Review: Born This Way by Lady GaGa [music album]

Rating:

Advantages: Totally different to her previous work, meaningful lyrics, rockier edge to the music,

Disadvantages: None for me; I really did love every second of the album.

"The vision is of me in an endless journey. I am a vehicle. I am a vehicle for all of the ideas. And I'm not riding away or towards anything, I'm just in endless state of creativity" -- Lady Gaga

Nick Knight is the photographer behind the artwork for the album and singles. The fashion director for Haus of Gaga and creative director for Mugler Nicola Formichetti styled Lady GaGa and artists who work with her regularly - Sam McKnight and Val Garland - did Lady GaGa's hair and make-up.
When the photo for the regular album edition cover was released it was a case of WTF? Is she meant to be a transformer? She's half human, half motorcycle - like a Hell's Angel centaur [the deluxe edition cover is just a closeout of her face mid growl]. After a while the covers grew on me; she's not bothered about simply looking all pretty and sweet - every last little detail of the album has a message.

Lady GaGa has fully wrote You And I and has co-wrote every other regular and bonus track. Her co-writers are RedOne, Jeppe Laursen, Fernando Garibay and Paul Blair [aka DJ White Shadow]. Lady GaGa has referred to her co-writers/friends and herself as the "Banditos".

Vincent Herbert is Born This Way's executive producer, Robert "Mutt" Lange has produced You And I and Lady GaGa and her co-writers are the co-producers of the other tracks.

Spotlight: Dita Von Teese to release a perfume.

Burlesque performer and beauty/style icon Dita Von Teese has spoken about her desire to create her own fragrance in numerous magazine interviews and now it looks as though it's about to become a reality, based on these two twitter statements she has made within the past few weeks:

Isolated at a chateau in the French countryside w/my perfumers. "No fruit, no vanilla, no candy!! Velvet sensuality w/a dash of vulgarity!"

I want to evoke passion with fragrance….intense love/lust and distaste/fear rather than merely popular acceptance.

　
I don't know about you, but I am very excited to see what she comes up with, as she presents her entire life with elegance and she oozes glamor - it comes naturally to her and I want a piece of that :)

Review: Project D EDP by Project D

✯✯✯✯✯/✯✯✯✯✯

I love the neroli-lead opening to PROJECT D; It's very spicy, yet a bit bitter and vaguely cold. The bergamot is also citrussy so blends in nicely and within ten minutes the warmth and spice vanishes and the fragrance becomes fresh and green. The ylang ylang isn't sweet here, instead it's quite musky/mossy and is very long lasting.

As the ylang ylang dies down the mimosa quickly develops and adds a vaguely fruity sweetness, as does the osmanthus. The combination reminds me a bit of tangerines - sweet, vaguely citrussy, but with zest.
I don't usually like tuberose, but as it's not artificial I really surprised myself by liking it here as it isn't as strong as I was expecting, though it does add more sweetness. It outlasts the other scent notes in the perfume and becomes almost creamy as it slowly burns down and mingles with the developing base notes.

The musk [whilst always present] becomes fully developed as the florals die down; It is strong masculine and slightly salty. Like with the tuberose I normally don't like musky perfumes, but it doesn't artificial or plastic here and as the rest of this perfume is soft and feminine I love the contrast with the masculine musk.
The sandelwood develops almost as quickly as the musk and has a noticeable woodsy scent to it, which seems somewhat spicy.I'm not used to sandalwood actually smelling like a wood so this is a pleasant surprise. It's sort of familiar to cederwood and adds to the short-lived masculine opening. The saffron gives the perfume one final spicey kick and whilst I'm not sure what amber oil is, maybe it's a fancy term for vegetal amber (resin from tree sap), it is more or less the same as artificial amber - a soft and creamy vanilla based scent.

Scent notes
Neroli, bergamot and ylang ylang, tuberose, Japanese osmanthus, mimosa, purple orchid, sandalwood, exotic saffron, musk and hot amber oils.


I really love the pretty bottle too: It is soft pink and teardrop shaped, with the name and a silhouette of a woman printed on it in black.

Prime time for some glam time: Love & Glamour EDP, by Jennifer Lopez.

Actress/singer Jennifer Lopez was one of the first celebrities to release her own fragrance and she had a fashion range - J.Lo - going at the time, so to be fair, releasing a fragrance to go with it did make sense.

Lets tick off her perfume releases so far; the first was Glow and it's millions of limited edition flankers [a slight exaggeration; I think there has been seven so far], Still [I think was her nicest fragrance to date  - I might buy another bottle for a review one day], Live and it's two limited flankers [Live Luxe and Live Platinum], Deseo, Deseo for Men, Deseo Forever [Asian market exclusive] and now there is LOVE & GLAMOUR...

Music review: Love? by Jennifer Lopez...

Rating:

Advantages: Mix of musical styles, summery music, nice artwork

Disadvantages: No more strong single contenders, she's playing it too safe.

LOVE? is the seventh studio album by singer/actress Jennifer Lopez. Work began on the album during the pregnancy of her twins, but the lack of success with her previous three albums lead to Epic Records [part of Sony] testing the waters with two U.S. single releases [Louboutins and Fresh Out The Oven] for a gauge as to the size of her fanbase. The singles were huge flops and failed to receive radio play, so LOVE? was shelved and Epic dropped her - err, I mean they mutually parted ways with her, after briefly starting work on a Greatest Hits album.

Luckily for Jennifer Island [part of Def Jam] decided to take a chance on her and hired L.A. Reid and RedOne as executive producers and charged them with sourcing new material to update the album before release. Individual track producers of the finished product include Mike Caren, D'Mile, Danja, The-Dream, Lady Gaga, StarGate and Tricky Stewart.



Jennifer has said in loads of interviews over the years that she doesn't like being referred to as J.Lo any more as that was just a character, but lo and behold - J.Lo is back. Literally back, J.Lo is stamped on the album and single covers instead of her name. A glance in the booklet is the same old checklist; fur coat? Check. Bling? Check. Barely there clothing? Check. Shades? Check. So with the artwork being blasts from the past the question becomes, will the actual album be a look back over her back catalogue too?