Is Little Boots the next Kylie?

BY BERNARD ZUEL

Last updated 05:00 13/07/2009

POWERPUFF GIRL: Victoria Hesketh, aka Little Boots, reaches for a new direction.

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People were loving Little Boots before they had even heard her.

It was the idea of her that worked. She was that girl, the small, blonde one happily posting up on a web page footage of herself, often clad in her pyjamas, singing home-made versions of Madonna songs, or Miley Cyrus songs, or songs that could only be her own.

There was something both refreshing and clever (and, of course, calculated) about it all. She didn't even have a name then, at least not that name. She was still Victoria Hesketh, recently of inconsequential indie band Dead Disco, writer of songs in her bedroom - in her parents' Blackpool home.

This was early last year. By the end of the year she was being described as the girl most likely, her synth-pop songs straight out of the 1980s - more Kylie than Michael Jackson, way more Human League than New Order - and, therefore, surely the sound of 2009.

And so it was. Ubiquity in Britain has seen Little Boots take over from 25-year-old Hesketh, bringing with it as much mockery as respect. So much so that when we speak on the phone she seems, at best, reticent but, more likely, wary of stepping into anything even vaguely suggestive of a trap.

Ask about her ambitions to be a pop star as a teenager (she did audition for Pop Idol when she was 16, after all) and you can see the shutters, and maybe the hackles, go up.

"I don't think I ever wanted to be a pop star, I just wanted to make music," Hesketh says a little tersely. "I've been in a lot of different bands, a lot of different projects, tried lots of things because I like music."

But one of the good things about pop music is you can want to be a pop star, and be a very good pop star. And there is no shame in that, even if you are also, as she is, a tech geek who is as happy discussing the minutiae of the studio and her latest bit of "gear" as what costume to wear on stage and how she is the same height, and wears the same size mega-heels, as Kylie Minogue.

"Pop is kind of a confusing word," she says, relaxing slightly. "I wanted to write and play music and I write pop very naturally. That's what comes out. With the other projects, I was frightened a bit [of showing songs like these] because I thought it was too cheesy but this is the first time that I've embraced it. And it's quite cool now, quite in fashion really.

"I've never had [pop] used as an insult at me - but maybe I've been lucky."

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She could take some pointers from a new mucker, someone who got both the stardom and the mockery, Phil Oakey of Human League. Hesketh is such a Human League fan that she invited Oakey to sing with her on the League-referencing song Symmetry. Sadly for those who saw Oakey in Australia earlier this year wearing an incredible outfit that made him look like a Star Wars villain, Hesketh did not have the pleasure of the costume. She didn't even have the pleasure of his company. Their parts were recorded at separate times.

"I wasn't there," she says regretfully. "I was a massive fan, I had all their records. But I did play with him live last week and he looked like a gentleman. He's aged incredibly well."

Human League were always on the line between ridiculous and good, sometimes appearing on both sides. When they played at the V Festivals here the audience couldn't decide whether to cringe or laugh or sing along and most did all three. But there is no irony in Hesketh's fandom.

"I think they sound like great, great pop songs but they are always quite dark, with a little bit of spite to them."

Is that her preferred form of pop, bright on top and dark underneath?

"Not necessarily but I like it. I just like good songs, I don't care if it is Miley Cyrus or Human League."

But even if this pop malarkey gets out of hand at any point for Little Boots, Hesketh can always remind herself of Brian And The Argonauts. In the not-so-distant past she appeared in a production that used the story of Jason And The Argonauts set to the music of the Beach Boys. Five part harmonies, golden fleeces and leather skirts, what could go wrong?

The kind of experiences she had in her pre-fame days are neither denied nor diminished by Hesketh, who was also in the Lancashire Students' Jazz Orchestra. In one song, members had to dress up as the Blues Brothers. As Hesketh told one British newspaper, "If you can get up on stage in a theme park in Belgium dressed as a Blues Brother, you can get up in front of a bunch of hipsters in a nightclub and play."

After that, even cynical journalists must seem tame.

Little Boots' debut album, Hands, is out now.

- AAP