POP SPECS

I love a good heiress. Whether it’s Paris Hilton stuffing coke up her vajayjay (allegedly), or Chloe Green flaunting her – frankly more scandalous – mug on Made In Chelsea, there’s nothing quite like an heiress to inject some much needed LOLs into our otherwise miserable, poverty stricken lives.

Tamara ‘I’m sweating like a whore in church’ Ecclestone is the latest silver tongued heiress with more money than manners, to be thrust down the nation’s throat curtesy of Channel 5′s new reality series, Tamara Ecclestone: Billion $$ Girl.

Daughter of motor racing mogul, Bernie Ecclestone, Tamara says she hopes the show will prove she’s not a vacuous air-head, before inexplicably proclaiming ‘shoes make me happy’ and  - without the slightest sense of irony – that she’d rather collect Birkin handbags than art. Mission accomplished, Tamara.

As everyone knows, a good heiress is not complete without an assortment of pampered pooches to poo all over their Billion $$ pad and Tamara is no exception. A chauffeur driven trip to Harrods sees Tamara treat her five, four-legged friends to blueberry facials, painted nails and oh, so essential ‘sparkle treatments’. Does PETA know what this woman subjects her dogs to?

But life’s not all about Louboutins, Lamborghinis and laser cellulite removal for Tamara. Apparently there’s a head for business hidden under those Gary Cockerill teased tresses, and there are plans afoot for Tamara to ‘take the world by storm’ by deploying the ultimate weapon in an heiress armoury… A SHAMPOO LINE!

However things get off to a rocky start, when Tamara’s Billion $$ dad threatens legal action after getting wind of her plans to name the shampoo ‘Formula One’, and QVC give it a resounding thumbs down for being too downmarket. I don’t think Katie Price will be quaking in her pink Uggs just yet :(

When she’s not checking herself into hospital to receive emergency treatment for an ‘enormous’ – aka barely noticeable – spot (I wish I was joking), Tamara likes to holiday with her Billion $$ sister, Petra at LEAST once a month.

Special mention must go to Petra’s odious beau, James ‘it’s all about the Benjamins’ Stunt, who chain-smokes and guffaws his way through a disastrous trip to Cannes, whilst sporting a Brentwood-slicked barnet and succession of brilliantly tasteless Billion $$ outfits. This man deserves a show of his own.

In summary, Tamara Eccleston: Billion $$ Girl manages to reaffirm all the preconceptions we have of over-privileged offspring, whilst  providing very little entertainment along the way. Thank heavens for small mercies that Channel 5 only commissioned three episodes and that Tamara Ecclestone will be disappearing back into Billion $$ obscurity very soon.

Tamara Ecclestone: Billion $$ Girl is on Channel 5 on Fridays, at 10:30pm.

Pop Specs rating:

Many artists have attempted to follow in the dildo-heeled footsteps of Lady Gaga, and thus far, all have limped embarrassingly off into obscurity (we may forgive, Sabrina Washington, but we most certainly do NOT forget).

Enter stage left, Natalia Kills, the latest young pretender to Gaga’s crown, who on paper at least, appears to have enough credentials to challenge pop’s monstrous matriarch.

Having been signed by will.i.am and placed with Gaga’s former label, Cherrytree Records, Kills has since gone on to work with a string of Gaga collaborators, including Akon, Laurieann Gibson and the dubiously monikered über-producer ‘Cherry Cherry Boom Boom‘.

At first glance there’s a lot to dislike about Natalia Kills. Bradford born and bred, she’s somehow developed a pseudo-American accent that even Joss Stone would be proud of. To compound things even further, Kills has produced a series of overbearingly noirish, art-house videos that seem horribly contrived when you realise she was once a star of your mum’s favourite radio play, The Archers.

And so we arrive at Natalia Kills’ debut release, Perfectionist, an album which is saturated with the dark, over-stylised sheen of her wearying stage persona, and yet somehow manages to be pretty enjoyable nonetheless.

Break You Hard provides one of the album’s early highlights, an aggressive mid-tempo number peppered with the sounds of breaking glass and electric guitar. Dodgy spoken interludes aside, Love Is a Suicide and Superficial offer plenty of electro-ear candy with an assortment of bleeps and distorted vocals which are oh so de rigeur these days.

Mirrors is Kills’ most blatant Gaga impersonation, combining the familiar electro-pop sound of Just Dance with the sexually aggressive lyrics of Rihanna’s S&M. It’s the sort of song you could imagine going down well at a Lambrini-fuelled Anne Summer’s party.

Things take a more interesting turn with Zombie, which mixes up tribal beats with a haunting femmebot vocal, while Free sees Kills momentarily cast aside her oblique demeanour to provide the album’s most unashamedly pop moment.

Unfortunately Perfectionist runs out of steam a little early, with later tracks, Broke, Heaven and If I was God failing to make much of an impression on these ears at least. Which is a shame really, because the rest of the album is really rather good!

So will Natalia Kills manage to topple Lady Gaga from her mermaid wheelchair? I very much doubt it. But if you can overlook her excruciatingly editorial posturing and occasional dalliances into copycat territory, you might just discover an artist capable of delivering reasonably worthwhile pop fodder.

Pop Specs rating:

This week we were treated to E4′s latest slice of reality pie, in the form of Dirty Sexy Things. A show which follows the fabulous lives of eight suitably gorgeous models living and working in London town. So far, so brilliantly generic.

However upon settling down to watch this latest feast of eye-candy, it became immediately apparent that things aren’t quite what they seem:

TRANSLATION: Some of this programme is a lie.

Cryptically described by E4 as a ‘concept-doc’, the appearance of that increasingly ubiquitous pre-titles disclaimer suggests that Dirty Sexy Things is poised to dip it’s immaculately manicured toe into the murky waters of scripted reality.

Now I’m happy to play along with the likes of The Only Way is Essex, comfortable in the knowledge that it’s all completely staged rubbish and just a bit of cartoonish fun. But somehow the motives of E4′s latest effort seem more insidious, when they choose to feature painfully real issues that the likes of TOWIE (thankfully) shy away from.

Case in point is model, Jay. A likeable ‘modern day Del-boy’ who is described on the Dirty Sexy Things website as:

Self-confessed ‘sometime diva’ who loves a good party, being in front of the camera and being back home with his mum.

Yes, yes, all jolly good fun. And yet in episode one, Jay reveals his long-term battle with weight and body image that tests his resolve during the very first underwear shoot.

Now I’m not suggesting that Jay’s issues are fabricated (because they clearly aren’t), but I think E4′s playing a dangerous game by exploring these kind of problems in anything less than a completely honest format. And to me, THAT pre-titles disclaimer only makes an audience question the truth in everything they see.

Anyway, serious rant over. Let’s get back to the fun stuff.

Eschewing the traditional ‘search for a star’ format of other model-centric shows, Dirty Sexy Things follows photographer to the rich and famous, Perou and his recurring cast of models on an eight-week ‘project’ that will ‘challenge his own abilities as well as push his models to the extreme’.  All suitably vague, with just enough structure to hang a show off.

So what of the models themselves?

All in all, they’re a reasonably likeable bunch of model archetypes helpfully pigeonholed by Perou in his shopping list of requirements before the staged open casting. We’ve got a beef cake, kooky waif, preppy boy, Russian beauty, bit of rough etc. etc. Pretty much something for everyone then.

BB - dancer to the stars... and Alexandra Burke.

X Factor fans will probably recognise BB (which apparently stands for Black Beauty… but probably not THAT Black Beauty). He’s a professional dancer who’s appeared on stage with the likes of Alexandra Burke, Mariah Carey, Alexandra Burke, Rihanna and er… Alexandra Burke (he mentions Alexandra Burke A LOT).

Perverts amongst you will be pleased to note that E4 seems intent on maximising the amount of flesh on display at all times. When the models aren’t standing around in their underwear, they’re either taking clothes off or putting clothes on. Which means you’re usually only a minute or two away from a well packaged bulge, pert buttock or thinly veiled nipple.

In summary then, Dirty Sexy Things looks like it could offer a modicum of fun. And while I might not be entirely comfortable with certain aspects of it’s ‘scripted reality’, it should at least provide some dubious titillation over the coming weeks.

Dirty Sexy Things is on E4 on Mondays, at 10pm

Pop Specs rating: