Fran Healy becomes kingmaker

Every year, the seat of learning that still shudders everytime it gets called "the Paul McCartney fame school" - so that's what we'll call LIPA - invites someone who should know to pick the best of the talents studying there to put together a showcase ep.

This year, Fran Healy's doing the honours, choosing the tracks that he believes will set the world alight.

It's an interesting choice - after all, when Travis were invited to pick the tracks which the world would love for their own album last year they didn't do very well. (Yes, there was a Travis album out last year - no, we hadn't realised, either.)

Last year's ep featured The Wombats who have managed to build a following and not just disappear straight away. After a few years burning through cash and relying on Liam Lynch to justify the spends ("look, he had a top ten hit and was on the radio") it does look like LIPA's finally started to turn out acts which are achieving some degree of profile. This might be partly because a new generation has bloomed who haven't got the same degree of cynicism about the whole project and so it's starting to attract people who could probably carve a chart career without going there; and at least it's slightly more credible than the Brits School.

[Thanks to Jonathan for the tip]