La Roux are a new British duo, not a solo act like many have assumed. Elly Jackson is the quiff-wearing front woman, with co-writer and co-producer Ben Langmaid taking a more backseat role. Think of the Pet Shop Boys if Chris Lowe stayed even more in the background than he does already. Their music is a mix of electro-pop and dance, all with an eighties flavor running through it.

La Roux have already released two singles, Quicksand and In For The Kill, the latter of which managed to reach number two in the UK singles chart. Then came their third release, Bulletproof (video embedded below), which hit number one at the weekend. Michael Jackson may have dominated the latest charts but it’s La Roux who made it to the top.

The question for me is whether this success signals yet another 1980s revival? It wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened, and with La Roux looking and sounding like the love children of The Human League and Heaven 17, it seems likely to happen.

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Michael Jackson was always popular in the U.K. in life, and the same can now be said of him in death. Just three days after Michael Jackson died, the latest British charts have shown what a massive effect his passing has had on people. It seems as though most of the population went out and brought his music in the days following his death from cardiac arrest on Thursday (June 25).

Michael Jackson had, prior to his death last week, been kind of out of the news for a while. There were, of course, the 50 shows he’d promised to perform at the London O2 Arena, of which we still don’t know the fate. But apart from that, no one was really that interested in him, his life, or his music. His death changed that completely overnight.

Not only has the death of Michael Jackson provoked an outpouring of grief and been the biggest media event for years, it’s also had a huge effect on sales of his records. Retailers around the U.K. are now reporting they’ve sold out of all his albums. Jackson’s albums occupied the top 15 slots on Amazon’s Bestsellers list, while HMV “experienced an 80-fold increase in demand for his music,” according to Digital Spy.

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The last couple of years have seen British female solo artists emerge like never before. At one point, we boasted of Annie Lennox and that was about it. Now, the UK has Amy Winehouse (for all her flaws), Lily Allen, Kate Nash, Leona Lewis, Duffy, Adele, and many others. And now there’s a new singer to add to the list: Pixie Lott.

Pixie Lott scored a huge debut number one last Sunday when she topped the British singles chart with Mama Do. In doing so, she became the first British female solo artist who hasn’t emerged from a reality TV show to do so. It’s an annual occurrence for someone from The X Factor to do so - Leona Lewis, Alexandra Burke - but here is a gem of a singer not to have taken that route.

Lott has a very similar Pop/R’n'B sound to her as Duffy and Adele. She’s like a combination of the two, with a little Winehouse thrown in for good measure. Which is quite a heady mix. Mama Do shows off her style really well, allowing her to sing around a catchy bassline which accentuates rather than overbears her voice.

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There is so much crap being written about swine flu at the moment. Yes, it’s a serious problem, yes, it could turn into a pandemic, and yes, it’s sad that people are dying from it. The rest? Pure conjecture on the part of scientists and health organizations.

What proved this for me was the news that N-Dubz singer, Tulisa Contostavlos, fell ill on a flight to Greece last week and was immediately suspected of having swine flu. Why - was she flying from Mexico? No. Was she on the verge of death? No, she merely had the sniffles.

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Lily Allen has never been one of those artists who has struggled to come to terms with new technology or the way the music business is evolving. In fact, you could argue that MySpace made Allen famous. The social networking site at least helped her build a massive fan base.

Now, a week before it’s released in the UK, Allen has put her new album, It’s Not Me, It’s You, on MySpace. Anyone visiting her profile page can stream the full album, made up of 12 tracks, completely for free.

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2008 is now over, it’s official. Here we are in a new year, with the whole of 2009 ahead of us. While I’m still in the process of finishing up my Brit Music Scene review of the year, we do have the top ten bestselling singles and albums of 2008 in the UK for your perusal.

Of course, whether you regard these lists as important or not will depend on whether you see the point of the charts these days. They are still important to see who and what is selling in large numbers but I hate the fact that pop and dance records usually dominate.

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The fight for Christmas number one in the singles chart is a British tradition that I’m unsure has traveled to America or not. In the UK it’s always been the utmost honor to nab Christmas number one, a position Alexandra Burke seems guaranteed to capture this year.

I recently held a poll to find who Brit Music Scene readers thought would be Christmas number one, and the results show how much The X Factor dominates proceedings at this time of year.

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I’m going to be reviewing Leona Lewis’ cover of Run by Snow Patrol tomorrow, having waited until the official video became available. But the single has already been released, being available to download since Nov. 30. And 70,000 people in the UK have already done exactly that.

BBC News reports that Run has become the fastest-selling digital-only track in the UK. Estelle’s American Boy was the previous record-holder, selling 51,000 downloads in the space of a week. But The X Factor 2006 winner Leona Lewis has smashed that, making her virtually guaranteed of grabbing number one on Sunday.

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For 99 percent of the time here on Brit Music Scene, I will cover exactly what I want to cover. Whether that be reviewing the singles and albums I actually want to listen to (which is why they usually score highly) or covering news on artists I respect and admire.

But, some times popular culture moves beyond my own blinkered view on the world and something crops up which I feel I have to talk about. As is the case with Hero, the new song by The X Factor 2008 Finalists, which is on course to be number one in the UK singles charts tomorrow.

Not only that but it also looks set to be the biggest-selling single of the decade, and it’s all in aid of charity. And it’s a good cause too, raising money for Help For Heroes, which looks after soldiers wounded in conflicts that the country is currently taking part in.

Video and review after the cut.

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I’m not normally that interested in the singles charts, as they mean less now than ever, being dominated, as they are, by whichever pop artist has the most record label money behind them. But this week sees an interesting little battle between a certain reality television star and a fake one.

The X Factor is just one of the many reality TV shows which are clogging up the airwaves. Sure, it’s one of the good ones along with Big Brother, but there’s also Britain’s Got Talent (barely), Strictly Come Dancing, and a whole host of celebrity specials.

This trend lead comedian Peter Kay to spoof the shows in a one-off called Britain’s Got The Pop Factor… And Possibly a New Celebrity Jesus Christ Superstar Strictly on Ice. And as well as TV programme, Kay released a single from “the winner” of the show, Geraldine McQueen, really him in drag.

It’s actually not a bad song, written by Gary Barlow from Take That, and Kay’s voice is also decent (unless Barlow is singing?), and probably less engineered than most current pop stars’ voices. And it’s currently on course to take the number one spot in the British singles chart on Sunday, beating a certain Leon Jackson in the process.

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