Avenue61 is a leading indie music site that specialises in album and gig reviews, breaking new bands, publicising events, and exclusive interviews with the leading cutting edge acts in the alternative music scene. Avenue61 covers a wide range of artists – some you would have heard of, some you won’t. Artists the site has reviewed recently include the Fleet Foxes, MGMT, Noisettes and Ladyhawke. The site is updated regularly so come back to catch up the latest news and reviews from the bleeding edge of the alternative music scene.

Tawiah’s may not be a name that you’re initially familiar with, but for those who have followed the live meanderings of  the likes of Mark Ronson & Corrine Bailey Rae, her face & more importantly her voice will be more familiar than her name initially lets on. Tawiah is the latest Soul prodigy...MORE>>

OK, hands up fellow music journos. Who didn’t put Little Boots in their Hot Tips for 2009 list? No one?  Well fine, apart from Mr. Kerrang in the back there, you don’t count.

This may appear like a meagre voice underneath the rubble of praise but is anyone else starting to get a bit freaked out by the Little Boots hype-machine. Honestly now, did she hypnotise everyone with that nifty little gadget perched on the top of her piano? Or is DIY music and a trendy little pixie makeover all it takes to woo the masses these days?

Credit where credit is due: the beat for Meddle, her track recently previewed on Jools Holland, is perfection. It jumps and bounces but it doesn’t make up for the song on top of it. It’s fitting that the advert pestering visitors on Little Boots’ Myspace profile at the moment is for the debut album of Lady Gaga, another over-hyped starlet who stripped from the ‘I write my own songs’ act is just another grating pop debacle. Surely flogging your own grating songs is a worse crime then straddling a pop

career singing someone else’s.

Rolling it back a bit, Little Boots aka Victoria Hesketh hails from Blackpool. Having left her previous band, Dead Disco, to write songs for established artists, she eventually decided she couldn’t part with the material and embarked on a solo career. Boosted by collaborating with Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard, Hesketh is currently skimming the bottom of the charts that Gaga is leading.  You almost feel sorry for the other artists stuck in the middle of that heinous synth-pop sandwich.

Topping Boots’ current Myspace playlist right now is Every Little Earthquake that if played for a block of cheese would immediately turn it into a perfect pile ready to grace the nearest bowl of pasta.  Artistic control and Tenori-Ons aside, this could be any one of those “[insert name of a generic dance DJ here] featuring Danni Minogue” tracks that have been inflicted on the unsuspecting public before.  Not that it means Hesketh can’t have a big hit with it. Inane choruses and a big, club-thumping beats haven’t stopped songs topping the charts before. But reaching the number one position has never been a way of separating good music from the bad. In fact, it often means the exact opposite. Crazy Frog, anyone?