2010 music - What are the prospects?

Now that is a vexatious question! Commenting on the year past is one thing but this is quite another entirely, yet it needs to be done once again.

I'm not too disappointed with the predictions that I made last year but that only serves to make this year's more difficult. Pop, electro and folk-influences all came good in 2009, much to my pleasure. I suspect that they will remain much in evidence in 2010 and there is little doubt that live music, in all shapes and forms, will remain in the ascendancy.

There will be many unexpected surprises, which make the scene change and to be honest what I anticipate liking most are the things that I cannot predict; while 2009 was a good year in that respect I have no reason to think that 2010 will be any less so. I intend to make sure that it is not, seeking the new and the different like never before if I can.

That is not to say that I will abandon everything that has come before; I certainly won't if only because I can't.

I know my question doesn't make sense at all

Because we live outside the realm of yes and no.

The more difficult that proves to be the better the outcome in all probability. I doubt whether, for all the hype concerning the remarkable battle for the 'Christmas #1 single' (a curiously British preoccupation in any case), it says much about that which can be predicted for 2010.

My current thought is that the field is wide open once again, that this circumstance is probably for the best and the lyrics will still matter, especially live.

And I will be your ark; we will float above the storm.

It is true that 2010 holds many fears and for that reason alone it is worth its weight in gold:

This time, baby, I'll be bullet-proof.

Spirit

I have quite a cautious approach to 'reality TV' music talent searches, although I must admit that there have already been some genuine artists therefrom. That said, I really wonder if even those in control really thought this could actually happen. Début single at #1 in the UK was a pushover and that the album did the same on its week of release was, in the event, and following the success of the single, not very surprising either. The real test would certainly be in America...

When her first single 'Bleeding Heart' went to the top of the 'Billboard 100 Singles' it was an incredible feat for a new UK artist, the first by any solo UK female artist to do so since 1987.

The "last one to do it" aspect now matters no longer!

Spirit has just become the first début album by a UK solo artist, male or female, ever to reach #1 in the US chart on the week of release - a record that belongs to Leona Lewis in perpetuity - and she did it in style. Spirit sold 205,000 copies against her nearest chart rival, George Strait, whose album Troubadour sold 59,000 copies. It is however not a patch on the first-week UK sales of Spirit, for which it currently holds the all time record of 375,000 copies in the week of release, a record not just for a début album but for any artist studio album.

If you think I may have fallen into some kind of idolatry here please see the 'I've just listened to...' list on the side-bar. I'm now trying to include links in it, particularly within this blog, and also now have increased the entries displayed from ten to fifteen. It these have fallen off the bottom by the time you read this, I suggest Passionoia - Black Box Recorder and Heavy Horses - Jethro Tull as two apparently very different albums that embody many of my thoughts on music that is quintissentially British and, in the case of Black Box Recorder, specifically a certain kind of English.