The First Dance

You may have noticed that the BBC's annual Sound Of [Insert Year Here] poll has wrapped up today with the revelation that BRIT's Critics Choice award winner Jessie J has been pegged as music's hottest prospect for the year ahead.

At number 5 on the list, however, is he artist which we are most excited about heading into 2011. Clare Maguire has been kicking around the Internet since her career got started properly with the release of Ain't Nobody towards the end of last year. The video for that is below:



Clare's voice calls to mind all kinds of comparisons (e.g. Sinead O' Connor, Annie Lennox, Delores O'Riordan from The Cranberries) and the video, with its epic setting with Clare alone in a windswept desert wearing what appears to be a parachute behind her suggested that we were in for an album campaign that went for the pensive, introspective and reflective side of the pop scale. In other words, to extend the comparison above further, we were looking at much more at Why? than we were at Walking On Broken Glass.

Enter The Last Dance, which is the single which Clare is releasing to capitalise on all "The Sound Of..." buzz. Written to try and help herself come to terms with the death of Michael Jackson, "Last Dance" blends an extremely tender lyric with a powerful vocal which, given the right remixing treatment, will be extremely dancefloor friendly. In the absence of an official video, here is a live performance of the track:



Clare's voice blends an infectious and touching Celtic lilt with a genuine power which allows her to drive amazing choruses like that featured on Last Dance home. Clearly, the wider record industry and critical arena is predicting brilliant things for this woman and we at The Pop Web are inclined to agree. While Jessie J is probably going to conquer the nation's dancefloors, we think that Clare Maguire is the artist whose album is going to be flying off the shelves. Not least because the first two singles definitely point towards something we like to call "The Dido Effect", whereby an artist attracts a not immediately identifiable buzz around them and suddenly their album becomes the record to soundtrack the nation's dinner parties.

The difference between Maguire and Dido, in this regard, is that The Last Dance and Ain't Nobody also showcase a voice and a talent with considerable diversity and, we hope, forms an important part of the nation's "Sound" well beyond 2011.