Happy New Year dear readers!!

Last month we highlighted that some of the UK’s top blogs (and ourselves) had come together to dream up an alternative to the BBC’s increasingly poor ‘Sound of…’ lists. Auntie’s 2012 selection is looking particularly dire so we were happy to wade in with our views about who folk should be listening to this coming year.

And, hooray! One of our five picks (French Wives) has made the top five along with a host of other interesting acts all of whom we’ve heard of and all of whom we like the sound of. So forget Azalia Banks and the other imagination-free picks that the BBC and its panel of ‘experts’ have come up with, here are five acts that could define your 2012.

1. Friends

2. Theme Park

3. Beth Jeans Houghton

4. French Wives

5. Daughter

The Beth Jeans Houghton album, due later this month, is sounding great and the French Wives album is expected in March. With excellent albums from Errors, the Twilight Sad and Field Music also out shortly, 2012 is already looking pretty exciting.

The other participating blogs were: Breaking More Waves, My Band Is Better Than Your Band, God Is In the TV, Sweeping The Nation, The Von Pip Musical Express, The Recommender, Faded Glamour, Drunken Werewolf, Flying With Anna, Not Many Experts, Under-classed Idle Ideas, Sonic Masala, Mudkiss, The Ring Master, Both Bars On, Music From A Green Window, Dots And Dashes, The Daily Growl, And Everyone’s A DJ, Kowalskiy, Just Music I Like, Cruel Rhythm, The Blue Walrus, Music Fans Mic, 17 Seconds, Eaten By Monsters, Seven Sevens, Unpeeled, NuRave Brain Wave, Peenko, Music Liberation, Song, By Toad.