Ooh... err... um... yes!

Girls Aloud are back back back back back and here is all you need to know. We mean, we're late on this, so you probably already know it, but we'll tell you anyway.

Above is their new video. It's ok. Some bits are cool, but mostly it's like a very fancy lyric video. Too much writing comin' atcha (Cleopatra). It'll doo though. The song is a bit of a mess. An exciting mess. But a mess. So the video sort of fits. That's a compliment, believe it or not.

With news of a new single and video comes news of a new tour and a new greatest hits album: Ten. The cover art looks like this (below) and it's exciting because they've FINALLY GOTTEN IT RIGHT after some of the worst album covers of all time:

Glorious. Classy. Sexy. Cool. Everything a girl band album cover should be. Of course there's a tracklisting too. You can (or at least you could at some point) vote for b-sides or fan favourites to be on the deluxe second disk, but this is the main cd:

1. "Something New"
2. "The Promise"
3. "The Loving Kind"
4. "Untouchable"
5. "Sexy! No No No..."
6. "Call The Shots"
7. "Can't Speak French"
8. "Something Kinda Ooooh!"
9. "Biology"
10. "The Show"
11. "Love Machine"
12. "I'll Stand By You"
13. "Jump"
14. "No Good Advice"
15. "Sound of the Underground"
16. "On The Metro"
17. "Beautiful 'Cause You Love Me"
18. "Every Now and Then"

Eagle-eyed observers will notice that there are three other new songs, alongside lead single, "Something New". Well come on let's have an album art progression just because. Here goes:

Well ok then.

Rihanna should be releasing a Greatest Hits album by now. Getting through four successful studio albums in this current music climate is enough to warrant a greatest hits collection but Rihanna is now on album number SEVEN. SEVEN.

Gosh. Quite why she's so persistent, we'll never know but that's that. There was some hullabaloo over the album title. Apparently RiRi has been tweeting the hashtag #sideeffects for a while now and originally announced that the album title was 'written in black' (the tweet was then deleted). Subsequently she tweeted that the actual album title would be Unapologetic.

Well. It's a fittingly immature album title for such immature artwork. That's not a 'read'. We're not being shady or calling RiRi childish, but both the album name and cover art look like the kind of thing you'd expect from a 16 year old emo-tinged pop/rock singer. That's fine. We somehow doubt the music will match up but who knows.

Here is a chronology of RiRi's album artwork:

Bastardo

Well this came out of leftfield. Perhaps we just haven't been paying as much attention to Björk as we should have been, but suddenly she announces her second full length remix album: Bastards.

First, in 1996, there was Telegram, following the huge commercial success of Post. Now there's Bastards. Björk explains her decision to revisit the remix album thusly:

I picked a quarter of them for one cd for people who are perhaps not too sassy downloaders or don't have the time or energy to partake in the hunter-gathering rituals of the internet

SASSY! Björk has categorised downloaders into two camps: the sassy and the not sassy. Does she mean savvy? Does she literally mean sassy? Is she imagining people sat in front of iTunes or The Hype Machine clicking their fingers in a Z formation as they download the latest Biophilia remix package?

Anyway this is what the tracklist is going to be like:

1. "Crystalline (Omar Souleyman Remix)"
2. "Virus (Hudson Mohawke "Peaches and Guacamol" Rework)"
3. "Sacrifice (Death Grips Remix)"
4. "Sacrifice ((Matthew Herbert's Pins and Needles Mix) edit)"
5. "Mutual Core (These New Puritans Remix feat. Soloman Is. Song)"
6. "Hollow (16-bit Remix)"
7. "Mutual Core (Matthew Herbert's "Teutonic Plates" Mix)"
8. "Thunderbolt (Death Grips Remix)"
9. "Dark Matter (Alva Noto Remodel)"
10. "Thunderbolt (Omar Souleyman Remix)"
11. "Solstice (Current Value Remix)"
12. "Moon (The Slips Remix)"
13. "Crystalline (Matthew Herbert Remix)"

(Ed: can we just say it's an absolute crime that this wondrous gem, arguably the best Biophilia remix by far, has been missed off?) 

And seeing as we love to do these and we're here, here's what the artwork looks like next to some of her other artwork:

bOw

Bow to Buddhist deity Christina Aguilera. Bow to her bizarrely placed belly button and bleached-to-shit hair. Bow to the enigmatic, mysterious light emanating from her godlike vulva. Just bow.

This is the cover to Xtina's fifth landmark musical extravaganza: Bionic. We'll let the image do the talking. It says so much. It is ICONIQUE.

Here's how it measures up to her previous album covers:

Gold. Dust.

We've sort of covered Tori's upcoming orchestral reworks album, Gold Dust, already. But as is tradition here, at Shiny & New, we have to do a tracklist + album cover art + album art progression post. And what better time to do it than TODAY, when Rolling Stone magazine have unveiled a beautiful exclusive two track widget thingy. YES, if you click there you can listen to a still piano-heavy "Silent All These Years" and an even more orchestral "Gold Dust". Both stunning, both wondrous.

Would you like the rest of the tracklist? Oh go on then:

1. "Flavor"
2. "Yes, Anastasia"
3. "Jackie's Strength"
4. "Cloud on my Tongue"
5. "Precious Things"
6. "Gold Dust"
7. "Star of Wonder"
8. "Winter"
9. "Flying Dutchman"
10. "Programmable Soda"
11. "Snow Cherries From France"
12. "Marianne"
13. "Silent All These Years"
14. "Girl Disappearing"

And now, for that album art progression. Well... Tori's nothing if not varied, album art-wise. We'll give her that. The less said about Midwinter Disgraces, the better.