Today's Pick

After releasing her excellent "Crying for No Reason," UK pop performer Katy B has unveiled another emotional music video for her brand new single, "Still," the third official single from Katy's fantastic sophomore album "Little Red," which launched back in February via Rinse/Columbia. The minimalist clip features the UK singer-songwriter performing the track in a white room surrounded by bright light, sitting a glowing table, and dressed in all white. The star has also released both "5AM" and "Crying For No Reason" from the record, and will kick off a new UK tour in October this year.
Four years ago, a fresh-faced graduate of the famed BRIT School brazenly stamped her name on the music scene with a ferocious dubstep track aptly titled "Katy On A Mission." Since then, Katy has firmly secured herself as a talented negotiator between niche UK dance scenes and pop, Katy has burrowed into the rhythms of adulthood. She's been living on her own for the first time, taking cooking classes, and partying much less in recent months. It seems a bit silly, certainly, to pine for youth at 23, but the transitions are making Katy more emotional than she'd expected.
This epic breakup song finds Katy singing about grieving when a relationship crumbles. She penned the track with Fraser T Smith, who is best known for producing and co-writing Adele's "Set Fire to the Rain." Katy joked to Q magazine: "Writing that track helped me get over an ex, but maybe I shouldn't have done it because now everyone is going to ask me who he is." The moving ballad "Still," is not the most obvious choice, given that another electro slow-burner, "Crying For No Reason," preceded this. Plus, the album is chock full of up-tempo tracks that the world simply must hear. Still, a Katy ballad is worth more than a lot of other folks' output, especially in this fine era of hers.
The clip offers more than just a little red, finds Katy emoting dramatically and looking right anguished, as she and her flame-colored striking red hair are bathed in glorious white light while she's adorned in all white, often in front of a white background. Elsewhere, she thoughtfully sings the song at a dining table, from a couch, in a forest and in a giant empty loft. While Katy's last video paired her against a dark background that eventually exploded with lights and colors, the new "Still" is all stark white and glowing light. They're almost complete opposites, but in both cases Katy's iconic red hair pops against the setting, and her performance is absolutely gripping. Watch it below.

Katy B is engulfed in her own personal light show in the music video for her new electro-ballad, "Crying For No Reason," which will serve as the second cut comes from British dance-pop purveyor's upcoming sophomore album, "Little Red," scheduled for release on February 3. The red-haired U.K. alt-dance pop diva has consistently slayed us with tunes such as "What Love Is Made Of," "Aaliyah," and "I Like You." Now, praise everything, Katy B's back with a new video and she's brought her own personal light show with her!
Speaking about new album recently, the star revealed: "That first album had a certain innocence about it. I think this album has a bit more experience. My relationships have got more serious, I've moved out of my parents' house, I'm dealing with issues on my own. My friends are all going through that transition as well - those questions you ask of yourself as an adult. This is real life." She added: "There are still going to be lots of songs about me and my little adventures around London, but then at the same time I've had experiences in love and life that have been about this period of my life."
"Crying For No Reason" is a big electronic ballad, where she croons about trying in vain to get over the ending of a relationship. The singer told Q magazine that she found it was an emotional experience laying the break up anthem down in the studio. "When we recorded that vocal, halfway through I started crying. I ran out the room," she recalled. "Five minutes later I came back and asked, 'Did you get that?'" The track features Katy B's buttery R&B pipes laced with some poignant Adele balladry and infused with a little forward-thinking electro-pop à la Robyn.
The emotional ballad is the twinkling, strobing heartbreak-anthem, and the video is beautiful and stark, perfectly pairing with Katy B's titanic performance and the track's dramatic swell of pop histrionics replete with huge glacial synths. In Sophie Miller-directed video, Katy B boldly stands alone on a platform and belts the song out before a dark, sleek, arena-like stage set while an epic extravaganza of light slowly erupts all around her. As the song builds from simple ballad to mid-tempo dance banger, the luminous beams slowly become more extravagant and everything feels right in the world. Simple and effective!

British urban pop starlet Katy B is back, takes to the streets and giving us a lesson in the brand new gloomy music video for her stand-along rave-pop track, "What Love Is Made Of," the lead single to come from Katy's soon to be announced second album, which is expected for release in October via Rinse/Columbia. The mellow house-pop track is out on July 8, and it's also the follow-up to the 24-year-old singer's 2011 debut album "On A Mission." Apparently it's made of street racing and dancing which is exactly what I thought!
Back in March, Katy revealed that she had nearly completed work on her sophomore studio album. "Everything is great," she said of the record. "I've basically got some great tracks and I think I'll just keep writing until the end. A lot of stuff is getting mixed and mastered at the moment, so you just never know when you can just write something special at the last minute." Katy also revealed that there were more tracks which "you can imagine me singing in my bedroom rather than in the middle of a dance floor", and went on to add: "Where I am in my life at the moment, and with my age group as well, I think reality has kind of kicked in."
Katy blew us away earlier this month with her scorching potential song-of-summer, "What Love Is Made Of." Seriously though Katy delivers an infectious synth-pop/trance track that makes you move your head without even realizing it. The upbeat number showcases an undeniably pop-heavy sound that is sure to warrant significant radio spin. Katy's vocals are so ethereal and flawlessness. If she is to be believed, love is made of catchy-as-hell hooks and bouncy synths that make you want to dance like school just let out for summer break.
The accompanying visuals is quite the butch affair, directed by Emil Nava who's taking inspiration from the movies, or, more specifically, the "Fast And Furious" franchise. The video features the "Aaliyah" singer in the middle of a melee of London boy racers, as Katy sings and scowls over the hot house/alt-disco beat and surveys all sorts of tricked-out rides with lights, glitter, and custom paint jobs. Katy not only gets involved in the world of underground of street racing, but she falls hard for a new and potentially dangerous love interest. Back away slowly, girl... this might not end well.