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Little Boots has been championed by dance act Hot Chip

Singer Little Boots has come top of the BBC Sound of 2009 list of the brightest new music stars, playing a space disco sound influenced by Kylie Minogue, David Bowie and Gary Numan.

The cover versions that Little Boots - aka Victoria Hesketh - has been posting on her YouTube channel over the past 12 months give a good insight into her musical world.

The first was a spine-tingling version of Joni Mitchell’s River, followed by songs by Girls Aloud, The Human League, early 1990s pop star Haddaway, Wiley, Madonna and Estelle(American Boy in the case of the latter).

They were all recorded on a grainy camera in her home with Hesketh playing various keyboards in various states of dress, and many of them have the word “FUN” inserted into the song title.

Hesketh is clearly a shameless pop tart, indelibly marked by the chart hits of her childhood and the tacky Blackpool nightclubs of her youth.

But her tastes stretch beyond the cheese counter to acclaimed artists like Joni Mitchell, David Bowie and Kate Bush and electronic pioneers like Gary Numan and Giorgio Moroder.

Hesketh puts those together into songs that are cool as well as catchy, fit for charts and clubs alike, with shimmering tunes yielding meaningful lyrics.

The outcome sees Little Boots come across like a meeting between a British Kylie and a harder, shinier St Etienne.

“There’s room in popular culture to do things that are creative and not exactly straightforward,” Hesketh says. “Just because something has got the possibility to appeal to a mainstream audience doesn’t mean you’ve got to be bland.

“There are tons of credible pop artists. Look at David Bowie - he’s a massive selling artist, and he’s bloody weird, absolutely mad. Kate Bush - mad as a box of frogs.”

Little Boots wants to convince people that great pop can break out of the manufactured mould.

“It doesn’t have to be like that,” she says. “I want to change people thinking that because it’s a poppy thing that a record label’s pressed a button on the giant songmaking computer and this popped out at the end.”

The first memory I have of listening to music is Kylie Minogue and Blondie, which kind of makes a lot of sense now Victoria Hesketh

Hesketh herself is no overnight creation, having spent most of her 24 years immersed in making music of some kind.

“I think I was born crying and it was a note,” she says.

“The first memory I have of listening to music is Kylie Minogue and Blondie, which kind of makes a lot of sense now I guess. My babysitter used to write all the words out for me in coloured pens to Call Me and Sunday Girl, and I used to sing them.”

Pop Idol audition

There were the obligatory school orchestras and chapel choirs, a prog group and a jazz phase and even a Pop Idol audition.

That was when she was 17, and she got to the third round - but not as far as the TV cameras or Simon Cowell. “You just saw producers,” she says. “They said no and then I cried and then went home.”

Singer Victoria Hesketh grew up playing in pop, rock and jazz bands

Around the same time, there was a “shocking”, short-lived girl group and stints in Blues Brothers tribute bands at European theme parks.

“I’m not embarrassed by my skeletons,” she says. “I’ve done loads of stuff like that and I think it’s good for you. I don’t regret any of it.”

At university in Leeds, she was in almost-famous female synth-rock trio Dead Disco. But that did not work out and at the end of 2007, Hesketh went back to playing Joni Mitchell covers in her parents’ garage.

“At that time I felt so directionless,” she says. “I’d just left my band and I was a blank canvas, but sometimes that’s good.

“I just went where the songs wanted to go and it was really liberating. I didn’t worry about trying to be cool or alternative or anything, just go with what I wanted to do and what came naturally.”

‘Nerding out’

Her first song Stuck On Repeat - produced by Joe Goddard of electro-pop darlings Hot Chip - began circulating on blogs, her tunes were put on YouTube and MySpace, and word started to spread.

She hooked up with Dead Disco’s old record label 679 and her love of synthesisers has chimed with a resurgence in electro-pop and boredom with bog-standard indie bands.

“I can’t play guitar,” she says. “I can’t play anything else. I’ve been nerding out on Moogs since forever. It’s a real thing. It’s not because I’ve jumped on the bandwagon.”

She has also been nerding out on a Japanese gadget called the Tenori-on, a flashing music box that she plays on stage and has now become her trademark instrument.

She is now finishing her album in Los Angeles for release later this year.

Little Boots will be in session on BBC 6 Music’s George Lamb show on Friday between 1000 and 1300 GMT.

More than 130 leading UK-based music writers, editors and broadcasters took part in Sound of 2009. They named their three favourite new acts and their responses were used to compile the list. .

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Spirited singer-songwriter Florence and the Machine has come third on the BBC’s Sound of 2009 new music list.

We are revealing one artist from the top five every day until Friday, when the winner and full top 10 will be announced.

Through the window of a small recording studio in west London, Florence Welch can be seen jumping around like she’s on fire, her auburn hair thrashing as she bounces to a raucous drum beat.

There is no-one watching, but Florence is in a world of her own.

In the studio, on stage and on record, Florence is unbridled, expressive and wonderfully weird. Her music is fresh, arresting and accessible - and the combination makes her one of pop’s most compelling new voices.

Florence and the Machine interview on BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat Watch Florence and the Machine on BBC Introducing

Slightly bonkers singer-songwriters like Kate Bush, Bjork and PJ Harvey are not far-fetched comparisons.

When Florence sings, this innocent 22-year-old is possessed by rock’s most restless demons, and channels them though her enigmatic fables about sex, violence, revenge and donkeys.

But the ideas in her fervent imagination can get lost in translation when she talks.

Asked to describe her songs, she decides they sound like the joy of someone being overcome by music after discovering how to play. “Like something being taken over and escaping,” she says.

“Taken over and escaping? That doesn’t make sense. It sound like an escape I think. Or the end of something. Or things falling over. Falling down.”

She continues mulling whether her music is more like “a collapse and then explosion” or “a demolition” or “one of those demolitions where they do it from the inside so it all goes boom” or “a reverse demolition”.

Erm, an implosion?

“An implosion!” she explains. “But no. Because it’s all external so it would be like an externalised implosion. But that doesn’t make sense. I’m just saying random words. I don’t know.”

Florence inhabits a slightly alternative reality to the rest of us. But it seems like quite a nice if slightly strange place to be.

Florence has won the Brit Awards’ Critics’ Choice prize for best rising star

She remembers growing up with “musical Tourette’s”, where she was unable to stop singing.

“My whole primary school life was just a chorus of ‘Shut up! She’s singing again!’ Teachers telling me off,” she says.

At home, her family had a giant wooden chest that held their vinyl. “I can remember opening it up and the smell of all the old records,” she says.

The young Florence would dance on top of it with her father to Love, The Incredible String Band, The Smiths and The Velvet Underground.

“But my mum only listened to Tom Jones and The Monkees,” she says. “And collectively that’s what I sound like - Tom Jones, The Monkees, The Velvet Underground and The Incredible String Band.”

Asked to name her musical heroes, there is a long pause before she picks Grace Slick from Jefferson Airplane because she named her daughter god as a joke.

Florence herself was spotted singing in the toilets at a party by Mairead Nash, one half of DJ duo the Queens of Noize, who is now her manager.

Singing swim

An early taste of her unpredictable talent came at a gig at the South By Southwest Festival in Texas in March, when she jumped into a pool and then crawled under the stage during her final song.

But the performance impressed US space-rockers MGMT enough for them to ask her to support them on tour.

And her first single Kiss With A Fist may be familiar as the music from a Channel 4 TV trailer.

Many of Florence’s songs conjure up warped fantasy, unlike the down-to-earth storytelling of the likes of Lily Allen and Kate Nash.

“They’re stories with consequences and weird morality issues,” she says.

“I write about love and I write stories and I write about things I’ve seen or walls or picked up on pieces of paper.

“I write about things people have said to me, I write about things I’ve done. And then it all gets stuck together and it sometimes becomes a story with characters, like a bird or a donkey.”

In her live shows, she lets the rest of us into a small nook of her fantasy world, bringing on scary clowns, spelling out her name in flowers above the stage and selling bunting and customised school exercise books at the merchandise stand.

After making waves for the last 12 months, many of Britain’s scene-watchers are now willing Florence to fulfil her potential, and she has just won the Brit Awards’ Critics’ Choice prize for best rising star.

She has recently been putting the finishing touches to her debut album, which will be released by Island Records, home of Amy Winehouse, Mika and U2.

Now, she is ready to bring more of us into her world. So would she like to be a pop star?

“Um… yeah, why not?” she replies with a giggle. “Might as well.”

Florence and the Machine will be in session on BBC 6 Music’s George Lamb show between 1000-1300 GMT on Wednesday.

More than 130 leading UK-based music writers, editors and broadcasters took part in Sound of 2009. They named their three favourite new acts and their responses were used to compile the list. .

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Australian fantasy pop duo Empire of the Sun have come fourth on the BBC’s Sound of 2009 list, which features the best bands and singers to watch in the next 12 months.

One act from the top five is being unveiled every day this week, counting down to Friday, when the number one will be revealed.

Empire of the Sun are on a spiritual mission.

Dressed as extras from a psychedelic Star Wars, the duo are on an epic journey to seek out ancient cultures across the globe, searching for inner enlightenment while creating a musical dynasty that will last for ever.

It seems like a tall order. But the ambitious, enigmatic and utterly egotastic Empire of the Sun are dead set on their task.

Nick Littlemore’s other band Pnau have been championed by Sir Elton John

So their debut album, the story it tells and the places it takes them is “a walk to finding the inner being”, singer Luke Steele says. “It’s kind of like a spiritual road movie.

“We went to Shanghai and met the emperors, and we went to Mexico and met the Aztecs, and now we’re going to Iceland.

“It’s now or never and we have to push the limit. There’s no holding back and there’s nothing to lose. We really want to make something otherworldly and special.”

Steele, who also fronts indie group The Sleepy Jackson, has teamed up with Nick Littlemore of electronic outfit Pnau, who is friends with Sir Elton John, has worked with The Killers and been in a band with Ladyhawke.

Together, the pair’s 1980s-influenced soft pop synthesisers and blissed-out space beats have already taken them into the Australian top 10.

The music is coupled with a striking image of two colourful, cosmic crusaders that has been inspired by movie characters and rosily-remembered childhood idols.

Music is magic, and with imagination combined it can be completely epic Luke Steele (right) Empire of the Sun interview on BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat

“We are superheroes. We are Emperor Steele and Lord Littlemore,” proclaims the singer.

In the video for their first single, Walking on a Dream, the pair are seen in front of the Shanghai skyline striking overblown, dramatic poses.

Steele grandly waves huge feathers and a big red stick while wearing white face paint, a bright blue oriental frock coat, gold ceremonial neckwear and a tall ornamental crown that looks like it might have been a rather nice lampshade in a former life.

“We’ve done the band thing, which is great, but we wanted it to be a lot more epic and theatrical,” he declares.

“We want to start something a bit bigger than what bands have been for the past 20 years. We want to bring entertainment and colour and positivity and melody back into it.”

The album, also called Walking on a Dream, was made over two years between other projects. “I was only ever in town for a night in Sydney, where the studio was, so it was all quite spontaneous,” Steele says.

“I’m really good at writing top lines and coming up with chord progressions and production.” Littlemore is all of the above plus is “amazing in terms of writing words”, the singer says. “He’s quite romantic with his words. He’s like a beat poet.”

Luke Steele has released two albums with The Sleepy Jackson

The group borrowed their name from a 1984 JG Ballard novel, which was adapted for the screen by Steven Spielberg in 1987.

“We wanted something quite epic,” Steele says, citing the history of Chinese emperors and the importance of the sun to the Aztecs.

“And obviously Jesus Christ is the son of God and everything,” he adds, slightly inexplicably.

“We were looking for a name and we saw that and it just seemed so fitting.”

Steele has become so immersed in the band’s mythology that he has even named his daughter, born in October, Sunny Tiger. (The band also have a song called Tiger By Your Side and tigers feature in their graphics.)

The singer now wants to blow the minds of young fans in the same way that pop stars did when he was growing up in the 1980s.

“We’re so visual,” he says. “We want to make something that as a child you see and you just love because it’s so colourful and it’s got imagination.

“Music is magic, and with imagination combined it can be completely epic. We’ve been both on the road doing shows for the last 10 years and we wanted something that’s higher - visually, mentally, physically, a bigger level, a bigger vision that can last for ever.”

Empire of the Sun will be interviewed on BBC 6 Music’s George Lamb show between 1000-1300 on Tuesday.

More than 130 leading UK-based music writers, editors and broadcasters took part in Sound of 2009. They named their three favourite new acts and their responses were used to compile the list. .

About Entertainment - Magazine - Sound of 2009

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The BBC’s Sound of 2009 list has gathered some of the best new music by asking critics and broadcasters to name their favourite up-and-coming artists.

Colourful London synth duo La Roux kick off the coverage at number five on the list.

One act from the top five will be revealed every day until Friday, when the winner will be announced.

“We don’t listen to anything apart from ’80s music,” explains Elly Jackson, the synth-loving, crazy-haired, pop-obsessed rising star who is determined to take us back to the future.

I want to see people who aren’t afraid to look a bit mad and have crazy hair - what happened to all the crazy hair? Elly Jackson

She is the face and voice of La Roux, whose manifesto involves ridding the charts of boring indie bands, contrived girl groups and too-cool dance acts.

At 19, Jackson was not even born until the end of the 1980s. But the massive melodies, outlandish outfits, strong personalities and Technicolor creativity have convinced her that current pop music has lost its way and it is time to turn back the clock.

“We’re trying to make pop music like it used to be in the ’80s,” says Jackson, who was born and bred in Brixton. “It was so epic in the ’80s and no-one makes epic otherworldly pop music any more.

“There’s an endless amount of stuff to find in the ’80s. I can’t seem to move on to modern music because there’s so much stuff from the ’80s that I’m still discovering.”

Jackson and production partner Ben Langmaid have been meticulously been working their way through the back catalogues of acts like The Eurythmics, Depeche Mode, Gary Numan, Heaven 17, Prince and Blancmange.

“Music doesn’t feel honest any more,” she continues. “That music feels really free. Really experimental and free and it’s so contrived now.”

Her love of the decade’s decadence crosses over into image and style, and Elly wants to stand out like a true ’80s star, borrowing bits from the dressing up boxes of Bananarama, Annie Lennox and Boy George.

‘Big and epic’

In the video for their debut single Quicksand, she perches on the rim of a giant margarita cocktail as her wedge of red hair blows in the breeze on a pastel Martian beach.

“There’s a lot of people who look like they could be anyone in pop,” she says. “I want to see people who aren’t afraid to look a bit mad and have crazy hair. There’s no-one with crazy hair any more! What happened to all the crazy hair?

Jackson says guitar music has “had its day”

“Everyone just looks like the girl next door now in pop music, which I don’t think is right. Surely it should all be about entertainment and being theatrical and big and epic.”

Jackson began moulding her grand ambition after being put in touch with Langmaid, a veteran of the British music scene, by a mutual acquaintance.

Langmaid’s best friend at school was Faithless mastermind and Dido’s brother Rollo Armstrong, and in the mid-1990s they grazed the top 40 as house duo Huff & Puff.

Langmaid introduced Armstrong to his future Faithless bandmates, was signed to Armstrong’s label under the alias Atomic, and was part of another dance Huff & Herb.

He then started writing songs for middle-of-the-road rockers Kubb, who were on the BBC’s Sound of 2006 list. As it turned out, they weren’t the sound of 2006.

So he turned his attention to working with Jackson, first under the name Automan, then becoming La Roux, which means “red-haired one” in French.

‘Ridiculously emotional’

“It was musically love at first sight,” says Jackson. “We’re very similar people. We just want to make massive pop tunes.”

Jackson and Langmaid are both “ridiculously emotional people” who can regularly be found on the floor in floods of tears, the singer says.

I think guitar music has had its day, for now anyway… I think it’s definitely time for some serious synth action Elly Jackson

“Then we channel our most depressing moments into what should be big happy moments in music. Without the therapeutic process of putting those hard times into music, we’d both be dead. Literally.”

So what do they get emotional about? “It’s always about love isn’t it? Come on,” Jackson retorts. “My vulnerable emotions are all to do with love.

“I’m a really vulnerable person actually, but what I like about the music is that it all sounds quite defiant. It sounds kinda powerful, and that’s what gets me out of situations.

“You imagine singing it on stage to that one person that it’s about, and saying really, really honest things. I get an adrenalin rush from being really honest and saying things you shouldn’t quite say.”

Jackson and Langmaid have been working together for three years, starting out as an acoustic guitar-based outfit before deciding they were bored of that sound, scrapping their work and reinventing themselves as retro revivalists.

“I think guitar music has had its day, for now anyway, unless it gets reinvented in some way,” says Jackson. “I think it’s definitely time for some serious synth action.”

La Roux will appear on BBC 6 Music’s George Lamb show between 1000-1300 GMT on Monday.

More than 130 leading UK-based music writers, editors and broadcasters took part in Sound of 2009. They named their three favourite new acts and their responses were used to compile the list. .

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The best new bands and singers have been selected by some of Britain’s most influential tastemakers as part of the BBC’s Sound of 2009 search.

More than 130 pundits named their favourite three new artists and the tips were counted. A longlist of 15 was published in December and the top five artists will be revealed from Monday.

Before that, a selection of the experts explain why they love the acts they picked. They also reveal the underrated albums they want to break through in 2009, and which established acts we will be enjoying in the next 12 months.

Peter Robinson, Popjustice.com Alison Howe, Later… With Jools Holland Mike Walsh, Xfm

Conor McNicholas, NME magazine James Curran, Absolute Radio Alex Miller, Vice magazine

George Ergatoudis, BBC Radio 1 Paul Rees, Q magazine Mark Adams, Box Television

Little Boots
Victoria Hesketh is the perfect pop star. She knocks out great tunes and takes her music seriously while celebrating the giddy heights of pop at its best. As a result, she understands pop in a way that puts her miles ahead of her nearest rivals.

Julian Perretta
Julian’s got a brilliantly expressive and quintessentially English songwriting style in the tradition of The Kinks and David Bowie, and since signing to Columbia in 2008 things seem to have been taking shape for a bright 2009. Great hair as well.

Frankmusik
British male singer-songwriters make beige music which can’t set pulses racing. Frankmusik is the solution - astonishingly talented, he has teamed up with Madonna and Killers producer Stuart Price for a stylish, modern and human debut album full of potential hits.

Ladyhawke - Ladyhawke. Every year there’s an artist whose lack of overnight success confuses and upsets me. In 2008, it was Ladyhawke. Her album is a romantic, atmospheric and sometimes lonely-sounding album which deserves a big push.

Pet Shop Boys‘ new album Yes is produced with Xenomania. The duo who defined pop in the 20th Century and the hit-house who redefined it in the 21st. The album is a phenomenal return to form.

The Soft Pack (formerly The Muslims)
This tip came through just as a band name from a mate, but hearing the first 20 seconds of Parasites on their MySpace gave me goose bumps. It’s alternately perky and dirty and done with a swagger few UK bands ever seem to pull off.

Empire of the Sun
I hated Empire of the Sun at first. It sounded over-played, over-produced and over-thought. But relentless spins on the NME stereo has made me fall for their lush ’80s sound. The tracks throb and glow. Will be one of the albums of the year, no doubt.

Florence and the Machine
There’s no-one to touch Florence right now. She might be barking but she’s more rock ‘n’ roll than the rest of the scene put together and she’s got the tunes and the voice to back it up. An inspiration.

Late of the Pier - Fantasy Black Channel. This was one of my albums of the year but it never completely connected. I love the combination of out-there tunes with hard, danceable grooves. They ripped it up at Reading but it’s still all waiting to happen.

Don’t tell me Blur aren’t going to start recording new stuff. Damon and Graham just can’t stop writing and now they’re playing live together again it can’t help but happen. Album for Christmas 2009?

Dan Black
The minute I heard his track HPNTZ I knew this guy was special. His debut album combines yearning vocals with super melodic pop hooks and exciting, ultra-contemporary production. I love it.

Passion Pit
This band stood out straight away for me. Sonically they fall somewhere between MGMT and Hot Chip - alt rock electronica? And they’re writing great songs. Rock fans will love them and dance fans will too. I predict they’ll be festival favourites in 2009.

Carolina Liar
Their debut album is packed with strong melodic rock/pop songs with hints of The Fray and The Killers. It boasts fantastic production from Max Martin and lead singer Chad Wolf is blessed with a tremendous emotive voice. This is just waiting to blow up.

The King Blues - Save The World, Get The Girl. It was refreshing to find an act with something to say and the ability to write great melodic songs. I don’t necessarily agree with their politics, but I admire them. Their time may yet come.

There are some serious contenders, but Green Day have to be top of the list.

Little Boots
Imagine if Debbie Harry had come from Blackpool and played the synthesiser. 2009 looks set to be dominated by the sound of electropop and Ms Boots should be one if its stars with her wonderfully catchy pop songs.

VV Brown
She continues the trend of today’s girls, borrowing from the ’60s, but VV takes it in a purely pop direction. She’s talented, bright, infectious and, refreshingly, she isn’t surrounded by teams of producers and writers.

White Lies
In the boys with guitars department, 2008 belonged to the US. White Lies should turn the tide back to the UK in 2009. With their epic and soaring songs, atmospheric shows and nod to the likes of Editors and Joy Division, they should have a successful year.

Friendly Fires - Friendly Fires. Brilliant live and with a sound that was fun and refreshing from a UK group, I hope they get a second look in 2009.

I am looking forward to the return of Franz Ferdinand and Green Day this year.

Jersey Budd
I love Jersey’s down-to-earth charm and love of good old-fashioned songwriting. You can hear classic Springsteen and Mellencamp influences all over his music. Kasabian are big fans of this Leicester native, which is a big recommendation indeed.

Florence and the Machine
Our presenter Geoff Lloyd picked Dog Days Are Over as his single of the week and the following week we added it to the playlist. I love the complex song construction and stunning vocals. It is adventurous but it works on radio too.

Nick Harrison
For someone brought up on the 2 Tone magic of The Specials, Selecter and The Beat, I love Nick’s refreshing approach to ska music. He gives it a contemporary twist - basically because he writes great songs.

Panic at the Disco - Pretty Odd. This is an adventurous mix of alternative, country, Americana and vaudeville with Beatle-esque nuances. Their usually loyal fanbase were left bewildered but every time I play it to people, they fall in love with its whimsy.

An obvious choice but it would have to be U2. They are still one of the greatest bands in the world and their recorded output has been of a consistently high standard. To have maintained a career at the top, approaching 30 years, is a huge achievement.

Broken Records
One of those bands you hear and either don’t get or fall in love with completely. I fall very much into the latter camp - they have a sound that’s as evocative as a lot of the great new American folksy rock music of the past year or two.

White Lies
Lots of newish bands have tried to take that icy melodic, Joy Division-esque sound and run with it but most of them have forgotten the need for great songs. White Lies haven’t, which makes them stand out.

VV Brown
Great voice, great look, ready-made star. Simple as that.

The Gaslight Anthem (The ‘59 Sound) made the best song-for-song record of the year by far, and My Morning Jacket (Evil Urges) served up a modern masterpiece, and both deserve to have been both bought and acclaimed far more widely.

That’ll be U2 with their No Line On The Horizon album and the attendant tour. I’ve been fortunate enough to hear a number of the tracks slated for the album, and there’s a real sense that this is the best thing they’ve done since Achtung Baby.

White Lies
I love bands that create their own world and, although the influences are pretty clear, this album still sounds very fresh. Most importantly, however, the songs already feel stadium-sized.

The Temper Trap
This is a band with a unique and expansive sound that have a singer with a stunning voice and some of the most seductive songs you will hear all year. They also nail it live and will engage both press and radio with equal enthusiasm.

Run Toto Run
Run Toto Run is the band built around Manchester singer-songwriter Rachel Kitchenside. She writes some of the most beautiful and interesting songs - definitely one to keep an eye on.

The Gaslight Anthem - The ‘59 Sound. This has received some good press but that is just the tip of the iceberg. They will be the word-of-mouth success story of 2009.

Liam Frost and Sam Isaac are two great British singer-songwriters who will deservedly make 2009 their year.

The Big Pink
They’re the dark underbelly of the top London scene. There’s an obvious Velvet Underground obsession that sounds really cruel and horrible but with a soulful subtlety. They’re going to be both the big art-school success of the year and the critics’ choice.

Titus Andronicus
They paraphrase WH Auden, mention Brueghel and open their album with quotes from Titus Andronicus, the play. The poetry and romance are coupled with dangerous shambolic rock ‘n’ roll that reminds me of the Libertines.

Fan Death
They’ve got a bunch of work to do but no-one’s got more hooks. Every song I’ve heard is potentially massive and it’s only going to take two banging remixes and everyone’s going to fall in love with them. Plus, lead singer Dandi Wind is a super cool chick.

Cass McCombs - Dropping the Writ. I’m normally wary of folk but he’s got a great sense of non-conformist songwriting. It’s honest, contemporary and still folk. It was a bit of PR away from being every person’s favourite “intellectual” album this year.

A friend has heard Klaxons‘ second album and said it’s fantastic. They did really exciting things a couple of years ago and more than anyone are poised to make an incredible return. If they do it properly they can prove that pop music isn’t necessarily dead.

Lady GaGa
Just Dance is a great single but the album is full of hit singles. She is also working with the world’s contemporary hitmakers, so the A list surely beckons.

VV Brown
She has a totally fresh approach to pop songs - the commercial appeal of Kate Nash with the credible box still firmly ticked.

All Time Low
American pop punk bands are often overlooked in these polls, but these guys have great songs and a terrific album - expect success similar to Paramore in 2009.

Foxboro Hot Tubs - Stop Drop And Roll!!! A cracking album that leaves any listener salivating for a whole lot more.

I’m an obsessive Green Day fan and frankly new material from these guys gets me very excited. Also it’s been nearly five years in the making so it should be an absolute corker.

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London rock trio White Lies have come second on the BBC’s Sound of 2009 list, which features the best bands and singers to watch in the next 12 months.

One act from the top five is being unveiled every day this week, counting down to Friday, when the number one will be revealed.

White Lies (left-rtight): Jack Lawrence-Brown, Harry McVeigh, Charles Cave

While Coldplay and Arcade Fire have been writing and recording albums in churches, White Lies sound like they’ve recently emerged from a crypt.

Their doom-laden rock is full of references to plane crashes, murders, funerals, kidnappings and nervous breakdowns.

Even their most romantic song - new single To Lose My Life - has the refrain: “Let’s grow old together and die at the same time.”

And it’s taking a toll on the band…

Vocalist Harry McVeigh says performing the group’s bleak songs in concert can be “pretty draining”.

“It’s not always the most uplifting,” agrees bassist and lyricist Charles Cave.

Reviewers seem to agree, too. Last October, the Guardian’s Maddy Costa said watching the band was like living through “a horror movie in which a pre-pubescent choirboy, radiating innocence, becomes possessed and starts singing in a rumbling bass dredged up from five fathoms deep”.

But, counters Cave, White Lies are not “dark people”.

“It’s really important for us to maintain a level of humour on tour,” he says. “Because if we lived through the songs, we’d be basket cases.”

Indeed, the trio - completed by drummer Jack Lawrence-Brown - are surprisingly upbeat in person, sharing a relaxed bonhomie that stems from having been childhood friends in west London.

The band hail from west London suburbs Ealing and Shepherd’s Bush

They finish one another’s sentences, correct each other’s mistakes and joke that Cave should write a song called Butt Out to persuade McVeigh to give up smoking.

But there is no disguising the fact that White Lies take being in a rock band very seriously indeed.

They killed off their previous art-rock incarnation Fear Of Flying in 2006 and chose the name White Lies because, like their new miserablist sound, it represented something “seemingly innocent” with “very dark undertones”.

Their conversation is peppered with references to the “integrity” of their lyrics and the importance of “working in isolation”.

In fact, the group spent half a year labouring over their first five songs, and practiced for three months before their debut gig.

That sparked a record label bidding war, which eventually led to the band signing to Fiction records - home to Elbow and Snow Patrol.

We won’t finish a song if we don’t think it’s going to be really good Jack Lawrence-Brown

Almost inevitably, this sparked a backlash before the band had released so much as a guitar riff, with one blogger complaining the group were “contrived” as a “PR man’s dream”.

As a result, the group are now wary of being tipped as the next big thing.

“I don’t think there really should be lists that predict people’s success,” says Cave.

“I think we’d all rather turn up next year and win a bunch of awards for the album that we’ve made.”

Foreboding

All the same, Cave is “very confident” in the band’s debut (also called To Lose My Life), which is a lean, muscular rock album full of stadium-sized guitar lines and deep, foreboding vocals.

It has already been compared to 1980s gloom rockers Echo & The Bunnymen, Joy Division and The Teardrop Explodes.

“I genuinely think that the only real similarity is a foreboding overall sound and the fact that Harry sings in a baritone,” protests Cave.

In any case, McVeigh believes the comparison is flawed “because in most of the songs the chorus is up an octave”.

Acclaimed producers Ed Buller and Max Dingel worked on the album

“There are some songs which I actually struggle to sing, because they’re so high. But people pick up on the fact that a lot of the verses are very low and deep.”

If the band have a formula, it consists of dark, portentous verses which build slowly to a euphoric chorus.

But the music does not come easily. “We won’t finish a song if we don’t think it’s going to be really good,” says Lawrence-Brown.

“We never write for b-sides. There’s only 10 tracks on the album.”

The band’s writing skills were severely tested when they were forced to come up with “five songs in three weeks” in order to finish their record.

“It was really stressful,” says Lawrence-Brown. “But the best songs on the album were written in that period.

“You can hear that nervous energy. To Lose My Life, which is the next single, is really instant and that came together in a few hours, basically.”

The group reckon they became “more confident” as a result - but the experience hasn’t punctured their perfectionism.

“Eventually, we’ll get to the point where we’re able to have a couple of months in the studio,” says McVeigh.

“I think that’ll probably be a massively creative time for us.”

White Lies will be in session on BBC 6 Music’s George Lamb show between 1000-1300 on Thursday.

More than 130 leading UK-based music writers, editors and broadcasters took part in Sound of 2009. They named their three favourite new acts and their responses were used to compile the list. .