While the end of year lists are still being published by various organisations, the BBC have already rubbed their publicly funded crystal ball to tell us what we?ll be listening to in 2012. Complied of supposed industry tastemakers (not us then), the list aims to tell us what new sounds will be creeping on to radio and TV.
But that's the problem, the emphasise here is on ?new? music. No mentions are given to those who?ve already made a stir in the underground and potentially set to upset the apple cart with their potential second or third album.
Music will always be new to people the first time they hear it, no matter when the record was originally released. Given this logic, members of the hecklerspray team give their opinion on BBC?s Sounds Of 2012 list whilst recommending acts who won't have been considered
The Computers
Sound of 2012? Just because you received a press release doesn’t mean you’ve discovered a band. The very notion of an artist being the ‘sound of 2012’ implies that the only measure of success is whether they become a wanky hipster concern and then six months later their album is at number one. Thankfully this isn’t the only career path for a musician. Some bands gradually build a fanbase and end up having long, respected, niche existences.
Other artists make one great record that no-one buys, then implode. Who cares what band someone reckons will be ‘big’. We want to know what we should hear, not what we should drop into conversation. With that in mind please give The Computers a chance. This Exeter noise rock group make frantic, abrasive but catchy pop. Like a more retro Pulled Apart By Horses. They released their debut album this year, but not enough people paid attention.
Si Sharp
Errors
Let’s face it, whatever we write on this list is going to be wrong. We’ll tell you to listen to bands and yet the only sound we’ll actually hear in 2012 will be the crying of starving children and a deafening silence as the leaders of Europe try to find two coins to rub together.
So spare a thought then for the music-makers who have bided their time through a couple of good albums and limited critical acclaim only to hope that 2012 would be the year that they manage to make enough gold sovereigns to swim around in like they’re Scrooge McDuck, only to have the opportunity preemptively snatched from them by a double dip recession and the nuclear holocaust.
Errors are one such act that are deserving of your time, if you can spare any when you’re having to drink irradiated water and suck shit through a melted bendy straw. Their new album Have Some Faith In Magic is said to contain a lot more pop influences than their previous two releases meaning that they could be destined for the big time. If the phrase ‘big time’ hasn’t been repurposed to mean ‘time before the bomb fell’.
Man Like Me
We know that the BBC Sound Of… lists have given us such ?artistes? like Jessie J, Adele and Ellie Goulding but can anyone actually say that pop music has improved that much by having them in our lives? It's undeniable that they have had such a impact on the market, but having numerous people popping on leotards or shift dresses and singing melancholic ballids about lost loves, or how it isn't all about the money, money, money, and how she doesn't need any money, money, money while simultaneously shoving enough ten pound notes up her foof that She'll sneeze pound coins (don't tell us that's not how biology works) isn't a true reflection of the swirling vortex of the music business.
Sometimes an act can come out of nowhere, or in this case North London, and strike you so hard between the eyes that you\’ll probably stumble into oncoming traffic and have to get your family to declare you ?Do Not Resuscitate? after twelve years of Christmas? in a hospital room.
Man Like Me, a duo, a twosome, they've got so many lyrics they're frightened to use ?em, are from North London and continue the whole mockney crusade that Lily Allen started back years ago, and people like Eliza Doolittle and Kate Nash Stuart Lubbocked. They don't go Stretch Armstrong on vowels, or end sentences while hopping onto a customised BMX in pink and gold, just because they can, and just because they're supercilious cock-breathing monsters. Man Like Me keep things realistic, talking about issues that actual people, like me and you, and that weird dude who dances outside of River Island, deal with. Single parenting? Got it. How the iPhone of the 90s was a Nokia? You betcha. It's all in here.
But what makes them so much better than people who's surnames are just initials? Well, they're not just a flash in the pan artist who only put down dem beats bruv between smashing WH Smiths windows open and stealing their 3 for 2 files and notebooks and secretly lusting after that cheeky article from One Direction.
Give them a grand old whirl and we can guarantee that although you might not hear from them again (like most of the actual Sound of 2012 list) you\’ll have a good song rattling around your head instead of whatever vapid message JLS is spelling out in condoms this week.
Little Dragon
At one point, music was discovered by people when they digged through stacks of vinyl in record shops, surfing through the late night radio stations or watching the occasional support band at a gig who weren't actually that bad. Now, the internet gives anyone within in their online community via Twitter or Facebook can voice opinion on who they think is going to be the next big thing. The BBC really acts like some sort of headmaster type figure who stamps the seal of approval, despite employing Chris Moyles.
Whilst picking up records this year, one name happened cropped up on the sleevenotes from albums by DJ Shadow and SBTRKT. Usually, electronic music can feel empty and session singers can be brought in to give them some depth. Little Dragon didn't seem like a singer who?d added an extra layer to someone else?s recording. She inastead helped make the songs she sang on the stand outs on both albums. Simple exploring via YouTube offered all sorts of heartfelt sounding numbers with one of the most captivating vocals that?ll see many more collaborations with artists who know their stuff.
Saint Saviour
There’s a spate of dreary ladrock bands cluttering up the universe in a period that has seen rock and indie music create more waste product than planet made entirely of pig’s arses. Yet, among the grot-indie and faux shimmering rock disco widge is some seriously good music. Alas, look away if you don’t like emotionally charged, desperately well-crafted music made by brilliant women.
Step forward Saint Saviour with her brand of songwriting that sounds like someone got stabbed in the chest and let everything fall out, for good or bad. Kate Bush and Liz Fraser comparisons are inevitable (and not a bad thing at all) in Saint Saviour’s work, which manages to breathe life into singer-songwriterdom. Forget posers like Lana Del Rey – Saint Saviour is the real deal. If she isn’t gigantically adored by the close of 2012, then frankly, the world doesn’t deserve the ears bestowed on it. An outrageous talent.
Busker Rhymes
One man from Berkshire and his guitar that has slowly been setting the South Bank and various tube stations around London alight. With a youtube account full of looped rejigs of everything from World Cup Medleys, to songs by the Black Eyed Peas or even Charlie Sheen, it won’t be long until hipsters are saying they were into him before he got big.
Listing Ships
So I was going to tell you all to go and listen to Lianne La Havas, but she’s gone and bagged herself title of the only decent artist on the sound of 2012 list, clever songstress. She DOESN’T sound like Joss Stone.
Listing Ships though are my hot tip. They released their debut this year to somewhat limited critical acclaim. It’s noisy post rock brilliance AND it has words; which is weird. They probably won’t release anything in 2012, they’ll probably spend at least four years writing a sophomore album which wont be very good, pitchfork will probably produce over analytical features which you don’t understand on the band that never was. Don’t blame me they’re good right now and that’s better than most.
So there you have it, hecklerspray’s picks for next year. If you disagree with us then you go and cry in a well.