"See her picture in a thousand places, cos she's this year's girl..."

So the White Lies album is released this week. Relax, I'm not going to fall into the trap of giving it a review here. Besides, I haven't listened to yet. But those of you who've been reading this for a while will already know my thoughts on their live show and what I thought of Fear of Flying, so I won't repeat myself. Besides, you are probably sick to the teeth of reading about them on those New Bands For 2009 lists where people described as 'industry movers and shakers' (IMSs) pick their tips for the forthcoming year.

I mention White Lies because in another week of industry changes (Apple dropping its DRM, the Astoria closing, my local Asda no longer selling CDs), it's nice to cling on to good old fashioned highly-anticipated albums.

I was out with one of those IMSs last week. Tellingly, we actually went to the London Art Fair instead of seeing a band. It was fantastic, by the way, particulary the amount of Terry Frost stuff which, if I had a spare £20K, I would sooner invest in than a bank.

Afterwards over a bowl of noodles, the IMS lamented the lack of anything genuinely exciting out there. Now, this may sound like the usual jaded A&R whinge of cliche. Not so. Well, not so with this chap anyway, he's normally ludicrously positive about everything - there's generally a silver lining for him, even in acts which I can't imagine getting beyond their first single. With him, they get to the album and more often than not end up on the cover of NME. Sometimes they even sell loads of records. Not that I'm jealous of him or anything, you understand.

He actually has a lot of time for White Lies but beyond that - looking at the landscape of unsigned and newly-signed artists - he claimed that there really wasn't anything sure-fire exciting out there in the way that there is most Januarys.

But from all those IMS lists you wouldn't think that there was a dearth of new stuff, would you? How many times have you read the names Little Boots, Empire of the Sun, Florence And the Machine and La Roux? They were all present and correct on BBC's Sound of 2009 list, a list which has become such an institution since it tipped Duffy and Adele that news of Little Boots' top nomination ended up making the national TV news. They were also there in the Guardian, The Times, the NME and then were repeated ad infinitum down the chain of lesser titles who always follow suit with their 'picks'. I remember when I was an editor at AOL Music and we did our inevitable image gallery of annual music tips. Despite my loathing of many of the choices, like a coward I would always include tips from other media's lists because I didn't want to be seen missing anything. Remember when you couldn't move for accolades for The Bravery or Holly Valance? Incidentally, you really should click on that Bravery link and read it, then read this year's BBC tips - it will make you smile and nod sagely.

In yesterday's Observer Music Monthly list, there had clearly been an effort to swerve away from some of the more obvious choices and well done them for trying. The interesting thing about all the tipping this year is that with the record business in freefall, there is less and less chance of any of these tipped bands actually amounting to very much more than hot tips. Both Duffy and Adele were heavily invested in - certainly Duffy had to happen, the financial consequences would have just been too dreadful to contemplate if it hadn't worked. If the tipster's goal of 'getting it right' of being able to say at the beginning of the following year,"Yeah, we spotted Duffy ages ago" then the safest bet is to tip the artist who you know the record company is backing. Yes, that's why we all backed The Bravery in 2004.

Press expectation and the marketing budgets for White Lies are of a level that we now see less and less of; there simply isn't enough cash to do it on every new act. So aside from their Joy Division-meets-Duran Duran sound, there is something heart-warmingly old-fashioned about the whole White Lies vehicle, with its press ubiquity, its TV advertising and universal approval. That's with a small 'u' by the way. Even reviews where quite clearly the critic does not get it have been positive. Let's be honest, it is noveau goth music of the sort that teeenage boys can't get enough of; it's not made for 30-something critics who would rather be listening to Bon Iver (there, got a reference in this week, high five!). So critics have to judge it whilst wearing short trousers to avoid sounding dad-like.

In a similar way, I reviewed Graham Norton's debut in La Cage Aux Folles last night - except instead of short trousers, I had to review it in drag. I don't find camp funny of itself and most of the humour in La Cage is derived out of the assumption that men in glittery dresses and wigs is hilarious. But once I got into the spirit - and Norton, despite a limited vocal range, does a fairly good job - I found myself humming along to I Am What I Am along with the middle aged ladies and male couples sharing M&Ms.

Damn, this week, I wanted to go through the critics' picks of acts for 2009 and give you my informed and unbiased opinion on all of them. Instead, I've told you I like Sir Terry Frost and caberet. But would you really be interested to know what I think of Little Boots? Perhaps if I'd seen her live I would tell you but you don't need me to tell you what I think of her recordings - go and listen yourself. My one thought on her is this - and it probably applies to all the other lucky tipped artists too: in her Guardian Magazine feature two weeks ago, the interview ended with the usual bold copy where tradtionally, information pertaining to the release date of her record would be. But instead of these details it merely stated that we could hear her music on Myspace. Let's hope Atlantic are saving up a White Lies-sized budget for her campaign.

Out on the town

The bloke in front is really annoying me now. Earlier on during the set, he was a mild irritation - a fly buzzing in the background, occasionally knocking against the windowpane - now he's a next door neighbour undertaking a major DIY job at 10pm on a Sunday night.

There he is, right in front of where we're standing - quite near the front of the stage in fact - chatting to his mates, leaping about all over the place to pull 'amusing' faces at girls, raising his arm in the air and doing some weird flicky thing with his fingers when he hears a song he thinks he recognises; except the flicky thing is neither in time with the music nor in keeping with the fact that he's at a Goldfrapp show. Kasabian, maybe, Oasis definitely - but not Goldfrapp.

Where do these people come from? I wonder. And at what point do they decide, yeah, you know what I'm going to pay thirty quid to see that dirty bird with the lalalala song who isn't Kylie - what's her name? Sounds a bit like one of those Starbucks coffees...

I'm aware I'm sounding like some old fella at the back who shushes people at Bert Jansch gigs but you know, if you come to a gig, get in the spirit of the thing! I'm here with someone who works at EMI and so traditionally we should be the annoying freeloaders who don't appreciate the ticket price and talk in loud voices all the way through the show. But actually we're both real fans. Much earlier in the year, I waxed in this very blog about Seventh Tree by Goldfrapp and I still stand by what I wrote - it's one of the albums of the year and no doubt will end up in many end of year Best Album lists. Mind you, it will be at position 87 much further behind more superficially exciting stuff like Glasvegas or Bon Iver - neither of whom, incidentally, I have been able to listen to more than once. But that's pop for you.

Talking of overrated things, I went to see Damon Alban's Monkey opera last week. I was reviewing it, so again, you could argue that my opinion doesn't hold as much weight as someone who paid good money for a ticket, but I have to say I really didn't like as much as I thought I was going to. Maybe it was the whole expectation thing - everyone I know who had seen it either in Manchester or at the Royal Opera House or in one case, Paris, darling! Everyone was raving. The costume, the music, the choreography... oh what a tremendous show, they all said.

My view... well, you can read the review. When I phoned in the star rating (three out of five) so they could have this for their editorial meeting, I distinctively got the impression that they were surprised I hadn't shouted "Five! No, fuck it, six out of five - it's a mindblower, my friends, start queuing now before it's too late!"

And who could blame them? Everyone else seems to have loved it and you know what, it is spectacular and the music and costumes are good, but come on, if it's supposed to have a story then let's have that made preeminent. As it was, even if you religiously read the surtitles (the show is in Mandarin, Parklife fans) you mainly got the libretto which only embellished a story you were supposed to already familiar with. On the subject of the surtitles by the way, they weren't 'sur' at all but 'side' - the stage was flanked with screens which forced any audience member keen on finding out what the hell was going on to constantly turn his head from stage to screen and back again; the cast must have thought they were watching crowd at Wimbledon. Monkey Tennis indeed.

Come to think of it, the side-titles were the wayward star of the opening night: during one particularly incomprehensible Mandarin moment, we swiveled our heads round to find out what had just been said and were greeted with a random string of letters splayed across the screen "ttttttttttyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.. aaaa" as if a small child had been given free rein with the keyboard in the backstage side-titles suite. This was quickly replaced with the blank screen familiar to anyone who has had Powerpoint presentation issues. Shortly after this, we were treated to the sight of Damon's manager panicking past us towards the side-title suite with a large dose of Short Shrift.

I went out to see some new stuff last week too. I missed cutesy Brooklyn threepiece Chairlift at the Dublin Castle who lots of people seem to be looking at because I was having an interesting conversation in the restaurant over the road (one of the bonuses of being an A&R spectator is that if I don't fancy going I don't have to - brilliant!) Next night, I was asked out by a mate to see some more new groups that the industry are currently foaming up over.

First up, we went to Bar Rumba on Shaftsbury Avenue - not the usual venue you'd expect to find the future of music - a basement underneath the cinema and shopping centre. The band were female fronted and called Pageboy. My heart sank during the first song because the singer - seemingly styled by the Partridge Family in high-cut flared jeans with braces and fringe over her eyes - had one of those voices which is keen on revealing everything in one line of a song - vowel-stretching, yeah-ing, yelping and showing plenty of Come Awns, she was intent on proving just how damn good a voice she had. In my head I was forming sentences like Duffy singing for Toploader, but once the second song began it was as if the voice felt its work was done and the human being could come out and it was actually pretty good - more like Ann Peebles or Amy Winehouse, authentic, soulful and melodic. Bizarrely, I was greeted Bob Stanley who was watching Pageboy too. Kind of like seeing John Martyn at a McFly show.

Next up we braved the doors at the Hoxton Bar and Grill and got away with not having the right trousers. We were there to see the brilliantly-named Ou Est Le Swimming Pool, an inevitably East London threepiece who turned out to be a Klaxons-with-rapping combo with a neat line in chorus and very strong voices. Handsome fellas too - although the keyboard player had something of the night about him.

Still, at Monkey, at Pageboy and indeed in a club almost entirely full of Hoxton fashionista (the type who all have three jobs - DJ, photographer, club promoter - as well as three simultaneous haircuts) I fortunately didn't encounter anyone remotely as irritating as the gurning buffoon at Goldfrapp. Of course, mid set, as the fawn and stag mask-wearing backing vocalists stood back for some wonderfully pervy folk dancing (a brilliant juxtaposition of maypole- and pole-dancing) I walked up to him and had a word. He was instantly subdued and massively apologetic, promising never to behave like such a twat again and everyone around me slapped me on the shoulder and offered to buy me a pint.

No, of course that's not what happened. What actually happened was this: I pretended he wasn't there and after a while, aside from occasionally looming up like baboon in a wildlife park, he really didn't bother me. A response, I think you'll agree, very much in keeping with the warped English repression of a Goldfrapp show.