Boys with guitars, bad. Girls with laptops, good

If you're a bloke and you're in a guitar band, I'd sit 2009 out if I were you. If you look at who's been signed, and where the smart promotional money is going, it's all going to be about the female electro artist.

For the last year the AR hordes have been haughtily dismissing indie guitar bands with a "you're so over" grimace - and the only artists allowed through the record company turnstiles these days are eccentric girls with laptops and weird songs. Think Amy, Lily, Kate, Adele, Duffy.

Now that the marketplace is saturated with retro r'n'b-tinged warblers, the cry has gone out for something a bit more Kate Bush meets Britney. The response has been overwhelming.

This new bunch hardly learned their music listening to Definitely Maybe. They mix and match styles, looks and sounds as quick as they update their MySpace pages. And, if any decade has provided an inspiration, it's the synth-laden MTV sound of the 1980s - albeit with an ironic detachment.

Now they're all over the BBC's "Sound of 2009" poll. The annual poll, which picks the most likely acts to break through, has an enviable record. More than 130 industry professionals contribute to the voting and, as some indication of how accurate they were last year, look at their top four: Adele, Duffy, Ting Tings, Glasvegas.

A 15-strong long list for Sound of 2009 has been published, and the overall winner will be announced in mid-January. Only two standard guitar bands made it onto the list (it was 50 per cent last year) but there are five solo females.

From the list, here are the top five acts you should be looking out for this year:

Florence and the Machine Only

22, Florence Welch is the most abundantly talented female to emerge in years. A recovering indie kid from South London, Welch's lyrics sound like a cross between Edgar Allan Poe and Lewis Carroll, and the music would be on the same spectrum as Joanna Newsom. Welch doesn't do straightforward: she can't write about herself, so instead she takes massive, imaginative leaps into made-up lands. If she can harnesses her talent properly and hold back on the "I'm weird, I am", she could be the most exciting female presence since Kate Bush.

Lady Gaga This American multi- media artist proclaims herself "the future of pop music", and she has a point: Stefani Joanne Germanotta is the missing evolutionary link between Cristina Aguilera and Madonna (for the brief period that she was any good). Naming herself after a Queen song (how charmingly dense), Lady Gaga comes across as Andy Warhol trying to invent a Britney Spears but giving up halfway through.

Temper Trap This is the best new band from Down Under in years. Attention first flew their way when it emerged that the renowned producer Jim Abbiss (Massive Attack, Björk, Arctic Monkeys) agreed to fly to Australia to produce the then unsigned band. Imagine how The Killers would sound if they were on The Factory label and you're getting there. Huge ambition and potential.

La Roux This is the stage name of Elly Jackson, who has taken the 1980s MTV sound of A Flock of Seagulls et al and given it a going over. The Londoner has a face and a look that will probably see her on the cover of a fashion magazine before a music one, but there's a sheen to Jackson's work that will propel her straight into the charts. Prince is no doubt getting in touch with her as we speak.

White Lies The most old-fashioned and orthodox band on the list. These moody London rockers pitch themselves somewhere between The Cure and Joy Division, but keep their foot on the pop pedal. When the emo kids get respectable jobs, this is the sort of music they'll be listening to on their MP3 players during board meetings.

Opinion: Temper Trap should win the overall poll.

Prediction: But Florence and the Machine actually will.

bboyd@irishtimes.com