Ones to Watch in 2011: Blush

    BLUSH is the latest pop quintet to emerge onto the scene with their debut single, “Undivided,” featuring mega rapper Snoop Dogg. BLUSH is Victoria (Hong Kong), Natsuko (Japan), Angeli (The Philippines), Ji Ha (Korea) and Alisha (India), five talented and beautiful girls trying to carve out their own niche in an already crowded pop market. Their debut single, “Undivided” was produced by Darrell Brown (Keith Urban, Bon Jovi) and Steve Schnur (veteran A&R exec and soundtrack album producer) and mixed by Manny Marroquin (P!nk, Rihanna). It’s fitting that the song allows each of the five girls to shine, given that the message is all about empowerment.  You go girls!

    The video premiered June 20th as part of Yahoo! Music Monday and is the first first-ever music video created solely utilizing the BRUSHES app for the iPad. Pretty cool, eh? The clip was created by acclaimed animator Shawn Harris, who sought inspiration from early 80s animation seen in shows like The Electric Company and Sesame Street, as well as graffiti by “mysterious international artist Blu.” The video, which features nearly 7,000 finger brush strokes was a labor of love for Harris.

    “The best media for this technique wasn’t print, but video,” explains Harris. “The Brushes application isn’t designed specifically for animation, but if you can manage to be deliberate enough to record each brush-stroke as a separate frame, it lends itself to a very organic-feeling style of stop-motion finger-painting. The video is an exposed process–basically one painting, painted over and over and over itself.”

    Fantastic! I’m usually pretty wary of animated videos (I’m talkin to you BRITNEY SPEARS) because it usually means that the artists or record labels were just too cheap to film an actual video, but in the case of “Undivided,” the artists and label are clearly making strides in new and interesting directions, going places where other videos haven’t gone before, and that’s pretty cool! The single was released June 21st on U.S. iTunes by FarWest Entertainment, a Hong Kong/Shanghai/Singapore-based production company.  I’d really love to see BLUSH succeed here in North America.  Given just how many girl groups are out there today, it’s nice to see one so culturally diverse as BLUSH is.  Girl power is indeed back and BLUSH has more than enough to go around.  Download “Undivided” on U.S. iTunes HERE.

    Check out Blush on the web: