Friday, 2 December 2011
Ultimate Pop Star Countdown: 15-11
Monday, 13 June 2011
Gina G - Next 2 U (New Music Video)
Read my Gina G interview here.
Thursday, 2 June 2011
Gina G: Diva Incarnate Interview
Staging a comeback is not for the faint hearted. Gina G stormed the charts in the mid-90s with her tantalizing anthem Ooh Ahh ... Just A Little Bit. Even its very name left one in suspense. Just what was she on about; was she a size queen? was she short changed at Primark? or did her hairdresser just need a little bit of encouragement? Straight-faced, sequined and ultraconfident, it's unforgettable intro was like a camp siren, instantly recognizable, and even to this day proclaims the musical identity of this Eurovision legend whom only straight people could have forgotten about. Loud and clear.
![]()
15 battle-scarred years later (and that's just myself), dance icon Gina is about to strike out yet again for career longevity and a p.a pursuit that will make sure there's not a gay in the world who has not been made aware that there is a site called iTunes with a new song called Next 2 Uavailable to buy for the price of 79p give or take the exchange rate. Her biggest hits sizzle and kaboom like an explosion of 90s euphoria; and her new one here is ready to create its own nostalgia and expand her musical boundaries by way of its Nintendo-inspired original version, and the feverish trance-formation of the new single edit.
Below: Gina G on the promo-trail in her native Australia, wearing a fashion-forward pink tutu, Gothic-chic corset, and the ultimate accessory for every diva of dance, a pair dancing gays she found at Starbucks!
The pulsating atmosphere and body-jerking grooves of Next 2 U are driven by Gina's lyrical excitement, gushing voice and blushing that tease "mmmm delicious". The energy level is on par with the rampant momentum of Ooh Ahh and the sumptuous I Belong To You, and Gina still revels in her enthusiasm for the opposite sex and clubccentric infection. I managed to harass the singer for long enough on Twitter for her to be kind enough to give up some time and answer some hard-hitting questions (well, some questions nevertheless). It's no secret that Gina G is one of my all time favourite singers, so I hope you enjoy. Here is part one:
Hi Gina - it's great to have you back doing what you do best. What took you so long?
Babies babies and more babies. Actually it’s only 2, but it feels like 100. Don’t get me wrong I love my family. It’s a juggling act. So to answer your question, I took time off to start my own circus.
Your 'size queen' anthem Ooh Ahh ... Just A Little Bit is your signature song. What surprised you most about the success you experienced with it?
Being Grammy nominated. When I found out, I think I fainted in my father’s front lawn.
What's the story with the track Heaven? It was, and still is, an amazing song that could be a hit single.
I agree with you. It’s on the list of potential re-makes.
One of the reasons I loved the 'demo' of Next To You was that it didn't pander to any particular market; it updated your sound whilst retaining your unique lyrical excitement, and just sounded like lots of fun. Do you feel pressure to recreate the sound of yourFresh! album, or are such atypical sounds the first taster of more to come in this vein?
I don’t feel any pressure to recreate anything. I am extremely excited about the sound of today. Next 2 U is nothing like the original demo you heard. You won’t recognize it and there’s no comparison. It’s still in a league of its own and even more classic poptastic with really cool synths. The only similarity to 1996 is that it sounds like me.
Below: one of the many iconic images Gina created in collaboration with acclaimed photographer David La Chappelle.

I saw David once in West Hollywood and he remembered me. We had a nice long latte. I was honoured again to be sitting across from such a genius. Style is extremely important. I’m not saying I haven’t made any fashion faux pas, but overall I get very involved and I love it. Just don’t get that photo of me at 8.30am racing the kids to school!
Another Eurovision queen Dana International had another stab at entering this year's contest but never made the final. What did you make of Dana's Ding Dong? Personally, despite a respectable performance, I felt her exotic appeal had gone and her ding dong was a bit limp.... Would you ever try to go back (again)?
Firstly, no disrespect to her because I know how hard it is to write the perfect pop song. But why ‘Ding Dong’? Is it Israeli for ‘you have large hands’?
To answer the 2nd part of your question: Highly unlikely. I doubt I would ever be able to create such a magical moment like I did in 1996. Plus I need to move on and progress as an artist. I’m sure my fans would agree.
And how would you do things differently if entering Eurovision became a serious possibility (ie, what would it take to make it seem appealing)?
If I could be the front person with the the 2006 winners Lordi, I would be there. “Good lordi”.
Who are your show biz friends? And what famous person would you put straight to voicemail (and why)?
I’ve had many great conversations with Pete Burns in seedy corners of nightclubs. I love him.
I would put Jesse James straight to voicemail. How could you cheat on Sandra Bullock? She’s one of my idols.
Below: G reveals that she and Pete Burns always have a great crack together.

A very big rock star at the time, practically forced me into a room to partake in an illicit drug snorting fest. I escaped unharmed and undrugged.
What reality TV shows have you been offered that you can remember? Personally, I think you would be great on Strictly Come Dancing (camp, glittery and glamorous - obviously your fans would expect nothing less).
I’ve been asked to do “I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here” about 20 times. The answer is no every time. I hate spiders!!! Also “Celebrity Total Wipeout” – no way!!! I actually have my UK agent looking into “Strictly Come Dancing”. I would say YES to this one.
Tonight's The Night was a corker of a comeback song (fast and bold Latin rhythms and your trademark gushing vocal delivery), and it's b-side Undone was my personal favourite (almost going into darker Dannii Minogue territory if you don't mind me saying). Not to be picky, but you did promise us a follow-up "no matter what". Lots of things get in the way of course, but what is the story career-wise with that era?
I fell pregnant with my 2nd child right after I returned from the UK promo tour of “Tonight’s the Night”.This was totally unexpected, but well worth it. She is amazing.
Are there any celebrities that you could 'out' as Gina G fans?
Cher. When she heard my album she said to the chairman of Warner Music ‘I want that sound for my album’. Enrique Englesias. When he heard “Ti Amo” on the radio in Europe, he immediately wrote the next song with the producers of that track, Metro (now Metrophonic).
Your song Tease has recently been recorded by Nomi Madness (whom your righthand man John Collins, I believe, has been working with). What do you think of his version, and is writing for other artists something you'd like to do more?
It’s always flattering when someone covers your work. I’d love to write for other artists such as Katy Perry, Kylie, to name a few.
Who do you see as your contemporaries (or friendly 'rivals')?
Pop is back, so I am in great company. I do feel I have a unique sound.
Would you ever work with Motiv8 and Metro again? When I heard the Metro-produced Heartbeat for Enrique I immediately thought it sounded like a Gina G song.
I would work with Metro again in a heartbeat!
While I am at it - the song Believe recorded by Cher was written by Metro and famously rejected by a number of singers, and I was wondering if the song was ever offered to you? Or what songs have you turned down that we would know of?
Believe was never offered to me, but “Runaway” from the “Believe” album was. It wasn’t for me.
Was it annoying seeing pretty much any other dance diva and her mother getting their own Motiv8 remixes during the 90s and stealing your sound as it were?
No because mine was by far the biggest hit. Steve Rodway who is Motiv8 is a one trick pony. He’s only ever did one sound and he’ll only ever have that one sound. That’s why I didn’t do the 2nd album with him. And he didn’t pay me a penny for the first album. Sour grapes at all….absof**kinglutley!
These days, the Freemasons are the ubiquitous dance producers of the moment: who would be your dream collaborators to make dance music with?
RedOne, Dr Luke, Metrophonic again.
What information can you give about your new album, including song titles, that you haven't told any other blog?
“Into The Night “and “Kinky” are being rewritten and re-produced beyond recognition.
Thanks Gina G. Best of luck with the new project - I look forward to hearing more about it!
Thanks Gordon!
---
Well, I think I may have to lie down after that. My closing thoughts: I love Gina's undiminished passion for what she does, and the process involved in creating the songs; her eagerness to do Strictly Come Dancing; I can't wait to hear Kinky as it has the potential to be as amazing as the title track to her debut; the Pete Burns and Cher name-dropping were 'fabulous'; it was interesting to know she turned down Runaway (it's a tad generic, but Cher gives it some gusto I suppose, and I agree it wasn't a Gina G track); I wanted to add "hear hear" to the Steve Roadway answer (as much as I love his vintage sound, he didn't move on and his remixes quickly became stale at the time when her sophomore album would have been released had there been no 'issues' to put it mildly); and the line "I escaped unharmed and undrugged" should be used in a sentence at least once a day! If you're a fan, I hope you enjoyed my interview, and for everyone else, please check out Next 2 U, it's a really special, and enticing, dance track well-worthy of the singer's special legacy.
Wednesday, 1 June 2011
Gina G Live On Ozzy TV
Love the presenter saying, about Eurovision, "it was hardly a dress" and Gina thowing the shade straight back: "that's what my mum would say!"
Sunday, 29 May 2011
Gina G's Next 2 U: The Verdict
Ever since I showed no apology for loving that half-naked Australian dance queen sparkle, flick and strut on the Eurovision stage as a typical 11 year old boy with a thing for spectacular eurodance tunes back in 1996, I have been salivating for the unique flair, style and Hi-NRG excitement of Gina's music: classics such as the lavish I Belong To You, flamenco-flutter of Ti Amo, the emphatic Ooh Ahh, the jittery anticipation of Rhythm of My Life (and its amazing lyric "my brother doesn't like you, my sister thinks you cool"); the frisky innuendo of the title track Fresh!; the rampant dance binge of Gimme Some Love; and the more plaintive exotica of It Doesn't Mean Goodbye. There might not have been much material since, but if I am honest this has probably only enhanced her myth and status. However, there have been highlights such as her trance-formation on the very Riva-esque Heaven (her biggest hit that never was), and a certain atypical delight in the form of a song called Next To You that was leaked via her facebook page in order to quench her fan's thirst for more tunes, and probably just to settle their nerves in such trying times of uncertainty. Its style was minimalist, almost like La Roux serving up a song for a 90s Nintendo computer console: what remained were the singer's trademark gushing vocals and excited lyrical topic of cute boys (is there anything else worth talking about in life? I don't think so). Gina released her belated follow-up to Fresh! called Get Up & Dance, and a few of its highlights have been remixed for a future release, including a re-vamped Next To You, now cleverly re-named Next 2 U in order to appeal to people who can't spell. Throwing her spell-checker out the window, this gem has now been given a glossy make-over, the wistful melody is now enhanced with rainbow-sprouting synths and glistening piano keys. In other words, it's pretty amazing. Check your iTunes and support Gina G's latest comeback. Hopefully I shall post a youtube clip of it soon.9/10
Tuesday, 17 May 2011
Monday, 28 February 2011
Friday, 5 March 2010
Gina G - Fresh!
Camp emergency siren Ooh Ahh ... Just A Little Bit is every bit as gushing as I'm In The Mood For Dancing or Kelly Marie's Feels Like I'm In Love especially, but far more exuberant than both those acts would have found imaginable. Like those other singles, the song is uncoverable - the singers heartbeat-skipping theme tune whether she likes that we like it or not. The electric production travels fast, the beats violating your right for consent. The frolicsome, speedy carnage wouldn't mean a thing without Gina sucking us right in: 'you're my love, you're my sweetest thing' is delivered before you can catch your breath.
The scintilating Fresh! with aquatic male panting and rippling guitar riff, all deliberately echoing a jingle with 1950s catchprasing, conveying bathing suit glamour in heels. The funky Bayside Boys remix yanks the Macarena bassline from under your feet and it's a perfect fit for those revolving 'whoooh-oh-oh-whoah-oh-oh' bits.
Flemenco flutterer Ti Amo bats its lashes in the direction of La Isla Bonita, applying an extra layer of pining fantasia. The more bombastic Bayside Boys, more fiesty Basstown, and more better Metro 'Summer of Love' Edits infinitely indulge the sense of unrestricted romance. This is the song that evolved into Enrique Iglesias' solo career when Gina's record contract bound her to work with Motiv8 producer Steve Roadway and she refused, giving Metro free reign to spoil the Latin heart-throb with numerous scintilating soundalikes (Rhythm Divine, Be With You, Hero - just imagine if Gina had recorded them, and she didn't even have a mole).
The helpless Everytime I Fall (think Madonna's Pray For Spanish Eyes) assumes passive dependence into a lovers gaze. The Todd Terry and Metro remixes offer the song's definative experiences.
Emitting a cryptic and redemptive quality, Follow The Light is an arm wrestle between a ballad and a extravaganza, ruefully celebrating her music's escapist ideals.
The immodest hormonal desperation Gimme Some Love is standard fare gear-shifting Hi-NRG, no more no less, but the Eurobeat single edit remedies this with a flush of sweeping whoooshing disco lubrication. The perfect vehicle for a swift vocal style that craves a fast melody so you don't have to think about it too much. Gina effortlessly sustains her mortified giddiness, of which overcomes the paranoia of her not-so-quiet request.
Above: finishing 6th, Gina certainly never 'failed' at Eurovision, she got a UK #1, huge Japanese success and narrowly missed the US Billboard top ten peaking at #11)The ecstatic disco heart-attack Rhythm of My Life, compels a lapse in diplomacy when Gina blurts out 'my brother doesn't like you, my sister thinks you're cool' which is on par with the magnificently pugnacious opening line to Jellyhead By Crush ('so what if your jeans are torn, they've been torn since Bros were cool'). Manufactured from Motiv8's already existing Rocking For Myself, one can't hold it against Gina when she's on particularly forthcoming form, having alpatations that have more inescapable pull than a black hole.
Soggy tampon soaker Missing You Like Crazy is the only deadweight and has no place on the album where she sounds a bit too accepting of her lovers absence to ring properly true. A prudish toilet flush - she might get it all out but doesn't half leave a big stink behind her and why should we all suffer?
The sumptuous I Belong To You treacles with glossy production wherein her unquenchable desire accommodates Roadways surfing electronica, as she blushes, 'like a river to the sea'. Like nature, you'd best not interrupt her and instead marvel at the breathtaking outcome no matter who dies from it. The telegraphic precision of the lyrics, usurping jaccuzzi of eurodance, and Gina's heartwarming reassureance all equal a nervous overload of vanishing point euphoria.
Gina's cool and enticing vocals hyperventalate once more on the anthemic elevation of the jerky kangaroo beat-driven Higher Than Love. One of the many opportunities for a single, the fact that she has this as a spare defies belief. Whereas her contemporaries (Kristine W, Ultra Nate, Tina Cousins) were swamped with filler, Gina simply elminates this concern, going too fast to get bogged down. The risky adrenaline makes it sounds like a breeze.
On an album largely consumed by an inability to control one's emotions, Gina's cautious guard on the galacial mild tempo ballad It Doesn't Mean Goodbye is the only song where she seems to reveal a genuine human being beyond the killer hook and killer heels. Not merely pretty (which it most definately is), the singer's inner turmoil is illuminated by beaming synths sharply ignited with a tender melancholy. It's an ironic send off, and whenever I hear Gina's final whispered 'it doesn't mean goodbye' my inner gay stereotype can't help but repeat out loud 'oh but it did Gina'. The track plays on her best qualities - her perfumy voice creates a genuine mist of pathos, severed romance, spirituality and antagonised sexuality searching for answers. This song only deepens my intense admiration for her gloss, artifice, sophistication, realness, intensity and fast-lane cravings. A smouldering come down.
The encore Ooh Ahh ... Just A Little Bit (Vintage Honey Edit) caramalises the song into a more wistful current. The outstanding campness of the original is relieved in favour of a simple and spaced out but lush groove.
Every track bar one executed as a sure shot dancefloor classic (or pretty floral petal-plucking ballad), the strength of Fresh! is never extinguished (bar the tempoaray dampner Missing You Like Crazy). Her pulsating rhythms could give a corpse a nervous breakdown - you'd better dance, you'd better be gay and you'd better be ready for album number two. If you are man enough to be 'gay' enough, Gina skimming the cream for intoxicatingly exuberant beatwise hooks is the sound of life itself with each song (bar one) circulating like fresh heroine into a junkie. And when 3 out of 4 ballads of lust and ineptitude are good enough to ignite tempestuous holiday romance memories you don't even have, it surely is worth it. Her only album, so just as well it surpasses most greatest hits collections.
Friday, 24 July 2009
Gina G is back again!
Well DP me with chainsaws, coming hot off her heels from the unforgettable UK #57 Hi-NRG flamenco-flutter Tonight Is The Night, Gina fucking G is back! She is back for the very first time since 2006, with 3 flashy new tracks and a remix on her re-rouged myspace profile: Reinvented is a sparse high-speed electro delivery every bit as good or bad as a La Roux/Little Boots/whomever-thinks-they-are-the-shit track, with a tumbling drum loop as she incredulously scorns a crap ex-lover; Friday has a faux-lesbian rock attitude that is more Mel C than Gina G, and doesn't offer much. Looking far brighter (and faring far more feminine than her new pic), she revives her vibrant pop promise on the glitzy Next To You, which is the best of this lot and up there with Undone - very cutesy and made up to the 90s. 'Kissing you is like candy, mmm delicious' is a classic Gina G lyric that brings back fond memories of her former excessive gidiness - 'my brother doesn't like ya, my sister thinks you're cool' being her adrenalised peak from album shade Rhythm of My Life. The nintendo-style influence of the backing track is utterly adorable, the perfect backing for Gina's gushingly coy delivery whereby she paints herself in a Super Mario Bros world, as Princess Daisy seeking her 'superhero' - her blushing articulation regarding the anticipation of some fit guy is like Shakespeare.
Above: Gina G's imeasurably kitsch image was years ahead of celluloid sirens such as Rita Hayworth who waited until the 1940s to shoot such inconic photographs.My heart swells when I think of Gina G: Next To You is simply divine, and like she sings, 'don't get me started' is my own pre-nuptial demand for her to follow this through and give me a fucking album! As on her best Fresh! cuts, I can honestly say I get the same feeling with Next To You, that this pop princess' heart is pumping ecstatically and is ready to strut her stuff at Pride celebrations all over the UK. Such a driven performance is well worth investigating for curious casual fans. These tracks are marvelous to have, and even if she can't realistically chase after the Motiv8 dream, she has hooked me back in with her effortless charm as if it were 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001 or 2005 and 2006 again.
Gina's facebook has all the answers.
Wednesday, 16 July 2008
An Icon of Gay Betrayal

In 2004 an ex female work colleague once exclaimed to me "I'm all Gina G'd out!" - so just when did Ms. Gardiners' reign turn sour?Gina G tried to bankcrupt her fans, that's why, blackmailing her loyal CD1-and-CD2-buying fans by relentlessly releasing no less than 1 million different singles from her one and only album Fresh! Her fearless knack for luring gay men into the false hope that acting like a tragic stereotype would make them feel empowered and frierce worked wonders in 1996 when the world was bombarded with her apalling homophobic gay-spoof Oooh Ahhh ... Is Someboy Fisting Me? Stopping short of giving free sachets of KY away with her album, Gina did settle with preying on fat people as accompanying chocolate bars were attached to limited copies upon its release. Her brand of demoralising campness reflected a remarkable phenomenon totally inaccessible to ardently indifferent heterosexuals, but the endless top ten hits tallied to the monumental momentum of 2 (although 2 more sank into the top 20 like a bullimic purging into a toilet bowl)
By 2005, passive gays complaining of "camp cramp" and no sense of identity thought they had seen the last of the crimson dance whore. They were wrong. Escaping from an American tourbus (thinking she was on a Brittish reality show, she was en route to serve life in an L.A prison for crimes against gay people), she gardinered her lady garden and gathered a garish army of tens of terrified teenage anorexic queens and called them "hairdressers", "make-up artists" and worst of all "gay best friend number 3" - attacking all British gay clubs not classy enough to afford Mary Kiani's megabus travel expenses, Tonight Is The Night may well have been her last public brawl to date, but will her "niche market" finally be safe? Not one to give up her scams, she continues to hang outside STD clinics flogging the same old act like it were 2002 again.
Coming soon: Gina G - an icon of gay betrayal and gasping glamour.







