Little Boots
Little Boots |
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Victoria Hesketh (born 4 May 1984)[1], known professionally as Little Boots, is a British electropop musician.[3] She sings, plays synthesizers, Japanese electronic instrument the Tenori-on,[4] piano and the stylophone.[2]
Biography
Hesketh was born in Victoria Hospital in Blackpool a hospital which serves the entire Fylde coast in Lancashire. She was raised and educated in Thornton a village in the Wyre and now lives in London.[5][6] Her father is a businessman and her mother is an author of children's books. She has three younger brothers.[1] She attended Rossall School,[7] Blackpool Sixth Form College[8] and then the University of Leeds, where she gained a first-class honours degree in cultural studies, with a dissertation on the concept of originality in jazz, which included references to Jamie Cullum amongst others.
At the age of 16, Hesketh took part in the ITV television talent show Pop Idol, being eliminated after three rounds, but didn't make it to the round of judges, instead being eliminated by producers of the programme.[9] She went on to form a Jazz trio, toured Europe with a big band, and later formed the dance-pop band Dead Disco.[10] Her solo stage name comes from a nickname given to her by a friend after watching the film Caligula (the Latin name Caligula translates as "little boot").[11][12]
In January 2009 she came top of the BBC's Sound of 2009[13] and second in the BRITs Critics' Choice Award behind Florence and the Machine.[14] In an interview in January 2009, Hesketh explained that she originally wrote "Stuck on Repeat" with the intention that Kylie Minogue would sing it.[15]
In March 2009 Little Boots played the SXSW event in Austin, Texas. She is scheduled to many of major festivals in the UK during the summer of 2009.[16]
Hesketh has confirmed that she will collaborate with American rapper Kid Cudi on a new version of his single "Day 'n' Nite" to be used to promote his debut album.[17]
Hesketh is a self-professed pop musician:
I wanted to make a pop record. I don’t care about being cool or edgy. I wanna reach people and I wanna make music that people have fun to and have a good time.[18]
Hesketh says that she retains creative control over her music by choosing her own producers and putting tracks on MySpace. She was linked by The Observer to a wave of female pop musicians in their 20s, including Lady Gaga, Lissy Trullie, Ladyhawke, and Elly Jackson from the synth duo La Roux, who have "distinctive fashion sense, saturated by 80s references and insouciant androgyny".[19]
Little Boots is on tour that will see her play a scheduled 33 festivals in 2009. Hesketh in a column for The Times wrote that she is playing "some extended rave edits of some of the songs, with some ridiculous, epic breakdowns". She is basing her live set on David Bowie's Glass Spider Tour and Kate Bush's The Tour of Life.[20]
In the Media
She appeared on Later... with Jools Holland in November 2008.
On 4 March 2009 Little Boots was the subject of the entire late night talk show program Last Call with Carson Daly in the US. Hesketh was interviewed by Daly and several clips from a Los Angeles nightclub performance were shown.[21]
She appeared on BBC One's Breakfast TV show on the morning of 11th May 2009, and played and sung a version of "Stuck on repeat" using the Tenorion. She stressed that she'd played the piano since being a child and wrote all of her songs, and wasn't just another voice in a production line of pop songs. She admitted that being the winner of the BBC's Sound of 2009 was a double-edged sword because it had led to great opportunities but had also put pressure on her to succeed, added to this the amount of money her label has spent on her and strings they have pulled to make her appear 'indie'.
A advert for Victoria's Secret contains a clip from "Meddle".[22]
On 27th May 2009 she appeared on BBC Radio 4's programme Womans' Hour.
She regularly courts controversy when she states she is from Blackpool when in fact she is from Thornton a village in the neighbouring borough of Wyre. She has also been quoted in the media making disparaging remarks regards Blackpool's culture and music scene. In Blackpools Evening Gazette she stated in an interview ""It's not like there's a great music scene to get going on, so you've got to be quite resourceful and proactive. If you want to get ahead you've really got to work for it.[23] despite never having performed publicly in the resort.
Discography
Albums
EPs
- Arecibo (2008)
- Little Boots (2009)
Singles
- "Stuck on Repeat" (2008) Billboard Hot Dance Singles Sales #7
- "Meddle" (2008) UK Singles Chart #97
- "New in Town" (25 May 2009) (first CD release)[26]
References
- ^ a b c Smith, Aidan (2009-02-15). "Little boots in a big bad world". Scotland on Sunday. Retrieved 2009-02-26.
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(help) - ^ a b "Little Boots". MTV. Retrieved 2009-04-13.
- ^ "BBC Sound of 2009: Little Boots". BBC News. 2008-12-05. Retrieved 2008-12-09.
- ^ "Little Boots: the Tenori-On, the video and the interview". The Guardian. 2009-01-11. Retrieved 2009-04-13.
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(help) - ^ Wolfson, Sam (2008-10-12). "Flash forward: Little Boots". The Observer. Retrieved 2008-12-09.
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(help) - ^ "Later With Jools Holland - Little Boots". BBC Online. Retrieved 2008-12-09.
- ^ Ettridge, Lisa (2009-01-08). "Fylde singing star tipped as next big thing". Blackpool Gazette. Retrieved 2009-01-08.
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(help) - ^ Duke, Robin (2008-11-06). "Little Boots' Big Break". Blackpool Gazette. Retrieved 2008-12-30.
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(help) - ^ Alexis, Petridis (2009-01-10). "'I've done so much embarrassing stuff it's untrue'". The Guardian. Retrieved 2009-01-10.
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(help) - ^ Monger, James Christopher. "Little Boots - Biography". Allmusic. Retrieved 2008-12-09.
- ^ Heawood, Sophie (2009-01-10). "Little Boots is the big sound for 2009". The Times. Retrieved 2009-01-12.
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(help) - ^ Clarke, Paul (2008-09-17). "Little Boots: queen of geek chic". Metro. Retrieved 2008-12-12.
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(help) - ^ "Little Boots tops music tips list". BBC News. 2009-01-09. Retrieved 2009-01-09.
- ^ "Critics' Choice". The Brits. Retrieved 2009-01-08.
- ^ Heller, Josh (2009-01-18). "Little Boots Interview". The Comment Tree. Retrieved 2009-03-07.
- ^ "Little Boots: 'I'm doing nearly all the UK festivals this summer!'". NME. 2009-03-20. Retrieved 2009-04-13.
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(help) - ^ Gregory, Jason (2009-04-06). "Little Boots And Kid Cudi To Re-Work 'Day N' Nite' - Exclusive". Festivalwise. Retrieved 2009-04-16.
- ^ Lash, Jolie (2009-03-25). "Rising Star: Little Boots". Access Hollywood. Retrieved 2009-04-13.
- ^ Day, Elizabeth (2009-04-19). "Pop's new wave: quirky, stylish girls fashioned from the 80s". The Observer. Retrieved 2009-04-20.
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(help) - ^ Little Boots on her 'tour' of 33 festivals The Times 17 May, 2009
- ^ "Last Call with Carson Daly - Little Boots Interview". NBC. 2009-03-24. Retrieved 2009-03-07.
- ^ Little Boots Sells Bras for Victoria's Secret prefixmag 13 May, 2009
- ^ [1]
- ^ Ganz, Caryn (2009-03-25). "Breaking: Little Boots". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2009-04-13.
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(help) - ^ "Madonna Plans Another Greatest Hits Plus Beastie Boys, Little Boots and Florence and the Machine". albumvote.co.uk. 2009-03-26. Retrieved 2009-04-13.
- ^ Hesketh, Victoria (2009-03-09). "Hi from the sky". Little Boots (Mailing list). Retrieved 2009-03-11.
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Further reading
- "Here's what I think: Little Boots". Sunday Times. 2009-03-22. Retrieved 2009-04-13.
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(help) - "Music Profiles - Little Boots". BBC Online. Retrieved 2009-03-14.
- "Little Boots - New In Town (679/Atlantic)". Daily Music Guide. 2009-04-27. Retrieved 2009-04-30.