By Akshay Bhansali

Amid the star-stacked frenzy of the radio forum at the VMAs at Radio City Music Hall a few weeks back, I ran into my old pal Anjulie. Since we first met a few years back, the Canadian-born singer/songwriter has come a long way. At the forum, she was fielding radio and TV interviews to promote her self-titled album. And she had more to talk about. In addition to being selected as one of five artists to watch out for in MTVU's Freshman 5 this summer, the big news of the weekend was that her video for "Boom" was facing off against Gnarls Barkley, Bat For Lashes and Death Cab for Cutie (among others) for Breakthrough Video at the weekend's big awards show. (The prize ended up going to Matt and Kim's "Lessons Learned," and why not? Don't we all want to strip down naked and run through Times Square?)

I'm not saying Anj took a hint of any kind from the aforementioned winner, but in her new video for second single "Rain," she totally writhes around on a bed in her underwear. Just kidding! But not totally. At the radio forum, she talked about the noir-ish feel of the clip, which is indeed inspired by Madonna's "Justify My Love." Yep, even she said that for the video they definitely tried to take it "there."

show|null|video|441754

Currently, Anjulie is on tour with Shwayze and B.o.B., and this fall and winter she'll team up for a trek with Raphael Saadiq.