Nancyland

I love musicals, and am constantly amused by Andrew Lloyd Webber's transition from odd looking famous man to cult television icon. He could give Gene Hunt a run for his money.

As well as enjoying John Barrowman as a ridiculous judge for the 3rd time, I'm even more interested than I expected in I'd Do Anything thanks to the appearance of Jodie Prenger. We attended the same tiny girls school in Blackpool and as she's happily admitted on TV she was a lot bigger then! However she was always an amazing talent musically & drama wise. She was a main star in our production of Mikado and later went on to perform in a theatre version of Hot Mikado which I remember as being absolutely amazing. Plus from what I knew of her, Nancy would be the perfect role, she's lively, bubbly and cares. I was a bit worried she was maybe coming across a bit too intensely but on forums people seem to like her, and whoever thought she could turn 'Chasing Pavements' into a song I'd like!





However the performance that throws up a strong contender was Keisha's doing 'Mad About The Boy' on Saturday's show. I'm not sure her destiny is Nancy but sounding like a young Shirley Bassey, her performance was absolutely mesmerising and confident.

Santogold - L.E.S Artists

Santogold first came to my attention thanks to her appearance on Mark Ronson's 'Version'. Since then her name has popped up everywhere where hype lives. I thought the hype was undeserved due to first single Creator being a bit of an MIA bang-a-long, but now her 2nd single L.E.S. Artists is knocking about and it's brilliant.




Gone is the carnival style and in it's place a Karen O style singalong with an epic chorus and the stole stealing lyric 'I can say I hope it will be worth what I give up'. With Diplo & Switch behind her on production duties throughout her album, this is going to be one of the hippest albums of the year.

And while we're talking of hype, I need to reassert my belief that the Vampire Weekend album is extraordinary. I listened to it on the tube on my way to work today and nearly cried ! at it's brilliance. A Punk is also just one of those songs that gets the Popstarz dancefloor going regardless of whether you know it or not. And today's final excitement is that I'm off to see Sara Bareilles perform a showcase in London at lunchtime. Hooray.

Shady Lady

You may or may not know that this year I have been randomly thrust in front of the microphone as Capital Radio's Eurovision 'expert' on Lucio's evening show. I know so little compared to Adrian so am using him to feed me information. Ha!

Anyway every country has now selected and this is the stand out pop song. An exploding mirrorball?? Ukraine for the win baby!

September Comes Early

When we went to Ibiza a few years ago and hired a car, the radio was full of a song that sounded a little bit like the mighty Tamparer. Back home we discovered it was Satellites by a Swedish (obv!) dance outfit called September.

Since then, they seem to have done quite well in America and are now getting a release on Hard 2 Beat Records. This is the label whose first release was Basshunter and 2nd H ‘two’ O so they have a pretty good record so far. If you like Cascada, if you like raving it up on a Blackpool dancefloor… you’ll like this. But it’s somewhat a classier proposition and the album In Orbit is full of great dance tracks.

A new video has been recorded for the UK market which is much more colourful and brash than the original. Do the two very different videos change your perception of the song?

European video



UK video