Stopcryingyourheartout.com — Beady Eye, Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds and The Vaccines are among the artists nominated for XFM's New Music Award.The award, which is given to the best album released by a British artist in the previous year, will be given out on February 8 at... more info

Brooklyn Vegan — James Blake at MHOW in 2011 (more by Amanda Hatfield) James Blake doesn't have too much coming up for 2012 at this point, but he'll be in NYC for the Tibet House Benefit at Carnegie Hall on February 13 with... more info

Guardian Music — Picking 12 acts to play A Room for London wasn't the hard part. For starters, how do you get a piano into a boat on a roof?The Roi des Belges began its life last summer in a barn in rural Sussex. A marriage of Plymouth steel and magenta-stained timbe... more info

Guardian Music — Francois & The Atlas Mountains Les Plus Beaux (Domino) There is no more soothing and happy a form of music than Nigerian hi-life. These French cats pay tribute to it in such an accomplished fashion it makes you willing to overlook the slightly annoyi... more info

Guardian Music — The new wave of vaguely miserable, web-friendly music for loners proves its makers need some sunshine and vitamin CAs the recent end-of-year and ones-to-watch lists have shown, the personnel may change but there's always a sense of déjà vu: there a... more info

NME.COM - Reviews Blog — NME's Leonie Cooper reviews this week's singles, featuring Pulled Apart By Horses, James Blake and The Ting Tings Pulled Apart By Horses [...] Read more! more info

Brooklyn Vegan — The Vaccines @ Escape to NY 2011 (more by Dana (distortion) Yavin) Speaking of even more bands that NME loves, The Vaccines, who are twitter friends with Howler, and part of the recently announced Coachella lineup, just announced a NYC... more info

Stereogum — The Brit Awards are the UK’s annual equivalent to the Grammys, and our British friends have a way of making their award-nominations lists look just slightly cooler than ours. And this year’s list of nominees, which was just announced, is positive... more info

Guardian Music — Full list of all the artists nominated in categories for this year's awardsBritish male solo artistEd Sheeran (Atlantic Records/Warner Music)James Blake (Polydor/Universal Music)James Morrison (Island/Universal Music)Noel Gallagher's High Flying Bird... more info

Guardian Music — With a compelling backstory that might even be true, Willis Earl Beal is hollering the blues so well XL has snapped him upHometown: Chicago.The lineup: Willis Earl Beal (voice, instruments).The background: Willis Earl Beal is the male answer to Cold ... more info