Pink, Cascada, Rihanna

 
After their song “Evacuate the Dancefloor” proved to do anything but—being one of last year’s dance-floor favorites—Eurodance group Cascada is back. The album Evacuate the Dancefloor was just released this past August, and they already have a new album coming out. New song “Pyromania” is said to be the first single. Similar to “Evacuate,” the song bites Lady Gaga’s sound (not necessarily a bad thing), though we don’t find it as enticing as their last single. After all, we want to evacuate before a pyromaniac actually sets us on fire!
 
Flying high—literally and figuratively—the fabulous P!nk has risen up the charts after her amazing, aerial trapeze performance of “Glitter in the Air” at the Grammy Awards. The following week her album sales of Funhouse went up to 32,000 units from 9,000 and “Glitter in the Air” digital downloads soared up 1,000 percent! You can see much more of P!nk’s daredevil trapeze performances in her Funhouse Tour: Live in Australia DVD, which was released late last year. But in the meantime, LaFace Records has gotten behind our favorite song from her Funhouse album, “I Don’t Believe You.” But don’t just take our word for it: P!nk herself says on her website it’s her favorite song on the album. Why they waited until the fifth single to release this is beyond us! The gorgeous, heartfelt ballad—recently performed on Oprah—gets the remix treatment, including one by Bimbo Jones that’s worth believing in (you may recall the group did the now-classic mix of her “U + Ur Hand” song a few years back). The song also has a haunting video directed by Sophie Muller.
 
Speaking of videos, lots of divas are stepping out with new vids. Rihanna gets buck wild with animals in her latest, “Rude Boy.” The M.I.A-inspired clip has RiRi riding and dancing upon lions, zebras and men. On the tamer side of things, the video for “I Got You” sees Leona Lewis looking gorgeous (no surprise there!) and singing in between burning hearts and some emotional drama (read: lots of sullen straight girls pouting in corners and straight guys throwing teddy bears off cliffs). We can’t say it’s our favorite video, but we do love this song. We definitely love the songs of ’80s super hit-making group Hall & Oates. So it’s fitting that one of our favorite groups, The Bird & The Bee, is releasing an album covering their work. Interpreting the Masters Volume 1: A Tribute to Daryl Hall and John Oates covers eight of the group’s songs (including “I Can’t Go For That” and “Private Eyes”) plus a new Bird & the Bee tune called “Heard It on the Radio.” Look for it March 23 on jazz label Blue Note.    N