It's the first great album of 2009!

No. Not Lily Allen.

The Antony & The Johnsons album, The Crying Light may be, on the surface, more of the same depressing and beautiful piano balladry, but if you dig deeper it's a hauntingly dark record about environmentalism. We know... doesn't exactly sound a thrilling hoot, does it?

Well anyway it's bloody brilliant and completely lush and if this isn't in the top 20, or even 10 records of 2009, it will have been a 'bloody, fucking' (technical term) amazing year for albums.

Speaking of which... almost every year there are at least 2 blindingly good POP records that just come completely out of leftfield. Last year it was Ladyhawke and Lady GaGa, the year before it was Robyn and Róisín, the year before it was... er... well in 2006 we didn't run a showbiz blog so we can't really remember. It was probably Margaret Berger and er... Nelly Furtado (!?). Actually 2006 was a good year for mainstream artists making brilliant pop records. Nelly, Justin, Shakira, Beyoncé...

WE'VE GONE ON A TANGENT.

Where were we?

*gives up*

OH YES. So we're hoping that this year we get at LEAST 2 amazing out-of-the-blue pop records and we're hoping that they come from either Little Boots or La Roux. We're sure anything Janelle Monáe releases will be blinding, but we're not sure if she works within the confines of 'pop'. So there we go. Little Boots and La Roux, the pressure is on. Fantastic pop albums, please, OR BLOODY ELSE.