All "safe" bets are off.

Three strategies;

The “safe bet” has been the strategy of many a record company for the last few years.

Strategy one “People like The Editors and bought their records. So, all we need to do is find a band that sound a bit like them and through a tonne of cash at them. Do this enough times, throw enough sh*t at the wall and some of it will stick.

The second strategy, “This band are from Shoreditch/ New Cross, Shoreditch/New Cross is cool, lets give them a little money, not a lot, not enough, and get some photos of them into a classy twatty style magazine looking moody with some good hair.” A conversation Emily and I had with Stephen Malkmus, (see the name drop there, 10 million indie points) on the subject led him to say that this approach gives us two good songs and thousands of great photographs. I think two good songs is a bit of an exaggeration on his part. I can’t think of one.

Strategy three, pluck them straight out of BRIT school, give them a fake “cutsie cockerney” voice, dress them up in vintage and lie about their age, this has been the most successful strategy of the last few years and my god has is produced some dross.

None of these strategies will land us with a band that anyone actually will really ever care about for any length of time, the record companies, many of which are now in dire straits (they wouldn’t be if they had a Dire Straits) have failed to provide good new music to the people.