If 2007 was a slightly disappointing year for new music then 2008 promises to offer at least a little more variety. Dance music, for example, for so long in the doldrums and reliant on one-off novelty hits for stupid people, co-opted indie bands (Klaxons) and dull remixes of mainstream chart hits, is showing signs of a renaissance. Not only are Basement Jaxx due a new album but there are a slew of new acts ready to go.

Ali Love, Pendulum, James Yuill, Ebony Bones all offer a slightly different take on dance moves (Ali Love is at the pop end of the spectrum, James Yuill offers a cerebral angle, while Pendulum and Ebony Bones just want to make you shake things) but it’s the New Yorker Santogold, with her sparkling blend of dancehall, electro and techno who promises to be the year’s most interesting newcomer.

Following the success of Lily Allen and Kate Nash you can bet there will be more solo female wannabes stretching their vowels and sharpening their blogs; however, the best new girls will be the ones ploughing their own furrow.

As well as the likes of Laura Marling (a 17-year-old from Berkshire with a wry line in folk pop) and Annie, the four females with the mostest are Lykke Li, whose sweetly saucy pop packs a high IQ, Adele, a more robust, less brittle Amy Winehouse, Duffy, a blonde soul siren with oomph, and the quite wondrously barmy Scandinavian Ida Maria, whose freshly packed, raucous but irresistibly tuneful indie pop brings to mind an inebriated Bjork fronting The Strokes.