VV Brown

British singer and songwriter Vanessa "V V" Brown has already made a name for herself on both sides of the Atlantic with her effervescent 2010 debut album Travelling Like The Light, which spawned the gold single "Shark In the Water." Now she returns with a stellar new pop-soul-electro collection to be released early 2012. Recorded in Sweden, London and Los Angeles, the album finds the Northampton native not only taking a major musical leap into experimentalism (aided by her collaborators Bjorn Yttling and Chuck Harmony), but also asking tough-minded questions "especially in regards to the youth," as she puts it, on such songs as "Famous" and the first single "Children," the latter a hip-pop classic with one ear cocked to Kelis' "Milkshake" and the other to T. Rex's "Children of the Revolution." "It's pop," V V says, "but that doesn't mean it can't be interesting. The album is a positive way to somehow talk about some serious things."