Having talked relatives into financing her debut album project with her band and producer Jari Haapalainen, the Swedish orchestral pop starlet Birgit Bidder has come up with an eleven track album worthy of the investment.

The beautifully soulful album entitled The Life Home has been extremely well received in Birgit’s homeland and the singer is about to lead an assault on the UK charts with the lead single, the charmingly melodic but oddly titled Parking Lot Paradise, which is released on August 9th.

Birgit Bidder has already experienced some highlights in the UK as keyboard player with Erik Hassle and with him has opened for various artists including Ellie Goulding, MIKA and Little Boots.

Birgit also performed live with Erik Hassle on Jo Whiley’s Radio1 show where they played a celebrated cover of Rhianna’s ‘Russian Roulette.

With an impressively haunting vocal velocity and unrelentless personal drive to succeed, Brigit is set to become a recognised musical tirade to be reckoned with outside of her native Sweden.

Birgit Bidder – Parking Lot Paradise

Good Girls Go Bad

Good Girls Go Bad (produced by Kevin Rudolf – Lil’ Wayne, Justin Timberlake, Kanye West)   has already sold in excess of 800,000 copies in the USA.  A huge online sensation, the track has racked up a massive 48 million streams on MySpace.

The video, filmed on New York’s Lower East Side, and featuring a co-starring performance from the uber-glamorous Meester, was among the  nominations for Best Pop Video at the MTV VMA awards alongside Beyonce Britney Spears and Lady Gaga.

Here in the UK the track has already been added to the Capital Radio network and has received its first plays on Radio One.

Cobra Starship are Gabe Saporta-Vocals, Ryland Blackinton–Guitar, Alex Suarez–Bass, Nate Novarro- Drums and Victoria Asher-Keytar.

Their album Hot Mess has variously been described as, “a sexy, synthed-up come on that proves irresistible” (People), “full of rhythmic dance songs and power-pop anthems” (Billboard) and “packed with electro-sleaze tunes that go over the top in both their bright sound – sassy hook-singing girls are prevalent – and wink-wink mien” (Rolling Stone).

Good Girls Go Bad is released on October 19th on Decaydance/Fueled By Ramen Records.

Remember me carries a powerful message of remembrance, particularly significant this time as  T.I. is currently serving time in prison for weapons offences.

The new single is released a week ahead of a new digital  EP called,  Paper Trail: Case Closed. The EP includes Remember Me and four additional tracks that did not appear on T.I’s number one album Paper Trail.

The album entered the US Billboard chart at number one selling over half a million copies in the first week of it’s release and is T.I’s most successful album to date. Paper Trail includes top collaborations with R&B and hip hop stars Kayne West, Justin Timberlake, Usher, Rihanna and Ludacris.

The new single Remember Me follows the success of  Dead & Gone with Justin Timberlake and the UK number 2 single Live Your Life featuring  Rihanna.

T.I. feat. Mary J Blige – Remember Me

The groundbreaking short film that accompanies Strawberry Swing will also be given an exclusive theatrical premiere at ODEON cinemas across the UK from July 22nd, and will be programmed in front of ’Brüno’ and US box office hit ‘The Proposal’.

The innovative video was directed by Shynola, a group of visual artists famous for their work with Beck (E-Pro), Blur (Crazy Beat), Junior/Senior (Move Your Feet), and Radiohead (Pyramid Song) to name a few. In the video, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin debuts as an animated superhero in a larger-than-life world drawn entirely in chalk.

Watch the preview:

Coldplay play a stadium tour in the UK in September, and have just announced Elbow as the main support for their Dublin date. The dates are:

12 September               Manchester – Lancs Cricket Ground
Supported by Jay-Z and White Lies

14 September               Dublin – Pheonix Park
Supported by Elbow & White Lies

16 September               Glasgow – Hampden Park
Supported by Jay-Z and White Lies

18 September               London –Wembley
Supported by Jay-Z, Girls Aloud and White Lies

19 September               London – Wembley
Supported by Jay-Z, Girls Aloud and White Lies

Emma Deigman - 'It Was You'

Emma Deigman is only 20 years old and has just released her debut single, It Was You. So the chances are, you may not have heard of her yet.  But you will.

Like other stars-in-the-making, if Emma Deigman becomes a household name in 2009, for her it won’t have been an overnight success.  She made her West End debut in Les Miserables when she just was seven years old. When she was 10 she appeared on Top Of The Pops with Jay-Z; and at 13 she appeared in the feature film, Last Orders with Bob Hoskins and Michael Caine.

After spending much of 2008 in a studio with successful producers Eliot Kennedy (Take That, Spice Girls) & Blair Mackichan (Lily Allen, Will Young), Emma Deigman has now surfaced with a collection of songs set to make her a commercial success.

It Was You is a nod towards 1970’s funky soul, and stands out from other the crowd of female artists flogging the contemporary R&B pop sound. The single has a fresh, live analogue sound which was supplied by Eliot Kennedy’s band in his Sheffield studio.

Her voice sounds soulful and mature, with a shade of Joss Stone.  Her lifetime dream is to duet with  Rod Stewart,who along with such pop luminaires as Gary Barlow and Bryan Adams are already among her many admirers.

The promo video was directed by Trudy Bellinger (Girls Aloud, Sophie Ellis-Bextor).

Emma Deigman looks and sounds like a star waiting in the wings.  Watch the video and make up your own mind. We think she is going to be big news in 2009.

It Was You is taken from Emma Deigman’s forthcoming debut album.

Taken from their recent album, Tonight: Franz Ferdinand, the single will also feature remixes from the legendary Vince Clarke, Noze and the brilliantly named John Disco.

No You Girls was produced by Dan Carey and the band as part of the album sessions which took place at the band’s own HQ in Govan, Glasgow and Carey’s South London studio.

Following a couple of low-key sold-out shows in London & Edinburgh in January, the band are also set to play a short U.K. & Ireland headline tour in March.

Franz Ferdinand UK & Ireland Tour Dates:

MARCH
1st        Dublin, Olympia – SOLD OUT
2nd        Belfast, Mandela Hall – SOLD OUT
4th        Glasgow, Barrowlands – SOLD OUT
5th        Glasgow, Barrowlands – SOLD OUT
6th        Manchester, Academy – SOLD OUT
8th        Birmingham, Academy
9th        London, Hammersmith Apollo – SOLD OUT
10th      Southampton, Guildhall – SOLD OUT

SomaHigh: Pop-rock crossover with a tinge of electro

Influenced by ‘Nirvana, science fiction and electronica’, SomaHigh are a band that mix the glossy with the scratchy.  Having sold out several venues across the UK, they managed to get themselves support slots with Scouting For Girls, Yeah Yeah Yeah’s and Razorlight and have appeared on the NME tour. They will play a headline tour this spring.

Lo Fat is a typical example of SomaHigh’s fusion of guitar-driven rock and synth-abetted pop. The opening sounds like an apocalyptic MGMT fused with a nu-rock version of Nirvana. This thick sound gives way to a drum and guitar driven song, with lead singer Sean Strugnell’s fuzzy vocals sometimes yielding to the pounding skuzz of the guitars.

Lo Fat is heavily produced, but the underpinning drone attitude inthe song works well to counterbalance that, and the distorted vocals lend an interesting extra dimension.

B-sides Tell You What and End of The Line lose the vocal distortion and draw on some recent anthemic rock by groups such as Audioslave. The drums are heavy, the guitars relentless and the vocals are obviously influenced by Muse’s Matthew Bellamy, sliding around the upper registers as they do.

Produced and engineered by The Animal Farm, the man behind One Night Only, SomaHigh seem to inhabit the same genre of pop-rock-electro crossover. The single is out now. Visit the SomaHigh MySpace page for more info.

Lily Allen

The gorgoeus loveable Lily Allen returns next week with a brand new single.

Lily Allen’s new single The Fear is released on 9th December.  The Fear is taken from Lily Allen’s second album It’s Not Me, It’s You which is due for release on 10th February 2009.

It’s Not Me, It’s You will be released in the UK on Parlophone and in the United States by Capitol Records.  The much anticipated release will be the follow-up to Lily Allen’s critically acclaimed 2007 debut, Alright, Still.

It’s Not Me, It’s You was recorded at Eagle Rock Studios in Los Angeles.  Lily Allen wrote and recorded the album’s 12 songs with producer Greg Kurstin, who also worked with her on three songs for Alright, Still – Everything’s Just Wonderful, Alfie and Not Big.

“We decided to try and make bigger sounding, more ethereal songs, real songs,” says Lily, who will be touring the U.S. in the spring. “I wanted to work with one person from start to finish to make it one body of work. I wanted it to feel like it had some sort of integrity. I think I’ve grown up a bit as a person and I hope it reflects that.”

On It’s Not Me, It’s You, Lily’s characteristically sharp observations find expression in a variety of musical styles, with influences ranging from the Jazz Era to country and western to dance music. “Highlights include ‘Everyone’s at It,’ a synth-pop song about prescription drugs that features Allen on xylophone; ‘He Wasn’t There,’ which matches emotional lyrics about her absent father to a jazz groove; and ‘Not Fair,’ a saucy country song about an inadequate lover,” said Rolling Stone.

Often called the ‘Queen of MySpace‘ – a reference to the massive interest generated by early demos she posted on her page – Lily was hailed by NME as “the archetypal singer-songwriter for the iPod generation” while The New York Times observed, “She symbolizes a new blogging-age, middle-class girl: cockily ambitious, skeptical yet enthusiastic, technically savvy, musically open, obsessed with public expression and ready to fight back.”

The track listing for It’s Not Me, It’s You is:

1. Everyone’s At It
2. The Fear
3. It’s Not Fair
4. 22
5. I Could Say
6. Go Back To the Start
7. Never Gonna Happen
8. Fuck You
9. Who’d've Known
10. Chinese
11. Him
12. He Wasn’t There

For more information visit Lily Allen’s Myspace page or  Lily Allen’s official website.

Watch the previous episodes

Kirill episode one and episode two

Kirill – episode three

Kirill – episode four

Or watch the latest version of Kirill, episode five below

Kirill is an internet based sci-fi project launched by MSN.

Watch Kirill episode one and episode two

and Kirill – episode three

Or go ahead and view the latest episode, below