Lucy Rose - Red Face

Lucy Rose was the first artist we featured on our Ones to Watch for 2012 list. So now it is 2012, let’s watch, or rather listen to her wonderful sound. Red Face is Lucy’s third single, the music the most energised we’ve heard from her so far, expelling the stereotype of being ‘just another acoustic folk artist’ by juxtaposing stirring guitars against her tenderly soft vocal as she sings of mistrust. “And you said it’s what I needed, I don’t believe,” she intones before the music positively grooves and chimes to soft-destruction over the repeated lines “take what you wanted, leave what you didn't need.”

With a confirmed tour support with Noah and the Whale plus an album due in summer 2012, this year promises to be an exciting year for Lucy and her growing number of fans.

Lucy Rose - Red Face

Projectionists - New Waves

Let’s get this out of the way right at the start; The Pipettes. There, we’ve said it. Not that we say the name of this band in a negative way, because we absolutely loved The Pipettes. Yet the problem is that once you’ve been in a group that are so strikingly identifiable in terms of their image (polka dot dresses) and sound (sixties girl group) it’s always going to be hard to cast away the ‘ex-Pipette’ tag and move on.

Having said that Rose Elinor Dougall has done an excellent job in shaking off the shackles, first with a solo record that took late 80’s and early 90’s indie references and then by cropping up on stage and record with the likes of Mark Ronson. We mention Rose because just like a tin of Quality Street chocolates everybody had / has a favourite Pipette and we’ve admitted in the past that Rose was ours, but coming in a very close second was the clever and saucy looking one known as Riot Becki, real name Rebecca Stephens.

So whilst Rose has been hob-nobbing with the type of star who might been seen at Versace New York launch parties, Rebecca has been touring with Jesca Hoop, moving to Manchester and getting a new band together. They’re called Projectionists and are an indie super group of sorts, featuring members of Alfie, The Earlies, Liam Frost and The Slowdown Family, Star Crossed Lovers as well as Becki herself.

The good news for fans of The Pipettes is that the music of Projectionists isn’t that removed from Becki’s previous band. The songs that we’ve heard are upbeat old-fashioned pop songs with a grown-up indie aesthetic. Whilst The Pipettes may have been the cool flirty girls at the party, spilling red wine on the carpet and leaving lipstick kisses on all the boys cheeks, Projectionists sound like a more grown-up dinner date, but one that still ends up with some whirling and twirling on the dance floor at the end.

With a debut EP nearly ready to go (some tracks from which we’re streaming below) and some early support from BBC Introducing Manchester and John Kennedy on XFM, we have a strong suspicion that it may not be long before we have to declare that we have a new favourite ex-Pipette. Sorry Rose.

Projectionists - Lonely

Projectionists - I Never Wanted Anything

NME's 100 New Bands For 2012

2012 feels weird doesn’t it? Well, it certainly does in the world of new music blogging. We’ve already seen bloggers proclaiming that such and such a song will be one of the defining tracks of the year and others name checking soon to be released albums as the ‘first great album of 2012’. Now these statements may well be right, but it all feels a little over excited, like a bunch of sugar-rush chocolate gobbling kids who have been locked inside a toy shop. Then there are plenty of others with the post-Christmas blues who are unhappy with the NME’s 100 new bands for 2012 list or the Top 5 in the BBC Sound of list. That of course is taste for you, you’ll never please everyone / anyone and bloggers are a passionate bunch because they love their music and probably will get a bit angry about stuff from time to time. Imagine if you found out that someone else had been having sex with your boyfriend or girlfriend and then told you that ‘they weren’t very good’. That’s how bloggers feel about music they don’t like sometimes. Pretty angry.

So here’s our take on things.

IT’S ONLY 5 DAYS INTO THE NEW YEAR EVERYONE. SHALL WE ALL CALM DOWN A BIT?

So let’s take a break, sit back and try and relax. *Takes deep breath and counts to 10*

Now, that NME feature we mentioned. There are 100 acts there. So the NME are hedging their bets a little. Surely at the end of the year they’ll be able to go back and find at least 1 that has had some success? Well, if they do, somewhere out there a music blogger will be proclaiming ‘yeah but I wrote about them years ago and told you that they were going to be the greatest thing on earth.’ Because you see, that’s what bloggers do. Sometimes we all get a little over excited and have our own music-sugar-toyshop rush. Now and then, by luck rather than judgement someone will get to the 'next big thing' first. We have a claim to Video Games by Lana Del Rey on that matter. 1st Hype Machine listed blogger to feature the song. Nah-nah-nah *Sticks out tongue at other music bloggers in childish arrogant fashion*

So here’s one act that we noticed in the NME list. We first wrote about her in April last year. In blogger terms she’s pretty old hat now. But we want to draw her to your attention again – not because she’s the greatest act we’ll see in 2012, not because this song is going to define your life (probably), but because she’s the kind of artist we like to feature on the blog. She’s female, she does synth pop, it sounds a lot like Robyn. She’s good as well. She’s called Vanbot.

You can hear every one of the NME’s 100 New Bands for 2012 here. Oh and some of them aren’t bands. They’re solo artists. Which makes us angry, because the NME is meant to be paid professional journalism and they haven't used the correct noun - but it probably subliminally says something about the way the journo types at the NME think.

Phew. We’re going for a lie down.

Vanbot - Make Me Break Me

Vanbot - Make Me Break Me (Hit'epa Remix)

Becky Jerams - New Waves

When you come across somone’s Soundcloud account and some of the tags applied to the artists songs are pop, acoustic, reggae, country, zumba, alternative rock, r ‘n’ b, 80’s and ballad you could quite easily think that the artist concerned was schizophrenic. However in the case of Becky Jerams, a Portsmouth based singer-songwriter this is not the case at all. The point here is that Jerams is first and foremost a songwriter and can (and does) turn her hand to anything. Versatility is surely her middle name.The first time we heard Not Such An Ordinary Girl (the R ‘n’ B one) our initial thought was why hasn’t someone from a major label snapped this up and given it to the likes of Katy Perry / Leona Lewis / Jessie J to get a hit. Then we heard La La Love and wondered how come this sweetly sentimental acoustic-country pop ditty hasn’t been used on the soundtrack to a rom com yet? The answer? It has, meaning that unwittingly over 2 million people have heard Becky’s song on You Tube alone. Then we heard Everybody Needs Something with its quite obviously Madonna referencing overtones and realised that Jerams 100% has the ability to write something that makes the ears prick up and go 'that sounds like a hit.'

So why is Jerams not a hugely commercial successful artist? The answer lies on a simple explanation on her Myspace. “My big dream is to make a career writing tracks for other artists.” From what we’ve heard she could, with the right breaks, achieve this ambition. This is a woman who seems to be able to roll out radio friendly melodies like most people eat lunch. Her Soundcloud has 29 of them at the moment and she’s recently released an album entitled Misbehave that showcases her skill.

Yes she can sing, yes she can play, but in our X-Factor age where everyone wants to be in the limelight and the end definition of success seems to be being famous, with even so called ‘credible’ pop stars such as Marina from Marina and the Diamonds having recently admitted that “I really wanted to be famous but was so embarrassed because it's not a nice trait to have,” it’s commendable to see an artist who defines end success in a different way. 

Becky Jerams - La La Love

Becky Jerams - Everybody Needs Something

Becky Jerams - 1 Track Mind