Billie is back. Less than two years after she first stormed the charts, the Swindon girl with the wide screen smile is ready to reclaim her pop crown. With a diversity of sounds from stripped back acoustic numbers, to smooth r'n'b, to powerful contemporary pop gems her new album is set to continue where Billie's record breaking debut, 'Honey To The B', left off.
As a 15 year old school girl, Billie became the youngest female solo artist ever to debut at number one in the UK charts when the feisty 'Because We Want To' went straight to No.1 in the summer of '98. Three months later, she repeated the feat with the follow-up 'Girlfriend', a slower R&B-tingle tune which proved that this was one pop tot who could actually sing. In October '98, the platinum - selling album 'Honey To The B' took Billie career a step on and silenced the cynics who had said her success was sure to be short lived.
"It took a while for me to win people over," says Billie. "No one had much faith in me because I was so young. They imagined a little brat with a flash-in-the-pan single. It was inevitable. I would have thought that too. Thankfully, I proved people wrong."
Still only 17, London based Billie has spent a lot of the last year working on her second album which stretches her sound into new territories. "I wanted to try out a few different styles of music this time," says Billie. "I'm still a huge Madonna fan, but at home, I listen to everything from Artful Dodger to George Michael and I thought the new songs should reflect that. Also, I'm two years older. My voice has changed and so have I and I'm more confident. I was ready to experiment and be a bit more adventurous. I wanted the songs to be less clean cut. I wanted them to have an edge."
Billie began work on her new album last April following her first tour of the States. In October '99 she hooked up with the highly regarded pop producer Elliot Kennedy - who had previously worked with the likes of the Spice Girls, Five and Celine Dion - and set about writing some song of her own. "I was really keen to try out my writing skills," says Billie, who had already written one track, 'Love Groove', on Honey To The B. "Before, I wasn't sure what I could do, Elliot was brilliant. He taught me a lot about what makes a great pop tune. It also helped that I had travelled and met loads of amazing people since my first album. I felt like I had something to say. When I was 15, I hadn't really done much with my life. I cam from a small town and I hadn't been to many places. All I had to write about was the youth center and ice-skating at the weekends".
"On the first album, I was basically saying that I was young and happy and that everything was great," she says. "This time, I wanted sing about real things, whether they were good or bad. The songs are much more personal. They have a real meaning and truth."
'Because Of You' is one of my favourite tracks. I wrote it with Elliot. It's about becoming a woman, but it's not all soppy and romantic. It's about dealing with the fact that you're not a kid anymore and how scary that can seem. Teenage girls today are under so much pressure to get into relationships and have sex. I'm not making a big statement. I just wanted to say to young girls that they should take things slowly and enjoy their youth. Once it's gone, you can't get it back. 'Misfocusing' is probably the saddest track on the album. It's very chilled and laid-back. It's about the negative site of success, which is something I had never even thought about until I experienced it. I had friends selling stories to the papers and I had to hear people slagging me off. The worst part is that most of the people who judge me don't know me at all."
Besides Elliot Kennedy, Billie collaborated with a number of writers and producers, including Rick Mitra & Pam Sheyne (Christine Aguilera) - Stargate and Later Inc, an up-and-coming Swedish team. "Later Inc gave me an amazing track", says Billie. "It's called 'Ring My Bell'. It's midtempo and quite sexy, but also very sweet. And it has some crazy sounds in it. It's a very clever pop song. I went to meet the guys in Sweden because I was going to write with them, then they played me 'Ring My Bell' and as soon as I heard it I had to have it."
"The first single will be 'Day & Night', a powerful, up-tempo pop song which should give the competition a run for their money. 'Day & Night' is the perfect comeback track," says Billie. "It has great hooks and a strong melody. There's also a really cool sentiment to it. It's about pining for someone day and night. Ultimately, it's about love, but it's not slushy at all. The beats give it attitude."
With an older image - No more combats and crop tops - and a new set of songs, Billie is ready to take on the pop acts who have arrived in her absence. "The competition is really tough at the moment, "she says. "That's why I'm glad I took time out to work carefully on this album. I could have rushed into it and crashed and burned. Instead, I've made sure I'll stand out from the crowd." Billie has always been hard to ignor and with this new album there will be no escaping her.
