Watching TV over the Christmas and New Year period, chances are you might have caught Johnny Depp in a number of films. I'm pretty sure I spotted all three Pirates Of The Caribbean movies spread out across various terrestrial and satellite channels, plus the overlooked Secret Window and -- a personal favourite -- Finding Neverland, a very moving take on the relationship between author JM Barrie and the children who inspired him to write Peter Pan. In a way, these films are emblematic of the Depp's dualistic approach to his movies. In Pirates, he's performing; in Window and Neverland, he's acting. Sweeney Todd, his sixth collaboration with director Tim Burton, falls into the former camp. You have to forgive me, I should say, if I'm fairly broad in my assessment here -- I saw it way before Christmas, but have been under the cosh of one of these embargos that forbids me from writing about it, under pain of death, until now. It's a big, brash turn, full of swagger and brio, well suited to Burton's extravagant Gothic melodrama from Stephen Sondheim's musical. Depp's Sweeney is a serial killing barber whose victims are turned into pies by his accomplice Mrs Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter). Necks are slit, large quantities of blood slosh across the screen and a number of jolly songs are sung along the way, often in chirpy Cockernee accents. It's a faintly ludicrous proposition -- but, admittedly, no more so than the idea of a lonely inventor building himself a son but dying before he could complete him, leaving a pair of giant shears where his arms should be. In fact, Burton pretty much lets himself go here, the whole thing having a rather gleefully demented feel to it. It's not quite Herschell Gordon Lewis or Lucio Fulci, but it's pretty grisly stuff all the same; thick arterial blood flying in crimson arcs, human flesh baked into pies, that kind of thing. Depp, shrewd as ever, manages to draw pathos out of the Grand Guignol. Deathly pale with panda bear rings round his eyes, Depp's Sweeney is a walking ghost, his life leeched from him by the death of his wife and lost daughter. He's more of a melancholic figure than some zealous, hellbent lunatic out for revenge, despite his early declamation that "They all deserve to die!" There are, I have to admit, too many songs for me (yes, I do know it's a musical), but Burton and Depp are clearly having great fun here -- in the new issue of UNCUT, Burton explains how he and Depp are "in the same zone from the beginning." Sweeney might not be Depp's greatest character for Burton (that would be Edward Scissorhands or Ed Wood), but the exuberance and grim humour of this spectacle make cohesively for one of their strongest collaborations. To close allow me this random aside. I see that Depp's scheduled to play American gangster John Dillinger for Michael Mann soon. As a huge fan of both Depp, Mann and John Milius' brilliant version of the Dillinger story (due, largely, to a fantastic performance from Warren Oates), I am extremely excited. Anyway... Sweeney Todd opens in the UK on January 25.

The music business is in unseasonal heat today, with the publishing of the BBC's Sound Of 2008 poll. The winner, unsurprisingly, is Adele, who's OK. But I must admit I'm a bit suspicious of the whole self-perpetuating hype of all this - I agree with most of this piece from The Observer from last month. Tellingly, Kitty guessed eight out of ten right in the BBC list, proving how predictable these things have become. To admit some culpability, though, I was one of the voters in the BBC poll, though I did the online equivalent of spoiling my ballot paper by voting for things I was really interested in, rather than things that'll actually become big (like, say, Adele, Duffy, Joe Lean And The Jing Jang Jong etc). For what it's worth, my "tips" were No Age, Wild Beasts and Yeasayer. I must admit, I've jumped on the No Age bandwagon pretty late after reading the compelling Sasha Frere Jones piece on them in The New Yorker (and what a great writer he is, apart from that dubious indie/racism thinkpiece which generated some wearying debate last autumn). No Age - as their terrific "Weirdo Rippers" comp on FatCat proves - are an innovative punk duo from LA, who remind me variously - and sometimes simultaneously - of vintage DC hardcore, My Bloody Valentine, and a surprisingly poppy take on the avant virility of Lightning Bolt. Can't wait to see them live. Wild Beasts I've written about before here; they're a pretty conventional British indie band in many ways, but it's the extraordinary tonsil origami of the singer which makes them so interesting - and so difficult to sell, I fear. Yeasayer I've covered here, too. I see MGMT and Vampire Weekend both made it into the BBC chart, but of the new Brooklyn bands (there's a good piece on them all in the new Uncut, incidentally), Yeasayer strike me as the most intriguing. But let's see what you think. How about posting your tips here, and see if we can reach some kind of alternative consensus?

Happy New Year, everyone, and many thanks for all your responses to the Bruce Springsteen and Favourite Albums Of The Year blogs I posted just before Christmas. Following some of your advice, I had a good listen to "Born To Run" and "Darkness On The Edge Of Town" while cruising the North Nottinghamshire badlands and so forth over the holidays. And while I don't think they quite compare with the euphoric thickness of the live show (I'm stunned by Tim's suggestion that the O2 gig was a relative off night), I am beginning to get the point. One revelation was "Racing In The Street", which struck me as being exactly what I imagined Springsteen was like, but somehow more tender and nuanced; all the epic romance and finely-tuned cliche given much more humanity and gravity than I thought possible. Another was "Adam Raised A Cain", which was, on the other hand, nothing quite like what I expected of Springsteen - much more ragged and grungy, and deeply pleasing for that. Listening to "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out", meanwhile, I was struck by an affinity with one of my favourite bands, Dexy's Midnight Runners. Not just in the vigorous, Staxy horn section, but in that weird conceit, so prevalent in whiteboy soul - I'm thinking of Van Morrison here too - of fanatically self-conscious "passion". On paper, it always looks pretty constipated and excruciating, but Springsteen, like Kevin Rowland, somehow pulls it off. Anyway, besides Springsteen, my Christmas listening was fixed mainly on those first four Michael Rother solo reissues that turned up at the end of last year, and the start of my further explorations of the Ethiopiques catalogue; "Volume 7: Mahmoud Ahmed". Ahmed is terrific, with the persistent grooves that make so much of this Ethiopian funk so compelling, coupled with a melodious wail that seems - to my semi-tutored ears - a little more North African than some of his contemporaries (though I haven't heard the records in years, the memory of some late '80s and early '90s Rai spring to mind, maybe Cheb Khalid specifically). I'm slightly embarrassed that I've never investigated the Rother albums before, since the first two especially - that's "Flammende Herzen" and "Sterntaler" - seem a logical continuation of the Neu! motorik. I guess Klaus Dinger's volatility is missing - this is more streamlined than ever, and Can's Jaki Liebezeit mainly reins in his more octopoidal rhythmic tendencies. But I love how Rother mixes that familiar motorway guitar strafe with some twanging classicism that calls to mind The Ventures and takes these two lovely albums out of the Krautrock experimental sector and into a broader rock'n'roll continuum. Works on the A1 for me. Finally, thanks again for all those Best Ofs. I should point out that I reviewed - and liked - something like 150 albums on this blog in 2007, so their absence from my Top 20 - like, say, Devendra Banhart's misunderstood and underrated "Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon" - is hardly evidence of me disliking them. Good to see we share many highlights and prejudices, though one thing that's baffling me a bit is the massive support for "Boxer" and The National. They always struck me as a pretty corny stab at the bohemian and the literate, set to some ponderous foursquare music, and most of their supporters at Uncut seemed to prefer "Alligator". But, as you can see, at our continuing Best Albums Of The Year vote, "Boxer" is doing great. Just don't ask me to try re-evaluating it in 2008. Plenty more to be getting on with, and the new Stephen Malkmus album just arrived. Onwards!