Critic Jonni: New Release

Karen Harding & Digital Farm Animals - Undo My Heart |

This song was released last week, but the music video was dropped today via Ultra Music's YouTube Channel and it is cuteness overload, for sure. The song is incredibly addicting and Karen Harding brings emotion easily throughout. Vocals on fire from start to finish, it's powerful and passionate with every listener feeling the lyrics in their hearts. It's one of my favourite releases from last week because of her awesome voice, the brilliant sound from Digital Farm Animals, and I just love the R&B hints that truly makes this song.

It's not easy to turn out a brilliant music video for such an awesome song, but they've done just that. Directed by Jordi Estapé with Henry Gill acting as director of photography, we watch Karen Harding spending time with her on-screen love interest and it's just so adorable. There is so many cute moments and scenes throughout and they've really captured the meaning of the song into the music video. It's refreshing to see, especially since I feel that this is how cute my long-distance partner and I look when we're spending time together, even though we haven't seen each other since the end of February due to this lockdown, and we really can't wait to be together again. This music video is full of love, heart, and passion, one I could watch again and again, on repeat. So beautiful!

Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music, Amazon

Ruth Lorenzo - Miedo |

Ruth Lorenzo is back with an awesome rock-like ballad that is set to make you awe-struck. Clearly gaining inspiration from rock ballad classics, Ruth Lorenzo shines in every way with "Miedo" showcasing her beautifully stunning voice and her range capabilities. The X Factor and Eurovision star easily belongs in this music industry and deserves so much more success, and this brand new single proves just that. "Miedo" is the Spanish word for "Fear" and my rough Google Translate suggests the song is an open letter to Fear itself and Ruth Lorenzo is telling it that she isn't afraid anymore. It's one confident and inspiring song, that just builds and builds gaining strength towards the end.

Run - Francois Klark |

Now, I was browsing through the new releases from this backdated day and I was wondering what music video to review. I had a choice between this one and another one titled "Call Ya" by Zāna; I watched this one first and as it got more in-depth I was almost completely decided to review the latter as I didn't feel this was anything amazing or interesting - well, that was until the end appeared and it just stabbed me right in the heart because I've been in a similar situation before. Sorry, Zāna, I didn't even get the chance to view your music video, but I may do one day; I may even review it, but not today. After watching it the second time, I took a key interest in the phone shot at the very beginning as I dismissed it the first time. Watch Francois Klark tell his partner that he's coming home early, only to find him kissing another guy, he then runs away as he can't deal with what he has seen in this music video for "Run".

Francois Klark, real name Francois Clark Mulder, is a South African born Canadian singer-songwriter and producer who is a Universal Music Award winner and a John Lennon Songwriting award winner too. He has been building up his career for some time with this song being his official second single, following "Spaceman". He previously was a contestant on the first season of Idols, the South African version of Pop Idol, under his real name. I look forward to seeing where his career takes him especially since this song resonates easily with me because of my past boyfriends - I now have a boyfriend who I love dearly who I trust completely and who loves me back just as much. This song was written by Francois Clark Mulder and Kibwe Thomas.

Directed by Miguel Barbosa of YEAH!films this music video is a pure narrative visual with a shot or two of Francois Klark singing along to the lyrics. It's a highly passionate song with a music video that fully accompanies it. His partner and love interest, whose character name is Ash, is played by Cianan Francis; and, the guy who was in the hallway was played by Evan Spergel.

The video opens up with Francois Klark messaging his partner that he'll be home earlier than usual. There's a close up of his wedding ring and he's waiting for the subway. On the way home, he hasn't received a reply and the camera really enforces that on to the viewers - we all know what's coming. He arrives home, shocked, drops all his things and starts to run away.

Cleverly, the camera operator doesn't show us what he saw and instead keeps it from the viewers at home. This is completely key as, if you totally skipped over who he was messaging, like I did, you wouldn't realise that this was an LGBTQ+ music video.

He runs all the way to the beach, time to clear his head. He drops his wedding ring to the sandy floor and that's that - he's done with the relationship, and good for him. The camera then reverses all we've seen and goes back to that moment he walked in on his partner kissing another guy - something that wasn't made obvious to the viewers until the very end.

Overall, this music video is completely thought out and really shows that love is love and it can hurt anyone, no matter what form it is in. It's a great way to showing people around the world that a man can love a man, and a woman can love a woman, and everything else in-between. Thank you, Francois Klark for this music video.

Buy on iTunes

Home - Triana Park |

I can't believe I'm posting a Facebook music video within my blog, but the official YouTube music video has embedding disabled, hence why I've used the Facebook video. Both versions are the same, so I'm all good to go with using this. There was a hell of a lot of new releases on this backdated Friday however, most didn't have music videos, a couple released music videos after the release of the single, and one or two happened to release their song mid-week for Valentine's Day; therefore making this quite the difficult choice for me. I chose this one, because I initially wrote it up for CelebMix, and I can't help but adore this song. I truly believe Triana Park was one of the most underrated acts at Eurovision 2017. Watch the frontwoman of Triana Park, Agnese Rakovska, find life lonely as she wishes she had a home to go to in this music video for "Home".

Triana Park are a four-piece electronic pop-rock band from Latvia. They consist of Agnese Rakovska, Artūrs Strautiņš, Edgars Viļums, and Kristaps Ērglis. They are quite the name in their home country, having competed in Latvia's national selection for Eurovision a total of five times. Upon their sixth attempt (after a five-year break) in 2017, they managed to win and finally got to represent Latvia at the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 with the song "Line". Unfortunately, they only managed to get 21 points in their Semi-Final placing them 18th; failing to qualify for the Grand Final. This new song is the follow-up track to the Eurovision song, proving that Triana Park are a strong act who will consistently give us addicting tracks. The song is apparently the second single from their upcoming album, which is set to be released on 18 April 2018.

Directed by Ivars Burtnieks, this music video is a narrative piece that has a slight performance throughout. Agnese Rakovska displays her lonely life that also touches upon mental health issues as she sings this song with all the heartfelt emotions that give us chills every time we hear this song.

The opening scene sees her in a convenience store, where she grabs a bunch of items and walks slowly away - is this how you buy stuff in Latvia? Because the shopkeeper barely bats an eyelid. She then steals the park ranger's car and drives off. That is until her mental health illusions appear where a double of herself can be seen laughing in the back of the truck. She ditches the car and starts to walk; she attempts to hitchhike, but no such luck. and the lights in every house she walks pass turn off.

The last part of the music video sees her looking through a window, watching a family show love to one another as they gather in the living room. Agnese Rakovska is clearly craving that in this song and the music video, so much so she bangs against the window, desperately wanting to be a part of that, before disappearing.

This music video has it all and really works with the song. It's missing the energy of Triana Park, maybe because there aren't any scenes of them performing collectively as a group; however, everything else fits perfectly well and really manages to show off the song perfectly.

Buy on iTunes

Cool (feat. Marc E. Bassy & Gucci Mane) - Felix Jaehn |

Who doesn't love a bit of Felix Jaehn? He's one of the rising DJs that we have all become addicted to. This one track is one of our favourites because it is spreading the message of how we all need to be ourselves in this world. This was released officially on 9 February 2018, the date I have backdated this blog post to, making this a new release. I am so far behind on my blog that I am not happy about it, but I plan to put in the work and catch myself up. It will happen, even though it does feel like an impossible task. This music video isn't as great as the song itself, though. Watch Marc E. Bassy perform this track to the camera as various shots show off people being themselves in this music video for Felix Jaehn's song "Cool" that also features Gucci Mane.

Felix Jaehn, real name Feliz Jähn, launched onto the music scene with a cover and has since managed to build up his profile within the DJ world as well as the music world. This is his first release of 2018 and was followed up with his album - which was released the following week. It's a great promotional lead single, but it didn't help to promote his album more than any of his previous single releases. It just lacked promotion that this song really needed since the content is exactly what we need out in the world. The song features Marc E. Bassy, real name Marc Griffin, who has been building up his career in the past couple of years. He has collaborated with G-Eazy a few times and has had one hit international single. He's definitely got this potential around him which suggests that a few bigger hit singles will be released by him, no doubt. There's also a feature from Gucci Mane, real name Radric Davis, who is definitely the American rapper we're all keeping our eyes on. He launched internationally as the feature on Rae Sremmurd's "Black Beatles" and has ever since made his name known globally. He continues to be a prominent force in music, so this team-up should've been a worldwide hit, it just wasn't. "Cool" was written by Felix Jaehn, Scott Harris, Rick Markowitz, Micah Premnath, Radric Davis, and Jonas Jeberg.

Directed by Drew Kirsch, this music video doesn't go anywhere. It's a pure performance piece that attempts to showcase Marc E. Bassy, but it's so disappointing as a complete whole. There are scenes of Felix Jaehn in the background, but the focus is on Marc E. Bassy.

Now, this wouldn't normally get on my nerves, I'm all for artists promoting themselves, but they really need to be comfortable in front of a camera and be able to send their performance vibes to the audience at home. No matter if it's a dance song, a country song, a rap song, a jazz song, a classical song, a metal song, an instrumental song, or a pop ballad. Marc E. Bassy is lacking performance. There's nothing that interests me into watching him sing the song.

The music video starts off with Felix Jaehn talking in his own language, with English subtitles at the bottom, which says: "It is so important to be authentic and just to be true to yourself. It does not matter who you are how you look or what clothes you wear as long as you are authentic. The moment you are acting and trying to be someone else is when you really aren't cool." What a way to open a video, especially one that has a brilliant song with a deep meaning, like this one; well, until the video fails to do or go anywhere.

There are various characters in this, which suggests that maybe there's a bigger music video behind this and it has been stripped back or the narrative has been edited out; as these stories aren't something that we are capable of following in this visual. Marc E. Bassy takes up the majority of the scenes and his presence isn't addicting or engaging. He loses most of the audience.

Overall, this music video could've been a hell of a lot better, if it had been done right. Instead, it just fails overall. Felix Jaehn may have stated that this is his favourite music video yet, and we stand by his opinion as the song and visual does suggest that people should be authentic to themselves and be who they really are, yet at the same time it's completely lacking and just isn't something we want to watch again and again.

Buy on iTunes

Don't Wanna Let It Go (feat. Maurice) - Nikless & BEFORE WE GO |

There wasn't much choice for this backdated new release so I just went with this as I'm not so impressed with the music video and I'm hoping this doesn't take too much of my time to write up so that I can hurry up and catch up on my blog; on the other hand, I haven't heard of any of these artists so I may have some research to do; regardless, this song is addicting and I love how it sounds. Watch a couple spend time together in various locations in this loving music video for Nikless & BEFORE WE GO's song "Don't Wanna Let It Go" featuring Maurice.

Nikless, real name Roman Gilgen, is a DJ from Switzerland. He has released a few singles but there's not much information on him. He's an upcoming emerging artist who plans to hit the road soon and who would love to release an album in the future, but he is currently focusing on collaborations and singles, for now. He's currently been working with ENV and has more music on the way. This collaboration is with BEFORE WE GO, which is a project by Maury Pozzi who is also known as Maurice - who provided the vocals to this track. As a project, quite a few releases have been released and they have all been addicting, just like this one. I can't wait to see where both these artists go, their futures are bound to be bright. This song was written by Nikless and Maury Pozzi.

Directed by Cutloose London, this music video is a pure narrative visual that doesn't connect with the audience. It shows a loving couple in various locations enjoying their time together, before separating.

The first scene shows them walking across a desert. They then start collecting log-like sticks so they can start a camp-fire. This takes up the majority of the music video, taking the word "flames" from the lyrics and turning it into a central part of the music video.

From the fire, we get the exact opposite in the next scene in a snowy landscape and our couple gets into a snowball fight. It was clearly a memory of their fun time together, and they miss those times. We also watch other memories including them crossing a rickety bridge, having tea in the snow, an overlooking swimming pool, and climbing a rock face.

The ending sees them go their separate ways, leaving the past in the past and breaking up. It's an all right music video and does relate to the song, but it doesn't establish the loving connection all that well with the viewers at home. We're missing the sparks and the passion.