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!

It is, I guess, a quintessential Bruce moment. The house lights are on, and as I walk across the floor of the O2 Arena, everyone is bellowing along unself-consciously to “Born To Run”. For the best part of two and a half hours, the E Street Band have played with a thickness, a relentlessness, a charged virtuosity that is pretty astounding. Now, they’re peaking, and it seems conceivable that they could keep going all night. To a lot of you, I imagine, none of this is news. But somehow, I’ve managed to fluke my way into the Deputy Editor’s chair at Uncut in spite of never having seen a Bruce Springsteen gig. In spite, furthermore, of not ever having liked Springsteen a great deal, if truth be told. But over the past year or two, I’ve had a sneaking suspicion that those ‘70s albums stacked up on my shelves might actually be worth playing. I’ve found myself infatuated with The Hold Steady, and generally impressed by the Arcade Fire, while realising that both bands are almost comically indebted to Springsteen. And finally, I’ve been playing “Magic” to death for the past few months; finally invigorated by this thunderous music. You’ll have to excuse me, then, for not having much in the way of critical objectivity today. I am, frankly, hopelessly unqualified to write a proper review of last night’s Springsteen show. Instead, I figure that this must be something of a personal epiphany, and an attempt to try and work out why his music suddenly makes sense to me. My hunch, as I’m transfixed by a bunch of bold, shamelessly epic songs from “Magic” – chiefly “Long Walk Home”, “Devil’s Arcade” and a fabulous “Gypsy Biker” with Springsteen and Miami Steve Van Zandt facing each other off with needling, high-end solos – is that what I like about Springsteen is the big pop imperative. It’s not the rocking – although his band are incredibly well-drilled at doing just that. It’s certainly not the horny-handed son-of-the-soil stuff, the earnest, rootsy singer-songwriter vibes that have sired so much boring Americana over the years – although, again, “Reason To Believe” sounds brilliant tonight. I think what I love here – and about “Magic” – is that, while there’s real serious substance to the songs, there’s a brassy showiness to the whole thing, wired into a very pop, swinging tradition. From the moment a fairground calliope parps into action to signal the arrival of the E Street Band, it’s the gaudy melodrama which I find so gripping, not the long-vaunted honesty and passion. Increasingly, the whole myth of authenticity bugs me as bogus and irrelevant, particularly when it’s applied to artists like Springsteen. There’s no doubting his integrity, but what is most impressive is the workrate, the thrilling choreography, the sweat-soaked revitalisation of Phil Spector’s pop masterplan. Springsteen doesn’t talk much tonight – there are no long soliloquies, just some rote bellowing and a couple of brief anti-Bush homilies that are virtually word-for-word identical to the ones Andrew Mueller reported in his thought-provoking piece on the Mid-West leg of the tour in the current issue of Uncut (one of the very best things we’ve printed in 2007, I think). We can invest any amount of meaning into these songs I’ll be learning over the next couple of weeks – “Racing In The Street”, “Night”, “Waitin’ On A Sunny Day”. But tonight, they’re not stadium rock so much as rock’n’roll theatre, right down to the fatherly nods of admiration Springsteen bestows on Clarence Clemons, Soozie Tyrell, Van Zandt and Nils Lofgren whenever one of them steps up for a brief, meticulous, rousing solo. Not fraudulent, but certainly knowing. The bandmember I’m most taken with, though, is Max Weinberg: as I watch him play erectly, with a sort of effortless force, all mighty forearms, I finally understand why an old boss – a drummer, actually – used to revere him so much. Like his bandmates, Weinberg seems to conjure up a vigorous spirit of community and celebration, but does so with a fearsome professional rigour. What else should I mention? A rousing “American Land”, with two accordions. And finally “Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town”, delivered in Santa hats, with Van Zandt destroying his Sopranos credibility with some magnificently goofy earmuffs. Why? Because it’s just entertainment, folks, and now I get it - apart from "Dancing In The Dark", mind. If anyone would like to file a responsible and more measured review, please do below, and also: where should I start on my hilariously belated voyage of discovery? I’m thinking “Darkness On The Edge Of Town” but, as ever, any advice would be great.