How To Become The Sound Of 2011

Next year you could be a popstar! You don’t need talent, you certainly don’t need tunes but you most definitely will need to rank high on the beginning of year buzz lists.

It’s honestly not that hard, just pick up that tatty guitar Auntie gave you for Christmas, follow our Top Five guide to how this year’s bunch got famous quickly and we’ll simply take our 10% royalty cut as compensation once you sign to a major record label.

1) Win the Critic’s Choice BRIT Award

More commonly known by its full title: Female and Under 25 Critic’s Choice BRIT Award is annually awarded to the most marketable new woman in the music industry. This year, the Essex-born Jessie J is winner elect with her futuristic ‘edgier-than-Ke$ha-less-talented-than-Gaga’ sound and the 6 million YouTube hits she has thus far garnered for her bad girl anthem ‘Do It Like A Dude’.

2) Attend the BRIT School

There are two schools of thought on the superstar producing BRIT School. Firstly, it simply churns out super talented musicians every year who are a cut above those who decide to go it alone without the money to pay for tuition. Secondly, it’s a lazy focal point for record labels to source fresh talent with an obvious PR angle. As this year’s graduates, Katy B and Jamie Woon, both have a moderate degree of aplomb to their singles so far, we’ll reserve judgement until the albums drop.

3) Keep your details to yourself

The Vaccines initially made their name by withholding all information about the band bar one sole demo, the woozy, sun-kissed ‘If You Wanna’. By the time any real details were released about this London-born four piece, any sense of perspective had been lost to the discovery that guitarist Freddie Cowan is the younger brother of one of The Horrors.

4) Stay on trend

James Blake’s music has been variously categorised as dubstep, post-dupstep, soul, experimental electro and future garage. Yet whatever the genre of his CMYK, Bells Sketch and Klavierwerke EPs, they are both unarguably on trend and brilliant. Similarly by nestling within the currently popular genres of electro-pop and lo-fi guitar music, Claire Maguire and Yuck have garnered column inches which simply wouldn’t have been available to hardcore punk revivalists.

 5) Appeal to everyone

The factor of seminal importance in topping ‘Sound Of’ type lists is an artist’s capacity to touch base with every possible listenership, be this Capital FM or BBC 6Music. The list itself works on an aggregate basis whereby the act or artist with the most votes wins. Just as in politics, those who can safely occupy the middle ground will usually emerge top of the pile. What else could explain the bizarre prominence paid to Keane in 2004’s poll?

Success is definitely (maybe) guaranteed

Before you go off and start your own poorly conceived YouTube covers channel, it’s worth remembering that the hype machine is a vexing beast. A huge record label promo goes into making sure certain artists make it big in the beginning of the year lists yet over the past few years alone Mumford & Sons, The XX and Rumer have all cracked the charts without making the ‘Sound Of’ Top Five.

Maybe after all this January fuss and bother, songs do actually count for something after all.

Gigwise Ones To Watch In 2011