BBC's next big thing has already arrived

THE BBC's annual "Sound Of" poll, has become a fairly indispensable guide to the year ahead.

The Beeb surveys 100 people from the music industry - label bosses, DJs, press, live bookers, etc - and gets them to predict the year's big acts. Previous polls have featured The Kaiser Chiefs, Franz Ferdinand, Keane, KT Tunstall, 50 Cent and Scissor Sisters.

There's a bit of a fuss this year because the winner, one Corinne Bailey Rae, would appear to be in contravention of an (unwritten) "Sound Of" rule: an artist is not eligible if he or she has already received widespread mainstream attention or commercial success in the UK. Arctic Monkeys were deemed ineligible for this reason, which is fair enough. But Bailey Rae has been everywhere in the last few months.

I know that Bailey Rae has a great voice yada yada and is "the new Billie Holiday" and all that. But she's not someone you can build a cultural musical movement around. Put it this way: If you go into any Starbucks branch anywhere this year, odds are that they'll be playing Bailey Rae. I suppose it's a merciful release from the constant Snorah Jones and her aural methadone, but that's not really the point.

To a lesser degree, the same argument applies to the act who came in second. Brooklyn band Clap Your Hands Say Yeah seem to be just missing The Racing Post in terms of their media clippings. They're a great band (even if talking to the lead singer is like interviewing a particularly self-effacing piece of stone) - but they're not that New! Perhaps that's because hyper- acceleration now seems to accompany breaking acts. A bunch of numpties from Idaho could do well at a local showcase in front of 12 people and we'll hear about it within minutes of them leaving the stage.

Further down the list, Nos 7 and 8 are highly questionable. The former is Chris Brown, a 16- year-old American r'n'b act who is so unknown he's just spent the last five weeks at the top of the US singles charts. The latter is a pretty boy ballad singer called Marcos Hernandez, who offers "sensitive songs with a Latin twist". OK, I'm not looking for the bleeding edge of industrial-goth- death metal on this list, but simpering boy band refugees?

The band who should have won this poll came in at No 3. The Feeling will arouse the same sort of initial suspicions as The Darkness did a few years ago. What the latter did for hair metal, The Feeling will be doing for middle-of-the-road soft rock, as in (gulp) 10cc-style soft rock. At a push you'd call it prog-pop, but there's still something very appealing about them.

The Feeling have that Magic Numbers-style bounce to their sound and obviously aren't tying themselves up in knots trying to sound like Babyshambles like the rest of the indie pack. It will be loving or loathing with The Feeling.

The same with the band at No 5, The Guillemots (pronounced "gullymots", I think), who are genuinely unclassifiable. Think an English Arcade Fire by way of Mogwai and Super Furry Animals. Sort of. A bit.

At No 6 is Sway - the big new noise on the London hip-hop scene. The Automatic, The Kaiser Chiefs-endorsed Welsh electro band, are at 10.

Out of all of them, though, the potentially massive band here are at No 9. Kubb sound like they were dreamt up by a marketing team (and may well have been, for all I know). What do they sound like? They're Coldplay for Smash Hits readers. And that's copyrighted.

bboyd@irish-times.ie