After beating a retreat in the face of the hip hop explosion, great pop music is on the march again. The last couple of months have seen brilliant singles from pop artists Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and Ke$ha. Here are some of the best new tracks popping into gay clubs this month.
After beating a retreat in the face of the hip hop explosion, great pop music is on the march again. The last couple of months have seen brilliant singles from pop artists Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and Ke$ha. Here are some of the best new tracks popping into gay clubs this month.
“When the Lights Go Down” | Grace
Grace, the protégé of American Idol’s Randy Jackson, is a Russian pop goddess that will no doubt appeal to Britney and Kylie fans. In her debut single, she delivers a high energy track with just the right amount of sass, pounding beat, and diva fierceness to shake gay dance floors into a heated frenzy this summer. By the time the blonde bombshell hits the chorus of “Let’s see what happens when the lights go down” – and in the video, walks a sashay that puts RuPaul to shame – clubbers are at Grace’s command. Give the girl her microphone; Grace turns up the fun ‘when the lights go down’.
“All About Sex” | Sariah
Sariah leans more than a bit toward the provocative in her latest ‘party hard and live life to the max’ track. Less concerned with aiming at the mainstream radio dial, she and her collaborators make “All About Sex” as street and club ready a record as possible. Following Lady Gaga’s lead, Sariah’s out to bend current trends to her needs. “All About Sex” is an impressively produced, rambunctious record that may become the celebratory party anthem of the summer.
“Beautiful” | D Alexander
The f bomb is thrown in the track, but that’s not what is raising eyebrows with “Beautiful”. It’s that the voice flirtatiously belting lyrics like “Look at me when I step on the scene, I’m the hottest thing that there is” isn’t from a girl. They’re sung by a boy, er… man. A cross between tweendom’s Justin Beiber and post ‘N Sync’s Justin Timberlake, the young D Alexander is turning convention on its ear with his unabashed, delightfully catchy high powered electro-pop dance romp that a mere few years back would likely have been given to Christina Aguilera. But this is 2011 people and D Alexander is proving boys, er… men, can be beautiful too.
“See the New Hong Kong” | Josie Cotton
The artist behind the cult classic “Jonny, R U Queer” has clearly sharpened her pencil with this artfully written track about a doomed lost love. Cotton is reminiscent of Cyndi Lauper circa early ’80s, with cutesy vocals that seem girlish but are deceptively sophisticated and soar into the stratosphere. Cotton’s mind bending lyrics soar into the stratosphere too, making you wonder if Josie is, in fact, from out of space. She may very well be and that’s part of her magic. “See the New Hong Kong” is way ahead of it’s time. It’s melodic, smart, and mesmerizing. It’s the direction music should be heading, if only more pop divas had brains. Remixes by Love Rush U.K., CCW and Baggi Begovic.
“Fetish” | Faith Michaels
In Fetish, Faith Michaels digs into clubland’s hard-core underground roots. The record is a throwback to early nineties dance floors – BG (Before Gaga) – when Madonna reigned supreme with grungy, dark dance tracks. Like Erotica, the substance of Fetish resides in haunting, straight-talking vocals that intimately educate the meaning of a fetish. The vocals are alluring and with the help of catchy grooves, Faith Michael’s draw listeners into her cavernous sex den. There’s a strange heaviness amidst the naughtiness on the track: at its core is a lesson of acceptance of others that resonates well beyond the dance floor.
