Who: Marina & the Diamonds (@marinasdiamonds)
Why?: As well as being a talented and gorgeous individual, burgeoning pop star Marina is also a genuinely nice person. It’s interesting to watch such a person become a pop star, which trust us, despite her tweet below, she will be by summer 2010.
Sample Tweet: “Can’t wait to be deemed the failure of 2010 ya’ll! Off to Hollywood to become an uber hot socialite now! Byyyyye!”

Who: Adebisi Shank (@adebisishank)
Why?: Humorous tweets from the Dublin frenetic rock trio taking in occasional reports from tours in Japan.
Sample Tweet: “Anyone get the Mr Tayto book? Was he really molested by the Monster Munch Cyclops?”

Who: John Mayer (@johncmayer)
Why?: Despite his music having less appeal than emptying the contents of a 40-year old bedpan over yourself, Mr .Mayer’s tweets are self-aware, tongue-in-cheek and thoroughly without the ego of a pop star.
Sample Tweet: “Sitting in a restroom stall. There is a man in the stall beside me. We’re both waiting for the other to leave. Entering minute 12.”

Who: Katy Perry (@katyperry)
Why?: Love her or hate her, Perry is the definition of spunky. She has 1.4 million followers and generally uses that power to post pictures of herself, her nails and giant ice cream sundaes.
Sample Tweet: “Dear driver, u think u just got away with a silent vomitous FART in the car BUT unbeknownst to u I just put u on blast on my twitter. Booya.”

Who: Calvin Harris (@calvinharris)
Why?: Famous for throwing tantrums on Twitter and generally being quite engaging, Harris most recently broke the news that he was in fact the stage invader on X-Factor last week.
Sample Tweet: “Was just thrown out of X-Factor for jumping onstage during Jedward with a pineapple on my head..”

Have any suggestions for who to follow – let us know @dayandnightmag

“Who is Sliimy?” was a phrase bandied about by many music celebs like Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Britney Spears on Twitter last month and within hours most of their followers (and intended audience) found out whether they wanted to or not. Sliimy turned out to be the first signing to celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton’s major label-backed record label Perezcious ( like “precious” but harder to pronounce), a French Mika-esque pop star with funny hair who releases an album in September.

Perez had enlisted the help of his celebrity friends to promote Sliimy to the masses. Perez may not be as groundbreaking as he intends to look though. Sliimy is already signed to Warner in France so Perez’s endorsement is merely an attempt to help Sliimy break into the U.S. Market.
While Perez has the pop culture platform for endorsing artists through tours and labels, on the other end of the scale, most are still relying on word of mouth and blogger recommendations to help them get where they want to go.

You couldn’t get more of a polar opposite to Perez than Neon Gold Records. The “boutique” New York-based label started by two New York college kids Lizzy and Derek began life as a blog in August last year with the express aim of releasing 7-inches of artists they were excited about. They used the music blog as their mouth-piece for getting the acts noticed and then would release 500 copies of each release, creating a hip label that majors now look to for upcoming acts.

Their indie-buzz acts have gone on to secure major label deals as the two became known as online tastemakers. Their first release was Passion Pit’s Sleepyhead – a band now signed to Sony, followed by the wonderful Marina and the Diamonds – now signed to Warner and playing Electric Picnic next week.

Most recently, Neon Gold have been bigging up the likes of London’s Ellie Goulding, Australian popster Goyte, Boston’s synth-heavy Yes Giantess, Swedish DIY pop band The Sound of Arrows and David Byrne soundalike Wolf Gang.

It proves that even without the mega-dollars hoarded by the likes of Perez, you can still make a difference. Expect many of these bands to be on the major label release schedule come the end of the year.

Snatch Wars
A video mashup between Guy Richie’s East-End gangster film and Star Wars introduces us to a foul-mouthed Brick Vader, London’s Lord of the Sith. Play nice now or he’ll cut your f**kin’ jacobs off.

Marina and the Diamonds – I Am Not A Robot
If this Greek/Welsh popstress is not a huge star in the next six months, I will eat my hat. The magnificent ‘I Am Not a Robot’ is the new video taken from The Crown Jewels EP.

Hoarsebox – Rosey
Dublin’s Hoarsebox are the latest recipient of a video from the 99 Dollar Music Video site. The video was directed by Dave Jackson for the grand total of €31.
http://www.99dollarmusicvideos.com