Chlöe Howl - Paper Heart (Video)

Last week NME Magazine’s cover featured a bunch of artists who were (a) young and (b) British and titled it Young Britannia 2013. This attempt at trying to band together a group of artists by geography and demographic smacked a little of the musical equivalent of casting a huge fishing net into the sea and writing about whatever was pulled up, but at least it got the NME focussing on new music rather than endlessly trying to relive glory days of the past.

One of the artists featured was Chlöe Howl, who seems to have been omnipresent in the world of new pop music this year without actually releasing a huge amount of songs.

But now there is a new tune, it’s called Paper Heart, and it’s rather good. Here are some thoughts:

1. Paper Heart is a big electronic radio friendly tune, all about a relationship ending. So subject material originality = zero, but just deal with it, probably at least 75% of pop music is about love or its end and it’s better than singing about being in ‘da club’. We particularly like the sound at about 2.39 which sounds like a sexy electronic motorbike revving up.

2. The video is a riot of ideas which finds Chlöe going the whole hog to tell her ex-boyfriend it’s over. There’s balloons, donkey shit, big scissors, interpretive dancing, coloured umbrellas, rubbish men dressed as taps, karate dudes, a military band, carnival dancers and of course Chlöe herself. It might seem like quite a lot of money to spend on telling someone the bad news, but we think it’s worth it and Chlöe seems to enjoy it.

3. Recently on Twitter we asked our followers who they thought might make the BBC Sound of 2014 list. From that minor straw poll, based on the responses received, we’d put Chlöe Howl as a front runner in the early betting.

4. Pop music often doesn't last forever, but neither does a tasty fish. Both often are there to be devoured and enjoyed for what they are before the next meal comes along.  As Chlöe is one of those artists writhing in NME's big net, she deserves to be served up, let’s just hope the big bad pop machine doesn’t spit her out back into the sea too early.

Here's Paper Heart.

Chlöe Howl - Paper Heart (Video)