Should anybody hold the unlikely view that the Top 40 is deficient in attitudinal, in-your-face club-pop divas, they can probably rest assured. Anne-Marie looks a shoo-in to bolster their number.
The 24-year-old Essex native Anne-Marie Nicholson was hovering around the top of numerous lists of critical tips for 2016, and it is easy to see why. Fronting a three-piece band heavy on electronica, she is a peroxide human dynamo in a black trouser suit whose motormouth between-song banter takes few prisoners as she confesses to pre-show nerves: “Oh my God, I been proper shitting myself!”
She has recently finished a two-year stint providing vocals for, and touring the world with, chart-strafing London dance collective Rudimental, and her imminent debut album looks set to be packed with similarly high-octane rave-pop numbers. The jittery Breathing Fire is Rihanna-style pop-erotica, while the synth doodles and hiccupping staccato beats of Boy are brilliantly infectious.
She is certainly best keeping things upbeat as her shoulder-heaving ballads tend towards the overwrought and the glutinous. The heavy-duty heartbreak lament Stole could be a modern mugging of an 80s power ballad, while the piano-driven Gentleman is so drenched in melisma that you half expect to see Simon Cowell sitting in front of the stage nodding approvingly.
Anne-Marie recovers to roust around the stage with fellow Rudimental singer Will Heard on their minor hit Rumour Mill, and closes a lairy set with current single Do It Right, a rave-pop banger that Rita Ora would kill for. She may just be the perfect pop star for anybody who ever found Jessie J too low-key and subtle.
