Pop music can be happy. Pop music can be sad. Pop music can make you think. Pop music can make you forget about everything else except for the rhythm and the melody. But the best pop music makes all these events occur at once. It’s what makes Little Boots such a star. Victoria Hesketh has brought all the elements that make pop music great together in one fine and fantastically shiny product. What’s more, Hands is her debut album. That’s what anyone would call an impressive start to a career.

Little Boots has been hotly tipped since appearing on the Later With Jools Holland show on British television, and in January she topped the BBC’s Sounds of 2009 poll. She might even be the Lady GaGa it is okay to like – like GaGa, she’s heavily influenced by early Madonna at her absolute best. Mathematics is as hooky and ace as Into the Groove, and it’s something that she carries off throughout the entirety of the album. It’s an album that’s taking her around the world, from home base of London to mainland Europe, across to America, and soon on to Australia.

“I have been,” says Victoria of her jetsetting life, “but for this week of album release I’ve been here [London]. It’s really nice to just be still for a minute and not worry about packing and repacking a bag. It’s really sunny too.”

Hands is almost the perfect soundtrack to sunny times. “I think it’s going to be good for the summer,” she agrees.Do you think that certain albums suit certain seasons? “Maybe,” Victoria shrugs. “I think this summer everyone is going to be wanting things that are really upbeat, and there’s a certain sound of summer.”

Perhaps part of the reason that people across the world want sunny, happy music this northern summer and southern winter is that the economy is in freefall, and one of the best ways to forget about the state of the world is to get lost in the delirious brilliance of pop music at its most direct and straightforward. “People are going through a recession and hard times and maybe they want something that’s positive and is going to take them away from that for a bit,” she agrees. “I think that’s art in general.”

Of course, an artist can never predetermine when their music will be released – Hands was never locked in for release for summer, or to act as an antidote to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. “I just wanted to make good songs,” Victoria affirms, “that make people happy.” It’s certainly achieved that – the album may have its dark lyrical moments, but the overall feeling is overwhelmingly ‘up’, with a sense of joyousness coming through. “There’s a lot of heartbreak on it as well, and it’s not all just happy.”

Originally described as a protégé of Hot Chip member Joe Goddard (who did indeed work on the album), Hands was not just worked on by one producer but instead of clutch of different and disparate – but overwhelmingly hip – knob-twiddlers, from Goddard to Lily Allen cohort Greg Kurstin, and red-hot producer RedOne on the track Remedy. “Most of it I did with Greg Kurstin, who I’ve known for a few years and I always knew I wanted to do the bulk of it with him because I have a great working connection with him in the studio. Then I did some with Joe, and some with a couple of other people.”

Victoria asserts that someone such as Kurstin brings a great deal to the table – not only is he a skilled musician, but he’s also a strong songwriter and arranger, and a willing cohort in the creation of Hands. “We have the same ideas about pop music, so we get on really well. Just to write a great pop song is a great thing and a challenge,” she continues, “and we both love the craft of songwriting.”

The influence is as wide as the disco era with Giorgio Moroder and Donna Summer – particularly on the excellent single Stuck On Repeat, which bears more than just a passing similarity to her track I Feel Love – through to the Stock, Aitken & Waterman-era pop of Kylie Minogue. “There’s more futuristic stuff there as well,” she argues, “so I think it’s a real mix.”

Nevertheless, the dominant sound of Hands is its wash of 1980s-style keyboards. “That was the era of synthesizers and when they were big,” Victoria says, “and if you play guitar then you’ve got a lot bigger period to reference, but synths only really started being used in the mid to late 1970s.”

Born in 1984, she was a mere 6 years old when the 1990s brought an end to the era that the sound of Little Boots most obviously references. Discovering music as a teenager she was inspired by electronic music, and listened to the likes of Take That and Kylie Minogue. Perhaps that’s why Hands is so direct in its pop approach. “I didn’t ever really over think it to be honest,” she says, “and I just loved writing pop songs – I love the challenge and the whole craft of it, and I just love melodies and hooks. It’s what excites me and what I wrote most naturally. I just went with what came most naturally.”

It’s not just pop music that inspired her when writing either – the song Mathematics was inspired by the poetry of Sylvia Plath. “It wasn’t really an answering call,” Victoria explains of the song, which references the poem ‘Love is a Parallax’. “It was just the last line which made me think about stuff, so it was an influence rather than a direct approach to it. I often have poetry books around and just flick through them for ideas and inspiration, and ideas for imagery. Sylvia Plath always seem to work best when I’m writing.”

Is it the sadness? “I think it’s the images – it’s always very sharp and edgy, and very organic but dark and interesting, and there’s a contradiction in a lot of her stuff.” Much as there is in the sound of Hands, a glorious pop album with a dark lyrical undertone.

Hands is out now through Warner Music. Little Boots will play Parklife around the country during September and October:

Sat 26th Sep – Botanic Gardens & Riverstage, Brisbane
Sun 27th Sep – Wellington Square, Perth
Sat 3rd Oct – Birrarung Marr, Melbourne
Sun 4th Oct – Kippax Lake, Moore Park, Sydney
Mon 5th Oct – Botanic Park, Adelaide

inthemix is a proud presenting partner of Parklife in 2009! Keep your eyes peeled to our Festival Page at inthemix.com.au/parklife