2009 is approaching fast and so it’s time to look back at 2008. Here we’ll see the high and lowlights of the first three months of the year, with a selection of stories we covered between January and March.

January

The month began with Queen being named as the best British band of all time, beating The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Take That, and Oasis. Sad news in the middle of the month when Lily Allen suffered a miscarriage. She later split with boyfriend Ed Simons.

Geri Halliwell claimed that the Spice Girls wouldn’t make a penny from their huge world tour despite it selling out everywhere. She was later proved a liar when it was revealed the girls had made $20 million apiece. Then the once-great girl group canceled the tour and split up again.

The Cribs took Johnny Marr, formerly of The Smiths, on as a fourth member, while Amy Winehouse finally entered rehab.

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Some of the bloggers here on the b5 music channel decided to record our Soundtrack For A Day yesterday. This could take different forms, be it all the songs you listened to on that day, a selection from certain moments, or a particular album.

I decided to stick my media player on random and note down the first 50 songs it played, and here is the result.

As a full time blogger who works from home, music is very important to me as it can change the mood of my day. Pressing the random button is therefore a bit of a gamble but this time it didn’t let me down.

Notice the amount of British songs in the collection! That’s not engineered in any way, just proof that that is where my big love in music lies. There are also some brilliant American and Irish bands in there too, and of course, Abba…

Stereophonics - Mr Writer
The Feeling - Join With Us
Foo Fighters - Times Like These
Art Brut - Stand Down
The Killers - On Top
Coldplay - Spies
The Kooks - Got No Love
Radiohead - Videotape
The Hoosiers - Worried About Ray
Maximo Park - By The Monument
The Jam - All Around The World
Girls Aloud - Long Hot Summer
Snow Patrol - Gleaming Auction
Jimi Hendrix - House Burning Down
Therapy? - Knives
Tricky - Ponderosa
Lily Allen - Everything’s Just Wonderful
The Rolling Stones - Honky Tonk Woman
Linkin Park - Nobody’s Listening
Rage Against The Machine - People Of The Sun
Nina Simone - Feeling Good
REM - It’s The End Of The World As We Know It
The Young Knives - Another Hollow Line
Paul Simon - The Boy In The Bubble
The Specials - Too Much Too Young

See the second half of my 50 song list after the cut…

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One of my favourite British bands, and one who don’t get the recognition, or chart success they deserve, have announced their upcoming US tour, and this is my call to arms for all of you Americans reading this to go and see them live.

At the end of last month, The Cribs announced the addition of a fourth member, that being legendary Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, to their line up, and now they are heading out on a US tour.

The run of shows will begin in Houston on March 11, and end in Los Angeles on April 4.

The line-up includes two live performances at the SXSW festival in Austin, where according to NME, “the band will perform at the venues La Zona Rosa and Stubbs in the daytime and evening, respectively.”

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There were rumours of a famous fourth member being added to The Cribs band line up earlier this month, and now that new band mate for the Jarman brothers has been revealed as Johnny Marr.

Two weeks ago, guitarist brother Ryan Jarman told The Independent:

“We have decided to change the format of the band. We feel like we have become quite comfortable now and that isn’t always a good thing.”

“I think it’s good to mess things up and change. So we have decided that we are going to bring someone new into the band. I think people will be really surprised when they hear who it is because the person is quite well known.”

That lead to intense speculation over the identity of the fourth member, with most people assuming the band could be taking a real change of direction by adding Kate Nash to the band. Maybe that was just the result of some romantic thinking because Kate is currently seeing Ryan.

Now the band have finally revealed the true identity, and explained how the collaboration with the former Smiths guitarist came about.

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I’ve been writing this blog for over 3 months now, and hopefully some of you are reading and enjoying Brit Music Scene. I’ve strived to bring you all the latest news, reviews, gossip and low-down on everything to do with the British Music Scene, and I think I’ve done a good job.

So in a further effort to educate my readers and bring some good music to your ears, here are 10 British music artists you should discover.

Now some of you will know all of the groups I talk about, especially if you happen to be in the UK, but some of you may not have heard of any of them.

Seeing as most of my readers are from the USA, I’d say that’s a pretty safe bet. So in my opinion here are 10 bands or singers who you should discover, listen to for a bit and maybe even grow to love as much as I do.

For your pleasure, I’ve made a play list with my favourite tune from each artist, and you can listen to it while the read the rest of the post below, you lucky so and so’s.

They are all British, they are all absolutely brilliant, and you need to hear about them right now. Enjoy…

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Carrying on the trend for reviewing singles about 2 weeks late I’m afraid. I will catch up honest, it’s just bad time management that’s all! Here we have The Cribs new single called ‘Moving Pictures’ which was released on July 30th in the UK.

I’m a big fan of The Cribs, well at least their music that is, some of their attitude and controversial rantings just annoy the hell out of me. I had enough of that kind of bitching during the Britpop era of British music, when Oasis claimed everyone else was crap apart from them. They were the biggest band in the world at the time though, so at least had some justification. The Cribs are still on their way up however, and have yet to reach the top of their career arc.

This song is very much in keeping with The Cribs usual style of single, with punk drums and noisy guitars being layered under both singing brothers throaty vocals. If you don’t know much about The Cribs or have never heard of them, they are all brothers, with twins Ryan and Gary Jarman joined by younger brother and drummer Ross. Take a look at the video, the similarity is pretty plain to see.

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