Any thoughts?

It's quite a strange cast of characters. Michael from Lost and that bloke from the early series of Six Feet Under among others. And of course, the actually content is generally meaningles but it's about time will.i.am nailed his political colours to the mast.

What music have you most enjoyed (if any) from 2008 so far. Is there anything I've missed from this year that I should give a listen too?

The albums I've heard from this year so far are:

Thao - We Brave Bee Stings & All
Vampire Weekend
Sons & Daughters - The Gift
Adele - 19
British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?
The Duke Spirit - Neptune
Cat Power - Juke Box

The best for me has easily been Thao, I took a flier on this thanks to the Word review and it's been excellent. British Sea Power is slowly growing on me. Cat Power is always good value and I'm not sure if I lie Vampire Weekend or if it's tat that I get sucked into listening too because of the hype.

I'm looking forward to Goldfrapp, Nick Cave, R.E.M and Portishead over the next month or 2. Any suggestions?

In 10 years! I was reading a rival music magazine over a work associates shoulder and Nick Cave says that he will do 5 more albums with The Bad Seeds and 5 more Grinderman albums and then retire at 60.

Quite an interesting bit of advance planning there I'd say?

More importantly, the new single is now on youtube and to sum up I would say 'great song, great mustache.'

Seeing as it's the in thing to be doing picks for 2008 at the moment, I thought I'd see if anyone here was familar with Florence and the Machine. She seems to still be very underground and I don't think she has had a record out yet. Bit more interesting than Duffy...

I've had Echoes (The Best Of), Meddle, Dark Side Of The Moon for a while now. Tonight, I've downloaded Pulse, Animals and Wish You Were Here.

Can anyone suggest where to go next? I've heard the late albums are really heavy going and I've been put off the early stuff for some reason I can't quite put my finger on. Any suggestions?

Do you ever go on a new music spree? In the space of this weekend, I downloaded:

Spoon: Ga Ga Ga
Epic 45: May Your Heart Be The Map
Battles: Mirrored
Tom Waits: Various
Panda Bear: Person Pitch
Burial: Untrue
Tegan & Sara: So Jealous
Maps: We Can Create
Tom York: An EP
Radiohead: The Webcast
Laura Veirs: Saltbreakers
Wilco: Sky Blue Sky
Arcade Fire & David Bowie

When will I ever listen to all of this? Why do I download more and keep looking for more when I haven't listened either at all or properly to all of this stuff?

I think it's because A: The internet plays up to my completist side, I now have every PJ Harvey album, I won't recognise half of it when it comes on the ipod but I sleep better at night knowing I have it all and B: I think that every album might just be the thing that blows me away and makes me feel like I did when I was 12 and Live Forever came on the Mark Radcliffe show when I was listening under the covers when I should have been in bed.

Does anyone relate to this, or is it just me?

Have you ever approached an artist you are not familar with Chronolgicaly? Bit of an outside bet maybe. I hadn't read a Martin Amis novel at all and have been reading them in order. The next one to read is London Fields. I've also taken this approach to Music. I have been working back through Nick Cave albums, every few months getting a hold of the last one but this didn't start until I realised I had all the albums from Let Love In onwards.

My major project is now Tom Waits. I have Rain Dogs, Swordfish Trombones and Mule Variations but my friend lent me Closing Time, the debut and I then had the idea of going through the early albums one by one and seeing his progression from a fairly normal voiced singer to gravel-throated spoken word eccentric.

I may be alone in this, as I suspect I'm a bit younger that the average poster on this site (26), but I've found it quite rewarding so far. I'm on to Nighthawks at the Diner down (3rd album) and you can see a clear progression.

What a night, my first Boss gig. Anyone got any war stories from getting in. Seemed to be a few problems with queing tonight and a few raised tempers. We got to see Racing in the Street though and Little Stevie in a tiny santa hat/ear muff combo at the end so it was a pretty awesome night:

Radio Nowhere
No Surrender
Night
Lonesome Day
Gypsy Biker
Magic
Reason to Believe
Because the Night
She's the One
Livin' in the Future
The Promised Land (Inc People Get Ready)
Waitin' on a Sunny Day
Working on the Highway
Racing in the Street
Devil's Arcade
The Rising
Last to Die
Long Walk Home
Badlands
**********
Girls in Their Summer Clothes
Jungleland
Born to Run
Dancing in the Dark
American Land
Santa Claus is Comin' to Town

Now to bed.

So Radiohead tickets are on sale now and have been all day:

http://www.radiohead.com/tourdates/

Why is there no 'it sold out in 20 minutes' story doing the rounds like Springsteeen. Is it because they are doing it through their own website rather than going through ticketmaster.

Around £50 or more depending how many tickets you buy though, once you add in 'handling' and postage. Still, I for one am looking forward to a no doubt rain swept Wednesday in Victoria Park.

Last night I saw Delays in Hoxton. They took to the stage at 9:45, a pretty good time was had by all and then at just after 10:30 they said 'this will be our last song' I thought to myself 'it better not be pal' and they left and then duly came back for a two song encore and cleared off by just after 10:45. Even the time sheet up in the venue said 9:45 to 11:00.

I put it to the good people at Word that 60 minutes does not a proper gig make. Does anyone think I am right/wrong to feel that I have not got my £12.50 worth?

And to make it worse, when they were good, they were really good. It's criminal that the Kaiser Chiefs sell a million records and no-one I speak to has heard of these boys.

So I was looking at the 'sum up Led Zep in one track' thread and have shamelessly stolen then idea and applied it to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. I've been listening to them quite a lot lately and just downloaded the Good Son album this afternoon.

Can you pick one track that you could play to someone and say 'well if you don't like that one, I wouldn't bother.' I'll start the bidding with Red Right Hand.