Radio is awful for it - both Moyles and Wogan are terrific in their own ways but it's all talk and no music - certainly no new music.
Not many other radio places to find new talent.
None on TV.
Specialist areas are a nightmare - if, like us, you like the best of ALL music, a diet of second and third rate specialist sound is too much to take for just one or two real hits.

It was always so. Dear old John Peel put out 99% rubbish for every gem.

When I started The Tipsheet, that was what it was for. With Bannister's changes at Radio One - stopping it from being an admirable shop window for all good music - I gave out a free CD every week with a diet of cross over mass appeal excellence.

Even after my enforced vacation, this board enabled us to find ORSON amongst others (Vacancy, Nick Hall... whatever happened to them? Sadly the answer is - industry "experts" got their hands on them).

But that seems to have slackened off. Where on earth is the break through music? The Record of the Day choices are ordinary.

HELP!

Three tips from the continent: Germany's Tokio Hotel are filling 14000 halls on consecutive nights even though they sing in German. There are reports that German lessons have shot up in France, notably. They're a competent teen Linkin Park with absolutely massive appeal.

tokiohotel.pop24.de/uk/

France has the best Hip-Hop scene in the world for the moment. Alongside the usual grumpy fist-waving bunch, there are two hilarious comic outfits, Fatal Bazooka (rap parodies of current hits that are proving more popular - and certainly funnier - than the originals) and Kamini, a Lenny Henry-like character rapping about the mean streets of his provincial village. Hilarious. What's interesting is that both acts rely very heavily on lyrics and connect massively with their audiences. The music is well done too. They are not aping bling and manage to make themselves very relevant to both listeners and radios.

www.fatalbazooka.com/

www.kamini.fr/home.html

M

Apart from all the other problems of the music industry today (fragmentation of the media / audience etc.) one of the root causes of the current situation is: the MUSIC.

Which is, as you said JK, "ordinary" today.
But this is not the fault of the musicians. It is the result of the current busines model: instant succes, no development. There is no time for new styles to form, if something sounds "fresh" it will be packaged today - and will be forgotten tomorrow.

Good question but then the answer would be in 3 places.

Youtube
Myspace
Tipsheet

Problem is someone has to listen to all the music to pick the gems and then it is the age old question of whose opinion carries weight. I'm afraid the old system is long gone never to return. It is apparent that most people don't want to be told and have stayed away in droves from radio, hence the changes. Top of the pops would have been the one but they died the death of a 1000 cuts.

I can almost see a new website looming who would do this but for it to work they need to have a lot of staff or perhaps pay per surf couch potatoes to listen to music all day rating it.

I've had a few good pointers via the FAB Chart but, so far, that's not exactly reaching the masses.

Radio is far too restrictive, and music TV doesn't seem able to stray far from the majors.

We get TV shows like Britain's Got Talent and X Factor, but they hardly bring us a good cross section of styles and talent. Would anyone in TV land be bold enough to create a show which focuses on new/unknown bands of various genres - maybe in a similar format to 'Later With Jools'.

I think there are 3 ways to hear new talent:

1.) Trawl through MySpace and other internet music sites looking for good music (too much like hard work).

2.) Go to live gigs and seek it out. That's where all new bands start out - playing at their local venues. But you have to kiss a lot (and I mean a lot) of frogs before coming across a nugget of talent.

3.) The best route (in my humble view) is the Podcast or Internet Radio shows. Most of them can only play 'unsigned' bands and they get sent a lot of material as most bands have realised that mainstream radio is locked into playlists and won't played new music until forced to.

The podcast presenters have usually sifted out the dross and I'm constantly surprised at just how good some of this stuff is. It's a bit like the early days of pirate radio.

Alright - there is such a variety of music on them that there's no way it can all be good or to your taste but I've come across a number of good bands / artists this way and if we had more money / time we'd sign several of them.

Here's an example http://www.myspace.com/brumcastbirmingham where he puts his podcasts on MySpace too.


Stretch
www.Dastards.com

I listen to Brumcast too, but getting more and more into LastFM as I am, I am finding so much great quality music that is simply never going to sell.
Great for the ears, absolute total death knell for the industry to trawl through it all, which is why scouting and tipping is still important.
Germany has some great bands at the moment in the pop/punk style and in my opinion could well be the dark horse about to emerge in the mainstream.

Did we ever think there would be a time when we would go and check a band out for the first time live, and know all the unreleased songs before we got to the gig?

Not convinced by TokioHotel Mike; they look like Japan (very dated) and sound like a weak Busted

I wish more people had the same feeling...

go to myspace


Oggie
check out myspace.com/oggieuk watch the new video for All I Wanna Do

Melody
myspace.com/melodycouk (pop)

Natalie williams
myspace.com/natwilliams (Soul)

Ryan Smith
myspace.com/mrsmithmusic (live pop)

thanks for sharing the music...some very cool tracks. Are these acts signed? Sorry for sounding simple, but when I listen/look on myspace, it never seems clear.
Cheers.

Hey thanks for taking the time to check out the acts.
The only one with a deal who was signed was Natalie Williams she had a great single out called This Girl aswell as an album with Eastside Records but they had no money to push her properly.

Oggie, Melody & Ryan Smith are all unsigned and pretty much push things off their own back or via very small independent single deals.

All of them have the potential to be massive, they have that rawness that seems to be lost in real pop music in the UK since the early 80's.

You have to feel sorry for UK artist right now and it's important to realise that these are the people that have the real passion for this, cos the music business is not behind them anymore...