)

Next up: maybe that Mexican duo.