The morning after receiving the critics' choice award at February's Brits, Ellie Goulding sent a sad little missive to the world via Twitter. "Lady Gaga held my hand and we talked and I think I died," she wrote, signing off with a frowning face emoticon to reflect her shame at having been so star-struck in the presence of pop aristocracy.
In the grand scheme of things, there are plenty of scenarios more worthy of sympathy than a young musician meeting one of the world's biggest pop stars hours after receiving the blessing of the British music industry. But even so, it was hard not to feel a little bit sorry for Goulding after the Brits.
It's not that the critics' choice award – given annually to the act judged by reviewers and taste-makers to be the coming year's brightest prospect – is necessarily a poisoned chalice. Previous winners have prospered, last year's recipient Florence "and the Machine" Welch repaid the vote of confidence with one of last year's biggest-selling albums. Nor, indeed, is the annual BBC sound of 2010 poll, which Goulding also topped in January.
But whereas Welch's florid baroque-pop seemed capable of meeting the burden of expectation – demanding as many red carpets and clarion calls as it could lay its hands on – Goulding's music is a different proposition. Neat, breathy electropop that tends towards the insubstantial, it seems too slight to bear the weight of hype heaped on it in the new year.
At least chances of bumping into Gaga seem slim tonight. The O2 in Sheffield is a low-ceilinged, sticky-floored sweatbox, big on the kind of whites-of-their-eyes atmosphere that is a distant memory for most Brits recipients. And the sense of intimacy ought to play to Goulding's strengths. She cut her teeth as a performer playing open mic nights in her home town of Hereford.
But she's clearly still nervous. Backed by three young men with regulation angular haircuts and boffinish specs, she clutches on to her acoustic guitar as if it's a lifebuoy. Her between-song patter is diffident, comprising mumbled explanations of when and where the songs were written, before trailing off into a string off "ums" and "so anyways". These elicit screeches of approval from a partisan gaggle of girls at the front. But the noise from the bar – that dread signifier of slipping attention spans – increases as the gig goes on.
Perhaps some people feel short-changed. Certainly the post-Brits honeymoon has been a short one; her debut album received lukewarm reviews when it was released in March and after debuting at No 1 has tumbled alarmingly since. The buzz that surrounded Goulding's Brit portrayed her as a restless soul – fusing influences as disparate as freak-folk and dubstep into an intriguing composite of musical opposites. But in reality, Goulding has two settings – both nice enough but hardly revolutionary.
The first pitches her as a purveyor of soft-focus singer-songwriter angst – head thrown back, face scrunched up. The wistful "Wish I Stayed" is the sort of noise that wafts in the background when the protagonists of earnest teen dramas agonise over whether they're going to sleep with each other. The second coaxes her out from behind the safety of her guitar and decks her vocals politely in electronic spangles.
There's cross-pollination of the most conservative sort. Escape fantasy "Guns and Horses" combines finger-picked guitar and fidgety electronic pulses. "This Love (Will Be Your Downfall)" is turbo-charged with trancey swooshes. But there's nothing particularly improbable here, no real marrying of musical chalk and cheese.
This shouldn't be any great cause for surprise; music polls back safe bets, not mavericks, as any jaded industry observer will tell you. But, frustratingly, there are rare moments tonight when Goulding defies received wisdom and provides glimpses of a raw and distinctive talent.
Backed by samples of her own voice, her high fluting vocals twist in unusual directions on "Under the Sheets", her terrific first single. And for once, that voice sounds like a genuine find, breathy and ethereal in the upper reaches, but with an appealing snag as she shifts down a register or two.
It would be intriguing to see her team up for an album with a producer who plays a bit rougher than her current collaborator Starsmith. Someone inclined to set a pack of digital dogs on those gossamer vocals, or undercut them with hulking bass lines. Goulding's voice is better off hounded than allowed to drift prettily away in the wind.
