The Guardian have gone out and asked a bunch of industry insiders about the acts they think are going to break through in 2009. Think of this as a pre-cursor to the BBCs soon-to-be-released Sound Of 2009 poll which does something similar.

But most of these acts are already well on their way to fame and fortune, with many already signed. Spread the word about them by all means, but what about less well-known groups?

As I mentioned in this post, with less high-street options now that Zavvi has disappeared, the amount of choice for consumers is restricted. You’ve got to go online to catch new music acts – MySpace is one such place, but suffers from having an awful lot of dross to wade through before you find a decent band. I prefer Virb.com and PureVolume.com, because the userbase is a little more selected, presumably with people who didn’t want to get lost in the crowd at MySpace!

I get the occasional email from indie promoters, but you’d be surprised at how bad some of the acts they send through are. I normally don’t review them rather than say bad things about their music, which they probably work very hard on. Maybe I should include them anyway, and let the readers have their say?

I started a short-lived project in 2008 – a MySpace tour concept where you surfed MySpace for good bands, then found another good band in their friendlist and then surfed on to another band and so on. It should have went on for a lot longer than it did, but I came up against the problem that the last act didn’t have any good bands among their friends. What a shame.

Is that idea worth reviving? Possibly. Or the alternative option which is to ask one of the bands I’ve reviewed to recommend another band they admire.

I feel like Unreality Music has to do something to support indie music in 2009. Any ideas?