Love Machine

The BBC Sound Of longlist was released yesterday and it’s the usual mix of obvious up and coming stars, will-they / won’t they make it acts and people you’ve never heard of. Thing is, rarely are these nominees the actual Sound Of an entire year - I mean, in 2011 we couldn’t move for Pitbull & Ne-Yo or LMFAO and they didn’t make any Sound Of lists. We’ve decided to predict the REAL Sound Of 2012, based on what will probably be unavoidable in shops, on the radio and come the first Friday of every month at Club Love Machine.

For part one, we’re looking at acts already on our radar who will be blowing up our speakers January to December. From returning old favourites to X Factor alumni, they’re going to be EVERYWHERE next year.

COMEBACK KIDS

MADONNA

Madonna’s first single for 3 years has already leaked in demo form onto the internet and honestly doesn’t sound anything like ‘Beat Of My Drum’ by Head Ginge In Charge Nicola Roberts no matter who tells you different. ‘Give Me All Your Love’ is a Martin Solveig production and it sounds very much like a Martin Solveig production - ie. light, bouncing and lots of fun. Madonna has been confirmed as half-time entertainment at the Super Bowl in February where she will be joined by M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj for the very first live performance of ‘Give Me All Your Love’. Beyond that, another studio album will follow quite soon afterwards with William Orbit also on production duties. Madonna albums are always a huge event and we can’t wait to hear it.

NO DOUBT

The long awaited No Doubt album which by rights we should already have by now, is looking more likely to be with us in the first half of next year. From what the band have revealed in interviews and judging from their tweets, the creative process has been a bit of a strain this time around, with a perfectionist attitude delaying the output. We of course don’t begrudge No Doubt for wanting everything to be just so, but we do wish they’d bloody hurry up with it. And if it could be a bit like ‘Hella Good’ mashed with all the most awesome parts from Gwen’s L.A.M.B. album that would be top notch.

CHERYL COLE

It’s been a tricky year for Ms. Cole. After being unceremoniously dumped from The X Factor USA she’s kept a fairly low profile, only emerging to put her face to charitable and fashion causes (Help The Heroes and her new shoe collection for Stylist Pick, for example). We know a new Cheryl album is coming though, because she’s now pon de Twitter and has been tweeting about it. We also know that she’s been working with people like Taio Cruz, Alex da Kid, Jim Beanz and of course, her manager, mentor and bff will.i.am. Will she improve on the 80% r&b-lite garbage she’s given us so far and deliver ‘Promise This’ x12? We fucking hope so.

STEPS

Now this is a true comeback in every sense of the word. Steps split acrimoniously back in 2001 and now, after ten years, they’ve returned to exorcise their demons and go back on the road for a truly unprecedented nationwide arena tour. Having initially sneered at the idea of a Steps reunion being successful, we had to humbly eat our words after becoming hooked on their Sky Living documentary and buying ourselves tickets to see the band next year. Whether this comeback will yield any new material from Steps, other than their cover of ABBA’s ‘Dancing Queen’ we don’t know, but we’re definitely onboard for whatever comes next.

X FACTOR FINALISTS

LITTLE MIX

Favourites to win the competition on Sunday night, Little Mix have the potential to finally go all the way and fill that gaping girlband chasm left by the implosion of the Sugababes, the hibernation of Girls Aloud and the failure of The Saturdays to step up and take the throne. What we’d like to see with Little Mix is a killer pop/r&b single that allows them to absolutely own every other artist out there. Like their redefining performance of ‘Don’t Let Go (Love)’ by En Vogue. But an original song.

MISHA B

The Cher Lloyd of X Factor 2011, she never did manage to bounce back from those bullying allegations, but it was clearly obvious from week 1 that Misha B was already a fully-fledged popstar and X Factor wasn’t going to do much for her other than get her recognised. A solid urban-pop album from Misha B would slot very nicely into our iTunes somewhere alongside Missy Elliott and Jennifer Hudson. Rumour has it that she’s already lined up to work with Fazer from N-Dubz. We’d like to request Labrinth and Fraser T Smith too, thanks.

ALEXANDRA BURKE

Everything Alexandra Burke is confusing at the moment. We know absolutely nothing for certain about her next album campaign other than the fact that we know absolutely nothing for certain. Alexandra had some of the best singles of 2009 and 2010 though and so we have every confidence that 2012 will bring us more of the same. Okay.com. Thank you.

CHER LLOYD

Obnoxious teen-brat Cher Lloyd actually managed to pull it out of the bag in the album department and she hasn’t performed too badly on the singles front either. We expect next year to bring a lot more brash, balls out swagger-pop from the girl that puts dub on the track. BRING IT ON.

NEW-ISH KIDS ON THE BLOCK

LABRINTH

Famed for being the sound-whizz behind Tinie Tempah’s biggest hits, Labrinth released his first solo single ‘Let The Sun Shine’ in 2010 and then disappeared for a bit. No one could have known he would return in the last few months of 2011 with a monster tune like ‘Earthquake’ which is sonically incredible. His debut album is coming soon, and we fully expect it to be the next ‘21’. Except maybe not quite that successful.

EMELI SANDE

Emeli Sandé did an excellent job of establishing herself as hard-hitter in the last half of 2011 and if anything on her album is as good as ‘Heaven’, that reign will continue into 2012. Bet on it. She’s also been writing for Susan Boyle and Leona Lewis, extending her musical reach to the kind of people who listen to music by Susan Boyle and Leona Lewis… supermarket shoppers.

COVER DRIVE

‘Lick Ya Down’ was a top 10 hit for this Caribbean pop band that sound a bit like a Rihanna you can take home to meet your parents and we genuinely love their vibrant, tropical sound. If all goes to plan, they’ll be on every T4 and Capital line up possible throughout 2012. 

Part 2 tomorrow…

It’s a slow week for new releases - we’re not particularly enamoured with anything due to hit the charts on Sunday, and besides, Rihanna will probably be #1 again anyway.

With that said, if you’ve got 99p there are worse songs you could spend it on than The X Factor Finalists 2011 (featuring JLS & One Direction) and their cover of ‘Wishing On A Star’ - a song that proves to be so brilliant, not even that motley crew could balls it up. True, the JLS & One Direction “feature” (all of the last 20 seconds of it) is just a cynical way to get more teenage girls to cough up their cash, but in an odd way we kinda like the “JLS! 1D!” cry that heralds their appearance. Most importantly, all proceeds will go to the children’s charity Together For Short Lives. If you caught the VT before the performance of this on Sunday night’s show, you’ll agree that this is a very worthy cause.

In less heart-rending corners, Emeli Sandé releases her second solo single, and her first since bagging a #1 with Professor Green on ‘Read All About It’. There’s a stark franticness to ‘Daddy’ feat. Naughty Boy, but it’s not even close to the epicness of ‘Heaven’. Still, Emeli has an incredibly listenable voice which makes the non-event chorus far more eventful than it should be.

StooShe drop ‘Betty Woz Gone’ in their attempt to become the girl band that sticks. With The Saturdays making a dismal showing on both the album and singles chart, the Girls Aloud reunion allegedly being delayed and the skeletons of the careers of RD, the Sugababes, Soundgirl and Parade being picked apart by pop vulture fanatics along the roadside, the time has never been more ripe for a girl group to make a massive splash. This gutsy, profanity-riddled effort that sounds as if it was lifted from the soundtrack of a streetwise West End musical and even nods to the theme tune from The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air probably won’t make more than a ripple, which is a shame. On the other hand, when Little Mix win the X Factor in a couple of weeks, we won’t be mourning these lesser girl groups so much.

Finally, Lady Gaga’s ‘A Very Gaga Holiday’ EP hit UK iTunes towards the end of last week and as you might be able to tell from our Pick of the Day, we’re a tiny bit in love with it. Gaga’s voice is completely breathtaking throughout, and superfans will appreciate the opportunity to own a legitimate copy of her gorgeous cover of ‘Orange Coloured Sky’.

Regardless of the fact that our three favourite judges are no longer on the show, the “talent” taking part in this year’s X Factor are weak and uninteresting. The overs category is our favourite - camp Johnny and crazy Kitty consistently bring the entertainment - which just goes to show how deep the show has sunk. Let’s just give Misha B the contract and cut out the deathly dull middleman.

In stark contrast to the mediocrity, Sunday’s results show saw performances from Kelly Clarkson and Professor Green with Emeli Sandé. Both acts put in “world class performances”. ‘Mr Know It All’ isn’t Kelly’s strongest lead single ever, and ‘Read All About It’ is no ‘Be Good To Green’ but there was definitely a whiff of superstardom in the air.

Don’t just take our word for it though - watch now:

PS. Bruno Mars was also there, but frankly we couldn’t give two tiny shits about him.