Stevie Hoang (No 721)

Hometown: Braintree, Essex. The lineup: Stevie Hoang (vocals, music). The background: Can we be honest? We think we might have got Kesha and Lady Gaga a bit wrong. These things are always hard to get right – what we wouldn't give for 20/20 foresight – but the gist of our early assessments of the two new superstars of Stateside machine pop was that, as interesting as they were on a theoretical level, they were unlikely to achieve the sort of market penetration that would validate their "artistic", in the loosest possible sense of the word, ambitions. Actually, that's not strictly true. We predicted superstardom for Kesha even if we were less than bowled over by what she had to offer on a musical level (great back-story, though), whereas with Gaga we were kind of intrigued by the talk of "retrosexuality" and her art-trash aesthetic – it sounded like something out of a 1986 Sigue Sigue Sputnik press release – but we found the robo-R&B a tad rote. And more than anything else, we assumed her whole shtick was a bit postmodern and clever-clever for the public to bite. Still, say what you like about Kesha and Gaga, at least they're good-value characters, which is probably why articles about them are only starting to appear now that they've become successful – so that critics can regale us with tales of their exploits (narcotic experimentation, vomiting in Paris Hilton's closet) without having to go into too much detail about their music. Such is the fray that Stevie Hoang is about to enter. But first, a question: has anyone noticed how all the most interesting performers in the urban pop milieu are women, and all the men are, well, completely boring? Can anyone name a single thing of interest that Ne-Yo has ever done? Exactly. Same goes for JLS over here. Nice enough boys, but in terms of radical presentation techniques and colourful antics, they couldn't be more inoffensive and insipid. Hoang, 24, is pitching himself as "the Chinese Ne-Yo" which hardly augurs well, and he's been touring with JLS, which makes perfect (dull) sense. He's also supported N-Dubz and Tinchy Stryder and is very much poised to cater quite nicely, thank you, to the demographic that consumes its music via the Box, 4 Music, Smash Hits and Kiss, and likes its R&B smooth. He's already had a couple of self-released albums, he's apparently massive in Japan and, after the proverbial multiple-million-hits on MySpace he's signed to Mercury and has been writing with Chipmunk collaborators Parker & James and RedOne in LA. We're not sure if Gaga's producer had a hand in his forthcoming major-label debut single No Coming Back, but it's the sort of unremarkable synth-pop plodder you can imagine her recording, while another new track, Addicted, is a generic slow jam. Pretty unexciting, all told. We recommend throwing up in Aston Merrygold's closet. The buzz: "The future of British urban pop has arrived!" The truth: It would seem that Stateside, at least, you need to be an eccentric woman to make it in urban pop; over here we ask only that our male R&B stars be suave and bland. Hoang should do well. Most likely to: Wash over you. Least likely to: Do something dirty. What to buy: No Coming Back is released by Mercury on 8 March. File next to: Boyz II Men, JLS, Ne-Yo, Ralph Tresvant. Links: www.myspace.com/steviehoang . Tomorrow's new band: Family Force Five.