Well, it's better than Sweet About Me

This is the new video from Aussie teen warbler Gabrilla Cilmi, the hardest-to-pronounce popstar since Ciara.



In summary:

0.17 What is it with pop acts sounding a bit like Van Halen this week?
0.48 Bloody hell she is a woman 'n all
2.02 Ill-advised rap bit
3.05 Ends

Although 'Sweet About Me' was our most hated song since Sandi Thom's 'I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker', we're broadly in favour of both scantily dressed teenagers and synthy songs with a good "woah-oh" in them, so this gets the Love Machine thumbs up.

You can hear this and other excellent pop songs at the Love Machine Clubnight next week!

Download Gabrilla Cilmi 'On A Mission' (low quality)
[audio:gabriellacilmi-onamission.mp3]

Put It In The ReMixer

The remix is a curious thing. For a long time, Pa Love Machine did not understand them.

"What's wrong with the original? It's just the same song with some boom-boom-boom nonsense underneath it."

Of course, this is exactly what makes a brilliant remix. Take a great tune, make it dancefloor-friendly by putting some boom-boom nonsense underneath it. Hear it at our clubnight, job done.

Of course, there are a lot of bad remixes. Some are done for such music-industry conceptual reasons, which the humble consumer could never understand, like positioning, and targeting demographics outside of the ultimate target audience. Basically trying to make an uncool act with a rubbish song who the press and radio stations hate, cool, purely by assocation, and gaining that assocation by paying a lot of money. An act who are temporarily cool can take advantage of this and cash in on their 15 seconds in the hype-sun by charging exhorbitant fees for churning out rubbish.

Remixes also make record company people think they're doing something to help. A quite fantastic appraisal of the business of remixes can be seen here:



However, there are also some brilliant remixes out there. When genuine new talent with something to prove meets a great original song and puts a different spin on it. And some boom-boom-boom nonsense underneath. And we have two for you, enjoy.

Of the 19 (!) remixes of Lady Gaga Feat. Beyonce's new single 'Telephone' doing the rounds, here is this best one:

[audio:LadyGaga-Telephone-CrookersVocalRemix.mp3]

Lady Gaga - Telephone - Crookers Vocal Remix (right click, save as to download)

And here is the Yes Giantess take on a song that we may have mentioned on Love Machine before:

[audio:MileyCyrus-PartyInTheUSA-YesGiantessRemix.mp3]

Miley Cyrus - Party in the USA - Yes Giantess Remix (right click, save as to download)

We're sure there's a video for the original knocking about somewhere......oh yes, here it is:

Starry Eyed Surprise

Ellie Goulding, the thinking man's Diana Vickers, seems to be doing rather well for herself all in all. But although she's picked up a Brit Award and topped the BBC's Tips for 2010 list without having really done anything, Ellie is a sensible old stick and is already brushing up her sign language for a career as one of those people who pop up in the corner of the TV for re-runs at strange times of day.

The 1.53 mark of her video for 'Starry Eyed' sees her taking a stab at the incredible Donk interpretation we featured the other day:



Ellie Goulding - Starry Eyed
[audio:elliegoulding-starryeyed.mp3]
Download

Things we'd ask Ellie Goulding if we got to interview her:
- Who would you be on Stars In Their Eyes?
- Having done 'Starry Eyed' with producer Starsmith, do you harbour any ambition to record a cover of the Star Spangled Banner with Ringo Starr?
- Any plans to record an alternate version called 'Stary Eyed' where you glower at the camera without blinking for three minutes?

At which point the interview would be terminated and we'd need to go home and nick some quotes off a BBC interview or something.

Sign o' the Donk

It is safe to say that The Blackout Crew are something of a marmite band. We here at Love Machine are firmly in the pro-Blackout camp - whatever you think of their music, it is surely a brilliant thing that 6 kids on a youth project in Bolton with no hype and no money effectively created their own massively-popular genre with nothing more than a donk and some home-made youtube videos. It is even better that virtually no-one south of Birmingham understands it. It's almost like UK Garage in reverse.

But anyway, regardless of all this, what is definitively brilliant, is the video below, showing that not only can The Blackout Crew get crowds of thousands of 15-year-olds in Liverpool going mental, but also 50-year-old sign language interpreters. We will be incorporating the signing of 'donk', 'bassline' and 'that's good that Tony, haha sick' into our dance moves at the next Love Machine clubnight.

The next Love Machine clubnight: Alphabeat and Fabio Lendrum DJ sets!

It's fair to say that we're very excited about the next Love Machine clubnight. More excited than when spotted Andrea Corr outside our building. More excited than when we came up with a particularly good Paolo Nutini pun. Possibly even as excited as when we saw Kaci Battaglia's 'Crazy Posessive' video for the first time.

This excitement is due to the fact that we have a DJ set from not only bloody ALPHABEAT, but also the incredible FABIO LENDRUM who's one of this year's hottest pop prospects. Plus our ever-brilliant residents David Oh and Love Machine DJs, as well as £1 shots, party poppers at midnight and balloons galore.

CLICK HERE TO BUY YOUR TICKETS FOR A BARGAIN £3
CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE FACEBOOK EVENT

Here is a video of 220 Polish students lip-synching to 'Fascination'. We don't know why.



See you at the bar!

That Girls Aloud gap year: An update

Cheryl: Being the nation's favourite weepy Geordie and haircare ambassador.

Sarah: Releasing a surprisingly good song and making the nation's Dads think that the kids might enjoy that new St Trinians film



Sarah Harding - Too Bad
[audio:sarahharding-toobad.mp3]

Kimberley: Being very conspicuously several rungs below Cheryl by presenting one of the outside broadcast segments of X Factor. Jeff Brazier was presenting another.

Nadine: Working on a solo album. Get a move on love.

Nicola: Keeping her puppies under wraps:



Brilliantly, she's named them Ronnie and Reggie. Not quite competing with Katy Perry in the naming things stakes, but not far off.

Tanks for the mammaries

This is Rihanna's video for her brilliant new single 'Hard'. It's recommended viewing for fans of nipple tape, military hardware and ludicrous shoulder pads. Which is just about everyone, right? However, we're not sure Rihanna's pink tank would be of any practical camouflage value in a combat situation, unless the theatre of war was in a bowl of blamanche.



We much prefer 'Hard' to current single 'Russian Roulette', although we must admit it's grown on us. This version on Jonathan Ross is the best we've seen:



Again with the shoulder pads, Rihanna. It looks like you've forgotten to take the hanger out.

Love Machine's Absolute Best Songs Of 2009

Here, to ease the pain of going back to work, is Love Machine's official Absolute Best Pop Songs Of 2009 playlist. We started with every single song released last year, and edited out everything that was non-brilliant so you're left with 1.7 hours of solid pop goodness. Here it is, in handy Spotify form:

Click this bloody link

SPOILER ALERT!!

Something you will find on the list:



Something you won't find on the list: