Taken from this week’s Future Pop mailer. Click here to subscribe.
The breakthrough success of Christine and the Queens was one of the most pleasant surprises of 2016, and I hope it will mean that British audiences are more open to similarly quirky European acts. The prime candidate to follow in her footsteps is another French female singer, Jain, whose music and visuals are a mix of Alizée and Petite Meller, blending cool, weird and cute. The 25-year-old, born Jeanne Galice, travelled the world as a child, living in Africa and the Middle East, and you can see the influence of this on her multicultural sound. Jain is best known for her debut single Come, which reached no.1 in France and Spain, and top 20 in Belgium, Italy and Poland. The stylishly silly video has over 64 million views. Her debut album Zanaka was released in 2015, but it has taken the last two years for her to reach a wider audience, thanks to festival appearances (including Glastonbury 2017, and BST Hyde Park, where I saw her recently) and TV performances (including Later… with Jools Holland in April). Her video for new single Dynabeat got 700,000 views in its first 5 days, showing that she now has a fanbase ready and excited for what’s next.