Hold on just for a while

A few notes on artist and songwriter-related subjects:

Martin Stenmarck's upcoming album, I Septemberland, features five songs from the team at Swedish music publishing and production company TEN (A*Teens, Amy Diamond, Erik Hassle). In this case, though, the songs don't seem to be by the Tysper/Grizzly/Mack team (who in addition to the aforementioned successes have also been the creators of Industry's "My Baby's Waiting" and VV Brown's "Shark In The Water") but rather by Elof Loelv and Kim Wennerström, who also worked with Erik Hassle and produced Malena Ernman's "La Voix." Kim is also a member of the band DYNO and Elof has worked with them (if you're not already a fan, now's the time to fall in love with them; they're overdue a post here, but in the meantime, check out coverage on #1 Hits From Another Planet and Don't Stop The Pop), who are now under TEN's wings. Anyway, I wouldn't expect a change in Martin's style, but hopefully this is a good sign in terms of quality meeting accessibility. The song titles TEN is involved with are:

I Septemberland
Gråa Hjärtans Sång
Happy Ending
Jag Vill, Jag Vill, Jag Vill
J, Jeff och Jesus

Kris Allen apparently wrote some songs with Eg White (Will Young's "Leave Right Now," "Who Am I," "Let It Go," "I Won't Give Up," "Tell Me The Worst," James Morrison's "You Give Me Something," Adele) for his upcoming debut major label album. The tracklisting isn't finalized yet, so it's uncertain which if any will make the cut.

(Side note: the first tastes of Adam Lambert's new music is out, but it's a non-album power ballad, "Time For Miracles," for the 2012 soundtrack and is apparently not indicative of the sound of the album. Oh, and Dr. Luke recently mentioned he was adding retro synths to a song for Adam--I'm hoping he means Van Halen's "Jump"-style synths.)

Bosson released a greatest hits collection this past summer. Did anyone else not know that? A quick glance at the tracklisting doesn't show any new songs beyond a version of "One In A Million" featuring Elizma Theron. I hope he releases new material soon...and that it's more like his older songs, not like "Wake Up." He's friends with Twentyfive Productions (Lisette Vares, Danny's "I Need To Know") on MySpace, which could mean they just produced the new version of "One In A Million" or he's working on them with new stuff.

As Paul of Fizzy Pop and PopMuse have written, the video for Will Young's new single, "Hopes & Fears," is out. It's a great song, one of those gentle mid/up-tempo hybrids that just makes you feel better about the day.

Seven of the songs on Magnus Carlsson's upcoming album Pop Galaxy are by Pitchline (Velvet's "Take My Body Close" and "Come Into The Night" and a song with Elin Lanto that I still hope to hear some day--speaking of which, Scandipop has great Elin news about a new single and possible participation in a certain music festival).

Kleerup, Natasha Bedingfield, and newcomer Jonas Myrin (you might know him best as the male mannequin in Sophie Ellis-Bextor's "Get Over You" video) all worked on a song together--presumably for Natasha. It was such a surprising combination that I had to mention it.

James Morrison has a new single, "Get To You," coming out to promote the rerelease of his second album, Songs For You, Truths For Me. It's produced by Mark Taylor, the same man who produced "Broken Strings," his excellent duet with Nelly Furtado, as well as many, many other songs. It's not quite as great as that earlier single, but it's good.

Nanne's great recent single "Otacksamhet" was co-written and co-produced by '80s Swedish popstar Paul Rein. Given how much I ADORE the Epicentre-penned "Kom Hit," on which Nanne duets with Paul, I'm thinking they should collaborate more often.

I'm sure all the hardcore Agnes fans already knew this, but half of Agnes's demo version of "Say Love," the song which eventually ended up being released by Sandra, is streaming in the music section of the website of the song's cowriters, Epicentre's Anders Wikström and Fredrik Thomander.

You look good, look good, you're good lookin'

Another post with no theme to it, just various things I wanted to write about (and some of which I even have written about in comments elsewhere), including some I've been meaning to mention for AGES.

Kleerup's new single "Longing For Lullabies" and instrumental b-side "Tower Of Trellick" are available for purchase as 320 kbps mp3s from 7Digital, regardless of your country. I know not everyone loves the song, but I can't help but hugely applaud that decision from him or his record company--wouldn't it be fantastic if ALL artists let you buy their music without any sort of restrictions, be they DRM or country-based (the rest of the world is getting access to this single just as soon as the Swedes are)? I really hope his album has "Thank You For Nothing" on it--I need that song (in good quality).

Speaking of buying things from 7Digital, I'm glad to finally have Gabriella Cilmi's "Don't Wanna Go To Bed Now," which, as I mentioned earlier, I've wanted ever since PopJustice featured a clip of it. It's a great slice of attitude-filled pop-rock with electro-influenced production and a great beat. Her first single didn't leave much of an impression on me, but in my opinion "Don't Wanna Go To Bed Now," which doesn't really sound like "Sweet About Me," is a song very much worth buying (it too is available on 7Digital, though as a DRM-protected WMA; you can listen to a clip via that 7Digital link too, or here). If she ever came up with an album of songs like this, she'd be a fantastic popstar (I didn't buy the full album--I might, but I get the impression it's maybe not something that would appeal to me as a whole; I'm open to hearing otherwise, though).

I LOVE the new single from Michelle Williams of Destiny's Child. Is it odd that her voice alternates between reminding me of JoJo (well, that's probably the vocal effects on it) and Jamelia? Yeah, actually, no one's going to hear that besides me. There's someone else I'm reminded of too, even more so, though I haven't been able to place who yet...anyway, People's website is playing the song in good quality. "Break The Dawn" is a catchy mid-tempo electronically-processed song that I'd be thrilled to see do well in the U.S. Check out The DJ Plays My Favorite Songs for information about the album.

Madonna's new single: I like it. My response to it was kind of like my response to, say, Eve's "Tambourine"--one of those songs that's a lot of fun in a hypothetically-dancing-in-a-club kind of way and that has sound effects that might otherwise be abrasive but work in that context (even if just imagined). Justin's vocals on it are the first time in a long time I've truly loved his voice. It does feel slow now, though, having got used to the tempo of that French radio rip.

I was really looking forward to the new Mariah album--I'm not sure why, given that I think the only songs from her I know are "Always Be My Baby," "All I Want For Christmas Is You," "Whenever You Call," "Hero," and the singles from The Emancipation of Mimi (that's not a result of me ever being anti-Mariah Carey--I've never been--just a function of my total cluelessness about/not paying attention to music until the past couple of years). Oh, and "When You Believe." I've actually had a real urge to "discover" her back catalogue recently, but I have literally NO IDEA where to begin--what albums are her best? Anyway, to get back to what I was originally talking about, I was disappointed to hear that the next single is supposed to be "Bye Bye" (strung together clips of it here)--I was really hoping (and thinking) it was going to be a big uptempo club banger type song. In the good news department, though, I think I'm going to love "That Chick," which she performed recently (see below).



I'm liking the sound of the recently leaked Beyoncé track "Beautiful Nightmare" (apparently a demo)--it's a darker-sounding pop track.



I completely agree with XO and Nick that the latest Guillemots single is worth listening to. That's an understatement--in my eyes, it's the sort of song that in some alternate universe was a massive crossover smash in the UK and the US, winning over everyone of all music tastes, instead of just getting to a respectable #20 in the UK a few weeks ago. It's a pop-with-guitars track that literally could not be any catchier or any more fun to sing along with. If you've missed it until now, you HAVE to listen to it. One of the best songs of the year, without doubt. I've not bought the album yet, but it's definitely on my to-get list.



I know I mentioned recently that Dirrrty Pop reviewed Taio Cruz's album, but have I ever mentioned on here how much I like the electro-R&B "Come On Girl"? I don't think so, mainly because it's been featured on other well-read sites and so I figure most people probably know about it already. Well, I love it, at any rate, and thought both of the songs Jessica posted, "Fly Away" and "I'll Never Love Again," were fantastic; I'm now really really close to buying his album and probably will do so.



#1 Hits is having "Pop Week" and, though the blog's always a must-read (Nick does an amazing job of finding amazing songs no one else is writing about), I really can't encourage you enough to check it out during this week. I've already played Monday's song, "Disco Bloodbath," a bunch of times.

Speaking of blog recommendations, Don't Stop The Pop (which just reviewed this group's showcase), FizzyPop, Popjustice, and ArjanWrites-back group Red Blooded Women has me really excited--I can't wait to (someday, hopefully!) buy Yaz-sampling pop song "Colour Me Dirty." Speaking of Yaz samples (where Heidi Montag leads, as I'm sure D'luv would point out), the clip of the Yaz-sampling song from another hyped girl group, the Saturdays, that was on the members' MySpaces a little while back sounded good too; it's at least got me interested to hear the whole thing.

Also, Morten Harket of a-ha has a new single called "Darkspace" coming out soon (on Norwegian radios in the next few days and for sale on April 7), with an album out May 19. I really want to like "Darkspace" (I would've liked to like the album's first single, but I sadly didn't), so hpoefully the apparently uptempo, rocky track is a good one. We'll see, I guess.

Edit: oh, and also, Britney's "Break The Ice" is BRILLIANT, but that's a given and I've liked that since the album came out last year--the track hasn't lost any of its shine since then, though.

Never to stop believin'

Since I was on a Finnish music kick a few days ago, here are a couple of new-ish Finnish singles that I won't be or can't be posting (at least for now) but that are worth a mention.

One of the two main singers/vocalists for the band Kwan is going solo. Mariko, the female singer, will be releasing an album called Fabulous Tonight on April 2. The lead single, "Unstoppable" (playing on her MySpace), isn't amazing and it feels a little more typical pop or pop-rock than her self-applied label of "crankdisco" would imply, but I am interested to hear more (especially given that album title).

Oh Backstreet Boys, what have you wrought? You come back with a big dramatic power ballad in 2005 and the other old boy bands are falling over themselves to follow in your footsteps. I guess XL5 were a popular Finnish boy band back in the '90's and now they've returned with "Tuulee," which, from the clips I've heard, actually genuinely sounds great. Yeah, it is very much in that aforementioned vein of big dramatic grown up boy band power ballad, but it sounds like they've got it pretty much exactly write with "Tuulee." Of course, it's hard to judge a song on the short clips I've heard of it (there's a forty-five second clip on their MySpace), but it's definitely a song I really want to hear all of and think I'll love.

In non-Finnish news, I'm not sure if everyone besides me knew this already, but I read that Kleerup's album will come out in late April. Linda Bengtzing (March 19), Charlotte Perrelli (April 23), Sanna Nielsen (April), and Kleerup--it's going to be an expensive next couple of months for Swedish pop lovers.

Trying to fall asleep again...sleep again, at 3 AM

Kleerup is at this point probably most famous for his song "With Every Heartbeat" with Robyn, though he also did Jessica Folcker's album Skin Close as well. He's working on an album of his own, which, if I'm remembering correctly, is what "With Every Heartbeat" was originally for. The song I'm posting is a demo from that album, and just a radio rip at that, but I still think it's worth sharing. I don't think I thought too much of this song the first time I've heard it, but one day I just sort of thought "this is quite nice!"

3 AM (feat. Marit Bergman)--as I said, this is just a radio rip, so there's some talking at the beginning and end and over the middle of the song to tag it. It's also, I think they said, just a demo, so the final version could be different. Anyhow, it's mainly electro in backing with some string-like touches. I'd say the musical backing isn't quite as sad as that of "With Every Heartbeat," though once again you've got a singer dealing with loss. Sorry, this song deserves more of a description--maybe I'll come back and edit this later.

This is a demo, so there's nowhere to buy it yet and it'll only be posted for a little bit. You can buy Kleerup and Robyn's single "With Every Heartbeat" here (physical) or here (digital), though.

Next up: maybe something Australian.

Tell me would it make you happy, baby

Tomorrow (I think), Kleerup of "With Every Heartbeat" fame will be playing a demo of a track Marit Bergman is lending her vocals to, "3 AM," on Swedish radio. The song, in its finished version, will be on his album, due out at the beginning of next year.

I'm very interested to hear it--let's see if I can manage to wake up early enough to do so (and if the Internet cooperates)...

(The show, which does have multiple guests, starts at 8 AM EST, if anyone else wants to hear it.)

Update: the show is in the archives or you can listen to the song via YouTube. Maybe it's worth mentioning that there's a piano-led version of it on the "Mama, I Remember You Now" single, too.