Tinchy Stryder and JLS to Perform at Charity Concert

British rapper Tinchy Stryder has been added to the line up at the ‘Sunshine Concert’ charity gig organised by Rays of Sunshine Children’s Charity at The Troxy in East London on Friday 11th March.

Tinchy Stryder

Rays of Sunshine Children’s Charity grants wishes for seriously ill children in the UK between the ages of 3 and18.

Tinchy joins JLS, Olly Murs and George Sampson as performers at the gig which will be hosted by breakfast DJs Rickie and Melvin from London’s Kiss 100.



Rays of Sunshine ambassador JB  from JLS said: ‘JLS loves supporting the work of Rays of Sunshine and has met around 150 children through the charity in the last 12 months. Every one of these children has inspired us with their bravery. The Sunshine Concert will be a moving event for the performers and an amazing night of entertainment for music fans everywhere.’

JB from JLS

All downstairs seating at The Troxy will be reserved for special guests of the charity from hospitals around the UK. Tickets for upstairs start at £35 and are on sale now from www.troxy.co.uk or www.raysofsunshine.org.uk or by calling 0871 620 4026.

Alexandra Burke and JLS to Launch Clothing Line

British music stars Alexandra Burke and JLS are to launch a new fashion label in the Spring. Called 2KX, the line will offer menswear, womenswear and underwear. The site is up and running but online shopping is not yet available.

Alexandra Burke and JLS wearing some of the 2KX collection

JLS and Alexandra say the collection will closely reflect their personal style. They already have over 5,000 ‘likes’ on Facebook and 1,400 followers on Twitter so the line is sure to be a big hit. We’re curious to see what they come up with!

www.2kxclothing.com

Underwear from the 2KX collection

Kylie Minogue Does 'This Is JLS', Christina Aguilera And Rihanna Do 'The X Factor'

With The X Factor wrapping up this weekend, the show pulled out the big guns for the musical performances. Kylie appeared on ITV's This Is JLS special with the pop quartet beforehand—and too bad she didn't perform "Better Than Today" last night rather than a month ago on The X Factor. Otherwise it might not be sitting at #90 on the UK iTunes chart during its official week of release.

Oh, well. Here's JLS and Kylie doing "All The Lovers"...



...Christina Aguilera on X Factor doing "Express"...



...and Rihanna performing "What's My Name". (Where can I get a version of this without Drake on it?)

UK Chart Roundup: Take That Post Best One-Week Album Sales In 13 Years With 'Progress'

Take That and JLS make a bit of a boy band compromise this week, as the former have a massive week with Progress, their sixth studio album—and their first with Robbie Williams since 1995—and the latter take hold of the UK singles chart with "Love You More."

Progress sold roughly 520,000 copies after its release this past Monday, the most for any album in one week in the UK since Oasis' Be Here Now moved 663,000 copies in 1997. Meanwhile, Take That's lead single off the LP, "The Flood", is at #2 on the singles chart for a second week. Debuting at #1 is JLS' Children In Need charity single "Love You More", which has now become the X Factor alums' fourth chart-topper in the past year-and-a-half.

Elsewhere, it's amateur hour for the blandest boy band on the planet, Westlife, as their latest cure for insomnia "Safe" flops at #10. It's now been four years since the low-rent Irish noise makers had a #1 single, and you have to wonder at this point why they don't just hang it up and go live out their boring lives outside of public eye?

Sorry, gents—you can work with John Shanks, producer of the last two Take That albums, but you'll just never be Take That.

On a final note, it's a sad week for Shayne Ward, whose "Gotta Be Somebody" drops from #12 to #24 while third LP Obsession limps into the album chart at #15, and Manchester duo Hurts, whose latest single "Stay" crashes and burns at #50.

The U.K. Top 10:

1. "Love You More" - JLS *new* *1 week* 
2. "The Flood" - Take That
3. "Your Song" - Ellie Goulding
4. "Only Girl (In The World)" - Rihanna
5. "Firework" - Katy Perry 
6. "Like A G6" - Far East Movement feat. The Cataracs & Dev *new*
7. "The Time (The Dirty Bit)" - The Black Eyed Peas
8. "Happiness" - Alexis Jordan
9. "Shine A Light" - McFly feat. Taio Cruz
10. "Safe" - Westlife *new*

Take That, Kylie Minogue, JLS And Cheryl Cole Do 'Children In Need'

Take That and Kylie Minogue performed at yesterday's annual BBC Children In Need charity telethon in London, along with JLS and amateur slag Cheryl Cole. The That, who's new album Progress has been selling like Cheryl outside the Euston Tube station at 3:17 a.m., belted out their 1995 UK #1 single "Never Forget".




Kylie, "Better Than Today"



Cheryl Cole, "Promise This"



JLS, "Love You More"

It's JLS' "Outta This World" Album Cover

JLS' album cover for sophomore effort Outta This World has been unleashed upon the masses, and, well, it's not really that different from their self-titled debut album, is it?

I mean, with an album title like Outta This World, they could have at least worn E.T. masks or Adam Strange suits or pairs of Sigourney Weaver's panties or something. JLS' latest is out November 22, and will duke it out with Take That's Progress in the charts that week.

Here's the video for JLS' new single, "Love You More" (sadly not a cover of Sunscreem's "Love U More"):

Upcoming Take That Vs. JLS UK Chart Showdown Seems A Bit Familiar

Take That 3.0, now with Robbie Williams back on board, are set to have their new Stuart Price-produced album released in the UK on November 22. And who's ballsy enough to take them on by dropping their LP up against the man band that week? Newly-minted golden boy band JLS.

There's a great little writeup Neil McCormick did in the Telegraph that likens this impending chart battle to the now-classic Blur vs. Oasis one from 1995 on the UK singles chart.

"Somehow there was more at stake in the Oasis versus Blur chart battle of 1995. It was a time when British rock and pop music was genuinely exciting the nation, somehow bringing youth culture into alignment with the politics of (still brand spanking) New Labour to potentially forge a fresh identity for the country, trademarked as Cool Britannia. Oasis versus Blur was a battle for the heart of Britpop, north versus south, plebeian versus arty, laddism versus aestheticism. Somehow, the question of whose single the young people of the country were going to buy actually seemed to say something about the future."

(Speaking of which, there's a great book on this very subject by John Harris that I read about six years back, which I can never recommend enough. It's called Britpop!: Cool Britannia and the Spectacular Demise of English Rock.)

Anyway, McCormick sums up the whole Blur vs. Oasis history lesson with this:

"Blur won the singles contest, when 'Country House' pipped Oasis’s 'Cigarettes and Alcohol' [as commenter cheremoneq points out, it was 'Roll With It'] to number one. Oasis won the war, when they surged on to become the biggest selling British band since the Beatles. And 15 years on, both groups are as defunct as (no longer) New Labour, the record industry is rapidly going down the tubes in an era of free downloads and calamitous sales, and the only way anyone can generate music headlines is by conjuring up artificial controversy between mainstream manufactured bands locked into the shiny showbusiness values of a pre-Britpop (actually, a pre-rock and roll) generation. It’s a competition between two brands of the same soap to see which produces more bubbles."

One thing worth noting: Neil doesn't mention the most ironic part of all this—the #1 single in the UK the week this pop battle was playing out was "Never Forget" by none other than Take That.

Aston Merrygold from JLS, on the other hand, was 7 years old at the time.

Kylie Minogue's 'Aphrodite' Tops The UK Chart

Kylie Minogue's Aphrodite bested new releases from Enrique Iglesias (#6) and Feeder (#16) on the UK album chart, where it bumped Eminem's Recovery off the top spot. (In Australia, however, Eminem stayed at #1 while Kylie entered the chart at #2—HATERS!!!!!)

It should be a pretty victorious week for Kylie, as Aphrodite also cracked the Top 10 in Belgium (#6), Ireland (#5), The Netherlands (#4) and Spain (#3), and looks to be on course for becoming Minogue's first U.S. Top 20 album since Fever (which reached #3 in 2002).

"Thank you all around the world for your #Aphrodite LOVE!!! Amazing chart positions everywhere and I am absolutely thrilled!!!! Love Kylie x," she tweeted today.

And here she is sending the gays into a frenzy at G-A-Y at Heaven in London last night:



Sorry, Enrique—but that's what euphoria looks like. Aphrodite is now Kylie's fifth album to hit #1 in the UK, following Kylie (1988), Enjoy Yourself (1989), Greatest Hits (1992) and Fever (2001). 

Over on the singles chart, Minogue's "All The Lovers" slips from #3 to #9 in its fourth week. Meanwhile, JLS rack up their third UK #1 single with "The Club Is Alive."

Sigh. Good day to be a Kylie fan.

The U.K. Top 10:

1. "The Club Is Alive" - JLS *new* *1 week*
2. "California Gurls" - Katy Perry
3. "Airplanes" - B.o.B feat. Hayley Williams
4. "Love The Way You Lie" - Eminem feat. Rihanna
5. "We No Speak Americano" - Yolanda Be Cool & DCUP *new*
6. "I Like It" - Enrique Iglesias feat. Pitbull
7. "My First Kiss" - 3OH!3 feat. Ke$ha *new*
8. "Alejandro" - Lady Gaga
9. ""All The Lovers" - Kylie Minogue
10. "Kickstarts" - Example