CityLife

La Roux: in for the long haul?

LA ROUX: Learned her not smiling technique from Sugababes videos

LAST week, asymmetrically-haired electro wonder Elly Jackson (aka La Roux) secured her second week at number two in the charts with her single In For The Kill, having been kept off the top spot by possibly the greatest (ie worst) collaboration of all time.

The success of La Roux’s record has taken many people by surprise. Even pop music bible Popjustice described her chart run as unexpected and the level of promotion surrounding the single – the video consists solely of La Roux sitting in a car for four minutes – suggests its chart triumph was far from expected.

It seems In For The Kill has sneaked into our collective consciousness with remarkable speed. Clubs across town ranging from alcopop parties to haircut-based indie nights are playing the tune and, today alone, CityLife saw 1,487 people using its chorus as their Facebook status update.

Could it be that clubland and the wider pop world have themselves a new star? That in our rush to crown Little Boots 2009’s great electro hope we missed out on its true hero?

“I’m already bored of playing pubs with small stages,” La Roux recently told one weekly music mag, and with bone fide celebrity lineage (her mum play June Ackland in the Bill), she seems a dead cert to go far.

High-pitched vocal

Critics, though, advise caution. A CityLife spy who caught her set a couple of months back at Contort Yourself told us her high-pitched vocal struggled to sound anything other than shrill over the Roadhouse’s PA, and there remain many people unconvinced by her status as a pop star.

“I want happy pop stars, not ‘look I’m the 80s and I’ve swallowed a lemon’ pop stars,” says electro fan Holly C. “It’s fine to be a bit sultry but there’s a difference between that and being a mardy bum.”

“I don’t like her attitude in interviews. Being famous is an amazing job and the least you would expect is for her to show us she’s having fun by, I dunno, smiling every so often. At least Little Boots understands the concept of being a pop star.”

So there you go. Mainstream-sneaking electro saviour or miserable pointy-haired throwback? What is certain is that La Roux’s next single, the mile-high melodious stomp Bulletproof is several different shades of amazing and with its 80s-tastic chorus deserves to be huge this summer.

Whether the public will take it to heart the same way they have In For The Kill is up to Lady Fickleness.

In For The Kill is out now on iTunes and you can probably find it in a couple of shops on CD (round shiny plastic thing). La Roux is back in Manchester on Wednesday, May 6 at Academy 3 as part of the NME Radar Tour with Heartbreak, Magistrates and The Chapman Family.