VOA常速英语:Dance Duo La Roux Enjoying Successful US Tour

The British singing team of Ben Langmaid and Elenore Jackson are taking their electro-pop brand of dance music to the US with their first American tour.   Their self titled debut album was influenced by the music of the 1980s. 

La Roux is French for "The Red" and since lead singer Elenore Jackson has red hair the name was a perfect fit.  Riding high on the success of its debut hit "Bulletproof," La Roux is often compared to the Eurythmics and Elly is called the British Lady Gaga because of her fashion sense.  Does the comparison bother her?

"I think just as much as probably anyone does not like being compared to anyone I doubt Lady Gaga likes being compared to me…do you know what I mean?  I think I respect her very much as a pop star and we are different artists," she says.  "Whenever there is an easy comparison to make people will make it..because I might have, to some people, crazy, for want of a better word, hair or whatever.  People see that as a parallel to [Lady] Gaga because she wears kind of crazy outfits or whatever."

Elly says her unique hair style but developed out of boredom.  Her new look prompted her father to compare her to an 80's pop star.

"It just sort of happened…then my dad started calling me Rick Astley [British pop star with red hair] and I thought that was quite funny," Elly says.  "I found that quite amusing and it just stuck and it has become a big deal and I do not really mean for it to be.  It is certainly not a hair style …I do not think I will have it very much longer.  It has served me very well for this record and it has been something people notice about you which is a good thing. As a pop star you want something to find recognizable instantly recognizable although that was not the aim it suits me pretty well."

It took La Roux six years to complete its debut, self-titled CD.  Elly is writing songs for the sophomore album and lets us in on what is in store.

"We will always have elements of that bouncy synth thing …that is what La Roux is a lot about, for now anyway," she explains.  "I would like it to be a bit sexier…not about the obvious sense of talking about sex or miniskirts or anything like that, I think in the way it sounds."

Elly says the group hopes to release the new album in a few months.

"Ideally we would like to have it out by spring 2011…but we will have to see," she says.  "At the moment it is totally possible but there are always little anomalies that come at the end of making a record …hopefully in the spring."

La Roux is nominated for two Grammy awards and is hoping for a big year ahead.