Brit Award 2009 Nominations Announced!

Coldplay and Duffy have bagged four nominations apiece for this year's Brit Awards.

Both acts were shortlisted for the British Single and British Album prizes, with Coldplay also receiving nominations for British Group and British Live Act.

Duffy, meanwhile, picked up further nominations in the British Female and British Breakthrough Act categories.

Adele, Scouting For Girls and Elbow have each been nominated for three awards, while Ting Tings and Estelle have been shortlisted for two.

Girls Aloud also received a pair of nominations - for British Group and British Single - with Leona Lewis, Alexandra Burke and the X Factor finalists among the competition in the British Single category.

In the international categories, five acts picked up a pair of nominations: Kings of Leon, The Killers, AC/DC, MGMT and Fleet Foxes.

Jay-Z and Kanye West will square off for the International Male gong, while Pink, Beyoncé and Katy Perry will compete for the International Female trophy.

Pet Shop Boys will take home the Outstanding Contribution to Music prize at this year's Brit Awards, to be held at London's Earls Court on February 18.

Source: Digital Spy

Music to Listen 2

So as the summer months lure us into a sense of relaxation, its time to get the deck chairs out, plug the iPod in and listen to the latest releases.
Some of the best includes-

1. Gavin DeGraw- In Love With A Girl
The first release from his sophomore album, 'Gavin DeGraw', sees the already popular pop rock singer tell us about a 'girl that understands' and through the distorted guitar riffs and the rhythmic piano lines, this is a sure fire hit for the summer.

2. Jonas Brothers- SOS
What can be said about the Jonas Brothers that most people don't already know? The brothers from New Jersey are now in the UK after being readily available in the USA for the last three years. From their early days on Disney Radio, doing Busted covers (What I Go To School For & Year 3000) and changing record labels. They have now found their home at Hollywood Records and although sometimes they remind us of Hanson (90's 'Mmmbop' Era), with the right amount of guitar, vocal and drums the result is surpirsingly fresh.
SOS, the first single in the UK to come from their debut 'Jonas Brothers' (released last August in USA) is a fun, poppy record, ironically about troubled relationships.
Watch out for the quick turn around as their third USA album, 'A Little Bit Longer' is due for release this August with the UK release shorty after.

3. The Music- Strength In Numbers
The Music return with their first release for four years and truly show what indie dance rock means. The album will please the old fans and will bring in new ones as well. A mixture between Pendulum and Oasis, shows that you will no doubt be moving to his song whether you like it or not. The beat is strong and there is now slowing down The Music as they will be performing through summer festivals this year.

4. Five O'Clock Heroes ft. Agness Dean- Who
A step in a new direction for Five O'Clock Heroes as their first album was truly punk indie but they are trying to move towards the mainstream with their new effort, a mixture of new wave with pop. The first single from the album, 'Speak Your Language', features the model Agness Dean who shows that she is multi talented as her voice is a great contrast to that of Antony Ellis (vocals). Their performance on 'The Sunday Night Project' showed charisma and charm as this New York band try to break the UK.

5. MGMT- Electric Feel
The best summer song yet comes from the American based music group, MGMT (formerly Management) as they release the second single from their bestselling, 'Oracular Spectacular'. This song has so much going for it in the way of it's sound (think Gary Numan, Scissor Sisters and Timo Mass mixed together) and it's video which features the Rock-afire Explosion who were an animatronic animal band that played in Showbiz Pizza Place in the 1980s and 1990s. Pitchfork Media described the video as "a krazy, kandy-kolored, loud neon thingamajig video" and there is always something more to see within it.
Visit here for the Hi-Res version of the video.

Ollie///Beauty is music for this month

Hey! Here are my top five tunes for this month... more writing come soon...

1. Remy Zero- Save Me
Having been sitting through the WGA strike over the past couple months I have been introduced to some television shows that I have not watched before, new and old... One of those has been Smallville, the story of Superman as a teenager, starring Tom Welling. Anyway, this is the theme tune and after watching one episode, I was straight onto iTunes! I can't really point my finger on what they sound like because they sound different to most other generic sounds and after the calm introduction to the rockier ending, the song takes you through the motions with some great lyrics.

2. MGMT- Kids
After being lent their album on recommendation and already loving the single, "Time to Pretend" MGMT have spent some time getting to the top and although they are not everyone's taste, their tunes are consistently catchy and memorable. Kids, one of the songs on the album, Oracular Spectacular, happens to my favourite. Starting with the layered rhythms all the way till the end this shows some real talent. " Picking insects off of plants, No time to think of consequences" Some really meaningful lyrics and certainly a highlight from the album, look forward to hear more from them in the future.

3. Justin Timberlake- What Comes Around/ Goes Around (Interlude)
The 7 1/2 minute version of this song from the album, FutureSex/LoveSounds, has put the faith back into this guy for me. I am the first to say that of recent, the music from Timberlake sounds like a sell out, his first album, Justified had a variety of stuff and sounded really good but on the sophomore release, I was not surprised to hear the constant reminder of the bland music that people like these days... But this song, has certainly surprised me, almost a sequel to single, 'Cry Me A River', this song is accompanied by a great video starring Scarlett Johansson and contains lots of twists and turns along the way. I particularly like the album version with the added two minutes including Timberland's extra... The story behind the story is also great, but I'll let you get that.

4. Thomas Newman- Six Feet Under Theme Tune
I know officially not a song but all the same, a great piece of music showing some amazing talent. Another of the shows I started watching, Six Feet Under, about the dysfunction American family who own the funeral home had this amazing theme tune. With the added bonus watching the beautiful video with it... This is a real gem, when the bass comes in you feel really relaxed and I could listen to this 1 1/2min tune for such a long time.

5. The Devlins- The World Outside
I heard this song on an HBO advert advertising various shows from years ago (thanks to YouTube). This rock song starts with the beautiful piano part and then the guitars come in followed by the drums and then lead singer, Colin Devlin adds to the mix, this Irish quartet show that sometimes Indie music can really be touching as they don't just stick to the mediocre conventions attached to this music. Seen with REM a while ago- certainly a song to listen to.

Don't worry, I will be back with some stuff for you to read soon, revision has been mental recently- exams are too close, but I will be back!