Capital FM's annual summer jamboree is a useful snapshot of the state of pop. It has often been a chaotically diverse affair, but this year's edition showcases the current confluence of chart music in an aesthetic that blends rock, dance and urban elements into a homogeneous puree.
JLS's The Club Is Alive sets the tone for the evening: faux-ecstatic trance chords; an emphasis on hook above all other aspects of songcraft; and a semi-mythical club setting, possibly born of watching too much Jersey Shore. Most of the acts cleave to this formula, some faring better than others. Katy B proves, yet again, that she is a shining beacon of British music. Eschewing bland likability for vampish prowling, Nicole Scherzinger dishes up power-suited pop that puts one in mind of Jackie Collins anti-heroines. On the other hand, rapper Example resembles a student who has wandered on stage for a dare, while LMFAO's fratboy antics are just grim. JLS's good-natured randiness is hard to hate, in contrast with the abyssal pointlessness of fellow boyband the Wanted.
It takes an old hand to throw the proceedings into relief. Jennifer Lopez's set is like a potted history of pop trends over the past decade: millennial house, hip-hop strutting, retro Rich Harrison horns. It is a high-quality lesson for the kids from tonight's most established artist. Kudos to Lopez, too, for managing to shoehorn a costume change into a five-song set.
The day's damp drizzle illustrates that, in this business, the ability to be a trooper is often more valuable than any other skill, and Jessie J takes the gold medal here, appearing with her foot in a cast after rupturing tendons in rehearsal. Sadly, though her crowd banter is also the easiest and most unaffected, her spirit fails to improve the grating affectations of her material.
