They never listen and they talk too much

Getting spins from me recently: Janet Jackson's "Make Me," covered well at #1 Hits and XOLondon. Apparently it's by Darkchild, which might prompt me to finally finish my week-old "Darkchild is on a roll recently" post.

Speaking of modern grown-up dance-meets-pop: Ysa Ferrer--amazing (with a hat-tip to Aces at the PJ Forums). Why have I not been listening like crazy to her already? Impeccably produced French dance-pop--the kind that probably has substance to it. "Sens interdit" isn't her current single (which is the possibly more fun, more musically intense, and also great but maybe just barely not quite as much so "Last Zoom"), but it was released as a single this year (albeit just barely...January), which means I can count it for my eventual singles countdown. Thank goodness. Expect more about her.



This news comes several months too late, but since Paula Lobos's awesome über-cute dance-influenced pop song "Touch The Light," which Don't Stop The Pop introduced me to, is actually playlisted on P3, here's the video for it:



It was co-written by RamPac, the duo behind Swingfly's equally awesome "Singing That Melody" and "Touch And Go." "Touch The Light" doesn't bear any genre similarities to either of those two hip-pop-rock songs, but it shows a similar ear for an adorable bubbly pop hook, like that of "Touch And Go."

"Touch The Light" is available on iTunes internationally here or you can buy a digital copy regardless of your country here.

Dolly Rockers' new single, "Boys Will Be Boys," is not the song that first hooked me on them, "How Did I End Up With You?", but it is great. It opens with a Katy Perry's "Hot N Cold" style electronic bounce before going into what Paul called Veronicas-ish singing in the bridge and chorus (for some reason it makes me think of the Veronicas doing the chorus in their demo of "All About Us," only with more complete production). If you've only liked "How Did I End Up With You?" so far and found their other material a bit too novelty for you, "Boys Will Be Boys" may help win you over.

Is it possible to love with a broken heart?

A few random bits of news about new-ish songs:

I just noticed that you can stream many of the Dolly Rockers' songs on Last.fm, including, most importantly, the studio version of "How Did I End Up With You" (or "How Did I End Up With U?" or "How Did I End Up With You?" or "How Did I End Up With U"--Last.fm-concerned me is suffering). While you're there, if you've not listened to them before, give "Gold Digger" a try, too; their debut single, "Je Suis Une Dolly," is good, too, but it has a much more "novelty single" sound. In other news about the British girl group, the picture on Popjustice from a photoshoot with them looks great.

It looks like Måns Zelmerlöw's new single is "Hold On." Good song, although not one of my ultimate favorites on the album. "Forever" is crying out to be a summer single, although maybe that's more in my head than in terms of what Swedish radio would actually play.

This Must Be Pop's discovery Jonas Oakland has a new single out (it should be on international iTunes stores shortly). It's called "Stay," is Swedish disco-dance-pop in the vein of his first single "Beat Of My Heart," and is for sale now. Definitely one that's just for the hardcore Swedish pop addicts, but I thought some people besides me might like to know. Stream it on his website.

Speaking of things you lovers of poppy dance music from Scandinavia are likely to enjoy, I'm so grateful to Scandipop for pointing us all in the direction of Friðrik Ómar's (a.k.a. the male half of Eurobandið and the singer of "Eldur," the second best song in Iceland's 2007 national final) "I Wanna Know." It's another Örlygur "Öggi" Smári (the man behind Páll Óskar's comeback and Eurobandið's "This Is My Life") creation and, though not quite as great as "This Is My Life," it is definitely enjoyable; it also seeks a different vibe, less celebratory and more pensive, saddened but hopeful dance. Listen to it on his MySpace.

I've been playing Cobra Starship's "Good Girls Go Bad," featuring Leighton Meester, a decent bit these past few days. Melismatic's description of the song, "cookie-cutter power-pop emo glitter," is unbeaten.

Turn and walk away tonight

Songwriter update (because yes, I am a total songwriter nerd-in-training):

Jessie J (pictured), the British singer that Worrapolava has championed, was signed a few months ago. That's not news. What is news is that she's had Dr. Luke and Claude Kelly (working together, Kelly Clarkson's "My Life Would Suck Without You," Britney's "Circus") writing for her.

Claude Kelly (in addition to the songs mentioned above, Leona Lewis's "Forgive Me," Lemar's "If She Knew," Linda Teodosiu's "Love Sux") has also been working with Jordin Sparks, who, in addition to working with Lucas Secon (the Pussycat Dolls' "Hush Hush," Sarah Connor's "Under My Skin," Martin's "Show The World") on that song I posted about earlier this year, has apparently gotten at least one song from Ryan Tedder (Leona Lewis's "Bleeding Love," Timbaland feat. OneRepublic's "Apologize") too: Popjustice revealed last week that the lead single for her second album is a Tedder-penned song called "Battlefied." Check out PJ's post for details.

Moving back to Claude Kelly for a moment, as I mentioned earlier, he's also done several songs with the Backstreet Boys recently. A video of him talking about them was posted, but it's since been set to private. In it, though, he mentions "Bye Bye Love" (an up-tempo club-friendly song which features the line "I think I want to stay single, so bye bye love," as revealed earlier), "Don't Try This At Home" (which they sang a cappella at a sound check; it's a "heartbreak record"), and "What I Know Now" (he calls it a "pop urban hybrid;" listen to a non-BSB featuring demo here). He's also working with Wynter Gordon and, somewhat surprisingly, American Idol's Jason Castro.

Ryan Laubscher, the main man behind Alex Roots, has clips of demos for several artists on his official site (click on "Music"). The most noteworthy ones in terms of artist names that I hadn't previously heard elsewhere are Amy Pearson's "Contagious," the title track from her second album (it's more upbeat and electro/dance than I was expecting); Tina Barrett's (formerly of S Club 7) "I'll Be Your Woman;" Alex Roots's "Prisoner" (which sounds like it could potentially be epic in its final form), and Christophe Willem's "Si je tombais" (there's a Pixie song, too, but the full version of that has been on his MySpace, and I think it might just be a demo available for purchase).

Fred Ball of Pleasure (see: his work with Bertine Zetlitz, his producer project Pleasure's "Out Of Love") has done "forthcoming" work with Sophie Ellis-Bextor (that he'd co-written a song with Ina Wroldsen, lately of work with the Saturdays, called "Synchronized" was already known, so this could be referring just to that or to more), Little Boots (not sure whether it's songs we've already heard or not), and Paloma Faith (whose name is popping up all over the place).

Speaking of Ina Wroldsen (as mentioned above, she was the glue that held the Saturdays together in terms of songwriting), I only just found out that she co-wrote the song Lucas Secon (who also co-wrote it) has had listed as Pixie Lott's second single for ages, before we even found out what the first single was, "Gravity." Her recent work also includes a song for Lindsay Lohan called "Stuck" (though given the limbo that project's in, I wouldn't hold your breath to hear it), songs for Leona Lewis called "Thank You Thank You" and "Your Heart," a song for Kat De Luna called "Break Me," and a song for Hayden Panettiere called "Top Up."

Xenomania (Girls Aloud) are keeping busy, with news coming out over the past month that they'll be working with Leona Lewis, and Shayne Ward, both of whom are British X Factor winners.

The most recent X Factor winner, Alexandra Burke (pictured), appears to be working with some big names for her debut album: RedOne (Darin's "Step Up," Lady GaGa's "Just Dance") Stargate (Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable," Rihanna's "Don't Stop The Music"), Brian Kennedy (Rihanna's "Disturbia," Chris Brown's "Forever") Timbaland (Nelly Furtado's "Maneater," Justin Timberlake's "SexyBack;" possibly just met, but maybe worked with), the Freemasons (remixes of Beyoncé songs, Kylie Minogue's "The One"), Claude Kelly, Savan Kotecha (Britney Spears's "If U Seek Amy," Shayne Ward's "No U Hang Up"), Soulshock & Karlin (Alesha Dixon's "Breath Slow"), and probably some people I've left out. In other words: big budget, brand name songwriters--taking Alexandra to major international success is obviously what her management is aiming for.

Do you remember the brilliant Dolly Rockers' song "How Did I End Up With You?" I posted a week ago? Popjustice wrote about it shortly after (and posted a clip of the studio version) and revealed (well, clued me in) that the songwriter behind it and the majority of the project is Ray Hedges.

On the subject of girl bands promoted on PopJustice, Girls Can't Catch's debut single "Keep Your Head Up" is written and produced by Chris Braide (the Saturdays' "Chasing Lights," D-Side's "Invisible"). The live version has shown the song so have a lot of potential, but the clips of the studio version we've heard so far are lacking punch; they sound like demos. Hopefully there's still time to improve the production on them.

I'm sure I forgot something I meant to mention, but that'll do for now.

How did I ever see a perfect 10?

Yes, once again taken from the Popjustice forums, and usually I just let things go, presuming everyone else will have read about them there, too, but since no one's talking about it:



British girl group and former X Factor contestants Dolly Rockers performing "How Did I End Up With You?" somewhere. The important thing is the song. I usually think of the group's music as...kind of spastic, cheeky, and sample-including and, while "How Did I End Up With You?" fulfills the latter criteria (Propaganda's "Duel" and 3OH!3's "Don't Trust Me"/the same thing as 3OH!3's "Don't Trust Me"/just happens to have a section that sounds like part of 3OH!3's "Don't Trust Me"), it's much more controlled and melodic while still having the fun of the group's sound...well, as much fun as is appropriate in a song like this, which includes references to abuse and falling for a married man (so that would be only occasional hints of it). "How Did I End Up With You?" is melancholy and frustrated but with an insistent up-tempo semi-"American" sounding modern electro beat behind it--a bit like "Hot 'n Cold," for lack of a better reference--that means we're not talking about a "The Loving Kind" or "Untouchable" remake. It's a great catchy pop song, being serious without ever losing sight of that fact, and just the sort of thing I want from a girl group or, really, any act.

Dolly Rockers have yet to release their debut single, "Je Suis Une Dolly," but it's out July 20 in the UK (hat tip). Presumably "How Did I End Up With You?" will be on the following album. It's not on their MySpace--which I'm hoping is a sign that they realize how great it is and don't want it hitting the Internet too soon--but you can listen to several other of their songs there.