Time for you to shine

Do you remember former A*Teens' member Sara's Sara Love project? It's been abandoned, but at least it left us the great trashy urban-electro-pop-R&B "Glamour Bitch."



Had Sara not abandoned her Sara Love identity for an acoustic singer-songwriter sound, I can imagine Swedish singer Anniela's new single "Strip-teaser" sounds like something Sara might have done. It's not yet out, but you can listen to a clip of it here. The song was released earlier by Greek group Crush5, but this version sounds like it will be much better.

This post has been sitting in draft for a few days now, so I've been scooped by several other blogs when it comes to several artists. Kimberly Cole is one of them. Check out The Beat Review's write-up of this American singer's music. "Superstar (Smash It)" is the song I should be most drawn to, given that it comes from the school of modern electro-influenced female solo artist pop, but I'm surprisingly drawn to several of her more mid-tempo songs even more.

Also on the scooped front: Haffi Haff (check out Scandipop's write-up and, while you're over there, the Velvet interview, too). It's probably been far too long since I last wrote about a song from Iceland. If you watched the country's national final in 2008, you might have seen Haffi Haff participating with "The Wiggle Song," an electro-squiggly song which, though interesting in theory, wasn't as good as Eurobandið's "Fullkomið líf." He's back now with some image revamping (the emo hair has been ditched) and a song written by the same man who wrote the song that beat him back in 2008--Örlygur "Öggi" Smári, maker of Iceland's best dance-pop (he's also responsible for Páll Óskar's successful comeback in 2007)--and Malta's Gerard James Borg (of many Maltese national final entries). If you were disappointed that Öggi set aside dance-pop in favor of pop-rock in this year's national final, you might be extra-pleased to hear Haffi Haff's "Give Me Sexy," which is electro-dance-pop that is schlager-fan friendly but not schlager and with just a bit of (cheesy) edge to it.

Margaret Berger, the Norwegian singer of brilliant electronic songs like "Samantha" (epic), "Will You Remember Me Tomorrow" (musical electro sunshine, even if not lyrically so), and "Robot Song" (which many have rightly pointed out Röyksopp and Robyn's "The Girl And The Robot" bears similarities in concept to) has a potential new single, "Lost In London," that might be coming out this fall (news from Popjustice and Margaret's MySpace). Great news. Now, if only Linda Sundblad would give us any sort of new music update...and Selma, too, if I'm really dreaming...

Don't Stop The Pop recently interiewed Swedish pop princesses Agnes and Rosanna; the interviews are worth your time.