• Is contemporary music scary and bewildering to you?
• Are you stuck in the past?
• Is your name Gary Barlow, Pete Tong or Simon Cowell?

Then YOU might be one of the ‘20 Most Influential’ people in UK music (at least according to the Sunday Times and Debrett’s)

1. Lucian Grainge (CEO/Chairman, Universal Music Group)
2. David Joseph (CEO/Chairman, Universal Music UK)
3. Nick Gatfield (CEO/Chairman, Sony Music UK)
4. George Ergatoudis (Head Of Music, BBC Radio 1 & 1Xtra)
5. Simon Cowell (Founder, Syco)
6. Ian Hogarth (Founder, Songkick)
7. Jo Dipple (CEO, UK Music)
8. Alexis Petridis (Music Critic, The Guardian/GQ)
9. Tim Ingham (Editor, Music Week)
10. Mark Cooper (Head of Music TV, BBC)
11. Tom Connaughton (Director of Programming/Content, VEVO)
12. Pete Tong (Presenter/DJ)
13. Zane Lowe (Presenter/DJ, BBC Radio 1)
14. Simon Moran (Founder, SJM Concerts)
15. Oliver Schusser (Senior Director of International, iTunes)
16. James Cator (Manager of Content Partnerships, YouTube)
17. Kevin Brown (Head of EU Label Relations, Spotify)
18. Gary Barlow (Artist and songwriter)
19. Emily Eavis (Co-organiser, Glastonbury)
20. Jools Holland (Artist and TV presenter)

The thing is, other than the Grammy's (Daft Punk-fest 2014), this is the mainstream music news in January. Nothing is happening. It's sad that a list containing Zane Lowe could be considered news but because it's January the new Mogwai album has managed to go Top 10 because there is nothing else going on.

With that said, here's a link to stream the new Actress album (released today) and below is a track from the Bill Callahan dub album 'Have Fun with God' out now. Maybe good stuff does come out in January after all.