A friend of mine has been trying to get me into La Roux for several months now, and I just kept saying no. The music was too cutesy, her voice was annoying, and I had enough Europop on my iPod already. But this week, thanks to a free iTunes download of the single ‘Bulletproof,’ I’m ready to stop denying it and admit that I’m totally hooked.
La Roux is made up of epically-coiffed singer Elly Jackson and synth-player/producer Ben Langmaid. Their self-titled debut album has been tearing up the charts in the UK all summer (and is nominated for this year’s Mercury Prize) but was only released here in the US this week, because we’re always late to the party when it comes to the next big thing.
La Roux’s music is pretty standard electropop along the lines of Annie or Little Boots, but with a harder edge underneath all those glorious hooks. When Jackson says she’s going in for the kill, she definitely sounds like she means it. But in terms of style, La Roux is in a class by itself. Jackson kind of looks like Ziggy Stardust-era David Bowie, if he were really into geometry. And that hairstyle — well, let’s just say Rihanna’s faux-hawk has nothing on Jackson’s spiky red pompadour.
So if you’re late to the La Roux party, too, no worries. It’s cooler to be fashionably late anyway.
video courtesy YouTube
