You're not into it? Get into it

I love finding new digital music stores. They can come and go--I lost my beloved Urban Payload and now Pick n Play seems to be requiring you to be South African to buy from them, while Tonlist is currently remodelling its English version and thus inaccessible. Luckily, Gucca came along to replace Urban Payload; even if it's more expensive and has a more confusing search function (if I'm not sure if Gucca will have something, I almost always check Urban Payload first just to see if it's worth trying to find it on Gucca), I am so thankful to have even minor access to Nordic music. I also like faithful Magix...but now I've got another German music store to use too, one with some other songs (including Espen Lind's first two albums, which is strange, considering Gucca, which is Danish but has some Nordic stuff, doesn't even sell those) and that seems to generally be cheaper: Medion Music. Conveniently, they also have the new Barbados song, but, to be honest, the reason I was originally searching for another German music store was to buy the new US5 single. As I've mentioned several times, US5 carry loads of baggage musically, stylistically, personally, and management-wise and their new single may be a completely shameless attempt to simultaneously rip off Timbaland and the Backstreet Boys, but I like it.

Rhythm Of Life (Shake It Down) (Single Edit)--thankfully, this version cuts out the dance break. I'm the first person to call for choreographed group dancing in music, but sometimes, if you're just listening to a song and not watching it performed, a musical dance break can slow down the song. The rap sadly still stays, but without the dance break, it's less damaging to the song--two things back-to-back that slowed down the song really hurt it. The first bridge and chorus are where it starts to truly get good. Really, it's just a great boy band song, worth checking out even if you've not liked their previous work (though having a fondness for boy band music certainly helps).

To buy US5's new single "Rhythm Of Life (Shake It Down)," go here (physical) or here (digital).

In somewhat related news, Lou Pearlman is being held in Guam after being expelled from Indonesia as an "undesirable visitor." That's putting it mildly (for more, see one of Chart Rigger's old posts). Apparently he disappeared after going on tour with US5 and was found by law enforcement officials after sending a letter with an Indonesian return address to an attorney. In the meantime, a liquidation sales of his possessions was held. I'm actually really curious about what this means for his current "projects" like US5 and not because I like their new single--what happens to a music group, especially one so engineered and so young, when your manager is arrested? As my parents would say, "another dollar in the therapy fund..."

Next up: maybe something Swedish. Or Spanish. Or Russian.

(By the way, I think this is a somewhat old picture of them--it's almost worth watching the first few seconds of their new video just to see them trying to bring back Flock Of Seagulls-style haircuts.)

(More unrelated, I'm thinking about buying Barbados's album Stolt--or, more accurately, putting it on my long term "to get" list--since a good number of the songs on it sound pretty good, but I'm not sure; on the off chance anyone owns it, is it worth buying? I'd have to get the whole thing, since sadly I don't know any digital music stores selling it.)