Judgement Day: Pop Heaven or Hell? Victoria Duffield – Shut Up and Dance

After releasing three very solid singles and making Canadian pop music lovers wait for what seems like an eternity, British Columbia’s own Victoria Duffield released her new album/EP: “Shut Up and Dance” with Warner Music Canada on August 21st, 2012!

While I would honestly hesitate to call any release that boasts only 8 tracks an “album,” as an EP, “Shut Up and Dance” displays a lot of potential from the 17 year old pop starlet and Duffield displays the dancing prowess and delightfully listenable vocals of Britney Spears circa 1999 (as in “Baby One More Time.“) Much like Spears’ debut, “Shut Up…” has hits and misses, but one can’t reasonably expect someone to have their sound perfected at the tender age of 17, even if presently her sound can be defined as distinctly POP – as in bubblegum. Before you make a flash judgement about my intentions in using this description, I would like to add that as far as the Pop Gods are concerned, there is absolutely nothing wrong with bubblegum!

Riches You Could Never See: Sarah Slean’s “Society Song” (Music Video)

In early January, 2012, Pop Heaven’s own Sarah Slean posed a question to her fans on Twitter:

I, being a vessel placed on this earth solely to spread the good word of the Pop Gods, immediately received a divine communication that despite each and every track on the brilliant two-disc opus “Land & Sea” truly being worthy of a video treatment, their divine will was that her next visual masterpiece should be the sassy stomper “Society Song.” (Whoa, tongue twister!)

As is my duty, I immediately passed this information on to Slean via Twitter. To my delight, she responded – rather appropriately with:

“SWEET HEAVEN” indeed! Pop Heaven! Based on her enthusiasm it was nearly a certainty that I was about to become the hot new commodity in Canadian music video art direction. As such, I patiently awaited a phone call from Sarah, or from her people.

Popologist Panel: Justin Bieber, Fiona Apple, Diplo, Katy Perry (July 2012)

Check out the all-new second installment of the Popologist Panel on Vertigo Shtick, of which I am honored to be a part of!

This month, we tackle the latest releases from Justin Bieber, Fiona Apple & Diplo, music videos by Katy Perry & Sky Ferreira and singles by Alexandra Stan, Esthero, NERVO and Carly Rae Jepsen!

READ MORE…

Pop Gospel: Wild Orchid – Stuttering (Don’t Say)

“Stuttering (Don’t Say)” was the first and only single from the never-released third and final album by pop trio Wild Orchid, entitled: Fire. It was released in May of 2001 and broke the top 40 charts but never really took off and marked the disbandment of Renee Sandstrom, Stefanie Ridel and Stacy Ferguson after nearly 11 years as a group.

Pop Gospel: Mandy Moore – Cry

“Cry” was taken from the love-it or hate-it cheese fest that was the film adaptation of Nicholas Sparks novel “A Walk to Remember.” (I love it!) The video, doomed to the soundtrack single curse of having to include clips from the film, is completely terrible. Mandy, however, looks gorgeous as she dons dark brown hair for one of the first times in her career and starts to mature her image. The thing about a great fucking song is that when it’s this pretty and heartfelt, the terribly shoddiness of the accompanying music video doesn’t always matter.

This is just one of many songs in the Pop Gospel hymn books by the one late 90′s pop starlet who grew out of bubblegum and always took the high road while her peers were getting dirrty. I’m choosing to disregard the perviness factor in early Moore videos like “Candy,” the creepiness of which was only recently brought to my attention as I read a discussion between two fellow Pop enthusiasts on Twitter! *Shudder*

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