November 2014

Nicole Scherzinger shows her softer side in a classy new video for the emotional power ballad Run, about her on/off romance with Formula 1 star Lewis Hamilton. During the recording of he video she was brought to tears, “The song is deeply personal to me and it does show another side to me, a vulnerable side that people don’t normally get to see, a more raw side, an authentic side,” Nicole told Rap-Up TV in a recent interview.

This bittersweet ballad, produced by Felix Snow, with its intensely emotional vocal does show off the diva’s powerful voice. The video, set in a beautiful stately home, is very understated and vulnerable – the perfect treatment for the song.

Run is the third single from Scherzinger’s sophomore album Big Fat Lie which features a collaboration with T.I. and production from Tricky Stewart and The-Dream. Scherzinger has cited Janet Jackson’s The Velvet Rope (1997) and Sade as major influences. She said that the album is “vibey, it’s cool, it’s got a lot of soul and it’s a very personal album to me.” Her short-lived break-up with boyfriend Lewis Hamilton was the main inspiration behind the new album. The 36-year-old star started dating Hamilton in 2007, before breaking up three years later. They briefly got together twice more over the next two years and finally got back together for good in March 2014. She has hinted that marriage could be on the cards in the future.

Marina and The Diamonds goes femme fatal in her new Froot music video. This gorgeous retro visual is stuffed full of old Hollywood style and is a luxuriously hazy sight to behold. Directed by Chino Moya the video is reminiscent of Madonna’s Vogue – fashion aficionados will love it for the old school outfits alone!

Froot is the first single from Marina and the Diamonds upcoming third album of the same name and will be released on April 3, 2015. The last album was Electra Heart (2012), and it went straight to Nº1 on the UK charts as soon as it was released.

Marina Diamandis describes the new album as ‘reflective’. She recently spoke about her struggles with depression and how this affected the process of making the album: “It was almost like I had been burdened by something my whole life and then suddenly that went away… I can’t even describe how amazing it is… you suddenly realise why people are happy and why people enjoy things. I think I used to believe that being depressed was part of my personality or that I was born like that, but it’s quite shocking to realise that perhaps that isn’t the case.”

Diamandis continued: “I think this new album is much more reflective. It’s also centred around extremely different things; half of the album is about a relationship that I had to end. It’s not something I feel good about, and it’s not something I’d really addressed before in my songwriting. In pop music in general it’s always this spurned ex-lover type of thing, but this time it wasn’t that at all. It was more like the guilt that you have to deal with that comes from hurting someone else. It’s just as hard as being rejected or dumped.”

The album is now available for pre order on iTunes. Diamandis surprised her fans by posting the official track listing on Twitter a few days ago. Refreshingly, nearly all the titles are just one word:

“FROOT” Album Tracklist pic.twitter.com/IT8B1v5zoA

— Marina Diamandis (@MarinasDiamonds) November 9, 2014

#ThrowbackThursday. We go back to 1979 when Blondie’s Heart of Glass was at Nº1 in 13 countries including the US and the UK. It was featured on the band’s third studio album Parallel Lines which also reached Nº1 in the UK and was the band’s commercial breakthrough in the US, where it reached Nº6 in April 1979. As of 2008, the album had sold over 20 million copies worldwide.

According to Rolling Stone Magazine, Debbie Harry and Chris Stein wrote the song in their dingy New York apartment and keyboardist Jimmy Destri provided the synthesizer hook. The result brought Punk and Disco together on the dance floor. Destri commented, “Chris always wanted to do Disco. We used to do Heart Of Glass to upset people.” Debbie Harry explained further “When we did Heart Of Glass it wasn’t too cool in our social set to play Disco. But we did it because we wanted to be uncool. It was based around a Roland Rhythm Machine and the backing took over 10 hours to get down.”

The music video shows the band performing in an empty disco and was a massive hit at the time. Blondie was one of the few American bands that made videos in the years before MTV. They did so because it meant they could be featured on shows in different continents when they couldn’t travel there. Currently,  Heart of Glass is ranked Nº 56 in the UK’s official list of biggest selling singles of all-time with sales of 1.28 million copies.

Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding have just premiered their music video for Outside. It’s a story of break-ups and make-ups and sees both of them fighting with their respective partners – when really they should be together. Ellie floats above the ground and Calvin gets plates and glasses thrown at him!

(To watch this music video in Creation 5, just tap here.)

The fighting scenes are interspersed with Goulding singing in front of colourful houses. Looking typically ‘Ellie’, dressed in a black leather jacket and jeans, the lyrics address their broken relationship: “I’ll show you what it feels like/ Now I’m on the outside/ We did everything right/ Now I’m on the outside.”

Outside is the second collaboration with Goulding – after the 2012 chart-topper I Need Your Love and is taken from Harris’s new album Motion, which was released on November 4.

The Scottish DJ talked to the Associated Press about working with Goulding: “Working with Ellie, you’re going to get something you would never have thought of because she writes the songs herself….she knows her own voice and her own style. It has always been good.”

Die Antwoord have released a star-studded music video for their new single Ugly Boy featuring Cara Delevingne, Marilyn Manson, Flea, Jack Black, Dita Von Teese, The ATL twins and more! Die Antwoord’s videos are well known for their shock value, it’s part of what makes them so popular and this might not be your jam but the beat is incredibly catchy and the video too bizarre to be ignored. It’s definitely NSFW and a bit creepy but you might be shocked by just how much you like it! (Warning: The song is filled with expletives and the clip features near-nudity and lots of blood.)

(To watch this video in Creation 5, just tap here.)

The South African rap-rave group Die Antwoord is made up of Ninja, who directed the video, Yo-Landi Vi$$er and DJ Hi-Tek. Ugly Boy is the latest single to be released from their third album Donker Mag.

The track features a fair-sized sample of the Aphex Twin song Ageispolis from Selected Ambient Works 85-92. The Ugly Boy in question is a Cape Town gangster that Yo-Landi started dating after she broke up with Ninja, which could have made things awkward when filming this video in the studio, although the two seem to be very happy in the visual and the chemistry is still great.

In the insert of the album Ninja writes about the song: “Dis song was a bit of a mindfuck 2 make… me and Y had been broken up 4 a while… but dis was da 1st time dat Y got in2 a kinda serios relationship wif sum1else, who happnd 2 be an activ gangster from da cape flats… who runs wif a gang called da UGLY AMERICANS.. or UGLY BOYS.”

Filmed at STAGE THIS in Los Angeles the full list of cameo appearances are as follows: Jack Black, Marilyn Manson, Flea, Cara Delevingne, Dita Von Tesse, ATL Twins, Charlotte Free, Estevan Oriol, DJ Muggs, Tokkie, Sunny Balzary, Sixteen Jones and Trigz.

Watch Fergie roll through the streets of LA with some hip hop heavyweights in her new music video for L.A. Love (La La) feat. YG (an initialism for Young Gangsta) and a bevy of famous L.A. natives. The 39-year old former Black Eyed Peas first lady gathered some friends on the funkiest bus we’ve seen in a long time and parties through the streets of LA. In this ode to the City of Angels you can see Hilary Swank, Chelsea Handler, Sevyn Streeter, DJ Mustard, and Kelly Osbourne making cameo appearances.

(To watch this video in Creation 5, just tap here.)

In the Fatima Robinson-directed video Fergie enjoys some hedonistic fun with her LA friends – there’s plenty of dancing, a touch of twerking and loads of eye candy! The bus is completely awesome with a Dia De Los Muertes looking skull on the front and colourful, hippy designs all over the decks, it’s a bit more like a parade float than a bus. The perfect vehicle for showing some California love!

L.A. Love, produced by DJ Mustard, is the first single off Fergie’s upcoming solo album – which will be her first in eight years. The album is expected to come out sometime next year. Fergie will perform the single at the American Music Awards, AMAs, on November 23.

Watch Taylor Swift turn into a psycho bitch in her amazing new video for Blank Space. The internet is buzzing over this music video, and quite rightly too – it’s a masterpiece! Taylor turns from a daydream into a nightmare in the space of 4 short minutes in this funny, Joseph Kahn-directed video. The video carries the disclaimer “No animals, trees, automobiles or actors were harmed in the making of this video”.

(To watch this video in Creation 5, just tap here.)

The video begins with Taylor eating breakfast in bed in her opulent mansion, she’s cuddling a kitten and is flanked by two stunning white horses – just your average morning really. The dream life continues as she dines and dances with her beau, cycles round the living room, goes horse riding on the estate and picnics on the lawn. All hell breaks loose though when she catches her gorgeous lover texting another girl, “darling, I’m a nightmare dressed as a daydream.” She turns into the knife-wielding girlfriend in a perfect, ironic parody of what many assume is a Taylor Swift-ian lifestyle. She takes the caricature that she’s a psycho bitch and turns it back on her haters through her witty, clever song writing.

Her gorgeous co-star is male model Sean O’Pry – last year’s highest paid model worldwide and also born in 1989, like Taylor. Sean has appeared in nearly every huge campaign we can think of (currently the face for Viktor & Rolf Spicebomb Eau Fraiche) and you will have seen his face in nearly any magazine you’ve flipped through. Not surprisingly, Sean called the days spent filming with Taylor a “dream job” and explained what it was like to work with Taylor: “She deserves to be in the place she is. The way she handles things, the way she does things. She’s gorgeous, obviously. And very, very talented. When you bring [director] Joseph [Kahn] into the project, it was a winning idea right off the bat with those two.”

Blank Space is the second single from Taylor’s 5th studio album 1989, which has broken all records, selling 1.287 million copies in its first week of sale. Currently Nº1 on the Billboard 200 chart, the first single Shake it Off is spending it’s third week at Nº1 on the US charts.

McBusted have released their first music video for their debut single that celebrates the hallowed art of playing Air Guitar. It should get you on your knees whipping your hair round in no time…! The song is full of catchy lyrics and bouncy beats, plus all the big riffs you remember from the old-school McBusted.

(To watch this video in Creation 5, just tap here.)

Air Guitar is the first single to be taken from the supergroup’s upcoming debut album McBusted, slated for a December 1st release. It will be supported by a 16-date headline tour of the UK next year – tickets went on sale on Friday (November 7)

The supergroup consists of all of McFly’s members and Busted’s Matt Willis and James Bourne. The band previously admitted that they only wanted to release really good music: “the expectations are so high, we only want to release new music if it’s f**king good.”

The single will be released on November 23 and follows the release of the movie McBusted Tourplay – a behind-the-scenes look at how the group got together and some revealing backstage footage taken during their 2014 tour.