It was right after she first began posting demos on her MySpace–songs like 2007′s spacey “Surveillance” (which remains as next level today as it did the day she unleashed it upon the world), that I first took notice of Wynter Gordon, the 23-year-old underdog with a superstar’s worth of potential waiting to be unleashed each time she lays a pen to paper.
Just a few years after graduating from LaGuardia’s High School for the Performing Arts (alma mater of such notable acts as Kelis and Nicki Minaj), the young songstress had already notched herself a major writing credit with “Gonna Breakthrough,” a song from Mary J. Blige‘s Grammy Award-winning seventh studio album, The Breakthrough.
Ever since then, the co-writes and features (and unfortunately, the myriad leaks) only kept flowing for Wynter securing a spot on Danity Kane‘s 2008 sophomore record, Welcome To The Dollhouse (“2 Of You”), penning the impossibly catchy chorus of Flo-Rida‘s chart-topping 2009 radio smash “Sugar” and David Guetta‘s “Toyfriend,” joining The Freemasons on their essential 2010 summer jam “Believer” and, most recently, scribing three tracks off of Jennifer Lopez‘s stellar 2011 comeback record LOVE? including title track, “(What Is) Love?”
But despite all of her success as a writer, the song that truly launched Wynter as an artist in her own right was 2010′s “Dirty Talk,” a filthy-mouthed foray into kinky taunts and raunchy references to S&M above a dark disco beat that debuted nearly a year before Rihanna ever started crooning about her enthusiasm for chains and whips.
The song not only notched the singer’s first-ever #1 on the Billboard Hot Dance/Club Play stateside, but kept her straddling Australia’s ARIA Chart at #1 for three weeks in January (and the duration of Australia’s summer season).
Now, nearly four years since she first started making ripples across the blogosphere and beyond, the Queens-born singer/songwriter has finally released her long-awaited, much delayed debut: The fabulously titled With The Music I Die.
If you’re looking for Sasha Fierce, don’t bother: She’s gone.
Well, not entirely–she’s certainly still there twerking her hips above the militant beat of “Run The World (Girls)” and the frenzied horn-filled club bounce of “Countdown,” but for the most part, the divalicious alter ego of one of the world’s greatest entertainers has (temporarily?) stepped a stiletto to the side for the majority of her fourth studio album, 4–allowing the record to remain a decidedly Beyoncé experience.
After the release of her critically acclaimed Introduction EP back in 2010, UK singer-songwriter-drummer Florrie is back for another round.
The former Xenomania in-house band member–who first rose to prominence as a solo artist after giving away a handful of electro-pop gems produced by Fred Falke on her official website–returns on June 14 with the Experiments EP, a six-track collection of crunchy electro-pop tunes.
The Experiments EP finds Florrie flirting with an airy ’60′s French pop nostalgia mixed with cutting-edge pop penning and production by the likes of Fred Falke, MNEK and Mike Chapman. From the festive mariachi-electro horn flairs of “She Always Gets What She Wants” to the dreamy strings of the SomethingALaMode-produced “What You Doing This For?”, the entire mini-album meshes well with the carefully cribbed pop perfection of other acts imbued with the Xenomania essence, including Girls Aloud, Annie and Rachel Stevens, while still managing to carve out its own delightful identity.
“I Took A Little Something,” one of the collection’s brightest moments, is a neatly unearthed ’80′s synth-pop summertime smash, as Florrie’s light, dreamy vocals–marked by a Brian Higgins-esque (Xenomania) touch of smooth-spoken, hook-heavy lyrics–float above endless array of sparkling synthesizers.
While Florrie’s music may never enter into the realm of Top 40 pop–the production still feels too left-of-center for radio’s current pop taste buds (which even Florrie herself has said)–the Experiments EP should only further Florrie’s ever-expanding underground following with some of the most lush, listenable synth-pop you’ll encounter this year.
In keeping with Florrie’s incredibly thoughtful, transparent process regarding the release of her music, the UK singer-songwriter has put the entire Experimenting EP on YouTube–as well as on iTunes.
If you like what you hear, please support her!
The Experiments EP was released on June 14. (iTunes)
For those of us who have been following Simon Curtis from the very early days of his career, RA is a pretty big deal.
On Saturday night, Lady Gaga sat spread eagle atop a delivery table on the stage of Saturday Night Live, belting out “Born This Way” while grasping her very pregnant prosthetic belly before flooding the delivery table with goo and glitter.
“My water just broke,” the 25-year-old superstar tweeted late on Sunday night. And today, on May 23, Born This Way, Gaga’s second studio album, was born to the world.
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