Allow me to introduce the world's new favourite popstar. Because that, surely, is what Nicola Roberts deserves to become.
With her delicate, model-like beauty and such an effortlessly charming personality, she gets the adorable-factor spot on, and never is it more evident in the video for her debut solo single Beat Of My Drum.
Throwing some moves down in a hall, accompanied by a troupe of dancers and drummers galore, she even finds time to come up with one of the best pop dance routines I've seen in a long time. 'L.O.V.E.' she raps out, spelling the letters out with her arms. I'm in love.
It's plain to see here that this is the moment Nicola has been building to all her life; and for a young singer making her first forays into the solo world after nearly a decade in a band, she carries it incredibly well. The video is fierce, fun and full of that distinct pop essence that we all felt only Nicola would be capable of creating.
As the summer creeps in, you can always count on the dance world to begin hotting up, shuffling their deck of cards and dealing the first hand of records to soundtrack the summer nights. There are changing trends and shifting scenes to bear in mind, but there will always be reliable formulas to stick to when you want a hit record on your hands.
Enter Zoe Badwi. The Australian singer-songwriter started her career in modelling and TV adverts for things like Mars Bars (yum) as well as being part of a girl group. The usual sorts of things you can expect for a trendy popstar.
And so we come to her new single Freefallin', which is already a top 10 hit in her native Australia as well as being certified platinum. Impressive. Anyway, the track is your standard, anthemic, super-uplifting dance-pop fare and sounds a LOT like When Love Takes Over - meaning it sounds very good, if not the most original record on the block. What it does do is showcase Zoe's rather impressive vocals; she can certainly hit all the high notes a track like this demands as well as packing some real power and grit that helps set her up as a proper popstar in her own right rather than just a faceless dance diva.
'It's all good, I'm alright', she sings in the chorus - well, with that platinum accolade under her belt already, things definitely seem to be going more than 'alright' for Zoe at the moment, and if she can translate that success to over here, Freefallin' could very well be the soundtrack to your summer too - the UK single release featuring remixes by MotoBlanco and WAWA.
On A Mission is fundamentallya pop record at heart, but it's testament to Katy B's talent and ingenuity that her debut LP feels just at home on the dancefloor. It manages to span that treacherous borderline between the two, doing so in a manner that is bursting with inventive melody and songwriting verve.
The real wonder is that while this album already contains four hit singles, it feels like you could easily squeeze another three or four from it - the tracks are of such a good quality. Consistency is the name of the game here and katy knows it - there's an amazing confidence to her that buzzes around, transfusing through into you - you want to leap up and join her on the dancefloor too, 'sinking into the tune' as she sings on Katy On A Mission.
Meanwhile, Witches Brew sees the album at its most poppy with its refrain of 'come with me, I'll make you feel so good'. Empowered and forceful it blasts away any negativity and melancholy, replacing it with that singular bliss that falls over you when you're in that perfect moment of enjoying all the Good Times life has to offer. It is captured again in the relentless, pulsing buzz of Broken Record with its enchanting, hypnotic stream of layered vocals.
Easy Please Me is set to become the next single - and the track reminds me of Kylie Minogue's brief dabble into R&B; Red Blooded Woman. With an insanely catchy hook, it's this track perhaps that catches the power of Katy's vocals at their best; especially in the ad-libs in the last minute of the song.
We feel as if with each song we explore a different night out in Katy's company, a different aspect of her life. And with every chorus, every verse, we feel as if we're sharing in that story, adding it into our own lives and relating to what she tells us. For the duration of the album, she is our trusted confidant, our close friend.
You have to marvel at the sheer intricacy off the beats on offer - synths collide and fizz in the background - a hot bed of almost electric intensity that Katy wraps around her finger and directs at the listener. Her vocals are subtle, hushed, sultry - yet what really makes this album come into its own is the sheer force of personality that comes across, all wrapped up in her incredibly soulful voice.
The album comes to a chilled end with the jazzy keyboard riffs of Hard To Get, the song featuring a touching outro where Katy thanks all the people that helped contribute to the record. It could come across as cheesy, but here you feel Katy's earned the right to indulge - she has just treated us to one hell of an amazing album after all. This is summer music through and through; dripping with the radiance, jabs of brass injecting the track with a real vitality. So often albums fall flat by their end, the final track being a throwaway cut tacked on at the end - but Hard To Get ranks up there with the best of the album, a fitting finale to a stunning record.
When I first heard Hold It Against Me my first thought was 'Wow, with a track like this, Britney's new album is going to be amazing'. And now, having heard another track from the album, I know it's not just going to be an amazing album, but that it is going to take amazing to a whole new level.
Till The World Ends follows in the same dancey, dirty electro vibe as its predecessor, but is quite possible even better. Soaring epic synths lead into a chorus that is ready-made to be shouted across crowded, heaving dancefloors. And that's what this song is all about, dancing. It's the very epitome of a club banger. All the right ingredients are there - classic, sexy Britney vocals... a hyper-catchy chorus... handclaps... DJ references... a sick bassline...
It really is as if all our Christmasses came at once - the perfect present for Britney fans eager for more. My favourite bit comes three minutes into the track when everything goes all crazy and the synths sound like they've been put through an atomic reactor. SO epic. SO awesome. SO amazingly cool.
This is Britney for a new generation, a new era. She's well and truly back, and if the rest of the album is even half as good as TillThe World Ends, it could easily be the best pop album of the year.
Wonderland are one of the most exciting things in pop music right now. They're gearing up to release their debut single very, very soon - but in the mean time they've treated us to this amazing cover of Rihanna's Only Girl In The World. It shows off the girl group's vocals perfectly and it's nice to see the song work so well in an acoustic setting, so far removed from the all out floorfiller that is Rihanna's original.
Put simply, Stop Hey is one of the greatest singles I've ever heard from a new artist. With a killer chorus, synths that could have come straight from an OMD 80s classic and a feisty attitude that raises Sunday Girl well above her contemporaries it really is a must-download track.
If you've scanned through the pages of the glossy mags over the past few months, you'll have likely seen lots of praise and attention heaped on Sunday Girl herself, Jade Williams. The photogenic pop darling is well-loved in the style circuits and was named Vogue.com's 'One to watch'. And she really is - If you've heard either of her previous singles; the dreamy, hypnotic Four Floors or her inspired cover of Self Control, you'll know what I mean.
If you're a fan of well-written, brilliantly produced electro-pop then Sunday Girl and Stop Hey will be right up your street. Definitely one of the brightest up-and-coming stars to look out for this year.
One song I’m particular loving at the moment is McFly’s brilliant new single Shine A Light. Ever since the band went all electro with the boundless energy of Party Girl, I’ve had a newfound respect for the boys. They’ve kept the youthful spirit of their early days, but combined it with a new ‘knowing’, a new intelligent and some absolutely cracking melodies.
Shine A Light illustrates this perfectly. And even better, it’s got Taio Cruz on it too. Now, when i first heard Party Girl, its sound struck me as very ‘Taio’, so it seems only right McFly are now working with him. And together these two stalwarts of British pop music have come up with a pure winner of a track. Its strength comes in its relative simplicity, the track is very ‘clean’, all breezy and light – in many ways a breath of fresh air in a world of music where tracks have become so production heavy you often feel like you’re drowning in them.
The chorus is sublime, the melody moving and powerful in equal measure. And then there’s delicate little touches like the echoing guitar hook that bookends the song, or the twinkling piano that plays gently over the end of the track. It’s things like this that revitalise McFly, shooting them out as a force that is very much still to be reckoned with.
