BBC Sound Of 2011

The BBC have just announced the winner of their annual poll among the cream of music journalists and writers, the Sound Of.... Last year this was won by Ellie Goulding, whose album Lights was one of the best out there. The winner this year, Jessie J, though another female singer/songwriter couldn't be more different.

Her debut single, "Do It Like A Dude" ironically starts with the line: "Stomp, stomp, I've arrived", and she definitely announces her presence to the rest of the world. Her sound is urban, gritty, with a lot of electronic wizardry helping to add emphasis on her rather explicit lyrics. Slightly surprising words to come from a girl who write "Party In The USA" for Miley Cyrus. Seriously. She also came out of the Brit School and performed on the West End when she was 11 in Andrew Lloyd Webber's hit-and-miss Whistle Down The Wind.

The video for the single adds even more emphasis to the strength of the song. Be warned that this is the Explicit version.



This is a defiant woman, slightly scary at times, making her stand. She wears a strange black kind of lipstick, a variety of torn clothing; she looks dominating, scornfully at the men in the video. The fact that she has two girls kissing in it also probably helps to push her message across: this is Girl power for the 21st century. Stuff you, Spice Girls.

Trouble is, shocking and provocative as the song is, there doesn't seem to be a lot of difference between her and other female artists emerging out of the urban scene. Think of Katy B and her fantastic track, "Katy On A Mission", for example. If you listen to the acoustic version of "Do It Like A Dude", Jessie's voice seems more refined, slightly more US Urban, chuckling mischievously at times. You get the full range of her vocal chords too; towards the end she sounds powerful, perhaps even more so than in the studio version.



Another song by her you can find on YouTube is "Price Tag".



Another acoustic, it sounds like something you could hear Fergie or even Beyonce at a stretch performing. It sounds nice, but you can see why the studio released "Do It Like A Dude" first in the age of GaGa. Currently it's just broken the Top 10. I doubt it's going to hit the top spot by Sunday, but she is sure to be around with us for a few years.