Jessica Mauboy f. Flo Rida "Running Back"

[koganbot]

Jessica Mauboy is an Australian Idol runner-up from a couple of years back. Does pop r&b that isn't innovative but about half the time is very pretty, especially her current single "Running Back" - she sings it with a floating poignancy that hearkens back to '60s vocal groups like the Impressions and the Miracles and the Temptations and to the slew of reggae singers who took those singers as their model.

Watch on YouTube

t.A.T.u. in the Snowfall (with Happy Smiles)

[credoimprobus]

Getting one last one in before everyone (myself included) disappears for the hols -- t.A.T.u.'s latest single, the EXCELLENT Snegopady:

(A video is supposed to be imminent/already out, but it hasn't hit their official YouTube channel yet, anyway. So audio-only it is for now!)


I only remembered to go looking for their new album last week (it was out in Russia in October, and is supposed to be available internationally as digital-only on iTunes and Amazon), and had planned to hold off posting about it until a future full international release -- but sod it, there's no indications of when/if this may happen at this point anyway. Who needs patience, eh?

I may only have been listening to it for half a week, but it's already a solid contender for my top 20 albums of the year -- I dare say it's their best yet, or at least the one best suited to my tastes! I was delighted to find the remixes on the Beliy Plaschik ep were as much of an indication of the sound of the upcoming album as the singles (as posted here); the above, for instance, is almost a perfect amalgam of the No Mercy and Plant of Nothing remixes. They've really embraced the electro much more fully on this one, and a lot of it has an even darker edge than Dangerous and Moving. (This YT channel has the entire album streamed, btw, for the interested.)

Some further favourites off the album:
Chelovechki: contains some impressively energetic melodic acrobatics, that chorus is a STUNNER
Running Blind: there's something very desolate about the sound of this one, in the best way possible
Fly on the Wall: this one wins the pop hook stakes on the album hands down; furthermore, it has these amazing, massively dense and heavy synths in the chorus, that would make me go "ooh, dubsteppy", entirely arbitrarily I thought -- until I figured out WHY. (Nb linked track: one of my top 5 favourite dubstep choons of the year. NOT A BAD COMPARISON TO BRING FORTH, THERE.)
Vremya Luny: poss you need an inner goth (or inner metalhead!) to fully appreciate this one, haha -- either way it is relentless and awesome, and would 10 years ago totally have been shelved under "industrial". :D (How great is it that this gets away with counting as pop these days?)