Acts To Watch Out For In 2010
The Drums
The Drums are the USA's finest new contenders of the year. Known as "New York's coolest new party band" they have got plenty of backing behind them. Let's Go Surfing, their debut single, released on Moshi Moshi (who put out early records by Hot Chip, Florence and the Machine, Friendly Fires and Kate Nash), features New Order-style trebly, melodic bass, Ventures-esque guitar, and what many are calling "the most infectious whistling line since Peter, Bjorn and John." The Drums are hitting off 2010 by going on tour with The Big Pink, Bombay Bicycle Club and The Maccabees for the NME UK tour, and their debut album "Summertime" is available now on iTunes.
Bombay Bicycle Club
Although envy-inducingly young, Bombay Bicycle Club are no newcomers to the music scene. Since winning Channel 4's Road To V in 2006 the band has played many shows and massive festivals including V Festival, Leeds & Reading and Glastonbury and brought out 1 album and 4 singles. The album named by BBC Radio 1's Huw Stephens as Album Of The Year 2009.The band bring immeasurable zestful energy to their catchy riffs, bringing to life their Strokes influenced tracks. Bombay Bicycle Club prove to be an outstanding live and recording band, it’s just a matter of time before they become one of the best bands in the UK. Prepare to see this band take off like no other this year. Kicking off 2010 they are touring as part of the NME UK tour.
Phoenix 
Phoenix is a Grammy nominated French alternative rock band started during their childhood by Thomas Mars, Deck D'Arcy, Christian Mazzalai and Laurent Brancowitz in the suburb of Versailles, in the same culture that produced late-'90s bands such as Air and Daft Punk. With 4 studio albums, 1 live album and 10 singles under their belt, Phoenix are well on their way to better things. Phoenix produce old school friendly pop tunes with appealing catchy instrumental hooks. Catchy tracks 1901, Too Young, Lisztomania and Lasso are the bands most well known and are the ones to hit up on Spotify now! What are you waiting for!
The Plastiscines
Plastiscines – four hot female school friends from Paris, who create chunky riffs, and new wave pop tunes. It’s fair to say that when the rock band started out 4 years ago, they weren’t taken seriously by their Parisian peers. Most recent single Single Bitch is a slice of pure, unadulterated aural pleasure, a protest song against people who said Plastiscines were just rich girls put together. Ironic then that the single should have its world premier on the cult, hair pulling, and boyfriend stealing hit American TV series Gossip Girl. The foursome name the Strokes and Blondie as their biggest influences and their songs are two-minute bursts of sultry punk-pop, like the Runaways with French accents. Plastiscines may still be nauseatingly young, but these girls are already every bit the Parisian “riot girl” rockers of the future.
Los Campesinos!
Los Campesinos! are a seven piece indie pop band from Cardiff, Wales. Their style is distinct with glockenspiel and violins amongst their vast array of instruments. There seems to be a real buzz around this band, their songs have infectious beats accompanied by clever lyrics which entwine themselves over as the various instruments blend seamlessly. Incidentally the band try to use every instrument that they can get their hands on, and if it makes a noise then they will use it. The bands mix of electronic and basic instrumental sounds combined with lyrics taken from real life scenarios, and equal parts of boy and girl participation is what makes the bands music unique. Their hotly anticipated second studio album Romance Is Boring, due on February 1.
Passion Pit
Passion Pit’s debut album Manners was one of the revelations of 2009, with an addictive blend of sparkly riffs and a wash of ambient, lo-fi pop. Along with MGMT and Temper Trap, the Massachusetts five-piece are leading the invasion of falsetto-rockers and should be household names before 2010 is very old. With recent album, Manners and 4 singles Passion Pit are glowing with prospect of becoming something massive. I am intrigued to find out what they have in store for us for 2010. (hopefully a tour, festivals and some new tunes!)
Marina & The Diamonds
Marina & the Diamonds, is the recording name of Welsh-born London-based singer-songwriter Marina Diamandis. Her songs are hard to fathom. They veer between simple keyboards-based ballads and more upbeat and catchy, quirky new wave-inflected numbers enhanced by bass, guitar and drums. They are also radio-friendly electro-ska, with vocals that soar from folkie whispers to Whitney-esque heights. Third in the nomination for the Critics’ Choice Brit Award, her album The Family Jewels is out on February 15.
Two Door Cinema Club
Two Door Cinema Club is a Northern Irish electropop, indie rock band. They have been working together as a band since 2007 and has released two singles and one EP under the kitsuné music label. They have an upcoming album which is going to be released in February 2010. It already sounds like one of the albums of 2010 with several standout tracks, including What You Know.
Daisy Dares You
Seeing 16 year old Daisy on the front cover of The Times Sunday supplement I thought "Oh no not another Pixie Lott", however after hunting her down on YouTube I found out that she is quite something. Of course Daisy is nothing different despite her claims. She makes bubblegum punk - impatient, impudent teen pop about friendship and families and fancying boys. Her debut single features chart-topper Chipmunk, with whom she will tour in February.
Download the "ACTS TO WATCH OUT FOR IN 2010" playlist here:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OOiZit.com – Tom Fearn “The music industry’s next big problem.”
Sophie Stratford talks to Tom Fearn founder of OOiZit.com and the music industry’s next big problem.
The record industry is undergoing a paradigm shift in the 21st century, and the latest stage of evolution has arrived – in the form of new music platform OOiZiT.com. The site offers unsigned artists the chance to have a hit. OOiZiT.com combines the capabilities of sites such as Spotify, MySpace Music, iTunes, Reverb Nation, Twitter and Facebook under one banner, but with a key difference: the ability to propel users into the charts. On OOiZiT.com, musicians can not only build an online following, but sell direct to them – and see those sales count towards official chart positions. No record deal, publisher or ‘middle men’ necessary. Never before has the route from bedsit to stardom been so direct.
OOiZiT.com already has grown over 900% since it launched on a trial basis earlier this year, going fully live on the 12th November 09. One of its members, rapper Alex Blood, has already used it as a launch pad and gone on to tour with Mark Ronson and Jay-Z and attracted major label interest.
Explain briefly, exactly what is OOiZit in a nutshell?
It’s a social network for new UK music artists. Basically you sign up, create a profile and an online presence. The site acts as sales platform for them; so they are able to sell and market their own tracks and material all through one site.
How is it different from other music sites?
There are a couple of main differences, one is that is it 100% music focused, it’s a sales site (if you sign up to the Premium account £9.97 per month) and those sales count towards official chart positions. This is quite a big step forward for the music industry and unsigned artists alike. It’s hugely exciting to think that someone could put together a track in their bedroom one week and hear it on the radio the next, with no need to sign any rights or seek a corporate stamp of approval.
Also how is it similar to social networking sites, like Myspace, Facebook etc?
Yes it is, people can create profiles, have bios, events news and just build an online community, and make friends with the people already in our community. We’ve utilised all the social networking elements, (the parts you need to utilise) but also added our own features.
How popular is the site already?
Well we have only been launched for a week or so but we are growing quite rapidly. We have already through our BETA testing throughout out the last few months got about 1200 music artists and bands on there at the moment. Obviously we have only just started to push it out there. We’re doing a lot of work offline too just to try and help artists.
Is it successful?
Anybody can sign up to the site for free, but in order to sell their music they have to upgrade to our premium package - £9.97 per month, we have about 20 people on this at the moment, however bear in mind we haven’t been launched that long at all. However, people are already selling their tracks, we made our first two pay outs over the last week or two, one for £70 and one for £60, which is a lot of money for an unsigned band to earn in a week. It is proving a success.
Is this wholly a British site or can artists overseas access it?
It’s completely focused on UK artists; it’s all about UK music. With all the social networks you go onto you are in amongst the masses, so this is specifically targeted towards the UK.
What kinds of ways do you promote the artists?
Each month a featured artist who we think deserves that extra bit of exposure is selected to benefit from OOiZiT’s promotional machine. This artist is placed on the home page of the site. Also we help bands with whatever they want to achieve, that being a record deal or to record a new album. OOiZit.com gives music artists help and advice about the music industry, dealing with PR issues, record companies and contracts. OOiZit is a more in depth service than just putting up your profile on a site, we really do engage with our community. We also have a whole resources section on the site which anyone can access, it gives top line information in the industry; where’s it going, how to plan your first gig etc, things bands don’t necessarily know of the top of their heads. We go that extra mile.
So, what’s the future of OOiZit?
We want to get much more out of what we can do offline for the bands and help to promote their gigs awareness, and this is going to come with getting more people on the site and engaging with them much more on the community and building the community. Similarly we really want to make a big success through the site as well, we will be searching for the next big stars, and we want to prove that artists can get successful without having to rely on the major labels.
Visit: www.OOiZit.com