We’re fed up everyone in the media banging on about Adele and how great she is. Despite having only released two mediocre singles – and from what we gather the album is pretty lacklustre as well – she’s been nominated for this year’s inaugural Brit Awards Critics’ Choice prize (that they might as well rename the Brit School Leavers Award).
As a result we thought we’d give you our top three tips for 2008, that might actually do something this year.
1. Glasvegas
Already darlings of the NME, finishing second in its Top 50 Tracks Of 2007 for the promo release of Daddy’s Gone, Glasvegas have 2008 in the palm of their hand. In the capable hands of Alan McGee, this Scottish bunch somehow combine the doo-wop of the 50s with modern raucous indie rock and roll. The result is one of the freshest and most original sounds we’ve heard for years. The Home Tapes demos (found here) proved they have substance as well as an abundance of raw talent and the debut album later this year will probably blow our minds.
2. The Courteeners
It is strange for a band so desperate to carve their own path in the music world to end up sounding like so many others, but these Manchester lads carry it off with ease. The influences are stark and obvious from the narrative indie rock of Arctic Monkeys to heavy Libertines and even Stone Roses comparisons that can be drawn. It is this variety though that gives them the spice of life, as they say. Lead singer Liam Fray dresses like Messers Gallagher and Ashcroft, but has the heart and perception of Thom Yorke at his lyrical best.
3. The Verve
Okay, so not so quite the ‘new’ band that you might have been expecting in this list, but given their storming live return late last year, and the new-found chemistry in the band, expect Ashcroft and co’s new album to be blinding. Judging by the snippets of information already released this album won’t be a vehicle for Ashcroft’s songs like Urban Hymns, but more in the same vein as the incredibly expansive and anthemic creative process that produced A Northern Soul and A Storm In Heaven. We wait with baited breath.