'Cause I know love would have no meaning without you in my life

A mini-South African pop music news update (though some of the news is pretty old):

NKD just released their self-titled second album yesterday. I don't know of anywhere that ships internationally selling it, but I'm not sure if I'd buy it anyway. After the trio of former Idol contestants got off to such a good start with the poppy and often Swede-penned songs on their debut, the underrated What's That Noise, they started talking about going acoustic for this new album. Their version of Amy Pearson's "Don't Miss You" is much inferior to Amy's version. Still, I am interested to hear what their latest single, "Step Right Up," sounds like in hopes it'll revive my true interest in them. If the album cover is anything to go by, they've lost a lot of their financial ability to or interest in making themselves a quality girl group. At least we've got songs like "What I Believe," "Quicksand," "Forget Forgetting Me," "Shooting Star"...I'm just going to make myself depressed if I keep thinking about how good they used to be. It was so nice to have a South African girl group that wasn't just going for cheap and (the bad kind of) cheesy.

Quick side note: the pop industry in South Africa isn't that big and, as a result, there is a lot of using songs from other countries that goes on. Sometimes this comes in the form of just buying songs written by foreign songwriters, but other times it moves into somewhat ridiculous recycling of songs. Afrikaans artists in particular have a tendency to end up covering Eurovision and national final songs, in addition to Scandivanian artists' work. At times, the results can be surprisingly good (who would have guessed Arash's "Temptation" would work so well as an Afrikaans language boy band song?), but other times it just becomes...silly.

David Fourie, no stranger to covering songs from Sweden, is apparently working on a new album. The Afrikaaner former Idol contestant has released (as far as I know of) two albums so far, one of which included a version of Baltimora's "Tarzan Boy" that I love to a degree that confuses everyone around me. He also did an Afrikaans version of Fame's "Vindarna Vander Oss" which was the version I ever heard of that song. Anyway, I've yet to figure out whether the fact that I smiled at the news he's recorded a version of Velvet's "Take My Body Close" for his new album was a matter of "what on Earth...?" laughing at or if I'm kind of pleased by the idea. Probably both. Maybe it's affection from nostalgia, but his covers seem to actually have a bit of effort put into them and be pretty well-done, at least compared to those of other artists (though I'm under no illusions that Swedish pop fans will enjoy his version). He better keep the dance style, though, or else we'll have to have a talk.

Apparently Jacques Terre'blanche released "Set Me Free" (which I wrote about maybe a year ago) as a single. Perfect choice. I'm still mightily suspicious of the fact that MOR-y South African artist Mark Beling supposedly wrote this Phixx-esque song, but it's still great. Also, world: he did the dance version of "I Won't Forget" before Belgium, thank you very much (though that's not the version you'll hear in the video in that post and though the song, presumably in a version simiar to that you'll hear in the video, was originally for short-lived British boy band 365). The Colour Red, his latest album, was surprisingly good, with some nice dance-oriented experimentation--we're not talking "import it now" good or anything, and certainly nothing to compete with the best of Sweden's Idol boys, but it had some good songs. I do wish he'd take some decent promo pictures with his shirt on, though.

Another South African girl band also made up of former televised singing contest participants, Jamali, has a...well, I'm not sure if I should call it a cover or interpolation or what. "Re-interpretation" might be the best description. Anyway, they've got a re-interpretation of Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" called "Love At First Sight" on their latest album (listen to a clip here). I'm frankly shocked at how much I love it: it's an adorable sweet little pop song in their hands. Totally post-worthy, so I may do just that in the future (I've been meaning to for a while now). All you other South African artists, take note: how to do a pop cover version right.

Did you think I'd wait forever, baby, like the others did before?

I was reminded of Australian singer Amy Pearson's underrated "Don't Miss You" (sorry for the low quality) recently when I found out that South African girl band NKD are launching their new acoustic (ugh--why, girls, why? You had some great pop of the very much non-acoustic sort on your debut) direction off the back of a cover of it. It's kind of a Stacie Orrico-esque song, one with a very catchy radio-friendly chorus, the sort of thing that works perfectly as a sing-a-long, and with just a hint of pop-rock to it. It's arguably generic, but if "generic" sounds this good, who cares? In my opinion, there's a general lack of songs with this sound at the moment, at least in the U.S. and from female singers.

To buy her debut album, Who I Am, go here (physical).

Next up: maybe a British, Spanish, or German song.

If you say it loud enough, the party gets ferocious

I was going to write about Mandoza and Danny K's collaboration album today (probably), but I was distracted by something I heard on Danny K's second solo album. In real life, I'm one of those people who can't read a trivia book without asking whoever's near me "Did you know...?" every minute. Consider this post the blog equivalent of that.

My laugh-out-loud moment of yesterday: hearing the chorus of Danny K's "Soopadoopa" which--surely deliberately--mimics (I don't think "samples" or "remixes" is the right word, since it's not actually using the original music) "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" from Mary Poppins in the service of an urban-influenced track. That music and the lyrics--oh wow. If I'd been on a chair, I would have fallen off laughing.

That said, a minute and a half into another song, I skipped back to "Soopadoopa"--I had to hear it again. Make of that what you will.

The more I think about it, the more I conclude that this maybe the most ridiculous idea ever executed in pop music...and yet, though I'm not (yet) ready to give it my "ridiculous but brilliant label," I think I'm infatuated. Everyone else in the world would probably think it's the worst idea ever, but seriously, the guy just turned "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" into a song about "dope" DJ's--how can you not love that?

In fact, for now, this is temporarily (very much so) my "greatest. thing. ever." I start to shake with repressed laughter ever time it comes on, but I love it.

On a more serious note, I'm pleased to say that J23 seems to be a big improvement over Danny K, although to be fair I haven't given his first album its due time-wise; I'll have to try revisiting it--but J23 has more songs with instant or close to it appeal for me.

While I'm being random, things I've been meaning to mention forever:

Bosson's next album is coming out June 11. "You" remains top-quality and "What If I" and "I Can Feel Love" were pretty good, too, so I'm glad we're finally getting an album.

D'NASH's second single, "Dondé estás," is a cover of a song previously sung by Swedish singer Pontus Assarsson, then called "In A Different Story," which explains why I've sometimes seen that name in parentheses after D'NASH's title for it. While we're on the topic of former Fame Factory contestants and covers, I've also got a version of "Cannonball" (sung by NKD) performed by Emma Karlsson, who--I think--released it as a single, though I'm not sure who recorded it first; given she's actually Swedish and that I think she's the same person as Emma Varga, I'd guess Emma did, but her MySpace makes it sound like it was released to radio this February...she could have recorded it earlier, though. She's also recorded "Shooting Star." Her versions are more rocked-up.

I'm really liking a lot of the songs posted over at Popsound, like the new single and b-side by Dutch singer Jim, whose song "Tell Her" Into The Groove introduced me to.

Next up: probably Mandoza and Danny K.

(Note: you may be asking "So then wasn't Jibbs's 'Chain Hang Low' a work of genius? Shouldn't you like that, too?" No--that left out any catchiness in the verses. It was pretty much rap. This song is more R&B or "urban" pop and keeps the hook going throughout. And there's a greater sense of fun around this one, while still maintaining the posing needed to sell the song.)

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.

I can't control it, I can't refuse it

You all are going to think I'm crazy, but...



I love this.

I was getting ready to complain about Danny K winning best English pop album at the South African Music Awards this weekend, as his third album, This Is My Time, is 1.) clearly not a pop album--definitely R&B, 2.) doesn't even sound that good, from the clips I've heard (and Boris did the whole "let's rework that Terri Walker song" thing last year, too, and better) when I got distracted...first, I may even end up buying his debut album, as "You Don't Know My Name" sounds like it might be OK, but more importantly, his 2004 collaboration album with kwaito star Mandoza, Same Difference, sounds brilliant. You can listen to clips from it here, but you'll probably want to open that link in a new window.

I just bought it; it'll take some weeks to get here, but you'll definitely see Mandoza and Danny K cropping up here again. I think I may have found my summer album.

(Why is it I think of Ben Stiller when I see Danny K in that video? Whatever, the song is still great.)