Our critic Kitty Empire has doubts about the end-of-year drive to find the next big thing. But since you insist?
An album used to have two sides to it. The act of flipping vinyl over created a new beginning, ripe with possibility. The pop year used to have two sides to it as well ? the autumn, when students went back to university, flush with unspent funds, keen to impress cute strangers with their tastes. Bands hung lanyards round their necks, went forth and pulled crowds.
And then ? flip! ? January, the dead of winter. No gigs to speak of; even fewer releases. The sales did allow you to sample records by artists you would never buy at full price, and NME traditionally staged its new bands tour in this fallow period.
But commerce abhors a vacuum, and in recent years the culture of tipping new acts for glory has rushed in to fill what was left of the Candlemas pop void. Powerful forces are at work here. Forecasting the future has always been one of humanity's biggest preoccupations, giving rise to wizards, bookies and the new artist slot on Jools Holland. The worship of The New rules just about every human industry, from agricultural implements to the latest app. In music, the pixie-crack-dust of newness means absolutely everything. If we can drag Bourdieu into it, having the latest tunes by the hottest unknowns proves you don't just have cultural capital; you are minting it.
It is hard to resist this relentless human habit of new-seek. Rather than resist ? because we too are partial to some of the latest tunes by the hottest unknowns ? let us just raise an eyebrow at its progress.
There seems to be more of The New about than usual this year. As the tea leaves settled in my cup about a month ago, I tried to add up how many acts were being touted as game-changers for 2011. I lost count at around 86.
These were just the bands with a record deal, or a rudimentary PR mechanism. The final tally of pop cannon fodder can only be guessed at. A random sample? Why not. Daftest name? Penguin Prison, a dance-pop operative, presumably aiming at happy feet rather than "bird". The music itself? Perfectly OK.
Biggest Google miscalculation? ANR, a pair of psychedelic Beach Boys-y Floridians whose acronym stands for myriad other things ? not least Artist & Repertoire and the Arsenal News Review. They're rather good.
Best backstory? The Pierces, American soft-rock sisters who boast a lifetime of ballet training, rescue from a religious cult, spell-casting and two pop stars to their credit: producer Guy Berryman (of Coldplay fame) and Catherine's long-ago ex, Stroke Albert Hammond Jr. They're not bad either.
But when the time came round to vote for the Brits Critics' Choice award and the BBC's Sound of 2011, I froze. I'm not sure why. I am acutely aware that I have the immense privilege of being consulted. I vote in the most minor political elections. It's not like I don't care. Unusually, I even had riders in the race. I've already written with enthusiasm about James Blake and Jamie Woon (both in the longlist on the BBC poll). Another enticing figure working a similar minimal post-R&B vein to Blake and Woon is Jai Paul, whose one track online, "BTSTU", caused a stir last spring; an album is forthcoming on XL.
I think I might have pulled up because of Clare Maguire. As 2008 turned to 2009, the Brummie singer was the latest A&R catch, raved about by a small number of people. That year I was keen to circumvent the whole ones-to-watch agenda by writing about someone genuinely exciting, who wasn't on the prescribed menu of new acts for that year. Fast-forward two years of so-called "development". The engaging twenty-nothing woman with the force-of-nature vocals has become just another over-produced windbag ? and tipped to the hilt, naturally. She will sell records, but they will be dispiriting ones.
The Brits Critics' Choice award, meanwhile, has gone to Jessie J, a Brit-school graduate who straddles terrain previously pranced on by Rihanna and Lady Gaga. But mea culpa. You might have hoped that the award ? for artistic promise, theoretically ? could have gone to a less obviously commercial newcomer, rather than automatically anointing an act very likely to succeed. It highlights the problem of critics tipping with an eye on being "right" ? their bets succeed ? versus tipping from the heart. It's a genuine professional struggle, one I didn't manage to resolve in time. Otherwise I would have exercised my right to vote for hauntological "microstep" ? one of the more amusing genre distinctions ascribed to Blake et al ? as the way forward in 2011.
Aisha Tyler K. D. Aubert Sara Spraker Alexis Bledel Kim Kardashian
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