Beautiful New Born Children, one of our bands to watch in 2006. But who else should feature in our hot list?
Seasons in the land of pop change swiftly and suddenly. What seemed urgent and vital last week is prone to sound played-out and thoroughly yesterday-morning a few days hence. It's not that things never last: the archive can be endlessly revisited, and there's lots of fun to be had rummaging through it. But novelty, despite its pejorative connotations, is a significant aspect of what gets us excited about pop.
One wants to feel slightly surprised by a new song, in short, so the arrival of a new year and the opportunity it presents to inspect the queue of full-of-it whippersnappers waiting to assault your senses is always welcome.
The Guardian published a round-up of hot tips from the hot a few weeks ago, and I've been asking around for some more. In a way that's not always obvious by listening to the radio, watching telly or reading the music press, there are of course a whole lot of contenders.
Some are more or less foregone conclusions: Captain, and Declan O'Rourke don't need to worry too much about winning support from sniffy hacks. Captain, a handsome-looking bunch of boys - and one girl - who sound like a cross between Athlete and Prefab Sprout, have signed to EMI, and their obvious talents will combine with the label's marketing muscle to make them increasingly inescapable in the next 12 months. Likewise O'Rourke, an Irish singer-songwriter of some finesse, will be pointed squarely at the Radio 2 audience by new sponsor V2 - and seems, if not quite as surefire as Captain, an artist you can confidently expect to see TV ads pitching come next Christmas.
Rather more surprising, if not quite my glass of Guinness punch, is the arrival of what seems an almost fully fledged folk ragga - fragga? - scene in the form of both the contentious Plan B, and Jamie T, described to me by one A&R man as "Wimbledon polite-society ragga".
And, of course, the Strokesian party punk bandwagon rolls on. Just when you thought it might have run out of steam, along come the Beautiful New Born Children. Signed to Domino - tastefully appointed home to the Arctic Monkeys and Franz Ferdinand - on the basis of an unsolicited demo, the BNBC sound thoroughly New Yorky despite hailing from Berlin. They don't exactly break new ground, but they churn up the old turf with real vigour and don't outstay their welcome. Their debut album, out in January, Hey People!, lasts less than 23 minutes.
There are a zillion other hopefuls, of course, but here are a few. First would be the remarkable Wetdog. There are an awful lot of bands around reviving the scratchy guitar sound of 1979, but Wetdog - an all-female trio whose funny-sad takes on modern life are wilfully unmusicianly but still catch fire as folk-inflected, witty punk pop - are my favourites. They've embraced the DIY era's contempt for commodified music: they seem happy to make the odd mistake in concert, at present they have no website, and although a 10" record (on flesh-coloured vinyl!) is promised next year, the only recorded output I've so far obtained is a handmade cassette tape. Appropriately enough, they have been adopted as the backing band of choice for Vic Godard, the Godfather of Post-Punk. Readers in or near London can catch them for free via Come Down and Meet the Folks at the Apple Tree in Clerkenwell on Sunday January 15. They're not a chart-bound sound, but none the worse for that.
A band who should be heading in that direction, if there's anything resembling justice, is the National Trust. Having won the hearts of many a chin-stroking critic with their exquisitely turned debut album of soul-infused West Coast rock, Dekaggar, the Trust have now embraced body music with new album, Kings & Queens (due in January on Thrill Jockey). This collection of sinuously seductive booty-shakers is described by its makers as a "love letter to Chicago" and blends the full range of Chi-Town musical styles, from sassy Art Ensemblish jazz to R Kellyish stepping, producing in the process the headiest sonic cocktail I expect to hear all year. Watch this space for a full interview.
Those who suspect that Kanye West may not be the last word in quality hip-hop should also check for Supastition a ferociously eloquent North Carolina MC who matches his heavy rhyming skills with gravid funk grooves on the as-yet-little-noticed second CD Chain Letters.
Finally, from deep in the underground, comes the New Yorkshire sound of Lord God, the latest project from former Elevate bandleader Tim Ward. Barnsley's most oblique son is now based in New York state, where he's fashioned a more poppy sound. Even allowing for the fact that hes a mate of mine, I still think this is strikingly good stuff, so I'm frankly pretty confused that he hasn't yet been bought up at an obscene premium by a major label. On this basis, and with no experience whatsoever, I've decided to get involved in putting the band's first EP out and we'll be watching them closely here on GU. Stay tuned.
This list, of course, has important gaps - which I have left entirely deliberately, of course, so that canny Vultures can fill them in. So who did I miss?
