Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong at the Union Chapel, North London. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA
The BBC website is currently canvassing music industry opinions for its annual Sound Of... poll, which predicts who will be pop's big things in the year to come. It has a pretty good track record, having foreseen Mika's success in the Sound of 2007 list, and previously tipped the Kaiser Chiefs, Franz Ferdinand and the Scissor Sisters.
Polls like this unnerve me, when I'm asked to contribute. There's always a compulsion to tip acts who are cool or wear sexy drawers, rather than to admit that, in the absence of clairvoyant abilities, I haven't got a clue who we'll be listening to in six months. I am always impressed by those who steam in and pronounce with absolute certainty that the name on everyone's lips next year will be ... One True Power.
One True Who? No, you've never heard of them. But they make a good (if random) example of why it's risky to tell the future. One True Power were tipped by then Creation Records MD (and current Guardian blogger) Alan McGee in a 1996 Melody Maker poll. McGee and nine other industry types were asked to nominate three acts for stardom in 1997, and, typically bullish, he came up with One True Power, Trash Monk and Wireless. (I only know this because I cut out and saved the poll, reckoning it would make instructive reading 11 years hence.) His reason for putting his eggs in the One True Power basket? "She's a white jungle artist, and she's actually pretty good-looking."
But if none of his choices came to anything, neither did anyone else's in that poll, with the exception of the then unknown Stereophonics and Travis. Which just goes to show that nobody really knows. Bearing that in mind, I can not-so-confidently reveal my three picks for the BBC Sound of 2008 list (the winners will be unveiled in early January).
1. Adele: If there's anything like a sure thing right now, it's this plush-voiced 19-year-old soul singer from south London.
2. Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong: I don't understand why, of all the tight-panted guitar acts on the London toilet circuit, Joe's crew are currently the subject of love and ecstatic reviews. But I can see them making a dent in 2008.
3. Vampire Weekend: New Yorkers with a plan. The single Mansard Roof is one of the oddest things around at the moment.
Now for your own predictions, three apiece. But make it interesting - instead of the three you think will make it big in 2008, make it three who deserve to break through but won't, because they're too arty, obscure or unlistenable.
