Music Videos

In theatres this weekend the smart, tongue-in-cheek space opera ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’. A bunch of unlikey superheroes are on a quest to save the cosmos in Marvel’s latest cinematic adventure.

The film is written and directed by James Gunn and stars Chris Pratt (Star-Lord), Dave Bautista (Drax), Zoe Saldana (Gamora), Vin Diesel (Groot) and Bradley Cooper (Rocket).

Marvel has brought us the blockbuster franchises of Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and The Avengers, and now comes a brand new team – the Guardians of the Galaxy. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has expanded into the cosmos! Chris Pratt leads the unlikely heroes – Rocket, an aggressive gun-toting raccoon, Groot, a tree-like humanoid, the deadly Gamora and Drax the Destroyer. “If we are going to save the galaxy, we’re gonna have to do it together.”

As is now expected from Marvel Studios the inclusion of special post-credit sequences at the end of the movie are worth waiting for. We don’t want to spoil things if you haven’t seen the movie, so suffice to say, remember to stay for the credits, you won’t be disappointed. It’s one of the best post-credit sequences, ever.

We love the soundtrack – it’s quite retro, suggesting that the Studio are expecting ‘middle’ youth, not just teenagers to enjoy this epic adventure.

The best character in our opinion is Groot, played by our favourite actor Vin Diesel – “I didn’t realise how much I love trees” – Vin said of his role.

The movie website IMDB have given the movie a 9/10 rating and Rotten Tomatoes have given it a whopping 90%.

Initial Release: August 1, 2014 (USA)
Running Time: 122 minutes

Katy Perry debuts a wacky pop art video for her new single #thisishowwedo. It’s a wonderful explosion of art, vintage fashion, pepperoni pizzas and even twerking ice creams! Some serious eye candy here!

After problems with her last video ‘Dark Horse’ which caused a lot of controversy, Katy has wisely steered away from presenting any ethnic groups, instead she has opted for pop culture references, with her Pee-Wee Herman-inspired backup dancers and vintage art-inspired outfits. We love the tribute to Aretha Franklin’s inauguration hat!

The video begins with Katy as an art masterpiece – she then circles through 5 stunning looks in just 30 seconds! She wears everything from Yves Saint Laurent’s iconic Mondrian dress to a pepperoni pizza swimsuit! Her back up dancers look pretty amazing as well – especially the super cute guys dressed in smooth grey suits and red bow ties.

Don’t worry about some of the lyrics – which are a teeny bit cringe-worthy “Now we’re talking astrology / getting our nails did all Japanese-y,” just enjoy the show! The combination of visuals and beats works really well – Katy rocks it in this video!

‘This Is How We Do’ is the fifth single from Perry’s recent chart-topping album Prism.

Dutch producer Lodewijk Fluttert, known by his stage name Bakermat, is on course for his first UK Top 40 hit with One Day. The track was a huge hit across Europe last year and is now breaking out of house music circles and entering the big leagues! The song samples Martin Luther King’s most famous speech “I Have a Dream”.

The song was originally released as ‘Vandaag’ in August 2012 as a single and reached the top 10 in Austria, Belgium, France and the Netherlands. It was then rereleased by Sony this year as ‘One Day (Vandaag)’ and immediately became a hit in Germany and Austria and now – it’s edging up the UK charts, currently sitting at Nº12.

Bakermats masterful use of the saxophone melody, overlaid with samples of the speech gives the track an almost ethereal feel. We interviewed Bakermat in November last year and spoke to him about the use of this famous speech: “I think it’s the best speech ever written and narrated. The speech is music itself. I thought it would be nice to ‘remix’ it and so, I started the track “Vandaag” from scratch, with only the speech to draw inspiration from. I made the chords and built stuff up around it. Martin Luther King remains one of the best speechmakers ever.”

Read the full interview here.

Upcoming Bakermat concerts:

Saturday 06 September 2014 – O2 Academy Brixton, London, UK

Saturday 20 September 2014 – L’Olympia, Paris, France

Saturday 11 October 2014 – Sunday 12 October 2014
Escape Music Festival 2014 – Pier 9, Brooklyn, NY, US

Saturday 25 October 2014 – Parc des Expositions, Caen, France

Saturday 01 November 2014 – The Garage, Glasgow, UK

American-Mexican rapper Taboo, best known as a member of The Black Eyed Peas, released a rhythmic solo single entitled ‘Zumbao’.

The song was released just before the start of the 2014 football World Cup Brazil, and has now become one of the most played hits in Latin America.

The track was composed by the Ecuadorian singer-songwriter and winner of a Latin Grammy, Paulina Aguirre. Taboo pays homage to his Latin roots in ‘Zumbao’, where he mentions South American pop stars like El Chavo del Ocho, Juan Gabriel and Marco Antonio Solis. In his own words it’s a way of describing, through music, his childhood as a Latin growing up in California.

Jaime Luis Gómez, or Taboo, became tremendously popular in the 90s and early 2000s as part of The Black Eyed Peas. Today, his fame hasn’t waned and is among the 10 top-paid rappers in 2014, according to the ‘People with Money’ magazine – his profits are around $46 million. With the launch of this latest solo single, he’s cemented himself at the same level as the other members of the band, such as Fergie, Will.i.am and Apl.de.ap, who already have several works and collaborations on the market.

Having just turned 39 and father of 3 kids, Taboo stated that ‘Zumbao’ helped him get his feet back on the ground and escape a life led by drugs and alcohol. Some of the habits were destroying his personal and professional lives, and are covered in his biography, ‘Fallin’ Up: My Story’.

After collaborating with artists such as Sie7e, Mexican star Paulina Rubio in his hit ‘Hoy Me Toca a MI’, and the recent ‘Taboo Experience’ tour, in which the rapper toured the world’s best clubs, Taboo returns with ‘Zumbao’ while still shaping ‘Tabmagnetic’, which will presumably be his first full-length work.

It’s Jazz time baby! Lady Gaga reveals her incredible voice in this first single from her joint album with Tony Bennett, ‘Cheek to Cheek’. “No autotune. No tricks. Pure jazz,” Lady Gaga tweeted.

Most people are unaware of the fact that Lady Gaga has been performing jazz numbers since age 13. Tony Bennett said: “I don’t understand why she had to make contemporary music! When she sings great standards, she does it with such emotion… It will surprise people by the quality of her voice when making quality songs. We sing a duet again on the album, but also separately. With this album, I think she will become bigger than Elvis Presley! Of course we recorded the album in New York. As the saying goes: ‘If you can make it in New York, you’ll make it anywhere.”

Gaga commented on the collaboration “Cheek To Cheek came out of a very organic friendship and relationship that Tony and I have built over the years and it truly was a collaborative effort. It was important to Tony that this was a jazz record. I’ve been singing jazz since I was a child and really wanted to show the authentic side of the genre. We made an album of jazz classics, but it has a modern twist.”

“I love everything about working with Tony – he’s such a legend, and because of that I get to learn so much when we sing together. We met 3 or 4 years years ago and started recording Cheek to Cheek a couple of years ago.”

The unusual pair first collaborated in 2011 with “The Lady Is a Tramp” for Tony Bennett’s Grammy Award-winning album Duets II. They have performed together many times this year including an appearance at the Montreal Jazz Festival.

Cheek to Cheek features jazz musicians that are associated with both artists, including Gray Sargent, Mike Renzi, Harold Jones and Marshall Wood. Jazz soloists include tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano and flautist Paul Horn, who passed away earlier this month, according to a press release. The album features such standards as “It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing),” “Lush Life,” “Sophisticated Lady,” and more.

Appearing yesterday (July 29) on the ‘Today Show’ they announced that the album will finally be released on September 23 – although the single ‘Anything Goes’ is now available on iTunes.

The long-awaited collaboration between the powerhouse trio Jessie J, Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj is finally here!

This dance anthem is everything fans had hoped for, and more. It’s upbeat, fun and is full of powerhouse vocals, big bouncy beats and horn blasts. It was produced by Max Martin, Savan Kotecha and Ilya, the same team that worked on Ariana Grande’s recent chart topper, ‘Problem’.

The song basically explains why they are better than the other ladies out there…(does anyone need convincing?) “She mighta let you hold her hand in school, but I’mma show you how to graduate,” Ariana belts outs. Later Minaj raps “Queen Nicki dominant / Prominent / It’s me, Jessie, and Ari / If they test me they sorry.” We love one of Jessie’s line: “She got a body like an hour glass but I can give it to you all the time!”

While Ariana and Nicki are both Queens of Pop in the US, Jessie J has not yet reached their dazzling heights.  However, ‘Bang Bang’ has enough star power and radio-playability to make a real impression for her stateside.

‘Bang Bang’ was released today (July 29) through Republic Records, the label that houses all three artists, and serves as a joint single. It is the lead single from Jessie’s upcoming third solo album and will also feature on the deluxe version of Ariana’s ‘My Everything’, slated for release on August 25.

Jessie J opened up about her new album today whilst chatting to Capital FM about ‘Bang Bang’: “This is the album to make a change, I feel like that’s what this album is about for me. I’ve learnt a lot, I’ve had my ups and my downs and I feel like the third album is always the one where you feel like your feet are found,” Jessie explained. “I feel like I really know what I stand for now, and what makes me, me!”

Lily Allen pays tribute to her husband in this colourful, feel-good video for ‘As Long As I Got You’, shot this year at the mother of all music festivals, Glastonbury.

The Chris Sweeney-directed video clip features fans and her performance at Glastonbury 2014. This isn’t a high budget music video, this is Lily having fun! It’s the first time she has played Glastonbury for 5 years and she starts off the video by sharing some family photos of herself and her dad in the mid-80s and talks about how they used to go to Glastonbury every year.

Lily said: “Glastonbury has always been a huge part of my life, and I wanted to make this video there to celebrate the spirit of the festival and also to show how my life has changed since the last time I played there. From being there as a child with my Dad, to my wilder days in the 2000s, to this year when I was back on the Pyramid stage, and taking my husband and own daughters along!”

Lily met her husband at Glastonbury back in 2009 and this lyrical ode to their love together is wonderful. “I had that awful feeling / That I needed help / My life had lost its meaning / But you saved me from myself.”

‘As Long As I Got You’ has been lifted from her latest chart-topping album Sheezus, released in May 2014, following ‘Hard Out Here’, ‘Air Balloon’, ‘Sheezus’, ‘Our Time’ and ‘URL Badman’. The album debuted at Nº1 on the UK Albums Chart, becoming her 2nd consecutive number-one album. Across the water on the Billboard charts it debuted at No. 12 selling 17,000 copies in its opening week.

Pharrell Williams has dropped his new music video for his unbelievably catchy ‘Come Get It Bae’, featuring a bevy of beautiful dancing models – including Miley Cyrus.

Pharrell has worked with Miley before, producing tracks for her Nº 1 album Bangerz. He posted the video on Twitter and said “Thank you to my lil sis @MileyCyrus. All we know how to do is be silly and have fun”.

That’s pretty much the feeling you get from this music video – being silly and having fun! Full of feel-good vibes with some great dancing and hugging going on, the clip sees Pharrell holding a dance audition with group of beautiful girls taking turns to dance. Pharrell hanging out with gorgeous girls again! 🙂 Midway through the clip Miley joins in the fun looking cute, relaxed and comfortable. Not a twerk in sight!

With regards to the song title ‘Come Get it Bae’ we were puzzled for a minute – what is a bae? Although it stands for ‘Before Anyone Else’ (according to the Urban Dictionary) it also means baby, sweetie, boo – that kind of thing. We do admire Pharrell’s commitment to women – and love the fact that the dancing ladies in the video are all sorts of shapes and sizes. The clip starts with the quote “Beauty has no expiration date.”

The track is the third single to be lifted from Pharrell’s Nº 1 G I R L album, written and co-produced by Pharrell himself and is set for UK release on August 31.

In other Pharrell related news:
– The feel good anthem ‘Happy’ has become the fourth single to be declared triple platinum in 20 years, meaning it has achieved 1.8m sales.
– Alicia Keys will serve as his team’s mentor on “The Voice” this autumn.

Colin Barlow, managing director of RCA record label, said: “Pharrell is one of the most innovative producers, writers and performers to emerge from the world of music in the last 20 years.”

Ecstasy, agitation, danger, love and revolution all feature in Robyn & Röyksopp’s epic new music video for Do It Again, filmed in Mexico.

Swedish pop queen Robyn and the Norwegian production duo Röyksopp – that some are calling “The electro-pop pairing of the year” – have delivered a powerful and dramatic video that goes so well with their equally powerful and dramatic single.

Director Martin de Thurah said: “I worked with the idea of ‘what is our heart’s desire?’—and I realised that no one in the world truly gets to live out their passions. We are all under some construct, whether you’re an atheist living in Denmark or a gay person in Russia.”

Although Robyn & Röyksopp are in the video, they’re just bit players in a much wider story. The sentiment that they embrace in this cinematic video could be summed up by the statement “Love is Revolutionary thing”.

Following along from their last video clip Sayit, the video is shot in black and white and follows the story of 3 groups: a group of rebels storming a castle, a pair of lovers, and a woman struggling out of a hospital bed.

For such a great dance track the video is quite surprising – most people would expect something a little more lighthearted than the music of a revolution. When “Robyn posted the video she commented: “This video stirs up a feeling of chaos which is what we talked about quite a bit when we wrote ‘Do It Again’.”

Do it Again has to be one of 2014’s best EPs – it’s a five-track, collaborative mini-album and the title track Do It Again is the latest single from the EP.

The high-octane disco-house track “Never Say Never” by Basement Jaxx now has a spectacularly insane video. It’s bizarre and brilliant at the same time, thanks to writer and director Saman Kesh. It has to be seen to be believed!

In an imaginary world where an incredible 72% of humans have stopped dancing, Jaxx Industries set out to “stimulate the world to dance again” by creating the Bluetooth-enabled, iTunes sync-able TW3RK-BOT, complete with self-lubricating, machine-washable Jaxx Buttocks. Hahahaha 🙂 we told you it had to be seen to be believed!

A team of Japanese scientists working in a futuristic space-like environment set about inventing a ‘bot’ that can twerk (surely this is bootics at this point, not robotics?). Speaking in Japanese the first scientist says: “Without dance there is no love. Without love there is no passion. Without passion there are no humans,” while the second starts reading out facts: “72% have stopped partaking in the art of dancing. And in 15 years, 98% of us will cease to dance.” (Thought-provoking stuff whilst we are all sitting on our backsides watching this video)

The video basically explores the R & D process that would be necessary in order to create a realistic bot that can twerk just like a human – from motion capture investigation through to the actual prototyping process.

Perhaps the video is a comment on our cultural obsession with twerking? Or just a bit of sci-fi fun? Either way it’s an extremely inventive and creative visual for a delicious dance track. It certainly whets the appetite for the goodies to come in the duo’s latest studio album Junto.

Never Say Never is out August 5.