1000 Stars – Natalie Bassingthwaighte – The Review

1000 Stars

Many words can describe Natalie Bassingthwaighte, she’s sexy, sophistacated, but also funny and down to earth.  Yet, she’s so talented, she really is an amazing performer, with a powerful and edgy vocal style that exudes audacity and the extent of her experience and maturity.

Now there is a Television show in Australia called “Neighbours”, filmed in Melbourne, where I live, which launched the career’s of countless successful artists, for example Kylie Minogue and Natalie Imbruglia. Yet whilst these two are talented, a string of semi-talented runts like Stephanie Mcintosh, released absolutely appaling albums, which is why Natalie hesitated to go to her audition for Neighbours back in 2003 when it was offered to her.

Natalie always planned to become a succesful music artist, and this is why she didn’t want to be tainted by the stigma of “Another bloody Neighbours star”, personally I don’t blame her, yet she suddenly became a very popular television personality.

The Rogue Trader's

She secretly joined the Rogue Traders, a band of which had little success apart from an Aria for their only single until she joined them. After she joined them she kept her identity under wraps to prove her talent, she had done countless musicals but this was different. Their first single went multi-platinum “Voodoo Child” and from there on they had a string of platinum singles throughout their second and third albums.

In 2006 Natalie was offered a record deal for a solo album, to which she immediately accepted, but never got around to until her and the band amicably parted in 2008. Then in 2008 she begun to write the album, and now it has been released, 1000 Stars her debut album.

The album begins with the devilishly retro “Catch Me If You Can” , this is fantastic, and it shows how diverse her musical talents are, and the song is electro inspired also which makes instantly catchy. If you like Adele and Duffy, despite this not being soul music, this is a song that you will certainly enjoy.

Natalie's first single "Alive"

This album reminds me of Beyonce’s “I am Sasha Fierce” album, because there is evidently a dichotomy of musical styles on the album, on one side there is the honest and vunerable side of Natalie, on acoustic songs like “In His Eyes” , the title track “1000 Stars” , the sharp “Turn The Lights On”, the philosophical “Why do I?”, and the inspirational “Someday Soon” of which many of you will have heard.

But then there is the side that I didn’t exactly expect from Natalie, she’s been the rock chick and then the soulful balladeer, but now she is the new Kylie Minogue as far as I’m concerned, evidence of this is in the ubiquitous hooks of “Supersensual” a song which is skeletally based on Blondie’s “Heart Of Glass” no doubt a source of inspiration that is paramount to this side of her music. Yet then songs such as “Love Like This”, and “This Can’t Be Love” take you away with the tempting beats and the energetic vocals.

“Feel The Flow” and “Superhuman” both show us the mellow and pensive side of Natalie, her vocals are somewhat mystical in these songs, they are some top quality tracks.

But overall this album ticks every box, it’s catchy, emotional, btouching, and danceable all at the same time. 1000 Stars is about Natalie the woman, not the character she played in the Rogue Trader’s, it’s the difference between Gwen Stefani singing “A Simple Kind of Life” and “Sweet Escape”, this is Natalie Bassingthwaighte, it is 100% her, she wrote it, she sang it, and we’re going to love it.

I believe this album will do well, and will easily go platinum, but if they release the correct singles, then she will certainly catch on and become  a musical phenomenon in Australia, I look forward to her next album and I hope the success from 1000 Stars will inspire her to new levels of her career.

1000 Stars recieves 4 and a half stars, which whilst is a little short of 1000 is still a hit, there are some amazing songs on it, however at times some songs became a little too subtle and modest, which I understand was the point of the album, but it could do with more of her attitude in some places.

Purchase the album instore unless you really wish to buy it on itunes, you get a physical copy, higher quality, and it costs about a dollar extra, so why wouldn’t you just get the real thing!

Music Video Review – Lady Gaga “Love Game”

Lady Gaga Channelling Britney Spears

Evidently, Lady Gaga has filmed two music video’s at once, because they have been released so closely together despite LoveGame’s release not even due yet in the United States for months. But first let me say, whilst the start of both the video’s seems cheap and tacky, just hold on a minute, bear with it, and BAM! You realise how good the video’s are.

However both videos make it very clear where Lady Gaga has gotten her inspiration and drive from, in Love Game we see Ms. Gaga revisiting the classic Michael Jackson dance for the “Bad” video, and she does it well, something which Love Game proves, she can really dance quite well!

Love Game is a fantastic song, and the music video encapsulates this, the energetic intense dancing which represents the beats in the song, and the inevitable and sort of creepy gyrating of the hips which obviously conveys the indiscreetly sexual nature of the song.

Lady Gaga’s crotch is mainly the subject matter of the first quarter of the video, and to be honest, she is a little bit too unflatteringly skinny to be wearing her outfits the way she is… “Downstairs” especially the chain mail chastity belt panties as I shall deem it that she thrusts at her backup dancers.

Gaga Chanelling Gwen Stefani

 

Lady Gaga’s crotch is mainly the subject matter of the first quarter of the video, and to be honest, she is a little bit too unflatteringly skinny to be wearing her outfits the way she is… “Downstairs” especially the chain mail chastity panties as I shall deem it that she thrusts at her backup dancers. 

Then we move into a bus where we see Lady Gaga looking like a dead ringer of Britney Spears, alongside snippets of her looking exactly like Britney when she wore Swarovski crystals in her Toxic videos.

Oh yes, and people said Katy Perry “Pushed a few buttons”, well if that is so, then in “Love Game” Lady Gaga Bashes those buttons with either a fork or her crotch, whichever you prefer. Lady Gaga makes out with a female cop, just as the words “It always starts the same, with a boy and a girl”, which personally I love, because she’s bringing another dimension to what she is saying, becuase to be honest that lyric without this fabulous soft-core cinematography would sound like your local catholic priest’s take on “The sanctity of marriage”.

After this Lady Gaga turns into an absolute dead ringer of Gwen Stefani, more so than she already is, she dresses exactly like Gwen did in her “Hey baby” video with No doubt, she even wears a boob tube that makes her look flat chested, this is no accident people! Then she grabs her smoking crotch and does a verbatim replica of Michael Jackson’s Bad dance, and she does it really, really well!

So it may sound like I didn’t enjoy the video, but the truth is, this is the sort of video I’ve been waiting for from Lady Gaga, Poker Face was good, but not great, Just Dance was just home-video quality, but Love Game is a true pop megastar video. The choreography is amazing and the camera work is phenomenal, this is truly a fantastic video, and Lady Gaga would do so well to just ditch the mankini and the chain mail chastity crotch guarding panty’s and to wear some hot pants… I’m not being prudish but it’s a little off putting and almost insanely contradictory, she’s practically wearing armor on her Swimsuit area and begging someone to have sex with her, is it her idea of birth control?

Listen First – Natalie Bassingthwaighte 1000 Stars

Natalie's Debut Solo Album **CLICK TO PREORDER**

Finally the much anticipated solo debut from Natalie Bassingthwaighte is going to be released this Friday, an album which should be likely to achieve a much more impressive debut than the albums two singles (which both had release issues despite the first going gold)

Here I have a few previews of some songs from the album, these are studio versions, and are featured on her myspace page but I thought I would put them up here for people to listen to, hopefully if you enjoy these songs you may want to go and purchase the album, something I highly would reccomend even if you live overseas.

CLICK THE IMAGE TO PRE-ORDER YOUR SIGNED COPY

So, if you do live overseas you are able to purchase online via Jb-HiFi one of the largest music retailer’s in Australia, where you can preorder signed copies of the album “1000 Stars” and they will be shipped to your door, the shipping will probably cost an extra 4-5 dollars but this album is slated to be a very very memorable one, Songs like Supersensual just give solid golden proof that Ms. Bassingthwaighte, is going to be the next Kylie Minogue, the next Australian Pop icon, except she will be more than that, because she has proved she can sing, write music, and is talented in so many different genres, which means she will be much more appealing to different demographics and most importantly unlike Kylie, the music is enjoyed by Guys as well as Girls.

Why Do I

Supersensual

Love Like This

New Music First – Natalie Bassingthwaighte “In His Eyes”

Natalie, from her GQ photoshoot

Ok, thankfully Natalie performed an acoustic set of six songs at the Australian Open, congrats Serena, and Nadal, sad that Federer didn’t win, but he wasn’t as focussed as Nadal was. Anyway enough of that crap, this is a very touching song, called “In His Eyes” which Natalie explained before playing it that it relates to her grandmother unable to adapt to life after her grandpa died, and that the magnitude of the event and it’s aftermath was intense and emotionally complex for Natalie herself, as she used to spend a lot of time with them, camping around Australia, a yearly tradition which crumbled to pieces upon the tradgedy of his death.

You won’t be able to see it in this video since she’s wearing sunglasses (fair enough, it was 44 degrees…) but when she performed live at the Toff In Town, she openly shed a few tears, it was so touching to see somebody so passionate about their music and not their image. Throughout the performance tears kept coming, and I’m not surprised, for such an emotional song it’s just so beautiful, uplifting, introspective, and inspirational at the same time, it sounds alot like Cindy Lauper’s “True Colours” and this is no exaggeration, this song could be an incredible hit, either way I’m sure it will stay in the minds of many fans who can relate to dealing with the tradgedy of death and the long hard road of grieving that many are unable to conquer alone.

Make no mistake, this is a true hit in the making

I give this song 4 and a half stars, in one word, beautiful.

Upcoming Single – Lady Gaga “Fashion”

Lady Gaga

After searching through the net I came across a new single by Lady Gaga called “Fashion”, the snippet only goes for a minute, and it is her version of a song she wrote for a singer called “Heidi”, not surprisingly it suits Lady Gaga considerably better.

The beat is dramatic and addictive, as most of her new songs seem to be. This is a great song, but like “Eh Eh” it doesn’t have the overwhelming hit factor that “Poker Face” “Papparazi” “Summer Boy” and “Just Dance” do, this is because those songs appeal to such a wide demographic, male, female, young  and old, and that is what makes a hit, something that everybody shares.

Anyway Checkout the song, it’s only a preview, if you like this and you haven’t purchased Lady Gaga’s album yet, I really reccomend it, it’s a fantastic album.