Liven It Up!: Lucy Hale - Nervous Girls (Acoustic)

  "I guess we're all the same after all."

 Some people will recognize Lucy Hale from her role as Aria on the hit ABC Family show "Pretty Little Liars" but music has actually been part of her career longer than acting. You may remember the short lived spin off show to American Idol years ago called "American Juniors". Essentially the same idea as American Idol, but with younger contestants and the end game was to create a 5 person music group as opposed to having a single winner.

 Anywho, Lucy was one of the winners of that short lived program and thusly recorded an album with her fellow winning contestants. After the disintegration of that group, Lucy set her sights on acting, landing a slew of guest starring gigs before finally landing her role in Pretty Little Liars. Keeping music in the loop through her acting endeavors by singing on PLL and doing a movie musical "A Cinderella Story: Once Upon A Song" (another retelling of the Cinderella story, how original), she was then signed to Hollywood Records and began work on her debut solo album.

 The result is her new country album "Road Between" which was released on June 12th 2014. I was going to add the music video for the first single "You Sound Good To Me", which has done fairly well on the Billboard country charts, but when I listened to the album, this song resonated with me more, and to my luck she's released a live acoustic video for it. Another reason I chose this video is because I wanted people to actually hear her voice without filter or production gadgets. It may not be 100% perfect but it's pretty damn good and I personally think that country music was a smart way to go for her. Her voice has that warm clarity and simplicity that can make her a big hit in the country market.

 Long story short, it sounds like a debut album, she has some growth to do as an artist, but that will come in time. so I hope she allows herself that time and continues to record and discover more of who she is musically, because so far, I'm very impressed.

 Check out the full album and of course tune in to watch her on Pretty Little Liars which is now in its fifth season on ABC Family.

Turn It Up!: Brooke Candy - Opulence (Music Video)

  "I Own Everything, Baby!"

 I'm full on living for this video right now. I just discovered Brooke Candy on the weekend as I was going through a new last.fm followers library and saw her name. The name alone intrigued me, so I went to her artist page to check out a couple of music video's to see what kind of music she did, and to my luck, this was the first video I saw.

 Brooke Candy (yes, that's her given name) is from Oxnard, California. Her father is the CFO of Hustler magazine and CEO of Hustler Casino. After working as an intern for Rachel Zoe, Brooke got a job working as a mannequin stylist for Hustler store fronts and eventually started working as a stripper at the Seventh Veil Club in Hollywood. During this time she was honing her craft as a rapper and eventually quit stripping because music was more financially lucrative. Having now been featured on other artists songs, Brooke (after many offers from other record labels) has signed a deal with RCA records and is in the midst of recording her debut album. In the meantime, she has released a 5 song EP (Opulence EP 2014) and several one off singles through Tumblr and Youtube for her fans, whom she has nicknamed "The Fag Mob".

 I think this video (directed by Stephen Klein) is absolutely FIERCE!!!! The music, the wardrobe, the makeup, the sets, the concept, the effects... it's all working for me. I'm looking forward to more stuff from her.

 Give it a try!

Turn It Up!: Danity Kane - Lemonade (Lyric Video)

 Danity Kane Is Back, Baby!!!!!

 The girl group that formed and disbanded during the run of the 3rd and 4th installments of MTV's reality show "Making The Band", have returned as a trio with a hot new single for the summer.

 Original members Aubrey O'Day, Dawn Richard, and Shannon Bex are pressing ahead with the reunion album and touring dates that were both announced last year, without fellow members D. Woods and Aundrea "Drea" Fimbres (who was originally part of the reunion group, but announced her departure during their mini promotional tour this year).

 To go back in time a little, Danity Kane was formed by P. Diddy and Bad Boy Records in 2005 during the run of Making The Band 3. The girls released 2 Pop/R&B albums (2006's "Danity Kane" which went Platinum, and 2008's "Welcome To The Dollhouse" which went Gold) during their original run and released a few hit singles, most notably was their 2008 single "Damages" which went to #10 on the Billboard Hot 100. 

Plagued with break-up rumors from the very beginning of their career's together, the girls ultimately started to disband in 2008, when Diddy fired Aubrey O'Day (my personal favorite) for becoming too sexual with her image and letting fame go to her head, claiming she wasn't the same girl that he signed. He also released D. Woods from her contract, citing that she wasn't happy in the group and had taken on a few of O'Day's (apparently) less than desirable qualities. On the following season of the show, only Dawn Richard and Aundrea Fimbres returned to find out the fate of the group, at which point it was announced that Shannon Bex had been released from her contract and the same was to happen to Aundrea. Dawn Richard was the last man standing but would never go on to assemble another line up for Danity Kane, but instead went on to pursue a solo career as the other girls had done.

 Now they're back as a trio, and I gotta say I am absolutely loving this single, I can't wait to see the official video, and I'm really excited for the new album. I hope this reunion does really well and puts them on top where they deserve to be. Let's not let this become another "En Vogue" story!

 Turn it out Ladies!!!!!!!