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…

BONG!

• Labrinth doesn’t want to work with Cheryl Cole [via MTV]

BONG!

• Justin Bieber, Maroon 5 and Christina Aguilera to perform at the AMAs [via Digital Spy]

BONG!

• Jennifer Lopez cries on stage [via 3am]

BONG!

• Tinie Tempah asks Chris Martin to collaborate on his second album [via NME]

BONG!

• Q Awards winners list [via Gigwise]

BONG!

• Go behind-the-scenes of Cher Lloyd’s latest video [via maximum POP!]

We’ve gone of the boil slightly when it comes to updating the blog, but we’re back with a vengeance for a chart battle royale this week. Whose side should you be on? Never fear - we are here to help you decide.

The BIG names involved in this week’s releases (i.e. the ones reasonably expected to make a good go at hitting the top spot) are The Saturdays with ‘All Fired Up’, Pixie Lott with ‘All About Tonight’ and Leona Lewis (/ Avicii) with ‘Collide’. Here at Love Machine we have already thrown our support behind The Saturdays as the best of a decidedly average bunch. The thing with ‘All Fired Up’ is that it’s almost but not quite there. Which doesn’t make it a bad song at all, just not one that excites us as much as some of their other releases. Still compared to the by-numbers-fest that is ‘All About Tonight’, The Saturdays are practically revolutionary. With that said, Pixie’s performance on Red Or Black last night gave her the push she needed to hit #1 on the iTunes chart a scant few hours after The Saturdays had muscled Maroon 5 & Christina Aguilera out of the way. The same cannot be said for Leona’s performance on the same show as ‘Collide’ still languished in the 20s for most of Sunday, but currently finds itself at #4 . It’s going to be close - can’t wait to see those midweeks.

In less tense, knuckle-biting waters, other releases this week come from Wynter Gordan with the brilliant ‘Til Death’. If we had our way, this would be shooting up the charts leaving The Sats, Pixie and Leona in the dust. It’s really cool dance pop that hasn’t been hamfistedly engineered to The Club. Wynter has been on our hit list since ‘Dirty Talk’, and we think she deserves your 99p the most.

The Labrinth produced ‘Neva Soft’ by Ms. Dynamite also drops, a tune that makes us want to dance with our hands in the air. We’ve enjoyed this Ms. Dynamite resurgence - since she popped up on that Katy B. track we’ve remembered how she had a hand in quite a few decent tunes since her career began in the early 2000s and ‘Neva Soft’ is no exception.

Finally, boyband The Kixx have their second single ‘Standing Where You Left Me’ available for purchase. We don’t know what to make of The Kixx. They’re like McFly sped up with more synths. Considering McFly tried to do McFly sped up with more synths last year to no real avail, we’re not sure whether it will ever “happen” for The Kixx. Nonetheless, ‘Standing Where You Left Me’ is good enough to warrant a mention here.