Best of 2006?

So the BBC have published their annual poll of the music industry to see who are their top tips for the new year. This year they have picked:

1. Corinne Bailey Rae
2. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (right)
3. The Feeling
4. Plan B
5. Guillemots
6. Sway
7. Chris Brown
8. Marcos Hernandez
9. Kubb
10. The Automatic

Now I don't know much about a lot of these, but after a while of listening to their debut album, I do rate Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, although I'm not so sure about their mainstream appeal. Corrinne Bailey Rae is this year's KT Tunstall vote - i.e. appears on Jools Holland, gets a lot of acclaim, then tips for the top. Who knows, it may turn into album sales. Still unconvinced by how good she is though.

I have almost got into the Guillemots lately. They had two cracking singles last year, but what I heard of the rest of the EPs wasn't so hot. Let's hope they're keeping all the good tunes for the album. You can get some free MP3s from their website of demos and radio sessions, including the ace prog piano ballad 'Sea Out' which I can almost imagine being played to a stadium on the Guillemot's world tour, 2008.

We'll see how these artists get on. Last year the BBC tipped some fairly obvious choices which unsurprisingly turned out accurate. These may be similar. It's tricky though picking unknowns at the start of the year, as some are fairly untested and can go horribly wrong. Anyone remember Akira the Don? No? Really? Funny that...

So what about my tips for the year? Well, I don't have my ear that close to the ground, so I can't be sure about all these new kids coming through, but I'm expecting big things from both Cat Power, who's just recorded an amazing new album (well, the tracks I've heard are pretty damn fine), which is kinda her 'Dusty in Memphis' and could be a bit of a smash, and what I've heard of Hot Chip's new stuff (recoreded and live) their new album could be the business. We'll see...