Dear Poptastic Readers,
Today is our 10th anniversary! That’s right, 10 years ago today, Davearama started this blog to share his love of the music that was often overlooked by the masses, whether it be independent artists, veteran artists, or artists from other countries. He wanted to show that there was much more to pop music than mainstream radio.
For our 10th anniversary, several of the artists that we have featured over the years have sent us videos wishing us a happy anniversary. It has filled our hearts with so much love. Here are those artists …
Glass Slipper are a deep house duo from Austin, Texas. Brad and Lisa actually met after Brad read an interview in Poptastic Confessions with Lisa about being a former member of the 90s dance group Real McCoy. Our favourite songs from them are “Surge”, “Universal Love Vibe”, “Up On The Floor” and one of their latest “So Threw.”
Christie is an amazing English singer who was featured in our blog before we even knew who she was. She was in a short-lived group called The Face and they had a 2012 song with Swedish producers Dream Beats called “Love Stuck.” The group broke up and Christie continued making music with the Dream Beats. They had amazing songs like “Wasn’t My Fault”, “Learning To Dance”, and “My Boyfriend’s Clothes.” We haven’t heard from her in a while, but she let us know that she has been writing songs. So we hope to hear more music from her in the future!
Carda is an artist from Melbourne, Australia. We found out about him and his music on Instagram, and we have really been impressed. He has guest singers on his tracks, which he produces himself. We know he has a bright future ahead, and we are looking forward to the journey. Our favourite Carda songs are “Never Let You Go”, “Caught Up”, “Need You Now”, “Sacrifices”, “Wasted”, and his latest “Giving You Half.”
Normski is a contributor of Poptastic Confessions and part of the Poptastic Confessions Collective who help Davearama decide the songs that make it into the year-end countdown, which is no easy task. Normski has done some fun reviews with Dave for the albums In Stereo by Bananarama as well as Live In Stereo by Bananarama. He has also written a review of All Saints’ album Red Flag, a review of “Message In A Bottle” by All Saints and Sting, Ride Again EP by Shakespears Sister, “When She Finds You” by Shakespears Sister, the 20th anniversary release of Forever by the Spice Girls, and most recently highlighted Marcella Detroit’s 50 years in music celebration.
Clara Mae is one of our favourite Swedish artists. We first took note of her as one of the new singers of Ace Of Base in 2010 — The Golden Ratio is a great album. We missed her first solo single, but quickly caught back up with her second single “Strip” in 2016. Since then, we have featured and highlighted her music. Arturo and Dave got to meet her when she was on tour in America and she came to San Francisco. She was absolutely lovely. Our favourite songs of hers are “Taped Up Heart”, “I’m Not Her”, “I Forgot”, “Better Me Better You”, "Unmiss You", “Lost”, “More Than OK”, “Lost Without You”, "Alright", and her new song
Isle Of You are a Swedish duo of best friends Ida and Elina. We first saw their video for “Change Of Heart” in early 2019, and things were never the same since. We went bonkers for that song. And we knew from the music video that they had something special. Their 2019 debut album Party Until We’re In Love is a glorious slice of pop including “Hold Tight” and “Hard To Forget.” Not a bad song on the album. We even interviewed them. Earlier this spring, they got us hooked again with their fantastic song “Fallback.” Now they have just released “Ears Ringing.” It is a pop injustice that more people don’t know them or their music. We can’t say this enough: We love Isle Of You.
Chris Tall is Swedish producer who we first noticed with his glorious 2017 single “Lucy (Sun Goes Up).” We danced and danced to that song. We still love it to this day. Chris is also part of the duo Rikky Disco who have their second single out this summer called “Deep In Love.” As for Chris Tall songs, our favourites are obviously “Lucy (Sun Goes Up)” as well as “Weekend”, “Dancin’ Alive” and his latest “So Much Love To Give.”
Francine Belle is another artist who was featured in Poptastic Confessions before we knew who she was. Like Christie above, she was part of the group The Face who only released one song in 2012 called “Love Stuck.” We followed Francine on Twitter and then in 2014 found out about her fantastic collaboration with Parralox called “Crying On The Dancefloor.” We must thank Francine for bringing Parralox to our lives. In 2018, Francine amazed us with her debut solo single “Beautiful Heights.” She followed that up with “Diamond” and we even did a little interview with her. We are looking forward to new Francine Belle music.
Ani Glass first warmed our hearts as part of The Pipettes. She joined when two of the founding members quit. The album Earth vs. The Pipettes is a pop masterpiece. We interviewed her in 2012, and Davearama even has some artwork of hers on a wall in his home. After The Pipettes, Ani fronted a band called The Lovely Wars. She has since gone solo and is making fantastic pop songs in native language of Welsh. Our favourite songs with The Pipettes are “Call Me”, “Stop The Music”, and “Boo Shuffle.” The Lovely Wars had a great song in 2013 called “Young Love.” And as a solo artist, we love “Little Things”, “Ffôl”, “Y Ddawns”, “Mirores”, and “Ynys Araul.”
Alice D is an independent artist who we’ve been following since the start of her career. Of course, we found out about her because her mother is Sara from Bananarama. Alice has forged her own music path and we certain have enjoyed the evolution. Alice also did her first-ever interview with Poptastic Confessions. It has been great to see more and more publications take notice of her talent. Women In Pop love her, as do we. Our favourite Alice D songs are “Movin’ On”, “Only You”, “I Don’t Owe You”, “More 2 U”, “Offline”, “Forever Mine”, “Brand New”, “Closer”, “One Day, Maybe”, “Diamond”, and her latest fantastic single “Paper Roses.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAvX5uV17zw
Parralox is an Australian group with musician/singer/songwriter/producer John von Ahlen at the helm. We were late to the Parralox party, but thanks to Francine above, we had so much fun catching up with Parralox's back catalogue. John was kind enough to do an interview with Poptastic Confessions, too. Davearama went to Australia in 2019 and met John a few times. They even did a few radio shows for Neon Nights. Our favourite songs from Parralox in the blog are “Crying On The Dancefloor”, “Aeronaut”, “Wildlife”, “Last Year At Marienbad”, “Electric Nights”, “Paradise”, “Change Of Heart”, “Are Friend’s Electric?”, and there is an upcoming single that we know about, too. Woo!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeQ4ZFj9kVc
Henrikes is a Swedish duo who we have featured for the past two years. Their songs are generally very mellow, beautiful, and captivating. They just released their first EP this spring and we love it. Our favourites are the gorgeous ballad “Nostalgia”, “Velodrome”, “Vintage Love”, “Stockholm”, and the latest upbeat single “Fictional.”
REYNA is an American sister duo who take great pride in celebrating their Mexican-American heritage. We haven’t known them for too long, but we absolutely love them. They have fantastic songs, and a great sense of humor — just watch their AMAZING music video for “The Way I Loved You.” That is probably our favourite REYNA song, but we also quite like “Coachella”, “Saw You With Somebody Else”, “Heartbeat”, “Clueless”, “Lonely Girl”, and their latest “Quarantine Baby.”
Jody Watley is a legend, and she is the Queen of Cool. Most people know her from her massive hits in the late 80s and 90s as a solo artist. Some may also remember before that, she was in the group Shalamar. And even before that, she was a Soul Train dancer. Perhaps what many don’t know is that Jody Watley is now an independent artist who continues to make fabulous music. She has always written her own music, and now she publishes music on her own label. She is in charge of her social media accounts, website, and all of her promotion. Jody Watley is an icon. She also has her own online boutique, JodyWatleyShop.com, where she sells clothing, candles, scented oils, and perfumes. We have featured Jody’s music many times in the blog over the past 10 years, and she has been very appreciative and supportive of our work. Dave and Arturo have seen her many times in concert and we are seeing her in 6 days! It will be our first concert in almost 2 years. We are very excited! In the past 10 years, Jody has had our #1 song of the year twice: “Nightlife” and “The Mood.” Our other favourite songs from her have been “Dancer”, “Sanctuary”, “SlowDance”, “Dancing Out”, “The Passion”, “Just Werrrk”, “Waiting In Vain”, “Good Good Reason”, and her 2020 single “The Healing.” We just love Jody Watley!
Davearama is the founder of Poptastic Confessions. He was inspired by the websites Popjustice and Scandipop. Initially, the blog was called Davearama’s Guide to Poptastic Music. He disliked the name as he didn’t like the focus on him, and it wasn’t long before the name changed to Poptastic Confessions. The mission stayed the same: highlight great music and encourage readers to support the artists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWz5CmCEgPg
Poptastic Confessions would like to thank everyone involved over the past 10 years. Please remember: streaming is nice, but buying the music really helps those artists make money to continue making the music that we love. Having said that, we have put together a 10-year anniversary playlist on Spotify of some of our favourite songs. We hope you enjoy!
Cheers then,
—The Poptastic Confessions Collective
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