Having now featured in no fewer than seven of my [edit] radio podcasts, a blog properly introducing you to the talents of Chlöe Howl is a little overdue. Hailing from a village on the outskirts of London commuter town Maidenhead, the 19 year-old pop singer is signed to Columbia Records (who recognised her talent at 16) and is gearing up for the release of her first album in September. It’s not a story which hardly makes for remarkable reading but its Howl’s future which looking far more exciting than her past. What sets her apart from a 101 other pop also rans is the sheer quality of her songs and the Riot Grrrl attitude with which she delivers them, which speaks nothing to how the young girls to whom her music chiefly speaks will want to copy her better-than-Top Shop style too.
Vocally she’s somewhere between Adele and Lily Allen, except less overbearing than the former and a million percent less annoying than the latter. Her first single “No Strings” marked as an exciting pop prospect, dropping an F-Bomb slap bang in the middle of a chorus about underage drinking and one night stands before delivering her own cutting take on the practice; “the problem with no strings is that you can only fall.” The Rumour EP followed and prove to be equally youthful and melodramatic, hiding lines like “I won’t do what I’m told, you won’t say what you mean / You were so hurt and cold and lost me in-between” on the Robyn aping “Paper Heart“.
With latest single “Disappointed” (due for release July 27th) Howl takes aim straight at the summit of the Top 40 with a Sugababesesq production without losing her penchant for delivering her acerbic appraisals of growing up; “You were attractive once before, before you indulged yourself / Firing on broad thoughts, becoming, becoming someone else”, “I liked you like you were / A loser I prefer.” It’s dazzling stuff and a song which should move Howl straight onto the A playlist of BBC Radio One and make her one of this years breakout popstars.