Tag Archive for "Queen Of Hearts"

BLUEBELL

How do you stand out in an over-saturated market? The Recommender is a music blog seemingly among billions of others out there. What makes our music blog so different? What makes you return to our pages and selections, and what is it that stops you from repeatedly visiting other music blogs? It’s an interesting thought, and in all honesty, it’s a point that you could perhaps answer better than we ever could. We imagine it might be the fact that we research our subjects as thoroughly as possible. Perhaps it’s the quality of the selections, what with us being such a picky bunch? It could be our network of industry professionals, giving us a useful insight to emerging artists? Maybe it’s the witty, insightful editorial? Surely not? Either way, it’s probably not our modesty. Today’s recommendation suffers in a similar fashion, as they aim to stand out from a flooded market. And this particular market is absolutely drenched.

Bluebell is Annabell Jones, alongside a writing partner, Charlie Westropp, with people mentioning them as a duo, something akin to La Roux, and similarly it seems Annabell is to be pushed front and centre. This makes it seem more like a new addition to the list of solo-female-quirky-pop artists, after what seems like a constant stream over the last five years of solo-female-quirky-pop artists. This is an area of music that’s not particularly short of them, having had Marina, Ellie, Florence, La Roux, Little Boots, Birdy, Jessie J, Queen Of Hearts, Kimbra, Nicki Minaj, Lana Del Rey, Pixie Lott, Lady Gaga, CocknBullKid, Florrie, Washington, Rihanna, Ke$ha, Jessie & The Toy Boys, OK, OK, so that last one can perhaps be left off of the list, but for fuck’s sake, it’s a ridiculously lengthy roll call, and that’s barely the tip of the very-feminine iceberg. It’s as if major labels entirely ignore anything to step through their doors with a Y chromosome, (although we’re still not 100% sure about that whole Florence-being-a-man-in-drag argument yet). And so steps up Bluebell, the latest pretender to a throne that’s currently got an over-abundance of perfectly-formed, tight little bottoms perched upon it. The real questions are in fact, is she good enough, and is there any room for her? Well, yes and no.

She happens to be Davy Jones daughter – yes him of The Monkees fame, who tragically died earlier this year, aged just 66. This is obviously something that’s bound to get mentioned with every journalistic introduction written about Bluebell, generating an unwelcome reminder for a young girl that’s just setting out on a career in music without him. In defence of the hacks, the poignancy of such a famous musician passing away just as his daughter sets out to become one, is sadly unavoidable, but hopefully her father’s inspiration will drive her further than any frustrations felt from the initial insensitivity towards her mourning. Most female pop artists don’t have a father as globally respected as she does, and even in his absence we feel that he could still inspire her, as well as open doors and opportunities where others have none. She was apparently also known as the lead singer of the short-lived alternative pop band, Lady & The Lost Boys, suggesting that this is an artist with some experience and form on a stage. These things should only help her stand out in a very tall market.

However, it’s the music that encourages the strongest of spotlights, so where do this duo stand with regards to their output? Well, a demo of their tune, Northern Heights, bounced around not so long ago and got the likes of The Guardian, Neon Gold and Breaking More Waves excited – all of which are seasoned commentators on this crowded market. That’s a good start. The duo are releasing their debut double A-sided single on June 11th through the Killing Moon blog/label, (who happen to be sharing a Great Escape showcase all day with The Recommender next week), and a re-edited version of that same tune has been kindly given to us as an exclusive for you today. The new version has Liam Howe on hand with the production, with his recent studio history working some magic for the likes of Marina & The Diamonds and Lana Del Rey it suggests the level of polish will match the competition’s. Where the tune could have been delivered by almost any of the other female artists, suffering as it does from a slight lack of invention, it still throbs and pulses beautifully, soaring to a fantastic elevation in parts. Teens will adore it, Radio One will therefore lap it up too, so where they may not be re-writing the pop books here, they do deliver on quality and design.

There’s more of a rewarding edge with the other side to their double A-sided single, with the tune Cinderella. It has a machined pace that marches behind Annabell’s floating, layered vocals, as she sings the wonderful line, “this is no Walt Disney, I’m not Cinderella, I’m just a girl“. It’s a clever piece of positioning that has an every-man appeal, (or an every-girl appeal?), that will surely act as the perfect bait required to lure in the youthful fans. It’s a melodic tune that proves she can do attractive pop, successfully packing just the right amount of sugar and that addictive ingredient banned in most other pop products. It never sells out or over-does the Westlife key change and carries a delightful underdog spirit. All of this will help to ensure that she stands out enough in this crowded space. Just like The Recommender in it’s noisy blogosphere, standing out will always ultimately be about trying to raise your standard as high as possible. Just like all of the other full marketplaces, we’re not sure if we actually need another new female pop artist, but at least Bluebell has the right studio assistance to maximise their ideas, the right label backing their early work, a tidy range of media covering their every move, but even more importantly, as a duo they have the quality in their pop music and it’s this that should allow them to stand out. (MB)

BLUEBELL – NORMAL HEIGHTS

BLUEBELL – CINDERELLA

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Published: May 1st, 2012
Author: Mike Bradford
Category: The Recommender
Tags: Birdy, Bluebell, Breaking More Waves, Cinderella, Cocknbullkid, Davy Jones, Ellie Goulding, Florence & The Machine, Florrie, Jessie & The Toy Boys, Jessie J, Ke$ha, Killing Moon, Kimbra, La Roux, Lady Gaga, Lana Del Rey, Liam Howe, Little Boots, Marina & The Diamonds, Neon Gold, Nicki Minaj, Normal Heights, Pixie Lott, Queen Of Hearts, Rihanna, The Guardian, Washington

QUEEN OF HEARTS

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We like to reserve the pages of The Recommender for the future of music’s Royalty and today’s selection fits that bill perfectly. Throughout 2011 we’ve been watching the Queen Of Hearts slowly begin to position herself as the next Queen Of Pop. Traditional media, such as The Guardian, The Times and Q Magazine, alongside the online coverage by the likes of Pop Justice and The Line Of Best Fit, have all been waving their approval over her as if they were fanning her with palm leaves, so it seems like 2012 could well be hers for the taking.

We have been chasing her real name through her PR representative to which their response was to state that it has to “remain secret“, which not only adds to the intrigue, but aligns her with the actual Royal world – in which real names aren’t necessary. It’s all rather silly of course and should we ever get to meet her in person you have to wonder if an advisor will pull us to one side to inform us that the etiquette is to call her “ma’am as in jam, not ma’am as in palm“. “Fuck off” would obviously be our immediate response, but let’s quickly move onto the important stuff – her very excellent music.

This is truly (upper) class stuff on show, as she dances along the correct side of those pop lines that have Goldfrapp on one side but The Saturdays on the other. The only time she crosses that line is perhaps when she unnecessarily uses the words “baby” at the end of her sentences – only Kylie gets away with that with her credibility still intact, but in fairness that’s the kind of pop heights that she’s aiming for. Take the first track, Freestyle, which grabbed the media’s attention earlier this year, with it’s first class electro pop production by Dreamtrak. It seduced every ear it reached with her breathy vocals that take more than one note from the sexually-confident world of Donna Summer.

As you can see above, the imagery that’s been handed out to us alongside the music is just as classy. This is music that has to be delivered whilst wearing elaborate headdresses and every video will no doubt utilise dancers. Elsewhere, Devils Gun take over the production, so we get more of a warped, industrial grit in tracks like Black Star, furthering the Goldfrapp connections. Monarchy seem to get involved in the studio with the tune, Perfect Mistake, keeping the synths, but lightening the load considerably.

This shift from one producer to another definitely draws gaps between the available songs, as well as in her overall aesthetic, and they may prove too wide to be bridged, but we should reserve judgement for the full album, which is no doubt set for next year. It’s certainly not an impossible task as it all fits under the synthetic pop umbrella and the one great unifying factor is the addictive vocals, which are perfectly placed and achieve the trick of having you humming along by the second listen. With the song, Shoot The Bullet, we see yet more producers, this time with The Sound Of Arrows on board, creating a delightful track that has equal parts punch and melody. It’s also received a tidy remix by Aluna George which they’ve kindly handed to The Recommender as an exclusive (see below).

On the flipside to all this initial positivity we noticed that there are elements of her music that undeniably suffer under a few cliche lines. Where Are You Now has the line, “you’re just echoes in my mind“, which quite frankly could have Limahl singing it and had us scrambling to see if she’d also got Giorgio Moroder on hand in the production - something she would no doubt approve of! We shouldn’t be too dismissive, as this is potentially the next big pop artist and there really aren’t any rules on how cliche pop can go. At this song’s best it reminds us of Cocknbullkid at her most synthetic and light, so among the negatives there’s still positives to be found.

Her debut EP, The Arrival, was released last week and seems to be out on her own label Nightmoves, but all this studio assistance could surely only come from a major label backing, however we’ve no proof of this yet. To suggest that she’s demanded a string of hand-picked synth pop producers to be made available is perhaps stretching the Royalty claims a little too far, but they could easily have been sourced and paid for by a major. Either way, music this good, which places beauty into dance music and graceful class into pop, is worthy of a Royal stamp of approval, but there’s one remaining, rather refreshing fact that we’ve reserved to last, as although she now calls London home, it turns out that she’s actually from Swindon. It surely doesn’t get any less Royal than that. (MB)