Popsessed!

Sure, Kelly deserves some credit. Throughout the years she’s released a ‘personal introspective album’, EPs with ‘stripped down acoustic versions of her songs’ and a christmas album. All of which could have been proper carreer killers for many artists, but she somehow pulled every single one of them off incredibly well.

However, a remix album (unless it’s the Jason Nevins mix of Since U Been Gone x12) was not needed. At all. So, if she insists on postponing another proper album, here’s 4 things we’d rather be listening to...

On this wonderful retrospective album EP Kelly sings bonafide Idol alumni classics like Whattaya Want From Me, No Air, Before He Cheats and erm.. that's about it!

Look who does in fact hook up! On Miss Co-dependent Kelly sings old and new duets with some of her best friends and artists worthy of sharing the limelight, as well as some very random people in need of a carreer boost.

From her Idol days up till her most recent tour Kelly loves a good cover. So from Stuff Like That There to Cool For The Summer, and from Wrecking Ball to Already Gone: they're all here!

Considering how long it's been When We Were Young would probably have been the more fitting Adele reference to throw in here, but anyway... clearly it's been way too long since my last update! Actually it's been thus long you might be getting a little nostalgic just seeing this page pop up again. Remember those good old days where every second post was a Rebecca Black fest?

And then there was that lovely chapter where I spent weeks working on an all new Popsessed 2.0, only to forget about it about 2 weeks after the redesign was done. It's a good thing I don't have any pets.

Sometimes life can be so demanding and busy, you forget to make time for the one thing that you're réálly passionate about. For me pop music is that thing. Always has been, always will be.

During my hiatus I never stopped visiting record fares to get cheesy '90s singles on the cheap, my iTunes library is still growing at a faster pace than I'm able to listen to it, I'm still very much into making random lists and charts noone cares about, recently I've started working at a local radio station where I get to call forgotten popstars each week to ask them what they've been up to, and in the back of my head I still have this fantasy that one day I'll own my very own little music store that's specialized in unashamed pure pop music and merchandise. But for now, getting back to blogging is probably a cheaper and more realistic way to start spreading my love of pop again.

So hello, I'm back!

We're well aware that throughout 2013 we haven't been exactly active, but the end of the year seemed like an appropriate moment to do some much needed catching up!

Catching Up: Little Mix - DNA (Acoustic)

Entered our weekly song chart in: November 2012 Peaked at: #8

We’ve been gone for 7 months. We can’t go back in time and change that fact. However, we cán go back and catch up on the things we really should have posted about. Because they were too good to miss. Because we think you might like them. And because we do love to reminisce.

Being an X Factor winner with an album that even went top 5 in the US, few people who'd care to know about Little Mix don't by now. However, for all the non-UK and casual fans, who don't go out of their way to dig up every possible performance of the band, we couldn't leave out this little gem in our attempt to catch up on the past few months.

Mutya Keisha Siobhan - Flatline (preview)

So it would seem the release of the Sugababes' (let's not overcomplicate things) new single is very near, although you can never be to sure with the pace they've been moving at thusfar.

The Lovely Wars - Young Love

It's like popstars got a memo that we're back, because it's been raining nice pop videos ever since we announced it. The newest, and our favourite of today, is the 2nd single from The Lovely Wars. In case that doesn't ring a bell: it's the new band of Ani Saunders, one of The Pipettes (or actually The one and only Pipette, since Gwenno left the band).

Although The Lovely Wars definitely got their own sound, there's loads to love here for any Pipettes fan. For starters, the vocals. We're ashamed to admit that we were so busy seeing Ani as the 'new Pipette in town' that we never quite realized how fond we'd grown of her voice.. or maybe it just never got the chance to shine like it does now. Either way, we love it. Second: despite some misleading synths at the start, the whole retro/'50s influence we've always loved from artists like The Pipettes, Lucky Soul and the early Cardigans is still there with all its (literal) bells and whistles.

We don't think Ani put The Pipettes on a break to go out and do the exact same thing with another band, and there obviously are some differences as well, but the fact that the sound isn't a huge departure from her previous material shows a genuine fondness of the genre, which we, as fellow fans, can only appreciate.

Young Love is the title track of the same-titled EP, and will be out on the 1st of July.

Catching Up: Booty Luv - Black Widow

Entered our weekly song chart in: November 2012 Peaked at: #6

We’ve been gone for 7 months. We can’t go back in time and change that fact. However, we cán go back and catch up on the things we really should have posted about. Because they were too good to miss. Because we think you might like them. And because we do love to reminisce.

If there's any pop act that seems to have 9 lives, it's Booty Luv. As a part of Big Brovaz they got dropped, then resigned, and as a duo they lost their band name, but then got it back again. Meanwhile, despite their last single the general public was aware of stemming from 2009, they've kept churning out singles.

Black Widow is their 4th non-album single, and, keeping with the trend set with their previous ones, it's once again a little less disco, a little more dance than it's predecessor. Then again, it's not 2007 anymore, and this song does sound current, while remaining a true Booty Luv song.

Considering how dance has been 'the new pop' for a while now, it's pretty ridiculous that an act who does pop friendly dance as well as Cherise & Nadia can't seem to get a hit. Black Widow definitely deserved to have at least a chart position. 'Gonna be the last last love of your life' is one amazing lyric and hook. Had this been a Rihanna track it probably would have been everywhere. But it's not, and so we're here to remind you of its existance.

FIY, the acoustic version is pretty fantastic as well.

Eros Ramazzotti ft. Nicole Scherzinger - Fino All'Estasi

Catching Up: XELLE - Queen

Entered our weekly song chart in: October 2012 Peaked at: #3

We’ve been gone for 7 months. We can’t go back in time and change that fact. However, we cán go back and catch up on the things we really should have posted about. Because they were too good to miss. Because we think you might like them. And because we do love to reminisce.

XELLE are the world's first girl group with a drag queen member. Mimi Imfurst first found fame on the third season of Rupaul's Drag Race, so the drag queen angle obviously has always been part of the appeal of the band. Not for us though. It might have played a part in peaking our initial curiosity, but after we'd seen Party Girl they were first and foremost an exciting new girl band with a killer first song and video.

With their third single being called Queen, and its video featuring various other Drag Race contestants it seemed they were milking their unique selling point to the max. This might have bothered us a little if the release had been all gimmick, no subtance, but this song actually had the tune to back it up. With great vocals and production slightly reminiscent of Rihanna's S&M, Queen is a huge floorfiller that should make even the straightest male feel the urge to unleash their inner queen on the dancefloor.

Following up on the mesmerizing, if sometimes slightly scary, video, the american trio released their all killer debut EP Queens, which, unlike its title might suggest, is also quite a treat to any pop fan who isn't particularly into drag queens. In march they finished production of the long anticipated interactive video for their 2nd single Hologram.

XELLE on Twitter XELLE on Facebook XELLEmusic.com Our 2011 interview with XELLE

Ralph Myerz ft. Annie - Take A Look At The World

Throughout the years Annie has given us quite a few decent collaborations, but it still surprised us how this time around we actually preferred her Ralph Myerz featuring to her own new single. Tube Stops is a perfectly nice song, but Take A Look At The World is just a lot more catchy, and even feels more 'Annie' to us. And now it also got a better video.

Catching Up: Girls Aloud - Something New

We've been gone for 7 months. We can't go back in time and change that fact. However, we cán go back and catch up on the things we really should have posted about. Because they were too good to miss. Because we think you might like them. And because we do love to reminisce.

We will mostly catch up on artists and songs we think you may have missed the first time around, because there's not that much of a point in reminding you of songs that were everywhere, only half a year ago. However, we must make an exception for one act.

Because Girls Aloud aren't just any pop act. They've been our favourite thing in pop for many many years, and, despite always having been big pop fans, we can very well say they took our Popsession to a whole new level. They delivered the kind of 'oh-my-god,best-song-ever!' -songs, most (lucky) artists have one or two of, time after time after time. They had us binge import every edition of every one of their singles, only to get the singles boxset announced a few weeks later. No regrets whatsoever. They had us travel to the UK to see them live, and be the only fans spending a very cold day outside a dutch hotel to get an autograph. They had us live up to our blog name to an extent we're not sure we ever will again. Which is a sad, but also very blessful thought. Cause noone's gonna take those 10 years away from us.

After spending 7 months in our logo, we reckon Nekci Menij got more than her share of 'free promo', so it was about time to get us a new header girl. Enter Sharon Doorson. Although she's slowly but steadily taking over Europe, one dance smash at a time, we expect quite a few of you to have never heard of her before, so it's time for a beginner's class on Holland's finest export product since the Vengaboys.

In 2004, pop fans got their first taste of Sharon when she made it into the girl group Raffish on the dutch version of Popstars: The Rivals. They weren't quite Girls Aloud, although their debut single Plaything was catchy enough. Like every average reality act, the band disbanded after one album, and, apart from the one girl who did surprisingly well, it seemed very likely we'd have heard the last from the Raffish gals.

In summer 2011, like her ex bandmate Nora, Sharon auditions for season 2 of The Voice Of Holland. A move that could be seen as a bit desperate for a former popstar, if it weren't for the fact that it worked out rather well. Sharon made it to the quarter final, got herself a record deal, and late 2012 she unleashed a banging debut single...

Generic? Yes. A bit brilliant? Indeed. In case you wondered, we're still doing our weekly song charts, and 6 months in Fail In Love is the highest scoring song for 2013 on it thusfar. Considering we didn't particularly care for her in her Raffish days, and Voice contestants are hardly known for releasing great floorfillers, it was a nice surprise, but what might be even more surprising is the fact we weren't let down by its follow-up... (Just wait for that middle 8!)

Although her hair does make Rihanna comparisons both understandable and inevitable, musically Sharon's been more like a one woman Booty Luv, and you could be doing much worse than that. Not unlike Cherise & Nadia, Sharon also did a stripped back version of her 2nd single, which works surprisingly well.

After being responsible for two of our songs of the year (we know her debut is technically 2012, but we picked up on it rather late), her 3rd single Killer is actually less of a killer song than we've come to expect from her, but it's still not bad at all for a third single by a dance act.

Unlike her former colleague Eva, who, 6 singles and (about) 8 features in, still hasn't even released as much as an EP, Sharon's also not wasting any time with her debut album, which came out this week. We've yet to listen to the full thing, but going by first impressions it's not quite the fillerfest we'd feared it would be.

So there you have it, all you need to know to get into Sharon Doorson, the girl who fails in love, but is pretty damn great at everything else she does!

Like a certain girl band we're very fond of, last fall, after a break that took much longer than intended, we announced a comeback.

In the months before that, we'd gone off and done our own thing, revamped ourselves for 2013.. and then came back with a new look, stronger than ever, and ready to take over planet pop once again.

But, not unlike Girls Aloud, we didn't quite live up to our promise. Other projects and ambitions got in the way, we got tired of certain routines, and what should have been a whole new era fizzled out way too soon.

The reason we didn't end things with a 'thanks for your support' tweet is we never planned for things to go this way. You don't usually spend half a year working on a redesign only to completely give up on things a month later. Life got more demanding, I was no longer able to make this the frequently updated site I'd like it to be, and I'm not one to do things by half measures, so I intended to pick things up again when I'd have the time to get back into it with full force. Clearly, that moment never came.

So here I am, 7 months later, still ridiculously busy, still not one to do things halfway, but also still a massive pop fan, who hasn't quite given up on his beloved pop blog yet. I have absolutely no clue whatsoever how I'm going to juggle this and the countless other projects I got myself into, but I'm going to find a way to make it work somehow, because the occasional update is still better than no update at all.

Another week, another top two swap. We're pretty confident that until someone else releases an amazing new album (or Greatest Hits collection) Pink and No Doubt will keep fighting over that number one spot, although Agnes did come rather close this week.

It's rather exceptional for 'old' records to make our album chart, but with the Girls Aloud reunion being on its way, we're sure you can understand that we played their discography quite a bit...

As everyone knows by now, Girls Aloud are releasing a new Greatest Hits, and disc 2 is up to a fan vote. Now it's all good fun to vote for your favourite album tracks or ignored singles, but it would turn the final mix into some completely random mixtape of songs that already appeared on their own albums. We're thinking instead a 10-track b-side EP would make the perfect bonus disc, and basically create a nice 7th album. Like, like, like this...

Bring It Back To The Other Side: 1. Memory Of You 2. Adrogynous Girls 3. Dog Without A Bone 4. I Don't Really Hate You 5. Hoxton Heroes 6. She 7. It's Your Dynamite 8. Crazy Fool 9. Nobody But You 10. Theme To St. Trinians (Not previously available on any Girls Aloud release)