Little Boots has big shoes to fill as the UK's newest pop princess

BBC’s "Sound of 2009" has a lot on her Hands with debut release, Coachella, and a popular blog

By Charlotte Loftus
Published: April 1st, 2010 | 4:00pm

Little Boots’ pocket story—discovered whilst singing pop songs in her pajamas on YouTube, name inspired by the Roman Emperor Caligula—makes you want to like Victoria Hesketh even before you hear her music. Like most extravagantly hyped Next British Things, Little Boots’ path to musical glory is a longer, more winding one than it first appears.

Learning to play piano barely out of her toddler years, Hesketh continued to explore music in every possible manner and venue available to a precocious Blackpudlian. From her much-publicized audition for ITV’s Pop Idol at 16 (she didn’t get past the producers) to less-publicized stints in a Beach Boys–themed production of Jason and the Argonauts as well as the Lancashire Youth Jazz Orchestra, each of Hesketh’s experiences became fruitful outlets for a Moog-geek teenager harboring some serious pop ambitions.

Little Boots’ debut album Hands (Atlantic) was released in the UK last summer, where Hesketh was named the BBC’s “Sound of 2009” before it even dropped. Most recently, the album hit shelves in the U.S. and Hesketh will soon appear on the Coachella stage. Never much of a festival goer herself, the singer says she’s now an expert after performing at 33 festivals around the world.

“It’s a lot less intimate but people are also drunk or on drugs so they’ll come up and talk to you,” says Hesketh when she calls from California. “[Attendees] are usually in the middle of nowhere and everyone’s on holiday; plus, there’s loads of bands everywhere so people tend to be much more social.”

The current wave of girly Brit-ronica that Hesketh has been linked to has recently generated much teeth-gnashing on the music blogs. Critics often undercut “indie” ladies like Little Boots, La Roux, Florence and the Machine, and the Knife as one giant euro-ball of stilettos, synths, and spandex. But that would be dismissing Hesketh’s musicianship (not everyone can popularize the Tenori) and the impressive supporting cast who helped create Hands. The first single, “Stuck on Repeat,” was produced by Joe Goddard of Hot Chip and co-written by the Bird and the Bee’s Greg Kurstin, who’s also collaborated with fellow electro-pop phenoms Peaches, Lily Allen, and Kylie Minogue.

So far, most of the buzz has had a positive spin, and don’t expect Hesketh to worry about the overheated comparisons. She has her own plans, lately finding herself increasingly drawn towards the organic and the supernatural (recent blog posts talk about fortune readings and her love for the 1990’s movie “The Craft”).

“I’ve got kind of a reputation for having lots of gadgets and I think I’ve overdone it, so in the future it’ll be good to sit back a minute and concentrate on more organic musical instruments and strip it back a bit,” she says—surprising given journalists’ love of her techo-geek cred.

The final, hidden track from Hands is a Broadway-worthy piano sing-a-long. It’s about a girl trying to fix a broken heart through various technological means and ends with the realization that “I didn’t need any help, I just needed my hands,” which, like the best pop lyrics, is absolutely true.

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Little Boots official site

Little Boots MySpace page

Atlantic Records