Pop-angled James Bay tipped for Brits Critics’ Choice as shortlist announced

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James Bay: a contender for 2015 Photograph: Maria Jefferis/Redferns via Getty Images

A smooth-faced young man with a gruff voice, a politically minded hip-hop performance poet and a dance-pop group fronted by a former actor in TV drama Skins have been anointed as the new acts in contention to become household names in 2015.
James Bay, George the Poet and Years & Years are the three shortlisted acts for next year’s Brits Critics’ Choice award.
In previous years, winning the prize has proved an accurate predictor of commercial success: the first winner, in 2008, was Adele, and she has been followed by Florence + the Machine, Ellie Goulding, Jessie J, Emeli Sandé, Tom Odell and Sam Smith.
The outside contender is George the Poet (real name George Mpanga) – a Cambridge graduate who has gained grassroots popularity posting his poems to YouTube.
While earnest, serious-minded British hip-hop seemed to have been dealt a blow with the commercial failure of Speech Debelle after she won the Mercury prize in 2009, it has seen a resurgence this year, with the acclaim for Young Fathers, this year’s Mercury winners, and the success of Kate Tempest, another performance poet setting words to beats.
Years & Years, meanwhile, are a three-piece group with a 90s-influenced dance-pop sound. Frontman Olly Alexander has a parallel career as a TV and film actor, with roles this autumn in the film The Riot Club and the TV series Penny Dreadful.
But the likely favourite is singer-songwriter James Bay, 24, who follows in a line of male singers who have achieved huge success in the past few years by matching inoffensive singer-songwriter pop to incongruously bluesy voices. He shares management with George Ezra, this year’s breakthrough act in that genre, as well as James Morrison, a previous exponent.
Virgin, Bay’s record company, has been pushing him hard, even doing what used to be commonplace but is now considered almost unthinkable for budget reasons – hosting a lunchtime showcase for tastemakers, with food and alcohol laid on.
A look at historical patterns suggests it’s not just the marketing muscle of Virgin – part of Universal, the world’s biggest record company – that makes him the likely winner. All the previous winners have been solo artists offering commercial, mainstream music – exactly what Bay does. No dance act has ever won and neither has a hip-hop artist.

These Old Instruments In Chinese Music Culture

As we all known, China is really a very ancient country in the world, so it own the old and abundant culture, of course, including the music culture. There are various types of instruments in Chinese music culture.

Huqin fiddles, suona oboes, the lute, and many of the other traditional instruments of China actually evolved from earlier instruments played by people in Central Asia. In fact, many of them were introduced to China via the Silk Road, but, as with so many other things, the Chinese absorbed them and made them their own.

The musician was playing a type of huqin, a musical instrument which has been dubbed a Chinese spike fiddle in the West — as the ceremony in the temple continued on. There was an older man next to him plucking a lute, another squeaking notes out on an oboe, and an entire percussion section beating out a rhythm on drums, chimes, and cymbals. The band consisted of six or seven members, and they squeaked, pounded, and squawked out something the Chinese call music as a row of men worshiped before the alter.

Various types of huqin are popular throughout China. They are incredibly simple instruments, and are often played by beggars in the street. But the man who was playing it in front of me wasn't just scrapping strings for coins: he really knew how to play it. I'm unsure if I ever watched someone in China play this type of fiddle with better precision. I had to remind myself at one point that the instrument that was resonating sounds through the temple was just two strings attached to a stick that was stuck in a drum that was stroked with horse hair.

Called the "Chinese oboe," a musical instrument known here as a suǒnà hung from a pillar of the temple. It had a long, wooden body that terminated at a detachable metal bell. The top of which had a brass attachment within which a reed was placed. The sound it makes can only be described as a controlled squeak. I watched as a few of the musicians assembled along the side of the temple and all began playing these oboes together. The sound which resonated from them was "trumpet-esque" in the way they totally took control of the melody.

I have no idea what this instrument is called, but its sound is somewhere between a Jewish shofar and a trombone. It is essentially a retractable brass tube with a magnificent bell at the bottom. The musicians were either proud of the fact that it was made in Taiwan or they were trying to tell me that it originated here. Watch the video below to hear the sound of this instrument, it's impressive.