No smoke, no mirrors: Katy B live at Koko

First published in Loud And Quiet

Katy B at Koko, London
12th May 2011

There was a time in Popworld when a silk bomber jacket and a pasting of Juicy Tubes lip gloss counted as ‘making an effort’ – think back to that classic wave of early Noughties combat-trousered lady-pop, the am-I-bothered cool of Miss Dynamite, All Saints and early Sugababes. Fast forward 10 years and prosthetic face humps and a foghorn voice are just the start of a very, very long checklist for the new breed of starlets who think Gaga was the first person to draw a bloody lightning bolt on her face.

Sigh. And yet here we have Katy B, a pop star who clearly did not receive that memo. And here we are at her first headline tour of the UK, squeezed into a sold-out Koko crowd (about 50/50 male to female) who can only be described as ‘up for it’, watching her bounce around on stage in silk bomber jacket and curls, effortlessly trailing dust in Jessie J’s airbrushed-to-all-hell face.

And effortless is the operative word with the Princess of Rinse and her youthful pop swagger. Her voice – so girlish, so untroubled – nails every note with unforced finesse while she slides stage right to stage left, serving up her already-formidable back catalogue of hits: ‘Perfect Stranger’ (live version above), ‘Broken Record’, ‘Lights On’, ‘Katy On A Mission’. Saxophone and trumpet provide jazzy punctuation to one side while a drummer and DJ provide the beats – it’s such a basic set-up you could barely call it a stage show. No smoke or mirrors, no wigs or pyrotechnic corsetry, no self-help “love yourself” bullshit or patronising motivational pep-talks. Just that effervescent voice trilling about boys she wants to dance with and beats she wants to dance to.

And it just works. Ignoring that checklist, Katy B has hewn together her own authentic pop formula from the echoes of the club, fragments of UK funky rhythms and big fat dubstep, touting chart-ready bangers to pop-pickers who just want the songs and not the rest of the wannabe crap and the Autotune and meat dresses and crocodile tears. I wish her Gagazillions of global mega-stardom, sure, but for now, can we keep her? Can we?

JUDAS: You can't 'go electric' if you're already a cyborg

Pushing envelopes harder than Postman Pat

I'm going to briefly break from the Gaga moratorium imposed on this blog generally to comment on NME's initial reaction to 'Judas', which was released to the world in a shower of binary code and retweets this afternoon.

"[I]ts genius (and we are going to very tentatively use the word 'genius', in the sense that we believe pop music at its best is a genius medium) is that it really doesn't sound like Gaga in her comfort zone at all. [...] The breakdown has elements of the hardest techno and the boingiest dubstep, yet the chorus is so instantly pure-pop unforgettable that it just might – might – be even better than 'Bad Romance'."

I'm sorry to do this to you, but let's just focus on this line. To even try to come to terms with the 'phenomenon' that is Lady Gaga is beyond the scope of this blog and my own sanity. Suffice to say I was given a promo copy of The Fame in the antediluvian closing days of 2008 - I hated it, laughed at the lyrics, binned it and waited for her to go away.

I have never claimed to be a weathervane of pop.

But again: "The breakdown has elements of the hardest techno and the boingiest dubstep".

Here's the track. You can skip to the breakdown at 2m 40s if you wish.
Judas by gagadaily

Yup. So in the spirit of SHARING MUSIC AND LOVE, here's some boner-fide-ay hard techno for NME's Dan Martin to swivel on: To your publication's second trollworthy blog of the week, sir! I'm not going to link to either of them because Air France, the current banner ad on NME's site, would then have WON this little tit for tat.

Mote017 :: Marcel Fengler - Thwack by Mote-Evolver

Gaga moratorium now reinstalled.