Florence and the machine

Noah and the Whale, Arcade Fire and Florence and the Machine are amongst the artists that have made it on to US President Barack Obama's Spotify playlist.

You can hear 'Machine Gun Silhouette', the B-side to Jack White's debut solo single 'Love Interruption', by scrolling down to the bottom of the page and clicking.

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Fairly predictably, I suppose, I’ve been watching the unravelling Best New Bands Of 2009 business with some bafflement. Not that my taste was ever going to chime completely with this sort of thing, of course (in my ballot for the BBC poll, I did actually include Florence & The Machine, alongside Telepathe and Crystal Antlers, for what it’s worth).

I know I wrote something a bit snide about the whole “Tips For 2009” business the other day. But then, when dutifully and only slightly hypocritically compiling my submission to the BBC poll, I found myself – hugely hypocritically, I suppose – tipping one of the doubtless most-tipped tips of 2009, Florence And The Machine.