Charlotte Church

Whatever your opinion on her - and chances are you’ll have one - there are few artists who have had quite as diverse a career trajectory as Charlotte Church. The classical success of her Voice of an Angel days whilst still a child - that album went platinum and topped the charts - ensured that she’d never have anything that resembled a normal teenage life, so perhaps it wasn’t a surprise when her behaviour earned her a reputation as a tabloid favourite. Her first pop record, Tissues and Issues, spawned a number of radio hits, but Church has since disowned that era in a John Peel lecture for the BBC last year, stating that she was a victim of a highly sexist music industry in terms of the way she was portrayed. Since then, she’s undergone another reinvention; interviews with the likes of The Quietus proved that her interest in alternative music was by no means a pose, and her series of EPs since then, titled ONE, TWO, THREE and FOUR, have earned rave reviews from critics. An EP launch last summer saw her playing her new, experimental material - which blends indie pop with post-rock - whilst surrounded by snaking neon tubes, a far cry from her ‘Crazy Chick’ days; as she readies FIVE, expect a full tour of intimate UK venues sooner than later.