Today's Pick

Britt Nicole is back and stronger than ever, and finally revealed the moving, teen-empowering video for the catchy toe tapping dance track, "Gold," her first-ever Capitol Records debut mainstream single and the title track from contemporary Christian standout's latest third studio album, which Nicole finds the sweet spot with "Gold," showcasing catchy dance beats with the star quality of a Disney Channel diva. Fans were waiting a couple of weeks to watch the video and it seems it was well worth waiting for.
Nicole has wowed the Christian music world since her debut, "Say It," in 2007, and the new album is a laser beam of positivity, and its intense, narrowly focused beam of empowerment picks up right where her previous efforts left off. The slick, shimmering and happy-go-lucky title track "Gold," is a potent yet joyful self-empowerment anthem and it showcases the passionately thoughtful lyrics that attest Nicole's strength as a songwriter. The song is a very uplifting one that basically tells everyone that we are all worth more than gold, no matter what anybody tells us.
Isn't that worth more than all the gold we can have? "Gold," also strives to help kids overcome feelings of lonely self-doubt and find their way to courage and confidence. In her own words, Nicole described the song as an ode to being true to yourself and knowing that who you are is good enough. Rising through the ranks has given Nicole ample opportunity to shower teen and preteen young women with her unmistakable message of identity. "Gold" packs a punch and gives the listeners a hefty topic to ponder, while also giving the arms and legs some exercise well.
The 27-year-old Nashville-based artist explains: "The message of 'Gold' is to remind those kids that are struggling that no matter what they have been told they are worth so much more than the words of another. Once you know that, no one can ever steal your shine." The new clip exactly matches the song which aiming to uplift and inspire with a worthy message, it features a cast of characters working through issues common among today's teenagers, such as eating disorders and self-mutilation.

Amelia Lily is hoping to continue the success and shows off her powerful vocal talents, some fierce attitude and a new grunge-inspired look in the club themed video for her explosive dance-pop single, "Shut Up (And Give Me Whatever You Got)," the official second cut from the X Factor UK alumnus' forthcoming major label untitled debut album. The track, will be released in January 13th before returning with her debut solo album later in 2013, is also reportedly used in 2008 comic book film, "The Dark Night."
Another slice of the infectious electro, "Shut Up" may not be as compelling or a timeless pop hit as her successful debut "You Bring Me Joy," which gave the 18-year-old British pop singer her first chart hit over the summer, but Lily has certainly proved she's no one-hit wonder with the premiere of her new Xenomania-produced dancefloor-filler "Shut Up." Xenomania are obviously digging Lily as they're giving her some banging' dance beats! We find the tempo rather plodding to be honest, but perhaps it's a grower.
The down-beat electro backdrop is saturated in attitude. Despite the considerably laid-back beat, Lily commands attention with her powerful vocals. Between belting out the massive bridge - potentially even more memorable than the actual chorus - there remain plenty of sing-a-long moments, particularly the middle eight in which she sounds a tad like Katy Perry. Like her debut, Lily should soar to similar heights with this impressive sophomore effort. Formed around her definitive, punchy delivery, there isn't much more Lily could have done to fulfill her side of the bargain.
Shot it in East London where a scene from "The Dark Knight" was filmed, the new clip is styled with a kind of rock chick look, moving away from the Hollywood/electro dancey vibe of "You Bring Me Joy." It shows the X Factor runner up looking lost while wandering in a type of maze, entering at a dark, underground club and performing a gig, singing a pretty catch pop-rock riff with a band in front of a glass-walled corridor backed by flashing lights. "There is a lot more attitude in there and it's a lot darker," Lily explained. "The video is completely different to the first one and a lot of it was all my ideas so I'm excited."

50 Cent just released his dark and gloomy action-packed video for "My Life," which the 37-year-old G-Unit hip-hop mogul has enlisted some major star power from his Shady partner-in-crime Eminem and Maroon 5's frontman Adam Levine. The new rap track is the third cut from his upcoming fifth 'more personal' album, "Street King Immortal," which has been delayed to be released on February 26, 2013. And their latest visual is really intended to get a message across.
The track, which premiered yesterday, finds the rappers spitting about their individual struggles the pressures of fame over the years, and expressing some melancholy and confusion of their lives as the singer touts the whole reason this may be a hit. 50 Cent speaking on his journey from the streets to the fame and having friends turn to enemies. After Levine croons on the hook with an undeniable earworm, Eminem reveals that he may not have been ready for the fame that followed "Recovery," but his guest verse is the best thing he's done in 2012.
50 Cent is a weird case among rappers, isn't he? He put out one of the best-selling hip-hop albums of all time in Get Rich or Die Tryin', and his personal narrative is as ingrained in the popular consciousness as any mainstream star’s of the past two decades. On the other hand, he's had a string of duds and non-starters, both in the music world and in the straight-to-DVD universe. But he's still a prodigious talent, and his upcoming album "Street King Immortal" might be the thing that puts him back on top of the rap world.
The Rich Lee-directed video might seem like a simple fugitives on the run from law enforcement story as they desperately try to escape a tenacious helicopter that relentlessly follows them throughout their environments, but it's actually a metaphor for life under the spotlight. The high-budgeted, action-packed is a perfect illustration of the difficulties they face day by day. As Eminem described: "The video is kind of abstract; it's kind of metaphoric in a sense, like the paranoia of feeling like we're being chased. Whether it's true or not, it's kind of how we feel. It's kind of a metaphor for us running for our lives. Personal lives and from fame, everything that goes with the game."

Indie rock band Florence + The Machine have already unveiled one video for their powerful tune, "Lover to Lover," the darkly stripped-back live clip that surfaced in January, but the English powerhouse went in a much more cinematic direction when releasing an updated set of visuals, which premiered last Wednesday on Nowness. The gospel-tinged blastoff appears on the band's 2011 hit sophomore set, "Ceremonials," and is scheduled to be released on December 4th as their fifth single.
This song finds lead singer Florence Welch singing of hopping from "room to room, bed to bed." It was inspired by '60s Soul numbers such as "I Heard It Through The Grapevine." She explained to Mojo magazine: "It's me saying, 'I want to make a song just like this.' I was listening to lots of Marvin Gaye and lots of Otis Redding, and 'Lover To Lover' was me wanting to make a song I could imagine a male Soul singer doing. I was listening to a lot of Sam and Dave, as well." The arena-scale Motown of "Lover to Lover," is reminiscent of the Eurythmics at their most soulful.
Helmed by director Vincent Haycock, the dramatic new clip features shots of Welch in the throes of a tumultuous and disintegrating relationship with up-and-coming Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn as their lovers' quarrel escalates into something a little more darkly dramatic. "It was completely improvised," she said. "I had to think about things that I was actually angry and upset about. It is cathartic, but you have to literally let yourself go. Ben is so sweet and accommodating - afterwards he gave me this massive hug and made me feel so comfortable."
Beginning in a drab Los Angeles house and building to a cathartic gospel frenzy, the romance ends as the lovesick heroine disappears amid mist into the Pacific Ocean. The baroque pop chanteuse Welch playing a put-upon housewife who echoes the track's heart-aching refrain, and performs a Tale of American Heartbreak who sets a fire burning possessions and seeking her salvation and gets swallowed up by the ocean in a washed-out California beach town and according to Welch, the shoot was an emotional one: "It was the most intense experience because we shot the whole day before; I went back to the hotel, slept for three hours, woke up and dove into the sea."

Carly Rae Jepsen's unofficial and unreleased music video for the song "Curiosity" gets leaked online Saturday by some random fan for the viewing pleasure of everybody, and according to the description of the leak, the video was shelved because it was "too sexy" for the 27-year-old Canadian singer's new-found teen demographic. The sexy clip features Jepsen caught up in an affair, which is a stark contrast from her family-friendly videos for "This Kiss," and "Call Me Maybe."
The Ryan Stewart-produced "Curiosity," the second single and title track from her debut EP, is an amazingly upbeat strong pop track that draws influences from dance and synthpop. Lyrically, the track alludes to a girl who is poorly treated by a bad boy, but she can't get out of her mind, and begs for more of his love. The track came out differently to anything Jepsen would done previously - more poppy than her other folk-styled tunes. "I was singing it in the mic, to demo it out, with these guts that I didn't know I had," Jepsen recalled. "And it was exciting. It was like a braver version of me that I never had experimented with before, at least not out loud to people."
"Curiosity" brings the same lighthearted vibe while touching on a more personal note, and it encompasses the feelings of a girl fighting to keep her relationship alive while struggling with the ever-present curiosity of 'what ifs.' It received generally positive reviews from contemporary critics, who deemed it as similar to Jepsen's previous hit single, "Call Me Maybe" with heavy dance beats and catchy hooks. Her voice sings the highs and lows of love and everything that comes along with it.
The Colin Minihan directed clip opens with Jepsen meeting up a guy at his home. The house seems like a fantasy with its endless labyrinth of doors and hallways and supernatural occurrences. Jepsen wears a form-fitting red dress walking through the home, but is later seen clad in lingerie as she kisses her lover in the bedroom. It's not a fairytale ending for the two as a second woman gets involved. Finding out the boy of her eye in “Call Me Maybe” was gay made for a funny moment, but Jepsen seeing her man with another woman in “Curiosity” is heartbreaking. How could anyone cheat on sweet and humble Jepsen?

Lil Wayne decided to use the Sin City as his personal playground and channels his inner Raoul Duke in a brand-new trippy Vegas-styled visual for the aforementioned track, "No Worries," which features Detail, is arguably the most prominent track off of his "Dedication 4" mixtape, and the second single from his upcoming tenth album, "I Am Not A Human Being II." Wayne has always displayed a care free attitude and that is none more prevalent than in his "No Worries" video.
The auto-tune filled single finds the rapper spitting about a few of his perennial obsessions over Detail's unique boardwork, which sounds a little like your local a cappella ensemble trying to duplicate the string arrangement on a Lex Luger beat. The 30-year-old Hip hop superstar has a lot to be thankful for this holiday season, which may be why he has "No Worries." He says his latest clip, which echoes and pays homage to the Gonzo spirit of the late, great Hunter S. Thompson's iconic counter-culture work, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," was meant to be 'fun.'
Wayne explained: "We did this video in Vegas because the treatment played off the movie 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.' We didn't really follow any script or anything; I just saw the movie, really enjoyed the movie, and I told [director] Colin [Tilley] I was interested in the movie and he wrote a spoof to it, and we shot it."
Following Wayne and his producer pal Detail on a surreal trip from riding through the desert, to take an acid-powered trek and stumbling into a casino, marveling at the rapidly swirling patterns on the carpet beneath their feet, and all of the hallucinations and acting deliciously tacky in between, Wayne offers up a stellar interpretation of the 1998 Terry Gilliam-directed flick. He even donning Duke's bucket hat and shades, going the extra mile by also clenching a cigarette holder between his teeth, while Detail takes on the role of Duke's attorney, Dr. Gonzo, mostly by being sorta corpulent.

English rock band The Rolling Stones released an official music video for their song "Doom and Gloom," the lead single from their latest greatest hits compilation album, "GRRR!," which commemorates the band's 50th anniversary. It's tough to rationalize the existence of new The Rolling Stones music in 2012, and it's even tougher to figure out what the hell is going on in this new clip, but it's also hard not to applaud their return to the crunching, classic rock sound they helped pioneer.

Sounds like it was co-written by an Occupy Wall Street protester, despite its British pedigree, this hard-rocking, Louisiana bluesy number finds the band's lead vocalist Mick Jagger railing about various travails and was recorded in Paris and produced by Don Was. The French session marked the first time Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood had been in the studio together since completing "A Bigger Bang" seven years previously.

Even if you can't get on board with the music they're making now, you have to give The Rolling Stones a bit of a credit. While the average human hits a certain age and trades the guitar for the cane, Jagger and the boys continue to rock, defying time, death, and the inexorably creeping claws of dubstep. The uptempo grinder, "Doom and Gloom," for what it's worth, is a fun, straightforward rocker in the key of The Rolling Stones, nothing groundbreaking, but a satisfying dose of the band's longstanding formula, and continues Jagger's recent lyrical obsession with current events.

The Jonas Åkerlund-directed video is an old school button-pusher and stars "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" actress Noomi Rapace, who leads a classic rock 'n' roll lifestyle to reflect the song's lyrics. The video revolves around the seven deadly sins and captures the fever dreams of a gloomy Rapace lives through a hallucination in various stages of undress and adult situations. She's killing zombies, crashes planes, thrashes around in garbage naked, fighting off grabby businessmen, pan-handling and eating junk food until she passed out on a bean bag under a neon sign of The Rolling Stones' iconic lips and tongue logo.

Even though we should all have Jack-o-lanterns and sexy nurses on our minds, the music biz is already deeply entrenched in the Christmas album wars, and now Christina Perri is getting in the Christmas spirit with a music video for her original holiday tune, "Something About December," off her holiday album, "A Very Merry Perri Christmas," and it's so festive and filled with home movies, her gorgeous face and gives us lots of warm fuzzies. We can never have enough new music during the holidays and this song is the perfect addition!
Ever since Perri was a little kid, she's been writing Christmas songs. But it wasn't until now that she was brave enough to let anyone else hear them. The 26-year-old singer told CBS Local that she's "madly in love" with holiday music, so it was a no-brainer for her to record her own holiday EP. "It's such a big part of my upbringing and my singing in general," she said. "The very first song I sang when I was three was a Christmas song." What else would you expect from the woman who won our hearts with a jar of them?
"Something About December," is the true standout with its warm arrangement and vocal embrace. It'll make you feel all fuzzy inside, and it's a new Christmas classic in its own right as timeless as the tracks she covers on the EP. And to add to her close-knit family-feeling, she wrote this family inspires sentimental Christmas track in July with a little help from her brother Nick. It's a family affair! The two reminisced and even broke into tears. Twice! Some of their memories even made their way into the lyrics, like her mother's whistling, which was one of the things she loves most about this special time of year.
It is not your typical Christmas song, which is precisely why we like it so much. There's no mention of jingle bells or sounds of Rudolph's hoofs trekking through the snow, rather, the song is a lilting piano-driven ballad that speaks not about snowmen and stockings, but mostly about December's nostalgic feelings. Perri explains that the song "is about finding Christmas wherever you are in the world, because it lives in your heart." The Elliot Sellers-directed clip features home video footage from her childhood that make this piano ballad extra personal, and you'll find out why this is so close to her heart!

Ellie Goulding channels the lady in red but in, like, a good way in her new obscure visual and aural masterpiece for her hit track, "Figure 8," the second single from British singer's sophomore album, "Halcyon," which is a personal tale of a relationship ending and wanting to hold on to what once was. Sometimes life can imitate art and art can imitate life, but in Goulding's case, it may be a little bit of both. With Goulding just splitting from EDM DJ Skrillex, one could maybe guess what this song was inspired by, and the new surreal Clip seems to be art imitating life.
Built around piano and electronics, the dark and brooding "Figure 8," has a moody vibe that matches its heartbreaking lyrics. The song helps her maintain this authority quickly after on the galloping bruises of "Figure 8," a defensive track that finds her reasoning with her scorched paths, as Goulding sings about a love that didn't live up to its promise of infinity - the titular "8," turned on its side. "Figure 8" continues to explore her ascent into womanhood, centering around her experience of being left heartbroken by a former love over a buzzing dubstep bassline that vibrates with a gentle nod to the album's namesake.
Mourning the loss of her lover, Goulding fights to recapture the heart of her beau, whose resistance is killing her softly. Feeling like there's no reason to live anymore, Goulding's life as she knows it ceases to exist. Do your best to follow the 25-year-old British elecra-pop sweetheart as she navigates the infinite cycle of obsessive love, all to the backing tune of her slick, signature warped beats and distorted vocals. The result will leave you breathless!
The moving clip seems to capture the emotional lyrics perfectly, and really makes the story of "Figure 8" come to life. In the kinda creepy clip, Goulding is practically a ghost in the house she used to share with her man and time marches backward in various stages as she looking anguished and remembers some of the good and bad times. She's hopelessly distraught over a recent lover. Whatever the case, the "Halycon" cut properly soundtracks her tossing and turning and depression. We're totally left wondering how true-to-life this clip really is.

Apparently, you can't hide from Hayden Panettiere, who gets her own kind of revenge in the new video for the pop-country song, "Telescope," the lead single from the forthcoming "The Music of Nashville: Original Soundtrack," off of her TV show, "Nashville," in an art-imitates-life-imitates-art way. Will "Telescope" be a real radio hit or just a novelty? Probably somewhere closer to a novelty.
The 23-year-old New York native actress, who stars as teenage vixen Juliette Barnes on the new ABC's country music drama, which centers on the lives of two women in the country music industry. One is more seasoned and the other is sort of an up-and-coming star with an edge. It isn't captivating audiences solely with its soapy story lines, but also produces catchy country hits. The "Telescope," a toe-tapping breakup anthem is a sassy upbeat song about girl done wrong, with a very cute concept and catchy lyrics that stick in your head.
Now, thanks to her role on the ABC drama, Panettiere not only gets to play a country star, but is also living in Music City, where the TV show is being filmed. "It's the perfect place to be. It's the epitome of southern hospitality. People come up and they're just so pleasant to you," Panettiere shared with Rachael Ray earlier in the week about going country. "[I was a] huge fan of country music, and that's always genuinely where my heart was. I've loved singing since I was little, and I actually headed down the road of doing an album for awhile." It's a blur these days, she says, but she's enjoying every second of it.
Not only does the clip feature her cute country twang and rocks this vengeful, sexy country number, but it also shows Panettiere outs to teach her lover a lesson that no guy cheats on her and gets away with it in the video, which is filled with spy-like scenes complete with film noir style lighting and camera work, plus quick shots of guns, a mapped-out evidence board, guy tied up in ropes, a secret love affair, and, of course, telescopes. The visuals cuts back and forth showing Panettiere's tough persona in seductive shots and takes of her giving some serious punishment to her cheating and scheming tattooed lover.

After performing her new single "Freedom" at the American Music Awards Sunday night, Nicki Minaj is feeding her hungry Barbz once again and opting for the glam over the wacky with a new video for her middle-of-the-road R&B tweets, which is the second single from the re-release of her sophomore album, "Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded: The Re-Up," where she talks about her road to success, her idea of fame and dives into how she isn't interested in having any big names collaborate with her on tracks. The rapstress is obviously trying to make a statement on her newest video.
Fame is a funny thing, especially when it comes to someone with such obvious talent as Minaj, whose stardom seemed assured from the start. It was only a few years ago that the superstar rapper earned her ubiquity with a string of explosive, immediately identifiable cameos. With a whip-smart wit, fantastic verbal skills and a fluid, inventive flow, Minaj was and remains a game-changing talent in a very competitive field. While she seems to not be a big fan of any artist right now, she is still showing plenty of love to her fans.
Written by Minaj herself, "Freedom," a shockingly mediocre humblebrag track finds Minaj recounting her ascent, her fame, her talent, her wealth and all that it affords. Musically, the song is a lowtempo alternative hip hop and ambient genre song also influenced by pop music. Lyrically, Minaj is still confrontational yet reflective, talking about her life and her being in the spotlight and fame. "Freedom" takes Minaj in a more reflective direction, as she looks back on her meteoric career in typically self-aggrandizing form and her rapping and positiveness towards the emotion behind the song.
Minaj braves the elements in the Colin Tilley-directed stylish clip which features the 29-year-old pop-rap superstar in a series of gorgeous high-fashion looks against various back drops from Noah's Arc to mansion banisters to modern sculpture donning a multi-colored gown out in the middle of the dreary English countryside before ascending the stairway to heaven, as smoke fills the space behind her while lip-syncing the song. The clip starts out in black and white, and transitions into the more lively and colorful world, which seems to be a way of interpreting the freedom aspect of the song.

Labrinth offers up the ethereal visuals for his latest Emeli Sandé duet, "Beneath Your Beautiful," the sixth single and the last track from the 23-year-old British singer-rapper's debut album, "Electronic Earth." The grammatically-challenged track, released on Sunday, has scored his first UK No.1 Singles chart and it also featured on the repackaged deluxe edition of Sandé's debut album, "Our Version Of events."
"Usually when you're on your last single and you've gone to the end of your album, it's the first singles that explode," Labrinth commented to Digital Spy. The beautiful romantic power ballad was co-written by Labrinth and Sandé along with American R&B artist Mike Posner. It features sweeping vocals and a catchy, uplifting chorus, and as expected, it sees Scottish magnificent songstress overshadowing Labrinth completely. It may not be one of the pumping dancefloor anthems Labrinth is known for, but it sure makes you wanna slow dance.
"Beneath Your Beautiful," a title you might think is a misprint, but isn't: he really is using beautiful as a noun rather than an adjective. Of course, the problem with singing about a lady's beautiful is that it sounds like a coy euphemism for her private parts. "Let me see beneath your beautiful," he cries, like a man who thinks the object of his affections might be sitting on his missing car keys. Labrinth is trying hard to keep it real, and stripping the track back to the bare essentials, and proving his talent for songwriting is major league.
The simple, stripped-down promo sees a smartly dressed Labrinth take his seat and perform the beautifully powerful track at a grand piano in front of a giant screen which features the "Read All About It" singer. Throughout the video, the pair taking to the stage individually and swap positions in time with whose turn it is to stand at the fore as they gaze romantically into the camera, thoughtfully into the distance, and give an emotionally charged rendition of the song. Very simple yet effective video.

British sensation Conor Maynard has recently released a brand new music video for his latest party track, "Turn Around," the third single from 19-year-old British singer's debut studio album, "Contrast." To add to his street cred, Maynard brought on multi-platinum rapper Ne-Yo to make it a legendary duet. The video finds the teen heartthrob taking his talents to the streets and a flying phone booth as he croons the lyrics to "Turn Around."
It was the three time Grammy winner R&B singer who created the initial buzz about Maynard after he watched the teen singer perform a cover version of his track "Beautiful Monster," on YouTube, then contacted him afterwards. "Working with Ne-Yo was very fun, I think for me I was nervous, if I'm honest. Everything he does is very precise, he's a very stylish guy," Maynard raves to the two fan interviewers.
Maynard described the song to The Sun as being, "the one that is going to get stadium crowds on their feet, partying like they are in Vegas." The poor Maynard may have been cruelly dumped by his girlfriend over MSN Messenger when he was 13, but it's safe to say things have picked up tenfold since. "Turn around, open your eyes/ Look at me now/ Turn around, girl I've got you/ We won't fall down," he promises his new beau over a mix of euphoric Italo piano riffs and pacing house beats, all worthy of the air-grabbing displayed in the accompanying music video.
The Colin Tilley-directed nicely glossy video was filmed in Los Angeles, and if you ever wondered what it would be like to fly around in a telephone booth and cozies up with a pretty girl, well, it's got your answer. The clip feature Maynard dances in an empty street and jets around the sky over the LA River getting a bit saucy with a ladyfriend inside in a Matrix-like paradox filled with telephone boxes. Later, Ne-Yo appears and dances in the street too, and Maynard falls from a building in the end.

Just back from a tour with Maroon 5 throughout Asia and Australia, the Las Vegas rock band The Cab have released a new music video for the fan favorite single, "Endlessly," a song from rocker's latest sophomore album, "Symphony Soldier." The track was co-written with one of their idols Bruno Mars, and the Elliott Sellers-directed clip was shot in Los Angeles, and features Academy Award nominee actress Hailee Steinfeld.
Reinventing pop rock is no easy feat. Considering the influence of EDM and shorter-than-ever attention spans, the idea of building something more than disposable hooks is a much harder task than some may believe, and The Cab have been consistently working on doing just that since their inception.
"'Endlessly' has been the music video we have been dying to make for the past year," says the frontman Alex Deleon. "A few years ago I saw a movie called "True Grit," which starred actress Hailee Steinfeld who completely stole the show and had one of my favorite performances by an actress that I've seen in awhile. I found out she was a fan of our band, and more specifically the song, 'Endlessly' and needless to say I flipped with excitement. I reached out to Hailee and she came to one of our LA shows where I dedicated 'Endlessly' to her. I was nervous to ask her to be apart of the 'Endlessly' story and be in the video, but when she said yes, the rest was history."
Which key will open the box? That's what Steinfeld is trying to find out in new video. In between scenes of The Cab's energetic live sets, unforgettable tour moments, and DeLeon singing in the hazy sunlight, we see the 15-year-old tearing apart her house and frantically try tons of hidden keys to open a locked box before getting fed up. Feeling frustrated, she angrily throws the box on the floor, only to reveal that hidden in the floor is a gold ring! The ring represents love. The moment you stop looking for love, is the moment it finds you. You have to take a step back, and let love enter your life. That's when you find the best love, and the whole idea behind this video.

Jason Mraz gets emotional in the music video for "93 Million Miles," the second single from the Grammy-winner's fourth studio album, "Love Is a Four Letter Word," in stores now. The clip was shot during Mraz's VH1 Storytellers special, and this easygoing song was wrote with guitarist Michael Natter, who would say when the pair were sitting out in the sun, playing guitar" "We'd look at the sun, this fiery nuclear furnace, 93 million miles away, by the time the heat and light gets to us, it's just right."
Hailed as one of the modern era's most gifted pop troubadours, the 35-year-old Virginia native has built quite an impressive career thus far and he is someone who has always looked on the bright side of life and his music has reflected this optimistic world view. Mraz is a fine, polished performer, and his songs don't lack heart. But these simple arrangements would perhaps work better if they retained a little roughness.
"93 Million Miles" is, of course, the distance between the Earth and Sun, and also quite a nice life allegory for a song. Speaking to Billboard magazine, Mraz explained: "No matter where you are, there you are. And no matter where you are in the planet, you can call that home. I wanted to create a song that acknowledged that home is where the heart is and that's up to you to decide." When Mraz dials back the platitudes just a little bit, something quite enjoyable emerges, the track reminds the listeners that they can always come back home. It's a lilting, lovely tune.
What a simple yet effective and moving video. All the nostalgia and positive energy I get from the song, I get it too from the video for the jam, "93 Million Miles," so I'm very satisfied. Expecting a high budgeted with a super elaborate 'acted' story line video wouldn't have been too Mraz anyway. Sticking to real families, couples, friends sharing their happiness was all it was needed to make a fitting video for this particularly amazing ballad. Mraz reveals why he's simply the best.

Just in time for the holidays, Train just premiered the music video as part of CMT's Big New Music Weekend for "Bruises," the third single taken off the Grammy Award-winning pop rock band's excellent and versatile fifth studio album, "California 37." Following the success of "Drive By" and released "50 Ways to Say Goodbye," the new promotional track features country singer Ashley Monroe, who is a member of Pistol Annies along with Miranda Lambert and Angaleena Presley, and puts enough twang in "Bruises" to make it perfect for country radio.
"Bruises" is a country oriented duet with a sweet melody that anyone who has been hurt before can relate to, so basically, that means everyone will feel its power. The song is about two friends catching up about 10 years after graduating from high school. Both of them are divorced, and they've been battered and bruised a few times over the years. But despite the pain, they recognize that their scars make them more interesting people.
The pop rock trio isn't typically considered a cross-over country act, though the frontman Patrick Monahan has worked with Martina McBride in the past. Now that they've teamed up with Pistol Annies' Monroe with call-and-response collaboration, they are making some concrete roads through the country genre. It's the little bumps along the road that make life interesting, or at least that's what Train tries to tell us on their song, "Bruises." Monahan once said: "It could be a really big career song for Train."
The storytelling for the Alan Ferguson-directed video is enrapturing and framed as a long-distance friendship. Though they're thousands of miles apart, the lead characters manage to make it work through their music, and heightening the song's sense of faded love, with Monroe plays a mother of two and enjoying a simpler life at home, while Monahan's strolling around Red Rocks Amphitheater and playing to huge crowds. He wears his heart on his sleeve as he attempts to reconnect with a lost love. The two even end up performing the same song, but on different stages

Ed Sheeran tackles the concept of giving love versus receiving love in an angelic new video for his melodic folk-pop tune, "Give Me Love," the sixth and final single from his hugely successful debut studio album "+," which hits the airwaves last September, and since then, the 21-year-old British star has swiftly built up a devoted international fanbase and collaborated with two of the biggest acts in the pop world, One Direction and Taylor Swift. And now he giving fans another hopelessly romantic song.
Sheeran's musical career was not taking off how he would have liked. That is, until Sheeran met singer-actor Jamie Foxx who took an interest in the songwriter as well as his music. He cares about in his own life, performing with a "soft toned, flexible voice" with a hip-hop theme and laying down of "+:" "I started recording in January in a friend's garden shed in Suffolk. I wanted to keep that organic lo-fi feel. I've got the rest of my life to make an album in a swish studio. This time round I wanted to stay true to the sound that's got me this far."
"Give Me Love," came through late in the recording process, penned by Sheeran, along with songwriters Jake Gosling and Chris Leonard, is tells a story not of falling in love, but of love lost and a message of hope that we can find love in others despite our shortcomings. Sheeran explained: "That's an important song for me. It's got a more fleshed-out sound, which I think is where I'm headed in future." He added: "It's about a relationship that fell apart and you're asking for it to be put back together. Most people get to a point where they drink themselves into a dark corner in that situation. It's that point of view."
Directed by Emil Nava, the brilliantly powerful storyline based visual revolves around a beautiful girl who becomes cupid. Follows the life of a modern day, the clip features a lonely Sheeran drinking coffee in a diner while an angel wanders through the city at night. Australian actress Isabel Lucas plays the Cupid-like angel and went around making people fall in love by shooting them with an arrow. In spite of her gift for bringing others together, her loneliness brings her to a tragic end.

Kelly Clarkson conjures explosions while hitting some explosive notes in the official new video for her uplifting new pop tune, "Catch My Breath," the lead single off of the chanteuse's first best-of compilation, "Greatest Hits – Chapter 1," due out November 19. The American Idol's most successful champion demonstrates just how she plans to keep up with the young guns on the triumphant meditative song, which moderately incorporates the EDM builds recently in favor with everyone from Pink to Taylor Swift.
Can you believe it's been a decade since Clarkson won original American Idol and launched her career as a pop diva? Neither can she. Back in October, The songstress talked about the meaning behind the song, which reflects on her prolonged success journey for past decade: "This song represents who I've been, what I've felt, and where I'm headed, as not only an artist but as a 30-year-old that is now smart enough to know that it's time to stop, catch my breath, and be proud of not only what has been accomplished but of all the people that have helped me become the woman I am today."
"Catch My Breath" is a midtempo electronic dance song with pop rock arrangements that gradually builds up to an uptempo song in the chorus. The uplifting sunny, synth-laden pop jam is classic Clarkson that showcases her unreal set of pipes, and the euphoric sound of her looking to the future, with the organic tone of her clear vocals revealing her new life mantra. While Clarkson has clocked plenty of songs about the perils of love over the course of her career, her romance on this single is more positive than in the past - warm, upbeat and boasting a chorus so big, you could land a plane on it.
Backed by a green screen and split frame video editing, the clip follows track's formula, is one of her most imaginative and more simpler clips since launching her career with "A Moment Like This." Instead of reflecting on winning the competition in the Kodak Theater though, Clarkson tiptoes on water with gorgeous blonde locks flowing over her elegant dress, surrounded by fire, bubbles, and other elemental visuals as she ponders her decade-long career and belts out the feel-good tune about stopping to catch her breath and appreciate all that she's accomplished in her enviable career thus far.

Renown for his hard Hip-Hop appeal, Ludacris switches lanes, and teams up with Usher and beat-behemoth David Guetta released the music video for his new dance track, "Rest of My Life," taken from the 35-year-old rapper's upcoming eighth studio album, "Ludaversal," which is slated for an early 2013 release. It's the follow-up to Ludacris' 2010 album "Battle of the Sexes," which debuted at No.1 and spawned the hits "How Low" and "My Chick Bad" with Nicki Minaj.
It's been a while since we've heard something big from the southern spitter. Though the rapper released a couple of music videos this summer, his last significant hit was a surprise appearance on the remix of country singer Jason Aldean's "Dirt Road Anthem." Now, he is back. The new track pushes all the right buttons as far as pedestrian club anthems go, but certainly doesn't reinvent the wheel. The dance-inspired tune finds him serving his usual bold raps, soaring hook from Usher, and Euro-crazed instrumentation from Guetta.
The pop-driven track with a dance beat and an undeniably inspirational sound. "Rest of My Life" opens with earnest vocals from Usher before Ludacris puts away the dirty south rap verses and raps about living life to the fullest over French DJ's sonic soundscape. The song features the same kind of mid-tempo groove and dreamy vibe heard in Usher's last collaboration with Guetta, "Without You." During the instrumental sections, jolting electronic effects add an aggressive energy that should have people on dance floors everywhere going crazy.
We get soaring shots of the sky, crashing ocean waves add an inspirational vibe to Ludacris' new clip, directed by Christopher Sims, matches the track's uplifting vibes with some fantastic cinematography from around the world, from oceans to mountain tops and some occasional Usher dance moves, Guetta surrounded by wisps of smoke, and some American flag action, the video uses some visuals, quite frankly you just can't go wrong with it. So buckle in for the powerful reunion of two thirds of the 2004’s Yeah crew, Eargazms should be expected.

British singer Gabrielle Aplin has rush-released a new video and put her own spin on her piano-led tender and haunting reworking of the Frankie Goes To Hollywood's classic, "The Power of Love" and has make its debut on the John Lewis Christmas advert called 'The Journey' during Derren Brown Friday tonight. Coincidentally, the single is likely to make its chart impact almost 28 years to the day after the song's original release on November 19 of 1984.
Aplin told The Independent: "For those of you who know me you'll know that I'm a massive fan of the adverts. I started crying in Tesco when I found out [I had been chosen]. It was a big deal." The youngster, who has gained a following from her Youtube videos has also been tipped for this year's Christmas No.1 with this track, which has been described as "haunting." However, being chosen for this means Aplin has had to postpone her debut single, "Please Don't Say You Love Me" from November 18th to February 10th of next year.
Asked to record the song by Lewis, Aplin was initially hesitant that she could bring her own alchemy to a track that was already quite perfect, but she's put an incredible twist on the track. The 20-year-old unsigned YouTube star explained that “The lyrics are so strong and powerful but the song is so intricate and beautiful, I was fascinated with the juxtaposition of it,” Aplin commented. “What I really wanted to do was strip the production away but keep the energy of the song. And I wanted it to be minimal and wintry."
Following in the footsteps of Ellie Goulding and Slow Moving Millie who recorded covers of Elton John's "Your Song" and The Smiths's "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" for the department store's 2010 and 2011 Christmas commercials respectively, the clip for Aplin's beautiful cover of "The Power of Love," is pretty much how you'd imagine it to be. Stark piano balladry, an absolutely stunning and feather-delicate vocals, tastefully done, for sure. It actually gives me chills, certainly. The self-taught pianist, who says she normally shuns the industry madness, and she hopes her version doesn't disappoint grown-up 80s pop fans, a demographic John Lewis consistently targets.

Rihanna gets super-duper dramatic and left the whips and chains behind with mostly raw, black-and-white visuals for No.1 hit, "Diamonds," the Sia-penned first single from the Barbadian singer's upcoming seventh album "Unapologetic," due to come out November 19. The half black-and-white, half 'in the wild' visual is a departure from the 24-year-old Sultry songstress' more story-driven videos and instead focuses on visually stunning shots of Rihanna amidst chaos.
"Diamonds" is a mid-tempo ballad with influences of electronic and soul music. It features drums, heavy synthesizers, a 1980s backbeat, orchestral sounds and electronic rhythms which makes a lyrical departure from Rihanna's recurring theme of an unhealthy relationship, and towards a softer and more prolific edge with a prominent concept of a bright love. Rihanna described the track as "happy and hippy rather than dancey... The lyrics are very hopeful and positive, but it's about love."
While the song seems to hint at Rihanna's ongoing maturation and happiness in a new relationship, the video works overtime at creating a mood, one that amplifies the song's laid-back, luxurious sonics. The result is both incredibly intimate and wide-screen public, which come to think of it, is sort of like the song itself. Speaking to MTV News, Rihanna explained the concept behind the video explaining that with different abstract scenes she wanted to give the audience the right emotion across throughout the song.
The Anthony Mandler-helmed gray washed clip, is full of dreamy and surreal shoots and plays more like a visual poem, opens with Rihanna rolling up a joint made of diamonds much like the single's cover art and ends with her adrift at sea. As she smokes them, a more dramatic seen takes place with Rihanna running from a car. The beauty looks afraid in the chase leads the singer to stunning view of aurora borealis in the sky. She later finds herself in more chaotic situations, including a crumbling room and an intense riot scene. Despite all going wrong around her, Rihanna continues to hold her lover's hand and shines brights.

Ke$ha has just released the acid-trip video for the hard-thumping, infectiously catchy track, "Die Young," the lead single off of her upcoming sophomore album "Warrior," which is set to hit stores and iTunes on December 4. The 25-year-old singer went on a spiritual journey, came back, and worked really hard to explored her rock roots. With her new album, She intends to show her vulnerable side, and the new clip features our hero as a cult leader, partaking in ceremonies with orgy implications and flashing scores of Illuminati icons. Basically, Ke$ha's back!
It's been two years since we heard new music from the whiskey enthusiast, and it's been well worth the wait. "Die Young" was complimented for the genre mashup. Instrumentally, it has a melody and rhythm reminiscent of Flo Rida's "Good Feeling." Lyrically, it was compared to "Teenage Dream" by Katy Perry. Regarding the song's meaning, Ke$ha said: "It's kind of an anthem. It's a celebration song, which I'm obviously known for writing those, but this one, the concept of it was to live each and every single day like it's your last and to always remain having a youthful spirit no matter how old I get."
"Die Young" spreads acoustic guitar strums, over an uptempo dance beat, while Ke$ha belts her half-rapped, half-sung vocals on the verses. Despite the track's fun loving message, there's also an urgency at play that suggests the pair may actually do as the title suggests. Ke$ha, a electro-pop maven, hadn't really done guitars before really in songs. On her last record it was a strict no-guitar rule. If you're going to die young, your life will probably be a lot happier if you spend it listening to "Die Young."
"It's about me being a cult leader at the end of the world," Ke$ha hightails it down to Mexico in a hearse with her disciples for a sexy dance party in her apocalyptic themed video. With tons of blatant Illuminati symbols and some sort of illegal orgy going on. She dances with wolves, dons a fur vest and gets it on in an abandoned church and starts a cult for glitter enthusiasts, and the whole thing builds to a frothy frenzy until the cops show up to shut things down, but the "Warrior" stands defiantly at the door ready to take on the gun-toting policemen. The clip takes the singer's button-pushing ability to dizzying new heights.

Pitbull has released his highly anticipated vibrant music video for "Don't Stop The Party," the third single from the Latino rapper's upcoming seventh studio album, "Global Warming," in stores on November 19 via RCA. The 31-year-old ferocious Cuban-American rap superstar debuted "Don't Stop the Party" on Dancing with the Stars in September and it's been stuck in our head ever since! So are you ready to party with Pitbull? Lets get loose and "Don't Stop the Party"!
The song features and samples Urales "DJ Buddha" Vargas, house DJ/producer TJR's hit song "Funky Vodka," which itself is based on the 1973 Jamaican Reggae classic "Funky Kingston" by Toots and the Maytals. TJR explained: "'Funky Vodka' is probably the track I'm most proud of. It was pretty cool to see an old school sample-based house tune make it to the overall No.1 spot on Beatport. Producing fulfills my creative side, but DJing is my release."
Pitbull is living the life: Not only does he create good music, tours the world, makes loads of money, and now he gets to film music videos like this new one. The title of Pitbull's latest video basically says it all: Don't Stop the Party! And why should you, really. We have to give props to Pitbull for a minute. At least he is consistent! Because we're not sure if we've ever seen a Pitbull video without a giant rager, a mansion, and and a bevvy of scantily clad ladies. But guess what? We don't blame him one bit, and we have to give it up to him for being such a trendsetter.
Directed by David Rousseau, the clip does evident justice to the song's lyrics that it's a never ending party! Parties in plural actually. Mr Worldwide is livin' la vida loca and throws two celebrations in two different days; first at his Miami mansion and the festivities then continue on his lavish yacht while he makes a splash in the sea. At both events, an ample amount of microscopic lingerie hot girls and fellow TJR are among the attendees. Girls roll around on a bed as Pitbull sits in front of them, rapping about performing for 80,000 people. Good club-oriented single, and good fitting music video.

Mumford & Sons have dropped a stunning and cinematic clip supporting their latest U.K. single, "Lover of the Light," the second single from the British indie folk band' latest extremely successful sophomore studio album, "Babel." Mumford & Sons don't do anything halfway, and their new video for "Lover Of The Light," is proof that the four-piece English folk collective puts just as much work into the concept of their videos as they do their epic brand of folk music.
All the classic Mumfy essentials of the song are there: marvelous, sweeping crescendos; lead singer Marcus Mumford's grainy, powerful vocals; great, swelling, uplifting emotional buildup. No exception for "Lover of the Light." This boisterous bluegrass banger has been a regular in Mumford & Sons' live sets since early 2010. Keyboard player Ben Lovett told NME: "With 'Lover of the Light,' people would say to us, 'Oh, I can't wait to hear that chorus on record.' But what they really meant by that is they can't wait to hear what they've already heard." It's a gorgeous piece with lovely cinematography set to one of Babel's best tracks.
One can be blind and still be a "Lover of the Light," that seems to be the moral to the story in the Mumford & Sons' new video, which features actor Idris Elba, who stars and makes his directorial debut as a blind man who suffering at his unhealthy disconnection from nature and finds true happiness in the light. This is a visually impressive video that carefully mirrors the timbre of the swelling and dynamic thoughtful uptempo tune.
Filmed in Pembrokeshire, Wales, the video follows a blind Elba seeking personal fulfillment in the great outdoors as he goes through his morning routine and explores the near by wilderness, his confidence surges until he arrives at a cliff side and yells his heart out to the ocean. He is all boundless joy and energy, rapturous. In a world of darkness, he loves the light. A somber and reflective Mumford strains, "Watch me stumble over and over." It has faithful Mumford fans wiping their eyes and scratching their heads.

London chanteuse Paloma Faith has released the video to her stunning new slushy ballad, "Just Be," the fourth single from her sophomore studio album, "Fall to Grace," which has enjoyed incredible success debuting a No.2 in the Official Charts. The 27-year-old British sensation looks to land softly in the States this fall with powerful ballads about lost love and heartbreak tend to do not too shabby in these parts lately.
However when she came to pen her sophomore set, Faith found herself in a settled relationship and needed to take a different angle. Faith went on to talk about her own lovelife as inspiration for the clip, especially as she split from her long-term boyfriend last year. She told the Mail: "What you have a tendency to do is believe that unless you're heartbroken you won't be able to produce anything of any value. But I feel lucky because these new songs may be more interesting than singing and wailing about being dejected or deserted. They're about how difficult it can be to put up with someone you're in a relationship with."
For Faith, "Just Be" is the album's crown jewel. She has described the song as showing her at her most vulnerable, as it is bare bones in being just her vocals accompanied by a piano and the more honest than other love songs, which are about staying in love forever while this one focuses on how annoying someone else can be. "It's supposed to be a realistic love song for real lovers," she explains. "It's saying, 'He gets on my nerves, but I love him.' I find that more endearing than, 'There's no one out there but him.' That seems naive. I have a lot of admiration for people who've been in relationships a long time, married for years. This is a more knowing take on romance."
Faith continues to do absolutely no wrong with this new gorgeous clip for an equally gorgeous tune that are packed to the brim with old glamour. She is no stranger to odd antics, so her choice to strip off and sit on a bare wood floor in her latest video is definitely one of the least strange things she's done. The video sees the eccentric star embroiled in a love affair in New York City, while other scenes see her singing the track interspersed with a story about two fighting lovers, while sat discreetly on a floor naked in an empty room. It all gets a bit heated.

Brandy finds true love that's too good to be true in just released new music video for her heartfelt ballad, "Wildest Dreams," the second cut lifted from her latest sixth studio album, "Two Eleven." We're fully thrilled that the 32-year-old R&B songstress is back on the scene and adding fuel to the fire. She's first reemerged with her Chris Brown-assisted "Put It Down," and now she's let us into her inner-psyche via her latest jam, "Wildest Dreams."
"Wildest Dreams" is a mid-tempo classic R&B ballad with a laidback tone, which was inspired by R&B music from the 1990s and has lyrically which speak about the disbelief for finding love again. Brandy said that the song was inspired by newfound love with her real-life boyfriend Ryan Press. The song focuses on falling in love and it feeling better than one could have imagined. During the course of the song, vulnerable Brandy mentions herself several times, over the thwacking percussion and production.
"Wildest Dreams" is one of the album's highlights, and it manages to be both strong and vulnerable at the same time, something that could also be said about the album as a whole. The track kicking off with a hard-knocking throwback beat, the opening seconds pit two familiar Brandys against each other - an ethereal flurry of stacked harmonies against a robotic delivery reminiscent of her style on 2002's futuristic-sounding "Full Moon," with a raw, almost abrasive rasp in her lush vocals, complemented by a needle-on-vinyl crackle looped in the background.
The video was directed by Matthew Rolston, and did not really match the song as there was no concept to it whatsoever. And it shows as Brandy glows in her stylish. She brings a few friends along, struts around and shows off her new dances moves performing at an abandoned warehouse in L.A. with some of her fans in the audience. While Brandy clearly had fun shooting the visual, it would have been nice to see her channeling how happy she is in her new relationship and seeing how in love she is.

One Direction went on a different direction from their usually upbeat and settled down for a studio session and shows off their more soulful side in a brand-new minimalist video for their super-sappy ballad, "Little Things," the second cut to be lifted from the British-Irish boy band's upcoming sophomore studio album, "Take Me Home," which will hit the shelves in the UK on November 12 and a day later in the US.
The slow and sentimental ballad, "Little Things" is a song about what a guy loves everything about his girl even the silliest things. This acoustic ballad is one of two songs penned by Ed Sheeran when he was in his teens and they were inspired by a relationship he was in at the time. He revealed to MTV News: "The great thing about it is I wrote that song with a girl called Fiona Bevan when I was 17 and we lost the song. I've kept in touch with Fiona, we've done gigs and stuff and about two months ago she sent me the tune."
One Direction have a few "Little Things" that they want to share in their brand-new video, and most of those little things add up to the fact that they think you are perfect, no matter how you perceive yourself. It's a sweet and subdued, dramatic black-and-white stripped down clip that suits the acoustic ballad perfectly, with nothing flashy - just the fivesome singing, playing instruments, and jamming out together in the studio recording the swoon-worthy track, while each moment is captured by a Polaroid picture.
Taking a stylistic break from their earlier videos, "Little Things" has a far more minimalist vibe and features the boys in the recording studio, gazing into the camera, adjusting sound levels, singing gently into the microphone, and pensively strumming their guitars. The quiet tone of the clip complements the ballad's sentimental lyrics. Needless to say, it's a far cry from the inflatable bananas and Monkees antics of their "Live While We're Young" video, but shows the low key side of all the One Direction group members.

No Doubt takes up new roles as cowboys and Indians in a just-released new video for their hit song, "Looking Hot," the second official single from Orange County rockers' latest comeback sixth studio album, "Push and Shove," which peaked at No.3 on Billboard's albums chart. The new record finds No Doubt making only the most tentative divergences from previously tried and tested strategies, which gives "Push and Shove" a character that could be described as either dated or timeless.
This New Wave rave-up finds Gwen Stefani spouting tongue-in-cheek lyrics about being a well-preserved forty-something frontwoman. "Go ahead and look at me cause that's what I want. Take a good look won't you please cause that's what I want," she sings. "I know you want to stare. You can't help it and I don't care." The track pairs club-ready thump with catwalk-approved strut, and it perfectly melds their skanking past with their shiny pop present, which is why it will probably come as a surprise to learn that it almost didn't make the cut for "Push and Shove."
With their elaborate costumes and authentic-looking props and set-up, No Doubt's new video for "Looking Hot" is doing it old school and definitely a feast to watch. It was directed by Melina Matsoukas, and filmed over two days at Veluzat Motion Picture Ranch Studios last month. The clip shows the band performing and getting entangled in traditional gunfights set in the Wild West, as we see a classic Cowboys vs. Indians vibe with Tom Dumont and Adrian Young being the sheriffs in town that go after Stefani and Tony Kanal.
The ska-tastic video opens with Stefani in traditional Indian apparel and rides a horse in the open field, but is later captured by cowboy band mates Young and Dumont, while Kanal, who is on the Indian's side, finds himself locked-up in jail. The conflict is then taken to a huge battlefield where the two groups engage in all out battle leading to Stefani and Kanal's capture. But of course, the Wild West setting is not complete without shots of partying and merry-making inside saloons, and a massive bonfire with people doing their ritual dances.

Just in time for Halloween! Grammy-nominated country quartet Little Big Town has just released the eerie, yet sexy visuals for "Tornado," the title track form their latest fifth studio album, which spent five weeks at No.1 on Billboard's Country Albums chart. With gorgeous shots of gray skies, strong winds and chirping blackbirds, this is one music video that's perfectly in tune for Halloween with plenty spooky!
Two years after "The Reason Why," Little Big Town returned in 2012 with "Tornado," and justifiably, perhaps their poppiest yet. This four-piece country band open up their sound, once again emphasizing harmonies and melodies, encasing them in a sleek, gleaming production that pushes them ever closer to the mainstream. They've freshened up the breezy melodics and silken settings, giving the music a true modern stomp at times, but always keeping those gorgeous harmonies at the forefront. Their performance is playful and tinged with greasy Southern soul and unrivaled vocal harmonies, and "Tornado" gives them ample opportunity to showcase them.
"Tornado," a great woman scorned powerful song is about a woman seeking revenge, and that grim, dangerous opening sets the tone for the song (and video) as it propels forward. Karen Fairchild handles the lead with grit and strength. "I'm a tornado looking for a man to break," she sings, dictating every movement with a sultry voice looking for revenge. "Tornado" is all about taking a stand; rising up to the man's surprise. The fearsome beat is complimented by her confident fire, igniting on every note. It's clear that this guy has pulled the whole "love them and leave them" trick on her in the past and she's over it.
The dark, moody video that perfectly matches the tension set by the song itself, was directed by Shane Drake and filmed in Watertown, Tenn. It starts out with that haunting kind of calm and quiet with a sinister shot of a man sitting on a creaky rocking chair on the front porch of a dilapidated home. As Little Big Town enter the scene, residents in what appears to be a tiny southern town hurry back inside homes and shutter their windows. It's clear right off the bat that this group standing tall in some seriously fierce outfits is going to make this guy pay. But the quartet isn't there to harm the town, they are there to rain down justice on a man who deserves it and leave him snagged on the barbed wire and walk away.