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Ok, so first off I must iterate the fact that this particular run down is in no particular order, nor is it a definitive list of the best British record labels of all time (as if such a breakdown could ever be truly quantified). It is simply a list of some personal favourites within the British...MORE>>

Daniel Merriweather may neither be a name, nor a face that you’ll be initially familiar with. Yet the South-Australian songsmith’s smooth, sultry soprano was catapulted into the public awareness, and subsequently the UK pop charts as the lead vocal on Marks Ronson’s ubiquitous, Nu-Soul escapade, ‘Stop Me’. I can hear the collective “hmm’s” of realisation as the musical penny drops, each of you starting to sing Ronson’s pervasive summer super-smash, that’s the voice behind the song.

It seemed only a matter of time

before Merriweather, with his tranquil demeanour, poster-boy good looks & unabashed appreciation for old-school Soul, would be head-hunted but major record companies, to join the new soul elite, along with the likes of Ms. Winehouse, Adele, John Legend et al.

 Such proved the case, and less than half a year since Merriweather’s initially

unbridled, yet generally anonymous assault upon the charts, he’s back within public earshot with a major record contract, a debut album & a debut single; the frustratingly singable ‘Cash In My Pocket’.

Despite opting into a lot of Hip-Hop’s less than favourable clichés regarding ‘Bling’ and monetary acquisition, ‘Cash In My Pocket’ is an altogether more enjoyable, innocent outing. Merriweather’s soulful serenading being juxtaposed by WILEY’s incontrovertibly urban verse creates a lyrical & musical antithesis, which gives the young soulster’s debut single just the right amount of jaggedness to disparage any claims that such a track be considered saccharin or vacuous.

And whilst overly optimistic to interpret ‘Cash In My Pocket’ as either a biting satirical examination of our consumer-capitalism obsessed times or a collective call to arms for the massed consciousness of a country gripped by a credit crunch, it is, undoubtedly, an energy fuelled outing which would be far more suited upon a high-summer soundtrack, however hats off to the guys at Marlin Records, a clever bit of marketing either way.

It’s a rather safe bet to assume ‘Cash In My Pocket’ will infiltrate the highest ranks of the single’s chart in the coming months, having amassed an impressive amount of radio play, both through commercial & public stations, but the odds are still out as to whether Merriweather’s long term musical prowess will be executed.

 With a veritable proliferation of pseudo-soul artists currently parading up and down our charts & in and out of our music publications, it’s hard to be able to predict if Merriweather will find his own sub-urban, Soul niche or if he will sink to the bottom of the new-school soul scrap heap. The latter however would be rather unfortunate.

Nevertheless, if it’s true that all Merriweather wants is cash in his hand & money in his pocket, then this particular musical inception will certainly see to that.