The Star Online: Entertainment: Music
The Star Online: Entertainment: Music |
| 'X Factor' dominates albums and singles charts Posted: 04 Dec 2011 07:27 PM PST LONDON (Reuters) - ''The X Factor'' dominated Britain's music charts Sunday, the talent show's charity single ''Wishing on A Star'' taking the top slot in the singles chart, while former finalist Olly Murs stormed the album chart with ''In Case You Didn't Know''. This year's ''X Factor'' finalists teamed up with alumni boy bands JLS and One Direction to record the charity single. The cover of the 1970s classic is the talent show's fourth charity release, the Official Charts Company said. The only other top 10 entrant was Jessie J with ''Who You Are,'' taken from her debut album of the same name, at No. 8, up from 37 last week. Murs was a 2009 ''X Factor'' finalist, and his second album took the top spot against fierce competition from Michael Buble's ''Christmas,'' which jumped one place to No. 2. Rihanna's ''Talk That Talk'' fell back to No. 3 from the previous week's position at the top of the chart. Other new entries in the album top 10 were Il Divo with ''Wicked Game'' at No. 6 and Bruno Mars' multiplatinum former No. 1 ''Doo Wops & Hooligans,'' climbing three places to No. 10. ''Doo Wops & Hooligans'' has spent a total of 34 weeks in the top 10, having entered at No. 1 in January. Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
| Posted: 04 Dec 2011 04:09 PM PST Newcomer pop group Hot Chelle Rae tells us all about its new album, girls and err ... sparkly vampires. With lyrics that go, "La, la, la, whatever/ La, la, la, it doesn't matter," it's hard not to swing along to the infectious rhythm of American country crossover outffit, Hot Chelle Rae. Mixing teen-boy misery with reckless abandon, the band crash landed onto the pop music scene earlier this year with its jangling, singalong anthem, Tonight Tonight, and has been setting our airwaves (and heads) abuzz since. Formed in Nashville, Tennessee in 2005, the quartet comprises Ryan Follese, 24 (lead vocals), Jamie Follese, 20 (drums), Nash Overstreet, 26 (lead guitar) and Ian Keaggy, 24 (bass guitar). Much like Tonight Tonight, the band's catchy follow-up single, I Like It Like That is a crowd-pleasing gem featuring hip hop duo New Boyz. To round off an eventful year, Hot Chelle Rae won the new artiste of the year award at the 39th Annual American Music Awards on Nov 20 in Los Angeles. The boys also brought their windows-down musical ruckus all the way through their European tour early last month. We caught up with Ryan and Jamie over the phone in the middle of their Swedish leg. "It's our first time in Europe and it's been a really, really amazing experience," said an upbeat Ryan. "We flew from Arizona, then New York, and all the way to Amsterdam, Brussels, London, Paris and Sweden. It's quite the whirlwind experience but we did so many awesome things." The affable duo sounded like laidback lads on the phone despite their busy schedule. In the spirit of their lyrical bravado, Ryan and Jamie were loud, often brash and suitably boisterous throughout this interview. They dished out details of their recently released album, Whatever, featuring 11 tracks. Out a week ago in Malaysia, Whatever follows the group's 2009 debut album, Lovesick Electric. Ryan told fans to expect a feelgood mix. "It's fun pop. It's a polished album, with fun singles like Tonight Tonight and I Like It Like That. We've had some crazy life experiences since Tonight Tonight came out and this album is all about our life's journey." Hot Chelle Rae began working on Whatever at the end 2010, travelling from Nashville to Los Angeles and New York for writing and recording sessions with various collaborators, including Emanuel Kiriakou (Jason Derulo, Selena Gomez), Evan Bogart (Adam Lambert, Rihanna), S*A*M & Sluggo (Boys Like Girls, Cobra Starship, Gym Class Heroes) and rising star production trio Andrew Goldstein, Dan Book, and Alexei Misoul. Already it sounds like a pumped up affair. "We are a pop band that makes pop music," said Ryan, unabashed. "But not like a boyband," he hastened to add. Think screaming girls and matching costumes and you get the picture. But rest assured, Hot Chelle Rae is leaner and meaner and in Ryan's words, yields a steady combination of "pop with a hip hop swagger." "It's the most accurate description we've got because we grew up with both hip hop and pop and we bring that into our music," he said. Ryan elaborated on the band's creative process. In a word: coffee. "It's the gasoline that makes the machine run," he said, chuckling. "I fact, I just got myself a cup of coffee." When it comes to making music, the gutsy frontman declared: "There are absolutely no rules, man! We spent about six months writing but there are no rules to how you write a song. We could start first with a title, a melody or a line of music. Songs just sort of 'pick themselves' as we go along. It's an organic process," said Ryan. "And oh, everybody's opinion matters. But not as much as mine," he concluded with a laugh. For all the group's hard work, isn't it a little ironic to call the album, Whatever? "Yes, it is pretty ironic, especially after all the effort we put into the album," Jamie explained. "But here's how it came about – we did loads of demos and songs while we were recording and we were just too lazy to write down all the titles of our songs on our CDS and we ended up just writing 'Whatever' on everything ..." "It's a really good album name," he added. "It's also the title of a track from the album." Proving to be as diverse as they are dynamic, Jamie revealed there are also ballads on the record. "There's this track called Why Don't You Love Me? that we did with Demi Lovato. We're huge fans of hers so it was great when we found out she's a fan of ours too. She has such an incredible voice and she made the song a million times better." Their litany of girl-centric lyrics begs the question: "So what's your type?" "I like girls with short hair," Jamie shared. "And also, someone who is chilled and relaxed, and is able to deal with us being way all the time." Ashley Green from the Twilight films makes quite a dish, he hinted. But make no mistake, he is no fan of the sparkly-vampire franchise (sorry, Twi-hards). "I'm much more into the Harry Potter side of things. I'm more into magic than vampires, you know, especially if they aren't even 'real' vampires on Twilight. I mean, they're vegetarian!" said Jamie. "If I wanted some vampire action, I'll go for Interview With A Vampire over Twilight any day. Now that's a real vampire movie." Hot Chelle Rae's Whatever is released by Sony Music Malaysia. Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
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