Allie Hughes - The Hard Way (2011)

In 2008 Allie Hughes took part in CBC Television's 'How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?', the Canadian version based on the UK series of the same name, which was searching for a singer to play the part of Maria in the stage show of 'The Sound Of Music'. She performed 'My Favourite Things' from the show and 'It's Oh So Quiet' by Björk, but was eliminated after two weeks. She released her second demo album that same year, titled 'Ladies And Gentlemen', which included some songs from her first album alongside some new recordings. In 2009 she recorded her debut studio album, collaborating with Leon Taheny, Dave Newfeld of Broken Social Scene, and Adam King of Run With Kittens. It was titled 'The Hard Way', and was initially set to be released in late 2010, but was then delayed to 2011, until it was ultimately scrapped later that year. She released a 4-track self-titled extended play in 2010, which included four songs from the proposed album, and which are the only officially released tracks from the project. Following the cancellation of 'The Hard Way', Hughes developed her synth-pop and electronic inspired band, ALX, in late 2011, releasing their debut and only single, 'I Will Love You More' in March 2012, and they had their final known live performance at the Hillside Festival in July, where they performed seven unreleased original songs and one cover. In July 2013 Hughes moved to Los Angeles to pursue a full-time career as a songwriter, but despite this she didn't stop working on her solo material, and after adopting the name Allie X she began working with producers Cirkut and Billboard. In early 2014 she released her debut single under the Allie X name, 'Catch', and it received praise from multiple sources, kick-starting a second career under the new name. She finally managed to get her music officially released by Twin Music Records, issuing numerous singles and three albums, and so as a reminder of what she was doing when she started out, here is her second shelved album, 'The Hard Way' from 2011, and you can definitely hear the progression of her music, from that idiosyncratic debut to this much more mature and assured sophomore effort.   

Track listing

01 Overture
02 Rolling Days  
03 Damaged Nail 
04 The Hard Way 
05 Stars (feat. Darcy Rego) 
06 Elevator 
07 I Will Love You More 
08 Headmaster 
09 O Chad 
10 Mistake  

B*Witched - Where Will You Go? (2001)

B*Witched were an Irish girl group consisting of twin sisters Edele and Keavy Lynch, Lindsay Armaou and Sinéad O'Carroll, and all four members knew each other vaguely from dancing at Digges Lane dance studios in Dublin. O'Carroll met Keavy Lynch in a garage in the Dublin suburb of Finglas, where Keavy was working as a part-time mechanic, and the two became friends after talking about music, which sparked the idea of being in a band. In 1996 they decided to put a group together, and invited Keavy's identical twin sister Edele to join, originally calling themselves Butterfly Farm, and they later became a four-piece when Armaou joined, having met Keavy at a kickboxing class. They experimented with the names D'sire and Sister, before settling on B*Witched, and the band members deliberately cultivated a tomboy image and, in order to appeal to a younger audience, they also understated their ages in their early years. Edele and Keavy's older brother Shane (of the band Boyzone) helped the group find a manager, and Kim Glover signed them to Glowworm Records in 1997. B*Witched released their debut single 'C'est la Vie' on 25 May 1998, and despite mixed reviews, it reached number one on the UK Singles Chart, making them the youngest girl group to have a number one in the UK. Following its release in the United States, the song went to number nine on the Billboard Hot 100, and subsequent singles 'Rollercoaster', 'To You I Belong' and 'Blame It On The Weatherman' also topped the UK chart. 

Their self-titled debut album was released in October 1998, and reached number three on the UK Albums Chart and number 12 on the US Billboard 200. In 1999 the group appeared on the ABBA tribute single 'Thank ABBA For The Music', which reached number four in the UK, and they also recorded a cover of 'Does Your Mother Know' for the subsequent 'ABBAmania' album and TV special. Their second album, 'Awake And Breathe', appeared a year after their debut, and peaked at number 5 on the charts, but singles from the album were less successful than earlier releases. After touring Europe and America, the band began work on a third album, but although three new songs were recorded: 'Hold On' (featured in the film 'The Princess Diaries'), a cover of Toni Basil's 'Mickey' (featured in the film 'Bring It On'), and a cover of Wild Cherry's 'Play That Funky Music', the sessions didn't produce much other new music. The band had chosen 'Where Will You Go?' as their next single for release in October 2001, but before they could film a music video for it, the girls received a phone call from their manager telling them their record label Sony had dropped them. In June 2002, after one year without signing a new record deal, O'Carroll left the band, unhappy with the forced hiatus, and in September the group split up. There has been a tentative track listing doing the rounds for what could have been their third album, but only two songs from it have ever surfaced, so the best we can do is to gather up all of the tracks from their 2000 EP, a few b-sides, and the ABBA cover, and I've topped and tailed the album with a rather strange piece from the flip of their 'Rollercoaster' single entitled 'B*Witched Go To The Moon'. 

Track listing

01 B*Witched Go To The Moon/

02 Where Will You Go?
03 Mickey
04 Get Happy
05 Together We'll Be Fine
06 Play That Funky Music
07 Coming Round Again

08 Does Your Mother Know
08 Don't Say Never

09 Fly Away
09 Hold On

Allie Hughes - Waiting For The Prize (2006)

Alexandra Ashley Hughes (better known by her stage name of Allie X) was born on 31 July 1985 in Oakville, Ontario, and after studying classical piano and voice at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, and graduating from Sheridan College's Musical Theatre Performance program, she started her musical career in Toronto around 2006. At this time she was performing indie pop, indie rock, jazz, and electronic music, and she recorded the 10-track demo album, 'Waiting For The Prize', in 2006, while still in college. The album was pressed up on CD and sold at her early shows in 2006 and 2007, and takes inspiration from both jazz music, and piano-based alternative sounds. Said to be inspired by artists such as Kate Bush, Regina Spektor, and Norah Jones, the album pairs piano-pop and jazz instrumentals with sassy, quirky lyrics. It actually gained a review by John Arkelian for artsforum.ca, who described 'Bad Luck' as "a jazzy, bluesy song that sounds like a show tune from the musical stage", 'That's Just Me' as "an ironic juxtaposition of down-to-earth lyrics and an operatic lament", and 'What Have I Done?' as "a serious reverie on life’s choices, with a hint of the bittersweet". Those early CD's are now impossible to find, so here is Allie X's very first album, while still performing under the name Allie Hughes. 

Track listing

01 That's Just Me 
02 Gorilla Sounds
03 Bad Luck
04 Irish Colcannon 
05 What Have I Done?
06 Oyster Song
07 Perfect Day 
08 Brand New 
09 Fall
10 Something Isn't Right

Lady May - May Day (2002)

Rhonda Natasha Robinson was born on 6 March 1974, and is better known by her stage name Lady May. She grew up listening to Elton John, Duran Duran and Michael Jackson, but by the age of 15, she stopped attending high school and became a hip hop dancer in music videos for artists such as LL Cool J and Jodeci. Feeling unsatisfied with this as a career, she began rapping in the late 1990's under her stage name Mae West, and her rapping skills would eventually gain notice from fellow producer/rapper, Deric "D-Dot" Angelettie, who later renamed her Lady May, and introduced her to Crazy Cat Productions. In 2001 she landed a contract deal with Arista Records, and she released her debut single in 2002, with 'Round Up' featuring R&B singer and former label-mate Blu Cantrell. Her following single was planned to be 'Dick & Doe', and a music video for the song was shot, but in the midst of the pushbacks for her album 'May Day' (first scheduled for a release in May 2002, then to 16 July 2002, then to August 2002), the single and video, as well as the album, were all shelved after the poor reception to 'Round Up'. She was also featured on former label-mate Rob Jackson's 2002 single 'Boom Boom Boom', which was slated to appear on his debut album, 'For the People', but that was eventually shelved as well. In 2003, she was featured on Willa Ford's 'A Toast To Men', and in 2007 she contributed to Jennifer Lopez's 2007 album 'Brave', where she was credited as a songwriter on several tracks. A version of 'May Day' was ultimately released online last year, but it contained a few more interludes that were not present on the original promotional copies that circulated physically, and so here is that 2003 promo so that you can hear this excellent album as it was intended to be heard. 

Track listing

01 We Got it Locked (feat. Memphis Bleek)
02 Right Right
03 Hard 2 Get 2 
04 Dear Richard 
05 My Blues
06 U Ain't Neva Lie
07 Glamorous Girls
08 8 Million Stories
09 Stick N Move
10 Didn't Mean To Turn You On (feat. Cheri Dennis)
11 Round Up (feat. Blu Cantrell)
12 Dick And Doe
13 Unborn
14 What Up (feat. P. Diddy)

Dua Lipa - Forgiveness (2020)

This final collection of songs from 2020 is another fine album made up of the leftovers from the writing and recording sessions for her 'Future Nostalgia' album. 

Track listing

01 Jealousy
02 Human
03 Don't Wait For Me
04 Pretend I Don't Exist
05 Cherry
06 Hard Days
07 Forgiveness
08 Hi (feat. Pharrell)
09 Protect Me From What I Want
10 Not Over You
11 Sleep No More (feat. Pharrell)

Bellefire - Spin The Wheel (2004)

After the UK version of their debut album was shelved, Bellefire did eventually sign to WEA in 2003, and they moved their base to London, where they subsequently recorded a new album entitled 'Spin The Wheel' as a trio, following the departure of Tara Lee. Their first single as a three-piece was 'Say Something Anyway', which was released in early 2004, and which peaked in the UK at No.26, but spent only three weeks on the charts, although it did much better in their native Ireland, reaching No. 2 and going double platinum. The planned follow-up single for the summer of 2004, 'You Were Meant For Me', was shelved, and so the band spent the summer of 2004 promoting their upcoming album release around the UK at various festivals, but due to the release date of the album being continually pushed back, the summer promotion did little to boost their reputation and sales. After the failure of their next single, the title track 'Spin The Wheel', to impact the UK charts in October 2004, the band once again concentrated on the Asian market, where 'Say Something Anyway' was reaching the top of the charts in countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and The Philippines. They completed their tour of Southeast Asia and released their album there, and the UK release of 'Spin The Wheel' and a third single was pushed back several times, until it was eventually cancelled. After the non-release of the 'Spin the Wheel' album in the UK, Bellefire and Atlantic Records parted company, and the group went their separate ways. It was a sad end for a fine girl band, and it's a shame that record company politics once again ruined a promising career for the girls. So that their efforts are not wasted, here is Bellefire's second album that we in the UK and US were not allowed to hear. 

Track listing

01 Say Something Anyway
02 You Were Meant For Me
03 Spin The Wheel
04 What Hurts The Most
05 Nobody Loves Me Like You Do
06 Damn
07 Pieces Of You
08 Sold Out
09 Can't Cry Hard Enough
10 I Need To Be Next To You
11 Stay
12 I'll Never Get Over You Getting Over Me
13 Don't Know Why

Geri Halliwell - Man On The Mountain (2012)

Geri Halliwell was the first to leave the Spice Girls, when she exited the group in May 1998, citing exhaustion and creative differences. Her action aroused controversy as her former group was due to embark on a North American tour, which they eventually completed without her, and despite no longer being part of the group, she featured on two more Spice Girls releases that were scheduled prior to her departure, including the single 'Viva Forever'. After she left, the other girls co-wrote a few songs about her which appeared on their album 'Forever', including 'Goodbye', 'Tell Me Why' and 'Let Love Lead The Way', and in 1999, one year after leaving the group, she launched her solo career and released her debut album 'Schizophonic', along with the lead single 'Look At Me', and this was followed by three further UK number ones, with 'Mi Chico Latino', 'Lift Me Up' and 'Bag It Up'. The album itself reached number four in the UK chart, and was preceded by a 90-minute Channel 4 documentary titled 'Geri', which was a ratings success with 4.5 million viewers. In October 1999 she released the autobiography 'If Only', in which she described her life as a Spice Girl, and the book went on to top the best-seller lists, selling over a million copies in the UK alone. 

In 2001, Halliwell released her second album, 'Scream If You Wanna Go Faster', which emulated the success of its predecessor by reaching number five in the UK, and her cover of the Weather Girls' 1983 hit, 'It's Raining Men', was used on the soundtrack of the film 'Bridget Jones's Diary', and became a major hit worldwide, peaking at number one in the UK, and hitting the top 10 in over 27 countries. In January 2002, she released her second autobiography, 'Just For The Record', detailing her rise to fame and her turbulent celebrity lifestyle, and later that year she joined Pete Waterman and Louis Walsh as a judge on the television series 'Popstars: The Rivals', which created Girls Aloud. In late 2004 she made a return to music with the single 'Ride It', which reached number four in the UK chart, but it was several months before another single was released, during which time she was apparently instructed to record some new tracks for an album by her record company, which was unhappy with what had already been taped. She planned her first solo tour of the UK and Ireland, but due to lack of ticket sales, compounded by the label's pressure on her to record additional songs, led to the cancellation of the tour, and it was some months later that a new single eventually appeared, with 'Desire' being released in 30 May 2005, reaching number 22 in the UK Singles Chart and number one on the UK Dance Charts. Released shortly afterwards, the source album, 'Passion', similarly received little attention from the public or critics and stalled at number 41 in the British charts, and she was dropped by EMI, although she publicly stated that she was not interested in recording another album at that time, and was content with writing children's books and motherhood. 

On 12 April 2007 it was announced that Halliwell had signed a six-book deal with Macmillan Children's Books, for a series of children's novels, titled Ugenia Lavender, which followed the adventures of nine-year-old Ugenia, a character based on herself. Later that year, in June, the Spice Girls regrouped and announced plans for a reunion tour, from which they were said to have earned £10 million each, and they released their first compilation album, 'Greatest Hits'. Following an appearance in the film 'Crank: High Voltage' in 2009, and a few TV spots, she posted a message on her website in April 2010, saying she was back in the studio, and in July 2011 she confirmed she'd been working on her fourth album, and that by February 2012 it was in the process of being mastered. In October 2012 she made her first solo performance in seven years at the Breast Cancer Care, debuting a new track called 'Phenomenal Woman', and in October 2013 she premiered her first solo single in nearly eight years, performing 'Half Of Me' on Channel 9's NRL Footy Show grand final show in Australia. Despite announcing that her fourth album was complete in 2012, she continued to work on new material, and in November 2016 thirteen songs leaked onto the internet, which purported to be from her long-awaited fourth album 'Man On The Mountain'. Apart from the 2017 charity single 'Angels In Chains', to raise money for Childline, nothing much has been heard from Halliwell on the music front for some time, and so as it looks like that elusive fourth solo record is now not likely to make an appearance, here is the leaked album from 2016, along with the Australian only single 'Half Of Me', so that we can hear what she up to in those lost years. 

Track listing

01 Love And Light
02 Humanity
03 Man On The Mountain
04 Beautiful Life
05 Deep Down
06 If You Love Someone
07 Miracles
08 Phenomenal Woman
09 Without Love
10 Sheriff
11 I’ve Got A Name
12 I Am Older Now
13 Get Involved
14 Half Of Me

Dua Lipa - Wrong Number (2020)

Here is another great collection of off-cuts from the writing and recording sessions for Dua Lipa's second album from 2020.

Track listing

01 Wrong Number
02 Rich
03 Worst Enemy
04 Tijuana (feat. Pharrell)
05 Lion
06 Who Do You Love
07 Run Together
08 Cry (feat. Pharrell)
09 Complicated
10 Sweet Tooth
11 Shine On Sad World
12 Crocodile Tears

Paris Hilton - Platinum Blonde (2013)

Paris Whitney Hilton is a polarizing and ubiquitous public figure, and is said to have influenced the revival of the "famous for being famous" phenomenon throughout the 2000's, with critics suggesting that she exemplifies the celebutante — a household name not through talent or work, but through inherited wealth and lavish lifestyle. During her life she's turned her hand to modelling, signing with Donald Trump's agency Trump Model Management; writing, publishing her debut book, 'Confessions Of An Heiress' in 2004; acting, with a major film role in the horror remake 'House Of Wax' in 2005; and music, releasing her eponymous debut studio album, 'Paris', in 2006. The record number six on the Billboard 200, and also produced the successful single 'Stars Are Blind', which attained global success, reaching the top ten in 17 countries. Critical reception of her music was mixed, but she found a new fanbase who supported what she was producing, and over the next few years she recorded more songs for a proposed second album, which should have been released around 2013. 'Good Time' was released as the first single from the album in October 2013, to generally negative reviews from the critics, although it still reached number 18 on the Billboard Hot Dance chart. 'Come Alive' followed in July 2014, this time to a much more positive reception, with mention being made of her growth as a vocalist, but there was no sign of the album which was supposed to follow it. Another single was released in 2015, but this time 'High Off My Love' was not promoted as being taken from her second album, and so that seemed to confirm that it was not going to appear any time soon. Further singles were issued in the following years, and in 2024 it was finally announced that Hilton's second studio album would appear this year. For fans who have waited almost a decade to hear more from her, here is a reconstruction of what that second album might have sounded like had it appeared as intended in 2013. 

Track listing

01 Platinum Blonde 
02 Child Of The 80's
03 Good Time (feat. Lil' Wayne)
04 Jailhouse Baby 
05 Boy, Oh Boys
06 I Wanna Know
07 Globetrottin'
08 Crave 
09 I Need You
10 Last Night (feat. Lil' Wayne & Afrojack)
11 Come Alive
12 My BFF 

Cherish - The Moment (2003)

Cherish was an American R&B music group consisting of four sisters, Farrah King (born February 17, 1984), Neosha King (born January 26, 1986) and twins Fallon and Felisha King (born June 5, 1988). They first rose to fame when they teamed up with female hip hop artist Da Brat to record a duet with her, and the finished track, titled 'In Love Wit Chu', was released on 3 March 2003. It was a commercial success in the US, and charted on a number of different charts in the country, such as the Billboard Rhythmic Top 40 chart, and just missed out on breaking the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 44. Their first single on their own was 'Miss P.', which was produced by Jermaine Dupri and featured Da Brat, and which was released on Reprise Records in 2003. After the success of their collaboration with Da Brat, the single was expected to be a hit, but it failed to chart on any major charts in the U.S., or countries other than the girl's own, and it's failure could be attributed to the fact that it had very little exposure other than one performance on Soul Train in May 2003. Due to the commercial failure of its lead single, the group's debut album, 'The Moment', was shelved a few months later, and remains unreleased. After their album was dropped, the group recorded three songs for 'The Powerpuff Girls: Power Pop' soundtrack, with 'Chemical X', 'Power Of A Female', and 'Me And My Girls' all appearing on the record. 

In 2005 the girls began work on another album, which they wrote entirely themselves, and which they considered much more mature than their unreleased previous work. On 21 March 2006, Cherish released their first single in three years, titled 'Do It To It', which was met with a positive critical reception, and it also charted on several Billboard charts. It became their first to reach the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100, where it peaked at number 12, and it was also a major hit in New Zealand, the UK, Ireland, Australia, Germany and France. After the success of 'Do It To It', their debut album, 'Unappreciated' (a barbed dig at their record company?), was released on 15 August 2006 on Capitol Records, and it debuted at number four on the Billboard 200. It was also a hit in Japan and the UK, and in January 2009 the title track was released as the second single, but while it was received warmly by critics, it failed to achieve the commercial success of its predecessor. With their career now established, the girls went on to release their second album, 'The Truth', in 2008, as well as a couple more singles, but in Spring 2008 Fallon and Felisha confirmed that they were working on a side project that didn't involve the other two members of the group, and under the name F+F they began recording an album separate from Cherish. 

In early 2009 a track by F+F called 'Infected' was leaked online by an unknown source, and this fuelled rumours that the band was breaking up, and in fact both Farrah and Neosha did exit the group, leaving just the duo of Fallon and Felisha. Despite announcements over the years that the band are getting back together and recording new music, nothing was heard from them until December 2016, when Fallon and Felisha announced during a Facebook live video that they were reuniting as Cherish once again, but would be working on new music as a duo, and that Farrah and Noesha would feature on a number of the songs. However, apart from a trio of singles on the Free The Lyrics label in 2017, nothing more has been heard from them. At their peak they were a tight little band, and their first album didn't really deserve to be canned just because their first single as a group didn't perform as well as their earlier collaboration, and so here is that shelved album from 2003. 

Track listing

01 Intro (feat. Jermaine "J.D." Dupri) 
02 Miss P. (feat. Da Brat)
03 Stay With You  
04 I Won't Leave You  
05 Loving You  
06 Voices Beyond  
07 Better Be Me  
08 Gimmie Some Space  
09 I Thought I Told Ya  
10 I Wanna Be Your Girl  
11 Poisonous  
12 Boyfriend  
13 Power Of The Female  

Dua Lipa - All To Myself (2020)

Following the release of her self-titled debut album in 2017, Dua Lipa started working on new material for her second album in January 2018, and in April she issued a collaboration with Calvin Harris on the 'One Kiss' single, which topped the UK Singles Chart for eight weeks, and which went to become the biggest selling song of 2018 in the UK. It was later reported that she would be releasing collaborations with other artists, with the first one being 'Electricity' with Mark Ronson, which came out in September. In January 2019 she released the single 'Swan Song' as part of the soundtrack to the 2019 film 'Alita: Battle Angel', and later announced that she'd spent the preceding year in the writing process for her second studio album, which would be a "nostalgic" pop record that "feels like a dancercise class". Following the release of its lead single 'Don't Start Now', her second album, 'Future Nostalgia', and its accompanying tour were announced in December 2019. The single peaked at number two on both the UK Singles Chart and the US Billboard Hot 100, where it earned the longest top 10 stay for a British female artist. The second single leading up to the release of the album was 'Physical', which came out in January 2020, and following one more single, 'Break My Heart', 'Future Nostalgia' was issued in March to widespread critical acclaim. It peaked at number one on the Official UK Albums Chart the following week in April 2020, while four of the album's singles entered the top ten of the Official Singles Chart, making her the first British female artist since Vera Lynn to have three top-ten singles in a single calendar year. As with her previous album, Lipa had amassed a vast stock of music that she could pick and choose for inclusion on her second album, and once again they are too good to just be thrown away, and so here is the first of three collections of rejected songs from 2020.

Track listing

01 Ball & Chain
02 Firestarter
03 Better This Way
04 Guilty
05 25-8
06 Talk About It
07 Naked
08 All To Myself
09 Act Of God (feat. Ant Clemons)
10 Delicious
11 Whay I Like
12 If It Ain't Me (feat. Normani)
13 Secrets
14 Love Is Religion

La Toya Jackson - Startin' Over (2002)

Following her escape from an abusive marriage and her subsequent divorce, La Toya Jackson was reduced to performing in Europe and South America to start making money to pay off the huge debts which her ex-husband had accumulated in her name while they were married. In the wake of the September 11 attacks on New York in 2001, Jackson was moved to write 'Free The World', and the song's positive reception spurred her on to write more songs, ending up with a full album. The album's title, 'Startin' Over' was a reference to the six years that she'd spent out of the public's view in order to rebuild her life after divorcing husband/manager Jack Gordon. The original album was completed in September 2002 and issued as a promotional CD the following year in order to secure a distribution deal, but in 2006 the promo was leaked to the internet, and the official release was beset with years of delays, while in the interim Jackson recorded entirely new material that might be released in the future. 'Startin' Over' includes autobiographical tracks about her relationship with her abusive ex-husband and former manager, and several of them hint towards brutal beatings and plans to have her family killed, and one of the tracks, 'Mafia Style', is a reference to Gordon's meetings with mobsters on New York's Mulberry Street. In 2006 Jackson recorded a new song titled 'Starting Over', but plans to release it as a single that year were scrapped, and instead it was reconstituted as a jingle for Australian beverage maker Star Ice. In June 2011 she released the 'Starting Over' EP, which included the 2006 song of the same name, plus six tracks from the aborted album, and it's issue was timed to coincide with her book of the same name, with the EP being subtitled 'Songs That Inspired The Book'. This confirmed that the 'Startin' Over' album was finally consigned to the vaults, and so for fans who want to hear the rest of the scrapped record, here is the full 'Startin' Over' album, including a bonus dance remix of 'Free The World'. 

Track listing

01 No More Drama  
02 Just Wanna Dance  
03 C'est La Vie 
04 Anger Management (Skit)  
05 Don't Want You No More  
06 Home 
07 Call Me  
08 That's Why I Love You  
09 Something About You 
10 Mafia Style (Skit)  
11 Should've Left You 
12 Free The World  
13 Player  
14 You're So Nasty  
15 Sorry Lies  
16 Tropical Breeze  
17 Free The World (Dance Remix) 

Azealia Banks - Fantasea II: The Second Wave (2018)

Following the release of her debut studio album 'Broke With Expensive Taste' in 2014, Azealia Banks' next project was a follow-up to her first mixtape 'Fantasea'. 'Fantasea II: The Second Wave' had been worked on alongside the recording of 'Broke With Expensive Taste', and had been intended to be released in July 2014, following the 2013 single 'Count Contessa', but it was eventually put on hold so that Banks could concentrate on her studio album. In 2017 she released the second promotional single 'Escapades' in support of the upcoming album, and in 2018 she signed to eOne Music and released the singles 'Anna Wintour' and 'Treasure Island', as well as the promotional single 'Movin' On Up (Coco's Song, Love Beats Rhymes)' in anticipation for the album. In mid-2018 she cancelled the project, although she carried on working on it, and in August it was announced that it would still be released someday. In June 2019 she took to her Instagram to say she would never release a full body of work as she felt the world was not deserving of her music, but a few days later she posted pictures working in a studio with Russian producers. In the same month, she shared a snippet of 'Icy Pisces', and said that she was looking for a singer to feature on it, thus proving the album was still in development, and in April 2021 she told fans that it would be released in the summer. However, to date it has still not appeared, and so I've collected up all the tracks that are available to put something together to tide us over until it does eventually appear. 

Track listing

01 Along The Coast
02 Taste's State (feat. Busta Rhymes)
03 Treasure Island
04 Anna Wintour
05 Count Contessa
06 Pyrex Princess
07 Escapades
08 Venus
09 Movin' On Up (Coco's Song, Love Beats Rhymes)
10 Playhouse
11 Blossom
12 In Excelsis
13 Chi Chi

Eden xo - Dirty Blonde (2016)

Following her stint in Shut Up Stella in 2007, and an attempt at a solo career in 2008, Jessica Eden Malakouti formed Jessie And The Toy Boys in 2011, which was actually more of a solo project, with the Toy Boys being mannequins. She said in a 2011 interview that she wanted plastic bandmates that could not get in the way of her creative vision, and under that name she independently released the 'Show Me Your Tan Lines' five-song EP. 'Push It (feat. Yelawolf)' hit the Top 10 on the Billboard dance charts, and during the summer of 2011 she opened for Britney Spears and Nicki Minaj on the North American leg of the Femme Fatale tour. The band's debut album, 'This Is How Rumours Start', should have followed, but it was pushed back to summer 2012, and despite some of the songs appearing as videos on Youtube, the album itself has failed to materialise. In May 2013 she released 'White Girl Wasted' under her own name, and this sparked rumours that she would no longer be releasing music under the name Jessie And The Toy Boys. This was confirmed when she announced that she'd signed to Virgin, changed her name to her middle name of Eden, followed by xo, and released her first single under this name with 'Too Cool To Dance'. It hit the Top 40 on the Billboard chart and the Top 20 on the club charts, and in 2014 it was featured on 'So You Think You Can Dance' to mark National Dance Day. 'The Weekend' was another hit single, as was a remix of the track that featured Lil Jon, and she also recorded a version of the Thompson Twins song 'Hold Me Now' in 2015. Her next release was intended to be an EP titled 'Dirty Blonde', but due to label problems she ended up being dropped by Virgin and the project was shelved. During her time at Virgin Records she had sessions with Ron Fair, Toby Gad, Fred Falke, Sean Paul, and Jesse Shatkin, and had enough songs for an album at the time that the EP was cancelled, and so if she hadn't left the label in 2017 then she could have expanded the EP into her debut album. As she didn't do that then I have, and so here is Eden xo's first and only album, which should have come out around 2016.

 
Track listing

01 Dirty Blonde  
02 Too Cool To Dance  
03 Drips Gold (feat. Raja Kumari) 
04 Finger
05 All Day Every Day 
06 Sideline (feat. Swick)
07 Torn (Don't Stop Believing) 
08 Cinematic Goodbye
09 Say That Again (feat. Travis Mills)  
10 El Barrio 
11 Hold Me Now  
12 Color Me In (feat. The Hot Damns) 
13 The Weekend 

Jessie Malakouti - Pretty & Gritty (2008)

While she was still a member of Shut Up Stella between 2007 and 2008, Jessie Malakouti was thinking ahead to a solo career, if and when the band broke up, and she was writing and recording her own songs. After Shut Up Stella was dropped from Epic Records, she flew to Sweden to work with production team Money&Stuff and other producers such as Arnthor Birgisson, Justin Trugman, Lester Mendez, Matt Rowe and Wayne Rodrigues, with the intention of producing her debut solo album, which was to be titled 'Pretty & Gritty'. The record was due to be released in 2008, but it was never completed, and so she uploaded some songs to her MySpace page, while others were consigned to the vaults, although two of her songs, 'Trash Me' and 'Outsider', appeared in episodes of MTV's 'The Hills', as well as being independently self-released as music videos and digital downloads. In December 2008 she signed a publishing deal with EMI, and the next two years were spent in London working on dance music with Fred Falke, as well as writing for UK production house Xenomania. In 2010 she formed Jessie And The Toy Boys, launching them with the  single 'Push It' in February 2011, and so all thoughts of a solo career had by then faded away. To fill in the gap between the cancelled 'Shut Up Stella' album and the cancelled' 'This Is How Rumors Start' by Jessie And The Toy Boys (can you see a pattern emerging here?), we have the cancelled 'Pretty & Gritty' by a solo Jessie Malakouti.  

Track listing

01 Trash Me 
02 Eyes Closed 
03 Bad Guy 
04 Check 'n Out 
05 I Need Love
06 Big Booty 
07 Commitment Issues
08 PS 
09 Upside Down 304
10 Lately 
11 Outsider 
12 Crash Bang Baby
13 You're My Viagra 
14 Things

Nicole Scherzinger - Fire (2011)

As I mentioned in the previous posts from Nicole Scherzinger, before embarking fully on a solo career she dipped her toes in the water by appearing on other artist's records as a guest vocalist, and in 2006 and 2007 she graced quite a few songs with her presence. It was an eclectic mix, with 50 Cent sitting next to Shaggy, and Timbaland vying with P. Diddy for her attention, and if we gather up all the guest appearances that she made before the release of her official debut studio album in 2011 then we have a very enjoyable 45-minute album of prime R&B and reggae. Only one of these tracks eventually appeared on that debut album 'Killer Love', but as 'Heartbeart' with Enrique Inglesias was also released as a single in 2010 then I'm including it on here anyway.   

Track listing 

01 Don't Ask Her That (feat. Shaggy) [from 'Clothes Drop' 2005]
02 Come To Me (feat. P. Diddy) [from 'Press Play' 2006]
03 Fire (feat. 50 Cent & Young Buck) [from 'Curtis' 2007]
04 Heartbeat (feat. Pharrell Williams) [Madonna demo 2008]
05 Supa Hypnotic (feat. Shaggy) [from 'Clothes Drop' 2005]
06 Scream (feat. Keri Hilson & Timbaland) [from 'Shock Value' 2007]
07 Papi Lover (feat. Daddy Yankee) [from 'El Cartel: The Big Boss' 2007]
08 Numba 1 (Tide Is High) (feat. Kardinal Offishall) [from 'Not 4 Sale' 2008]
09 Lie About Us (feat. Avant) [from 'Director' 2006]
10 Heartbeat (feat. Enrique Iglesias) [from 'Euphoria' 2010]
11 Hotel Room Service (feat. Pitbull) [from 'Rebelution' 2009]
12 Coconut Tree (feat. Mohombi) [from 'MoveMeant' 2011]

Made In London - A Perfect Storm (2000)

Made in London were a pop group made up of three members, Brits Kelly Bryant and Sherene Dyer, and Norwegian Marianne Eide, and the band was founded by Melissa Popo and Peter Ibsen. Ibsen co-wrote the whole of their album with the lead singer/songwriter Sherene Dyer, with contributions from the rest of the band, while Popo left before they released any of their singles. Despite wide publicity, particularly surrounding their second single, 'Shut Your Mouth', combined with a certain amount of internet-based success, their most successful chart hit was 'Dirty Water', which reached number 15 in the UK Singles Chart in May 2000. The trio's debut album 'A Perfect Storm' was planned to be released after 'Shut Your Mouth', but as the single did not garner the anticipated chart success, only reaching number 74 in the UK singles chart, the album was cancelled prior to its release. Following the release of a cover of Terence Trent D'Arby's 'Wishing Well', the group disbanded, with Dyer carrying on performing under the name Sherii Ven Dyer. As so often happens with these cancelled album, the record company should have had a bit more faith in them, as it's a perfectly fine millennial pop record, with 'I'm Not' and 'We Don't Do No Wrong' even appealing to a heavy rock audience. 

Track listing

01 I'm Not  
02 Dirty Water  
03 24 Little Hours  
04 We Don't Do No Wrong 
05 Shut Your Mouth  
06 Ain't Another Love Song  
07 My Friend  
08 Believe  
09 Hit Or Miss  
10 If You Don't Wanna  
11 From The First Time  
12 Magic  

Shut Up Stella - Shut Up Stella (2007)

In 2006 Jessica Eden Malakouti moved to Los Angeles following her graduation, and started an all-female punk band, Shut Up Stella, with Kristen Wagner, and Allison Jayne Lurie, otherwise known as Fan 3. Fan 3 had been recording and releasing music since she was 13, with one of her songs being featured on the 'Lizzie McGuire' soundtrack, and there were even plans to release her debut album in 2005. However, after a sampler disc was sent out for the tentatively titled 'Let Me Clear My Throat', she was dropped by her label and her album was shelved. In 2006 Fan 3 met up with Malakouti and Wagner and formed Shut Up Stella, and they were signed by Epic Records shortly after their formation. One of their first recordings was 'Watch Me Rain', which was produced by Greg Kurstin, and it featured in a few movies, including the 2008 film 'Baby Mama', starring Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. After a very short tenure with the label, during which time they did manage to record around a dozen songs for a proposed 2007 album, they were dropped by Epic, and their album was cancelled. Malakouti quit the band and decided to focus instead on her career as an actress, songwriter and solo artist, while Fan 3 helped out Kay Hanley with backing vocals on her second album 'Weaponize', before recording and releasing covers and original music on Youtube and Myspace under her given name of Allison Jayne. The 'Shut Up Stella' album has floated around Youtube for a while now, and so to start a short overview of Malakouti's career, which later continued with Jessie And The Toy Boys, and then as Eden xo, here is her first effort.  

Track listing

01 Welcome To My Party
02 On My Bed
03 Twister
04 Waiting For You
05 Cheap Champagne
06 Watch Me Rain
07 Postcards (Forgot To Remember)
08 These Are The Days
09 Light It Up
10 Country Lemonade (Sip It Up)
11 Pound Star
12 Oprah For President

Porcelain Black - Mannequin Factory (2015)

Alaina Marie Beaton was born on 1 October 1985 in Detroit, Michigan, and is known professionally as Porcelain Black. She had a troubled childhood, being expelled from two different schools, and feeling like an outcast as she didn't fit in with her classmates. At the age of sixteen, as soon as she was legally able to, she dropped out of school, and while on a road trip in New York she was approached by her first manager, who told her to move to Los Angeles. Three months later she did so, found her manager, and was signed to Virgin Records two weeks later. Recording under the pseudonym Porcelain And The Tramps, she worked with Tommy Henriksen and John Lowery in London, but she and the label could not agree on the music she made. Virgin wanted her to record pop music in the vein of Avril Lavigne, but she wanted to mix industrial rock sounds with dance pop, so she began posting the songs she recorded on Myspace, gaining upwards of 10 million views in a matter of months. This led to her being approached by Courtney Love on MySpace to provide backing vocals for a solo album she was working on, while a song she co-wrote with Billy Steinberg and Josh Alexander around the time Black left Virgin, 'How Do You Love Someone?', was recorded by Ashley Tisdale for her second album, 'Guilty Pleasure'. 

Through a mutual A&R friend, producer RedOne heard about Black and was interested in meeting her, and after that meeting in his studio in November 2009, they wrote her debut single 'This Is What Rock n' Roll Looks Like' the next day. RedOne helped her break away from her contract with Virgin Records and signed her to his Universal Republic imprint, 2101 Records. A name change to Porcelain Black followed, as it was causing confusion to people who thought Porcelain And The Tramps was a band. After appearing in a few music videos, she gained a cameo role in the 2012 film 'Rock Of Ages', playing the lead singer of a 1980's glam metal band. In 2011 she announced that the working title of her debut album was to be 'Mannequin Factory', and RedOne was said to have produced and co-written all but one of the tracks with her. A second single was released from the album, and 'Naughty Naughty' peaked at number 6 on the chart, but when 2102 Records became an imprint of Capitol Records when Universal Republic went under, this delayed the release of any new material by the industrial singer. During the summer of 2013, Black performed a private gig in West Hollywood, featuring all-new material, and several months later 2101 Records released five songs in five weeks, with her long-anticipated debut album expecting to be released after this five-week promotional period, with two brand new singles preceding it. 

After 'Mama Forgive Me' was released, she then confirmed that the album had no confirmed title, revealing she had considered the names 'Black Rainbow' and 'Mannequin Factory', but that those titles might not work as she had recorded more songs. After many internal conflicts between Black and her long-time collaborator, RedOne, she announced in 2015 that plans to release her long-anticipated album were cancelled, and that she wanted to record a new record in the vein of her previous project, Porcelain And The Tramps. This could be expected to appear in late 2017, and music from this new project would feature the same attitude as her previous work, with slower, mid-tempo songs and rapping. In February 2020 she posted on Twitter that she was almost done with her first album, which just needed mixing and mastering, and she tweeted every song title, ending with the claim that the untitled project was expected to be released in 2020. However, despite releasing three self-produced demos of new songs directly on her YouTube channel in December 2020, there is still no sign of Black's debut long-player, and so in its place here is a reconstruction of the abandoned 'Mannequin Factory', which could have appear way back in 2015. 

Track listing

01 One Woman Army  
02 This Is What Rock 'n' Roll Looks Like (feat. Lil' Wayne)  
03 La Dee Da Dee (Naughty Naughty)  
04 Mannequin Factory  
05 Swallow My Bullet  
06 Mama Forgive Me  
07 Pretty Little Psycho 
08 Rich Boi  
09 How Do You Love Someone?  
10 Too Much Of Not Enough  
11 Stealing Candy From A Baby  
12 Kisses Lose Their Charm  
13 King Of The World  
14 Fuck Like A Star  
15 I'm Your Favourite Drug  
16 Gasoline  
17 Curiosity  
18 Teeny Bopper Crack Whore  

Cassie - Electro Love (2009)

Casandra Elizabeth Ventura, known professionally as Cassie, was born on 26 August 1986 in New London, Connecticut, and after attending The Williams School on the Connecticut College campus, she began modelling at the age of 14, and by 16 she was modelling for local department stores, Delia's fashion catalogue and Seventeen. After appearing in R&B singer Mario's 'Just A Friend 2002' music video, she was encouraged by producer Rockwilder to take vocal lessons. After finishing high school in 2004 she moved to New York City, where she returned to modelling, and started taking classes at the Broadway Dance Center. After Ryan Leslie spotted her at a club in 2004, the two wrote a duet together called 'Kiss Me', and after recording the track, Leslie played the song for music executive Tommy Mottola, who offered Cassie a management deal, while Leslie signed her to NextSelection Lifestyle Group. Leslie wrote and produced her first single, 'Me & U', in 2005, and the song became a club hit in Germany before it was heard by P. Diddy, and Leslie convinced him to partner his Bad Boy Records with Leslie's NextSelection imprint for the release of Cassie's debut album. The self-titled record was released in August 2006, and sold 321,000 copies in the United States, while the lead single 'Me & U' peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100, selling more than 1 million digital downloads. In 2007 it had to be denied that she'd been dropped from Bad Boy Records, and Diddy confirmed that she was in the studio working with producers Kanye West and Pharrell Williams on her second album, having split from Ryan Leslie, who had produced the majority of her debut album. 

The idea was that working with a mix of writers and producers, as well as her own co-write input, would make it a more personal record. In 2008 she made her film debut as Sophie Donovan in the dance film 'Step Up 2: The Streets', and she also sang the lead single 'Is It You' from the soundtrack album. In July 2009 it was announced that her second studio album's title would be 'Electro Love', and that it would demonstrate more independence and have a bit more personality. Three singles were released as tasters for the record, but neither 2008's 'Official Girl', nor 2009's 'Must Be Love' and 'Let's Get Crazy' charted in the US, and so the album was pushed back a couple of times, before she left Bad Boy Records in December and signed with Interscope Records. She was still talking about the album coming out in October 2010, saying that she'd already recorded around fifty songs for it, but still no release date was offered. Her next release was another single, with 'King Of Hearts' appearing in February 2012, but that was now three years after her second record was supposed to have appeared, and so I think we'll we have to admit that by now it was never going to happen. Luckily there have been a number of leaks of her music over the years, and they include all the tracks from 'Electro Love', and so here is that long-awaited second album from Cassie, which should have come out in 2009. 

Track listing

01 Let's Get Crazy (feat. Akon)
02 Official Girl (feat. Lil Wayne)
03 Activate (feat. Newz)
04 2 The Morning
05 My House
06 Must Be Love (feat. P. Diddy)
07 Thirsty
08 Make You A Believer (feat. Jadakiss)
09 Keep On Lovin' Me (feat. The-Dream)
10 Nobody But You (feat. The-Dream)
11 Stamina
12 Up In Here
13 In Love With The DJ
14 Turn The Lights Off
15 Is It You
16 Summer Charm
17 Not What Love Is (feat. P. Diddy)
18 Talkin' Like This