So So Gay
You know how people are always asking is there a German equivalent of Nadine Coyle? No? Well I’m shocked! Bonkers music query from non-existent people aside, such a candidate exists, and her name is Mandy Capristo.
Capristo is a 22 year old German of Italian decent, who found fame by being one of three winners from the German Popstars’ fifth season. Along with fellow winners Senna Guemmour and Bahar Kızıl, Capristo formed the popular girl group, Monrose, and was considered the strongest singer, invariably doing the big notes on all their songs. See? She’s totally Nadine.
With the myriad of stars that have been churned out by the X Factor & Pop Idol in the UK alone, you may ask why one should look to other countries for yet more of the same? Sometimes, however, the talent should stand on its own merits, rather than be sidelined because of its manufactured roots.
Four albums later and the girls decided to disband to pursue solo ventures – much to my dismay I hasten to add – with Capristo being the first to release solo material. Around a month ago, said material came out in the form of a début album entitled Grace (the title also being her middle name), which contains the excellent lead single ‘The Way I Like It’, embedded below. Hopefully Grace will fair better than the album of her Girls Aloud counterpart, Insatiable. Poor Nadine. Still, at least it prompted the creation of an ‘unsayshuhbul’ and hilarious Twitter parody account, @NuhdeenCoyleNow. So there’s always that to look forward to should the album flop…
Capristo’s first foray into solo work is overall a solid effort. The inclusion of one-too-many uninteresting ballads drags the pace of the album down somewhat, but thankfully Capristo’s excellent vocals hold it together at a high standard. The big selling point is all the up-tempo numbers – in particular ‘Intense’ and ‘Pulse’. The genre is very much like the infectious electro-pop material she made with Monrose, whose back catalogue you should definitely check out if you’ve not heard of them either, since it includes brilliant slices of pop like ‘Hot Summer‘ ’Why Not Us‘ and ‘Like a Lady‘, to name but three of their hits.
Grace is available now from Amazon and iTunes.
Mandy Capristo’s début single, ‘The Way I Like It’
