The Next Big Thing?

The Postelles
There’s one way to know for sure that a band or song is going to be big, and that’s when I like it despite it coming from a genre that I’m really not keen on. The Postelles make blokey mainstream indie, but they do it brilliantly well. They’re a protegée of one of The Strokes, and that’s evident in their music, but they also sound like a lot of British bands – the Futureheads (who they’re touring with), Arctic Monkeys, Maximo Park, The Kooks and many more. This sound is a bit 5 years ago, but The Postelles somehow make it fresh. I can’t really see how they can fail. All the (pleasingly short) songs on their MySpace are good, but Can’t Stand Still sounds like the big hit-in-waiting to me.
Hit potential: 96% Poptasticness: 85%

Cosmo Jarvis
I really don’t know what to make of Cosmo Jarvis. He considers himself a film-maker as well as a singer-songwriter, and suitably the videos for his singles are quirky, to say the least. If I was his manager, I’d tell him to give up on his film-making ambitions immediately, as his videos are the most bizarre, embarrassing, studenty hilariosities. It’s carcrash TV, except I can’t imagine any of these videos will ever appear on TV. My particular favourites include this one about a bloke called Gary (and his wife, “a lovely cow”), and this one where a group of geeks play recorders to demonstrate Cosmo’s jealousy that his friend has a (seriously out of his league) new girlfriend. It even includes a discussion about Eric Bana’s eyebrows!
Hit potential: 26% Poptasticness: 28%