La Roux's Elly Jackson 'Insulted' by Guest Vocal Offers

On Monday, news broke that UK synth-pop act La Roux will appear on Kanye West's forthcoming 'My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy' album, with MTV also reporting that Mr. West returns the favor with a cameo in La Roux's new video for 'In for the Kill.' Yet we probably shouldn't get used to this sort of thing, as Elly Jackson's popularity continues to blossom.

"There's quite a lot of requests," Jackson tells Spinner. "I'd rather not mention things, but there's been a quite a few. Most of the stuff tends to be in the R&B vein and that's not really my bag."

Regardless of genre, getting Jackson into the studio for any such work should be looked at as a coup of sorts. With the popularity of La Roux's eponymous 2009 debut still going strong, she's ever careful about how her own voice and songwriting abilities make sense.

"It's a tricky one," she says. "It's something you don't want to do too much of. If I say yes, it's because I'm genuinely interested or they're a friend. How many times can you really say yes though? How many guest vocals do you want to do as an artist? It's one of those things you don't want to probably do more than three in your whole career. Maybe I'm very old-fashioned. Nowadays, people do like four a year."

Jackson hints that the demand for her reached a point where songs and opportunities came knocking, yet she found them insulting.

"For me, a lot of the stuff I get asked to do, I feel slightly patronized by. A lot of the stuff I'm asked to do, they just send me something and say 'here is the vocal we want you to do' and I'm like 'do you think I'm stupid? You sent me something you've already written, and if you know anything about me, you know I'm a songwriter,'" she says. "People are so used to getting guest vocals, they think people will just lie down and go 'Oh, you're a big name, I'll sing on any track.' My mum can just sing. It's not what it's supposed to be about. It's almost insulting. You're insulting this industry. It's so sad that it's expected of you to just go into a studio and sing and f---ing leave. There's no creative process at all."

For more on La Roux's creative process, check out the making of their 'In for the Kill' video on PopEater.