This list may not reflect recent changes (learn more). The album by this accomplished graphic artist united the visual and aural to create a portfolio of instrumental moods. It’s a compact set-up, but one that produces a huge, orchestral sound. Brendan Shine (born 1947) is an Irish folk and country singer, television presenter and accordion player from Athlone, with 5 Irish number 1 singles…. LM, “Pop” is a dirty word in some elitist music circles, but there’s no denying that The Blizzards are masters of their art. It gets a release via Gonzo Records on April 10th. Music The 50 Musicians You Need To Know From Each State In The U.S. (Part 1) LM, This Dundalk trio aren’t especially well-known; they’re not part of any scene, they don’t have a deliberate “angle”, and they haven’t scored a single hit. For every pattern of bleeps, there are dusty chimes and organic beats. TCL, They don’t gig regularly or release an album every 18 months, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore one of the best Irish bands of the past decade. That was then, though, and this is now. www.myspace.com/michael knight.ie LM, “Whimsical”, “endearing”, “strikingly original”, “dark and dreamy” ... You will read and hear many positive things about Dubliner David Turpin’s 2008 debut album Sweet Used to Be. It’s a cliché, but it really is the quiet ones you have to watch out for. Is he any good? There are multiple artists with the name Margo: 1.

www.myspace.com/heathers whatsyourdamage JC. Hot 100 55th Anniversary: Top 100 Songs of All Time Ireland has, quite simply, never seen a band like Fight Like Apes. Nathan was born in Liverpool to parents from Northern Ireland.

Certainly not any of those who paid him to cut their hair when he was a young hairdresser in a salon called Zakk's in Belfast.

It was a raucous night and an impressive display of watertight power-pop, with concentrated harmonies and elements of punk and ska. www.thedivinecomedy.com LM. Fast-forward to 2008, and Halfset - by this stage doubled to four members with the inclusion of harpist/pianist Sinéad Nic Gearailt and drummer Cillian McDonnell - released the utterly beguiling, quietly triumphant Another Way of Being There. News of their forthcoming split came as a blow to fans who expected great things from the young quartet. Along came this skinny Downpatrick trio, who looked like they’d just walked off stage at their school’s Battle of the Bands competition. Early releases, such as De Niro, a Positivasingle with Ashley Beedle under the Disco Evangalists banner, led to more work. Yet it’s only a gimmick if there’s no substance underneath, and their astonishing debut album Fight Like Apes and The Mystery of the Golden Medallion, an album that encompasses melancholy and whimsy (both lyrically and musically), is testament to their worth. There have been many critically lauded (and hyped) music acts over the years that have quickly turned from snow to slush overnight, but Hannigan’s songs have, virtually uniquely, managed to stay fresh - despite having received far more airplay than would be usual for a singer of her lowly stature. Peter Wilson is the curious one in the list. The Holy Pictureswas a record about Holmes and his people. Through a sequence of solo albums over the past 10 years, however - as well as projects that could easily fall into avant-garde categories in the areas of theatre and spoken word - Coughlan has steered clear of placing himself and his music in a corner. www.thejimmycake.org SG. The lists were merged, the scores added, and what you see here are the top 50 from all four judges.

Yet the success of the album in this country and beyond (coupled with a nationwide tour of virtually sell-out shows, plus appearances on US chat shows hosted by Conan O’Brien and David Letterman) shows how these fears were misplaced. There was both eating and drinking in last year’s hugely engaging debut album from these Dublin freak-folk rockers. Synth and percussion-heavy melodies are spliced with Lambert’s Spanish-style guitar plucking. www.damienrice.com TCL. Oodles of radio play, particularly on a national level, further testified to the album’s winning ways. None of them has seen the full list before this morning. Look on you indie snobs and despair. Much of the disdain about The Script springs from the fact that two of the three members cut their teeth in also-ran boyband MyTown. Yet their recently-released album, No Line on the Horizon, is less of a masterpiece than many critics are claiming; indeed, it contains some of the most mediocre music U2 have created, something that seems to have been doggedly overlooked in the rush to lionise them (which is also occasionally justified). As a founder of Kila, and member of both The Frames and Glen Hansards Swell Season, Colm Mac Con Iomaire has taken his time in venturing outside of an ensemble. The following 200 pages are in this category, out of approximately 223 total.

www.delorentos.net LM, Wilfully provocative, perversely kicking against the pricks, spitting invective, pissing off dyed-in-the-wool Christy Moore fans - you have to hand it to Dundalk’s Jinx Lennon for telling it like it is in an accent that could cut strips off a shank of ham, and for fearlessly eyeballing a non-partisan audience.

But with 2004’s classy pop/rock Flood the Tanks and last month’s filigree-folk To the Pine Roots, Archer finally blew his cover. With his band The Divine Comedy, the Derry-born musician’s career has spanned two decades, but it’s not just the critical praise that makes him a significant figure - it’s his trademark velvety baritone, his infamous dry wit, and a panache that’s evident both on record and live. When I listen to something like De Nironow, I cringe a bit. (Ruby Murray springs to mind; ask your Grandad.) The dreadlocked, eye- linered musician surrounds himself with arcane recording artefacts and even, on occasion, borrows from the music of long- gone Northern Ireland stars. Here are the results, It’s baffling how this band’s output has been mostly neglected by Irish audiences - so much so that its underappreciated protagonist has relocated to Berlin. Once best known as bassist for über-respected instrumentalists The Redneck Manifesto, Richie Egan’s side project, Jape, originally began as an outlet for his own mellow acoustic meanderings.