Love him or hate him, he has been undoubtedly the most influential person in pop music in the 21st century.

His production work as part of the Neptunes is top notch - Kelis's early work is pop music at its best. Also, he single-handedly transformed Justin Timberlake from boyband joke to credible solo performer... If Michael Jackson had took up the offer of using those tracks first, then things would have been massively different from what entailed.

Also his work as part of N.E.R.D. is bonafide pop/hip hop crossover gold - Overall, while his rise as a mainstream success as seen him become almost unavoidable, I'd sooner put up with him than some of the other stuff which is forced on the music world nowadays.

Yes... remind me to thank him for that never

Pharrell must have had a fantastic agent in the last couple of years.

Why?..... People want him to work with them, or produce their records, and he obliges - I don't think his agent or management have to chase anybody for work, more likely its the other way around.

I don't doubt that and his production discography is an impressive one. I'm just still trying to get my head around the whole Daft Punk Random Access Memories thing. I can't work out whether it's a stroke of genius or just a classic example of too many cooks spoiling the broth. I've listened to a lot of 1970s/80s underground disco and Daft Punk's R.A.M. is a bit 'coffee table' in comparison, especially when you consider the personnel involved.

Regarding the Brit Awards, I've heard Royal Blood & Foo Fighters, but how many of the other winners are actually musicians?

The music industry is rapidly filling up with celebrities who can sing a bit.

Its quite interesting really, because its often said that the music industry goes round in circles.... In the 70's, mainstream music had become stale and very, very poor in quality, then Punk, New Wave and the New Romantics came along, and for a short period mainstream music became bearable.... That then faded away and was eventually replaced with the worst era in music ever, the late 80's, when utter rubbish like Wet Wet Wet, Simply Red, Phil Collins and rock groups with bubble perms were forced down people's throats and they sold records by the bucketload.

Eventually, people saw the error of their ways, and even that bastion of e, Radio 1, began to sack that lot off, as Madchester, Grunge and Britpop brought a whiff of 'cool' to the mainstream.... Sadly, that faded away, as talentless gimps like Robbie Williams jumped on the bandwagon and with the introduction of the glorified karaoke that is X Factor, we now find ourselves with the awful situation we are in right now, where somebody as bland and boring as Ed Sheeran is seen as cutting edge...



Hopefully, if history proves correct, we should pretty soon see some sort of shift change in the music scene.... However, it will require mainstream radio to show some balls and rid itself of the collection of chancers who currently infiltrate the airwaves, and instead find presenters who actually believe in the music and are not just in the business to be matey with the One Direction's and Sam Smith's of the world... People like Nick Grimshaw, Scott Mills and Fearne Cotton are absolute poison in this respect, with their constant promotion of the X Factor glitterati and their ilk.

Of course, there is still great music to be found if you mine a bit deeper than the mainstream, but as for the Brits, for the foreseeable future, they will only get a lot, lot worse.

Agree with everything but I just can't see a new 'scene' emerging and staying around for any length of time. Music is so easily accessible and equally throw-away that even fresh, cutting edge stuff just doesn't stay around long enough to create anything more than a ripple. It's something we were discussing recently, how a musical genre creates a whole lifestyle in terms of fashion and culture. The last memorable one really was acid house. I just can't see where the next punk or acid house is coming from.

I have no interest in mainstream music or fashion, there is tons of great stuff around - from brand new to back to the 60s. My last purchases were Wave Pictures & The Seekers. Both brilliant. But every now & then I look at an article or see the top 40 & realise how far removed I (thankfully) am from the largely talentless current trend.

I really, really wish i worked in a place where i had no access to commercial radio stations who peddle this absolute crap down our ears 24/7. It still irks me to this day that on the day that Oasis announced their split, two pillock DJ's on Real Radio (now Heart, awful station still though), proclaimed ''they only had one or two good songs anyway'', then proceeded to spend the rest of their show talking inane sh*t about how good Katy Perry, Take That, Robbie Williams and Lagy Gaga are. Summed it all up for me. When Real XS is on at work it makes the day so, so much better.

Announced this afternoon that she's leaving R1.... you got the lotto numbers, mate?

She's to be replaced by somebody from 1xtra...... so... yeah... that'll be much better.....

Century/Real/Heart (keeps changing it's name) is aimed at 35+ women. Trouble is, because it's a well known station a lot of work places will have it on. The same songs are played every day. Popular 80's hits, 90's commercial dance and modern chart hits, either by a boyband or a female soloist. Then they advertise it as 'more music variety' :S

Alabama 3

Saw them at Off The Tracks festival a few years back. Really enjoyable.

Lighthouse Family - singer has got the most boring voice ever.

I was chatting to someone about the Lighthouse Family the other day. Despite their albums being pretty unspectacular, there were some tremendous dance remixes by high profile producers such as François Kevorkian, Itaal Shur, Tuff Jam and Todd Terry.

Dance remixes - bah! Guitars and drums, that's proper music

Nirvana, the original Nirvana from the 60's where superb, the one led by Cobain were e

Of course they were.

Biffy Clyro. Hate them with a passion!

Mumford and Sons - Proper radio 1 student/indie club fodder.
Kings of Leon - can't understand why they are so popular
The Wombats

Their first album "Youth and Young Manhood" is very good - sadly it was all down hill from there IMO. They gained popularity on their 2nd, their 3rd offering led them to stadium rock stadom/status - but not a patch on their earlier work.

He should never of cut the hair, that first album was awesome, the second was good, the third i bought but didn't rate much, not bothered with them since, though may give YAYM a quick spin before evening dinner

Tea.