Mimi Webb: Amelia – Resistance seems pointless

Don’t worry if you haven’t heard of Mimi Webb – your kids have, and that’s why tickets for her April gigs at the Ulster Hall, in Belfast, and the 3Olympia Theatre, in Dublin (as well as her June gig in Cork, at Live at the Marquee), are like the proverbial gold dust.

As befits a twentysomething music graduate, Webb’s influences line up in parallel: for every Adele and Amy Winehouse there is an Etta James and Ella Fitzgerald. She is also, naturally, a veteran of social media and its business models. (Her 2020 debut single, Before I Go, was watched more than 85 million times on TikTok and listened to more than 25 million times on Spotify.)

Webb is, therefore, a thoroughly contemporary pop songwriter, so her debut album pivots between how fresh her songs sound and how she can channel (or blend) her influences into something that approximates originality. Going by her debut, resistance seems pointless. She has, for starters, an impressive R&B vocal style that supports the kind of anthemic dance-pop that part of you wants to dismiss but can’t because it’s just so annoyingly catchy.

The singer, who is from Canterbury, in England, also has an aptitude for teary ballads that are equally irksome and earwormy. As the album title alludes to – Amelia is Webb’s first name – the songs are of self-discovery. If that sounds as if it might clog your arteries, steer clear. Those into smart, right-now pop music might wish to pull up a chair.