Studio 1 is the title of the return album for the UK girlband All Saints – a band that had, in their golder years, sold thousands of records for singles such as Never Ever, Under The Bridge, Back Coffee, and Pure Shores. I really did not know what to expect of their new work, and though I thought that the first single ‘Rock Steady’ was quite a catchy track, it was not really memorable. The same goes for the album. I can listen to the album in one go and enjoy it, and then when it finishes not remember the names of more than two songs. Studio 1 is fun and poppy, but it is nowhere close to a classic. Interestingly, a couple of tracks (One and On, One Me and U) seemed to mimic the work of the producer William Orbit. My favourite track on the album is Fundamental – a very well written, sung, and produced love song.

1. Rock Steady
2. Chick Fit
3. On And On
4. Scar
5. Not Eazy
6. Hell No
7. One Me And U
8. Headlock
9. Too Nasty
10. In It To Win It
11. Flashback
12. Fundamental

2.5/5

A new artist that I am really interested in is Megan Rochell. She is a new RnB singer signed to Def Jam Records, she has one official single out titled “The One You Need” produced by Rodney Jerkins and featuring Fabolous. Her debut album You, Me and the Radio is due sometime in January 2007 . Watch the video for “The One You Need” here (looks remind me of Brandy):

You can listen to four full songs from her upcoming album at Megan’s official MySpace page. I have heard a sample from her upcoming single “Let Go” and it sounds really hot – something to watch out for!

More info:
Official Website
Fan site

Diddy is not my usual cup of tea, I only decided to give his album a shot after seeing the many names of the artists featured on his new album, those include Timbaland, Twista, Nas, Big Boi, Christina Aguilera, Brandy, Keyshia Cole, Nicole, Keri, Avant, Jamie Foxx etc. The album turned out to be nice, I can’t get enough of the track featuring Brandy titled ‘Thought You Said‘ and the one featuring Keri Hilson titled ‘After Love‘.

Brandy’s track reminds of an remix for her classic “Top of the World” of the remixes of her class On Top of the World, a new track by her has recently leaked as well, it looks like Brandy is going to make a come back soon.

The other track I really liked is the song with Keri Hilson, she is originally a songwriter that previously wrote songs for Toni Braxton, Mary J Blige, etc, she is now signed to Timbaland’s new label Mosley Music Group. An awesome track titled “Love Ya” leaked on the web some months ago, but there are no official details on when her debut album or single are coming out.

Back to Press Play, here is the tracklist:

1. Testimonial (Intro)
2. We Gon’ Make It
3. I Am (Interlude)
4. The Future
5. Hold Up
6. Come To Me
7. Tell Me – Featuring Christina Aguilera
8. Wanna Move
9. Diddy Rock
10. Claim My Place (Interlude)
11. Everything I Love
12. Special Feeling
13. Crazy Thang (Interlude)
14. After Love
15. Through The Pain (She Told Me)
16. Thought You Said
17. Last Night
18. Making It Hard
19. Partners For Life

3.5/5

As a promotion of her upcoming 3rd studio album, Amerie has released a mixtape featuring some new full songs, remixes of other artists songs, samples and skits under the title “Because I Love It – Vol 1″. Her next album is due sometime early next year, and another mixtape shall be released sometime before the official gets released. My favourite tracks are Push It, Take Control, Blow, and Money Maker. You can listen to the mixtape over at Amerie’s MySpace page. (Use the iPod player on the left to play the tracks)

1. Because I Love It (Intro)
2. Keep My Head Down (Skit)
3. Push It
4. Reminisce Witcha
5. Take Control
6. Same Thing (Skit)
7. Blow
8. Money In The Bank
9. The Money (Skit)
10. Money Maker
11. Get Gone
12. Rest of My Life
13. That’s What You Are
14. Weekend Love
15. Outro

3.5/5

“Hurt” is the title of Christina’s second single from her most recent album “Back to Basics”. The song was originally written by Linda Perry, who previously wrote “Beautiful” on Christina’s previous album, however, the song was later edited by Christina after feeling that the lyrics were too personal. Christina also directed the video and surprisingly it came out really good. The single will be released on the 23rd of October in the US and on the 6th of November in the US. Here is the video served by Youtube. “Hurt” is one of my favorite tracks on Back to Basics and I think that it deserves to do well on the charts.

I stumbled upon this track a couple of days ago, it’s a new track by Amerie and a French rapper called Willy Denzey. What I found amusing is that the track samples Cheb Khalid’s classic Di Di! I don’t usually link to song files, but I doubt that anybody outside France could ever legally purchase this track, listen to the song here.

Amerie’s new single should come out in September, her third album, titled ‘None of the Above’, is due spring 2007.

For some reason I did not get into this album instantly, the hype over LeToya’s was great, but it got released in a period at which I was not really in the mood of listening to new stuff, however, now that I’m listening to it at this moment, I realised that it is a great RnB record, especially in comparison to the obvious comparator, Beyonce. I really liked the tracks and What Love Can and Gangsta Grillz. I got sick of the tracks Torn, She Dont, and Hey Fella as I have listened to this over a million times before the album came out . (Don’t you hate it when you listen to a great track way too much until you eventually get sick of it?). Anyway, Letoya’s debut solo album is a must listen for all RnB fans.

LeToya – Self-Titled Album
1. Intro
2. U Got What I Need
3. So Special
4. Torn
5. What Love Can Do
6. She Don’t
7. Tear Da Club Up – Letoya & Bun B/Jazze Pha
8. All Eyes On Me – Letoya & Paul Wall
9. Hey Fella – Letoya & Slim Thug
10. Gangsta Grillz
11. Obvious
12. I’m Good
13. This Song
14. Outro

Official Website
Wikipedia Page
Torn Video at Youtube

‘This Love’ was used as the third ending theme for the anime Blood+ and is Angela Aki‘s fourth single from her Japanese debut album ‘Home’. Angela Aki is a half Japanese, half latin American Jpop artist who sang the theme song for Final Fantasy XII. She has previously released an English indies album in 2000 titled ‘These Words’. She was signed with Tofu Records in May 2006 to release her English material in the US.

Song lyrics and translation [via the Cherryblossom Garden]

Angela’s Wikipedia page.
Official Website.

I’ve been wanting to post my review of this album for some weeks, I finally got myself to do. When I purchase an album, I usually write my review about it after spending a whole week listening to nothing but that album, unless if it completely stinked. I can’t say this about Nelly’s “Loose”, the album does not stink at all, but I can’t say that I loved it to bits or that I got crazy about it. The album is alright, I think that Nelly sounds great and her singing skills are really apparent all over the album, but I still have very mixed feelings about the album, there are some tracks that I thought were awesome such as ‘Say It Right’, ‘Te Busque’, and ‘Wait for You’, but there were other ones that I cannot even remember how they sound like such as ‘Showtime’, ‘Do it’ and ‘Somebody to Love’. I hated the track ‘No Hay Igual’, I don’t really care if she is going back to her roots or whatever. A funny thing is that I thought that songs that I downloaded from over the place and were not on the album that I bought were so much better than the album tracks, those tracks are ‘Runaway’ – a bonus track on DVD of Loose, ‘Undercover’ a b-side on Maneater’s single, and ‘I Am’ a song that leaked before the album came out, I think that it would’ve been a much better idea to have these included in the official album. I believe that Nelly is very talented, I do not think that Loose was a bad album or even a boring one, but I was expecting way soo much more.

Nelly Furtady – Loose
1. Afraid
2. Maneater
3. Promiscuous
4. Glow
5. Showtime
6. No Hay Igual
7. Te Busque
8. Say It Right
9. Do It
10. In God’s Hands
11. Wait For You
12. All Good Things (Come To An End)
13. Let My Hair Down (Bonus track)
14. Somebody to Love (Bonus track)

Mira Craig is a half Norwegian half American, half white half black model, singer, songwriter and producer. Her debut album came out last earlier this year only in a limited number of Eurpean countries due to the fact that she personally produced her album via her owned production company ‘Homemade’. Mira was previously featured on Snoop Dogg’s track ‘Sisters and Brothers’ and had a duet with Wyclef Jean.

Mira’s album is so fresh, I’ve heard people label her voice as a mixture of Pink and Amerie, while I thought at some instances that she sounded so much like Sean Paul – in a good way. Mira’s voice can go so deep and then just switch to high tones. I couldn’t come up with a better description of Mira’s music than the one I found at MIC Norway:

one comes to see that her newly released debut record Mira Mira, is more than just a collection of songs aimed at dance floors, even if that is its immediate intention. It is, in fact, a statement incorporating her whole background and with an overall guiding theme. Her songs vary greatly and the record constitutes a mix so diverse it is evident that there lies careful consideration behind her blends, contrasts, themes and breaks. –It is not simply the result of diverse musical influences that actually come together in a person, but rather a conscious attention towards creating a composite entirety. The record incorporates American, Caribbean and African beats, elements of Japanese, and not least Norwegian, traditional folk music, as well as other disparate ingredients.

What I thought is awesome in Mira Mira is how each song could be interpreted to have its own storyline and universe. I am so obsessed with Mira Craig, I hope it doesn’t take long until she gets a contract with an international record label.

1. Intro
2. Boogeyman
3. Who Make Yuh
4. Someofdathomemadepie
5. Trouble
6. Huldra 1
7. More Fire
8. Headhunted
9. Snake Charmer
10. Huldra 2
11. Dinner In Bed
12. Dizzy
13. Dizzy Outro
14. Devotion
15. Outro

Official Website.