Howdy friends!! Welcome to the new year! No, I haven’t come to bring you the year end countdown of the best albums of 2011 yet, because frankly, I haven’t gotten the list finalized yet. I seemingly love working all of the time, but I do promise that it will come soon (perhaps next week?!). In the mean time, here is some new music that I have recently started listening to.
honeyhoney – Don’t Know How
I first “heard” of honeyhoney almost a year ago; the song LA River was playing in the background on a scene during an episode of Brothers and Sisters. I found out because I took to the internets for research, and obviously to find and download that amazing track, but alas, nothing came of it. Then, I put it on my “to be downloaded list”, and honestly, kind of forgot about it. Then today, I noticed that Amazon was offering a free playlist of songs from “people they liked”, and a honeyhoney song was on it! Turns out the album Billy Jack was released in October! Sweet! So why didn’t I feature that song, you may ask? Well, as much as I love LA River still, this song is incredible. The female singer’s vocal reminds me a lot of Brandi Carlile, and I cannot get enough of the country-rock vibe of this delightful song. The album is great as well! I guess good things do come to those who wait; those who wait, and then randomly, almost a year later, are reminded of something excellent by something completely unrelated.
Green River Ordinance – Dancing Shoes
This one falls into the category of songs that I have discovered by listening to SiriusXM radio. This is a beautiful ballad alt-folk track that reminds me a little of Counting Crows (mostly the lead singer’s voice), but with a freshness of current hot bands like Mumford and Sons. This is a gorgeous song, and one that I have been listening to on repeat since I Shazamed it a few days ago.
Plug In Stereo – Oh Darling feat. Cady Groves
Look a here! Another track discovered directly from good old SiriusXM. This is a little bit Hellogoodbye with a healthy touch of Bright Eyes. I love stuff like this. The song is so sweet, even if it does remind me a little of that massively overplayed Hey There Delilah by Plain White Ts. Either way, another excellent discovery thanks to SiriusXM; maybe I shouldn’t cancel my subscription, even though they took away my BBC Radio One months ago…
fun. – We Are Young feat. Janelle Monae
So apparently this was on Glee? I honestly don’t remember it. This is one of those songs that I found by accident months ago (see September), but for whatever reason, forgot about it. Then! I hear it playing on Chuck, and instantly, I am like, I KNOW THIS!!! Then I finally downloaded it properly. I absolutely love this track! It’s great! It reminds me a little bit of Jump, Little Children, a band most of you probably haven’t heard of, but the lead singer sounds like him nonetheless. Overall, a very fun (ha!), very radio-ready track. Thanks to Chuck for putting this one back on my radar screen!! This sounds like a song that should play over the credits of a high-school movie/coming of age dramady, doesn’t it?
Jessica Mauboy – Inescapable (Youngboyz Mix)
Ending on a dance note! This one is thanks to my buddy Stu posting it on my FB. I first heard of Jessica Mauboy when Stu alerted me to her sassy greatness back when she was in Young Divas, just after she was on Australian Idol, and then when she broke out on her own. She’s had a few songs that I liked, and it looks like she’s still up to it; this song is very danceable, and I can’t get enough. Thanks Stu for the heads up about this one!
So there’s a new 5SF, actually on a Friday for you!! I hope that you enjoyed the tracks that I picked; please let me know what you think. As always, please let me know what you are listening to as well. Remember, the best of 2011 albums countdown will be coming to this blog in the near future, so stay tuned! Til then!
Let me start by saying a major thank you to my buddy 
Lord knows I have thanked BBC Radio 1 in the past for turning me on to some amazing tunes, and here’s another shout out to perhaps my favorite radio station, that just happens to be located across the pond. I heard this song a couple of weeks ago, and I immediately jacked the volume up, and grabbed my phone to Shazam this gem; this song is gold!! While Yasmin may be signing about the Finish Line, I certainly hope she has more amazing stuff like this slated for the future, and this is more of a beginning than anything final. This is the type of music that should be on radio stations here in the US; as always, the UK is getting it right time and time again, way ahead of the game. Watch the video for Finish Line 
After a couple of the other girls from Girls Aloud broke out on their own, and failed to fully blow me away, and sustain (to be fair, I did LOVE both Cheryl Cole’s Fight For This Love, and Nadine Cole’s Insatiable), out of nowhere, Nicola Roberts is BURNING IT UP. This track is hot, and just in time for summer! Produced by seemingly everywhere producer Diplo (he’s 1/2 of Major Lazer, and throws in a recognizable sound effect, which I can only assume is his calling card), and containing a heavy beat, killer chorus, and outlandish beats, this song has been burning up my ears since I first heard it a few weeks ago. This song begs to be danced to, and Nicola is commanding you in a way that Kelly Rowland would be proud. I hope that the rest of Nicola’s upcoming album is like this dance floor killer, because it if is, I think we may have found the one girl from Girls Aloud that stands a chance of holding her own stylistically and musically. While the style is totally different, it reminds me a bit of when Siobhan Donaghy made her amazing sophomore album Ghosts, after leaving Sugababes; you never know how talented one of the group is until they decide to go their own way and try something different. “L-O-V-E! Dance to the beat of my drum!” Absolutely!! Watch the video for Beat of My Drum 
FINALLY. Ladies and gentlemen, something that I have been waiting on for quite some time, may have finally happened; Nicole Scherzinger is going to break through the US market, and finally have a fucking SOLO HIT. While I did think that this sounded a bit Rihanna-ish the first time I heard it, I didn’t see that as a negative. In fact, I think it is exactly what Nicole needed to finally break through solo on her home turf; familiarity. So far, I have heard this on the local radio station a few times, and it seems to be making at least some ripples on the charts. While I doubt it will be a number one for her, I do think it will open the door for her in home country musically, and we may finally get to hear more and more solo stuff from the most talented Pussycat Doll. Ladies and gentlmen, Nicole Scherzinger is home, and hopefully, there’s more to come! And yes, 50 Cent’s cameo in the song/video is almost 100% unnecessary. Watch the video for Right There 
What can I say? Again, the UK is killing it; this is the current number one hit in the UK. They are so far ahead of the pack sometimes, it just makes me wonder what the hell is going on in the US music scene. Dubstep is the “new” sensation in the UK, and is a style of music that I cannot get enough of. I am hoping that Dubstep makes more of a splash here than previous styles of music from the UK did stateside (most notably UK Garage, which I still fucking love; thanks to *N’SYNC for trying to make it happen, though!). This is such a great song for summer, and one that I am glad to have discovered, thanks again to my musical saviors over at BBC Radio 1. I love how the end of the song starts to get louder, faster, etc; it reminds me of Beyonce performing Suvivor live as she did on her concert DVD. Pure energy! Watch the video for Louder 
Speaking of Beyonce… Well, 4 is out, and well, I’m underwhelmed. I wanted to love it, because I do love Beyonce, but I just didn’t. That being said, I had high hopes for this album, mostly because of how much I loved Run the World (Girls) as its lead single. In fact, I thought, that I had posted this song in a 5SF or something, because of how much I think this song is SICK, but I apparently didn’t, and as such, wanted to feature it as a bonus track (or a super-relevant Google+ approved +1) in this week’s 5SF. A lot of people were turned off by the Major Lazer sample throughout the song, but I have to say, that while YES, it does sound almost identical to Major Lazer’s Pon De Floor, please keep in mind that Switch produced the track, and he is 1/2 of Major Lazer (apparently it is a Major Lazer day for me today…). I think Beyonce’s vocals elevate the track, and put a fresh, and frankly sick-as-shit spin to it. I have been loving this song more and more with each listen, and I just wish that I didn’t stick out like a sore ass thumb on 4 (I was hoping for more like it on the album); but hey, you can’t win them all, can you? Watch the video for Run The World (Girls)