Songwriter update (because yes, I am a total songwriter nerd-in-training):
Jessie J (pictured), the British singer that Worrapolava has
championed, was signed a few months ago. That's not news. What
is news is that she's had
Dr. Luke and
Claude Kelly (working together, Kelly Clarkson's "My Life Would Suck Without You," Britney's "Circus") writing for her.
Claude Kelly (in addition to the songs mentioned above, Leona Lewis's "Forgive Me," Lemar's "If She Knew," Linda Teodosiu's "Love Sux") has also been working with
Jordin Sparks, who, in addition to working with
Lucas Secon (the Pussycat Dolls' "Hush Hush," Sarah Connor's "Under My Skin," Martin's "Show The World") on that song I posted about earlier this year, has apparently gotten at least one song from
Ryan Tedder (Leona Lewis's "Bleeding Love," Timbaland feat. OneRepublic's "Apologize") too: Popjustice revealed last week that the lead single for her second album is a Tedder-penned song called "Battlefied." Check out
PJ's post for details.
Moving back to
Claude Kelly for a moment, as I mentioned earlier, he's also done several songs with the Backstreet Boys recently. A video of him talking about them was posted, but it's since been set to private. In it, though, he mentions "Bye Bye Love" (an up-tempo club-friendly song which features the line "I think I want to stay single, so bye bye love," as revealed earlier), "Don't Try This At Home" (which they sang a cappella at a sound check; it's a "heartbreak record"), and "What I Know Now" (he calls it a "pop urban hybrid;" listen to a non-BSB featuring demo
here). He's also working with
Wynter Gordon and, somewhat surprisingly, American Idol's
Jason Castro.
Ryan Laubscher, the main man behind
Alex Roots, has clips of demos for several artists on
his official site (click on "Music"). The most noteworthy ones in terms of artist names that I hadn't previously heard elsewhere are
Amy Pearson's "Contagious," the title track from her second album (it's more upbeat and electro/dance than I was expecting);
Tina Barrett's (formerly of S Club 7) "I'll Be Your Woman;"
Alex Roots's "Prisoner" (which sounds like it could potentially be epic in its final form), and
Christophe Willem's "Si je tombais" (there's a Pixie song, too, but the full version of that has been on his MySpace, and I think it might just be a demo available for purchase).
Fred Ball of
Pleasure (see: his work with Bertine Zetlitz, his producer project Pleasure's "Out Of Love") has done "forthcoming" work with
Sophie Ellis-Bextor (that he'd co-written a song with Ina Wroldsen, lately of work with the Saturdays, called "Synchronized" was already known, so this could be referring just to that or to more),
Little Boots (not sure whether it's songs we've already heard or not), and
Paloma Faith (whose name is popping up all over the place).
Speaking of
Ina Wroldsen (as mentioned above, she was the glue that held the Saturdays together in terms of songwriting), I only just found out that she co-wrote the song
Lucas Secon (who also co-wrote it) has had listed as
Pixie Lott's second single for ages, before we even found out what the first single was, "Gravity." Her recent work also includes a song for
Lindsay Lohan called "Stuck" (though given the limbo that project's in, I wouldn't hold your breath to hear it), songs for
Leona Lewis called "Thank You Thank You" and "Your Heart," a song for
Kat De Luna called "Break Me," and a song for
Hayden Panettiere called "Top Up."
Xenomania (Girls Aloud) are keeping busy, with news coming out over the past month that they'll be working with
Leona Lewis, and
Shayne Ward, both of whom are British X Factor winners.
The most recent X Factor winner,
Alexandra Burke (pictured), appears to be working with some big names for her debut album:
RedOne (Darin's "Step Up," Lady GaGa's "Just Dance")
Stargate (Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable," Rihanna's "Don't Stop The Music"),
Brian Kennedy (Rihanna's "Disturbia," Chris Brown's "Forever")
Timbaland (Nelly Furtado's "Maneater," Justin Timberlake's "SexyBack;" possibly just met, but maybe worked with), the
Freemasons (remixes of Beyoncé songs, Kylie Minogue's "The One"),
Claude Kelly,
Savan Kotecha (Britney Spears's "If U Seek Amy," Shayne Ward's "No U Hang Up"),
Soulshock & Karlin (Alesha Dixon's "Breath Slow"), and probably some people I've left out. In other words: big budget, brand name songwriters--taking Alexandra to
major international success is obviously what her management is aiming for.
Do you remember the brilliant
Dolly Rockers' song "How Did I End Up With You?" I posted a week ago? Popjustice
wrote about it shortly after (and posted a clip of the studio version) and revealed (well, clued me in) that the songwriter behind it and the majority of the project is
Ray Hedges.
On the subject of girl bands promoted on
PopJustice,
Girls Can't Catch's debut single "Keep Your Head Up" is written and produced by
Chris Braide (the Saturdays' "Chasing Lights," D-Side's "Invisible"). The
live version has shown the song so have a
lot of potential, but the clips of the studio version we've heard so far are lacking punch; they sound like demos. Hopefully there's still time to improve the production on them.
I'm sure I forgot something I meant to mention, but that'll do for now.
The lyrics in the middle of the song at first seem to go a little off course--"Come on, take off something/Girl, don't be shy" is more direct and less kitchen-sink a come-on than Miranda Cooper usually uses--but there's reason to forgive that when, right when you think the song has established the track it will be treading, Xenomania manage to pull off one of their trademark surprises. It's not a section that sounds like it's torn out of a whole different song (a la "Biology") or the last minute reveal of the chorus that's been held off the entire song (a la "It's Magic")--in fact, it's a line we've heard several times throughout the song up to this point. Somehow, though, just as the song is fading out, Xenomania manage to make it pop out at you:
