There is something about Katy B that makes her incredibly likeable. She doesn’t gargle vowels, and she has the same girl-next-door ordinariness about her that Joanne and Susan from The Human League had. You can imagine her queueing for a bus, or serving you in a sports shop. Her debut album On A Mission, however, is extraordinary; like a history of the last 15 years of club-pop smashed up into one mega pop album. Sometimes it sounds like the Sugababes’ debut album One Touch – Why You Always Here in particular – as Katy’s South London-accented voice details the lifestyle of a teenage clubber with startling clarity, wit and intelligence. There are points where lyrically it is also incredibly vivid: “So I sink into the tune as I inhale the fume” she coos on the greatest single of 2010 Katy On A Mission, which still sounds fab by the way, and when former Mercury prize winner Ms Dynamite shows up for Lights On the results are just as thrilling. The hope that the DJ will play one more song at the end of a night out will be as familiar to anyone who has ever enjoyed the rush of dancing til the wee hours as the song’s references to the cloakroom. Moments such as these set Katy B apart from your typical pop star who will merely mention. The details make the difference. There are plenty of other songs here which would make excellent singles too; Witches’ Brew, Easy Please Me and Disappear among them. Much has been written about dubstep’s encroachment on the charts and the wider public consciousness but this album is not just dubstep-goes-pop, it is just as clearly indebted to house music, r’n’b and one scene which is yet to really catch on in Ireland, perhaps because it is called “UK funky”. Along with her producers Geeneus, Benga and Zinc Katy B has somehow quietly concocted a mature, intelligent, electronic pop album of such charm and quality it will be difficult for any other artist to surpass it this year.
