Merry Christmas! Sexy Santa Shahira Barry eyes single release

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all!

And thanks for visiting Still Got The Fever so often since we opened for business in July.

By way of appreciation, here’s supermodel Shahira Barry.

The 21-year-old beauty from Ireland has just appeared in a new video by chart-topper Akon.

And now she has her eye on making a single of her own.

Shahira, whose mum and gran both come from Birmingham UK jetted out to the Playboy mansion recently after a personal invitation from magazine millionaire Hugh Hefner.

But although she stripped down to a skimpy bikini for one of Hef’s infamous pool parties, she has refused to go topless.

“If all I wanted to do was model, then I would jump at the chance to do Playboy,” she says.

“But I don’t want to close any doors. I love singing, acting and dancing, and I’m afraid that posing for Playboy would close doors.”

Next up for Shahira is a  TV series called Darker Days, which cashes in on the current craze for vampire stories, fuelled by the success of Twilight.

Filmed in Ireland, Shahira plays the girlfriend of actor Mark Hutchinson. Football Factory star Danny Dyer is also in the show.

For an interview with Shahira and more photos head here.

1. Richard Hawley : Standing At The Sky's Edge

We’ve been counting down to Christmas Eve with the albums of the year. Here’s our No 1.

Richard Hawley. Safe as houses. You know exactly what you’re going to get when you buy an album by the former Pulp guitarist.

A warm, reverb-drenched baritone vocal; subtle guitar licks wrapped in the lush strings of a 38-piece orchestra; the feeling of unabashed luxury; music that caresses and cocoons.

Think again.

Because the Sheffield songwriter is mightily miffed at the state of the country. In fact, he’s so angry that he’s made a bristling, spitting rock and roll album. Yes, really.

“I needed to get away from the whole orchestra thing,” he says. “I wanted to make a record with just two guitars, bass, drums, keyboards and rocket noises.

“I felt I’d neglected my guitars for a long time. I just wanted to get them out and dust them down. Guitar is my first love and, hell, I just wanted to have some fun!

“I didn’t want to make a record that was treading water. It would have been easy to do that. There are a lot of artists who serially make the same record. It ends up cheapening the ones before, and that’s a shame.

“I didn’t want to put the pedal to the metal all the way though. It would be boring and I might be guilty of secretly wanting to be a 40 year-old guy in Spandex. Melody has to be king.

“There have always been guitar solos on my stuff before. They just weren’t quite this loud!” He’s not joking. Standing At The Sky’s Edge is angry both lyrically and musically, its songs peopled by victims of a society failed by politicians.

The title track sounds like Jim Morrison fronting Neil Young’s Crazy Horse with its overdriven grunge guitar, while Down In The Woods uses a harum scarum riff Led Zeppelin and The Who used to unleash.

She Brings The Sunlight has Eastern overtones and boasts not one, but two, incendiary guitar solos. We’d all forgotten just how good a player Hawley is, and now he reminds us.

Leave Your Body Behind You, chosen as the single, is wall of sound rock and roll riding a descending riff and ending in chaotic deconstruction.

There are mellow moments. Seek It is a lazy summer’s day of a song, and Don’t Stare At The Sun starts subtly then builds to a crescendo.

Finalé Before works the same trick, a power chord wolf in silky sheep’s clothing. Whisper it quietly, but Richard Hawley has just made the best rock album of the year.

Who could have dreamed that?

2. Emperors Of Wyoming : Emperors Of Wyoming

We’re counting down to Christmas Eve with the albums of the year. Come back tomorrow to see what’s No 1 in our shopping list.

He has produced some of rock’s greatest albums; he has drummed up a storm on iconic hits.

He produced Nirvana’s gamechanging Nevermind, Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream, Sonic Youth’s Dirty and Green Day’s 21st Century Breakdown.

And he is, of course, the drummer on Garbage hallmark hits such as Stupid Girl, Only Happy When It Rains, Special and #1 Crush.

Now Butch Vig has gone country. Not in any yee-hah yodel sense, you understand, but in a gritty roots rock and roll sort of way.

He has teamed up with old pals Pete and Frank Anderson from Call Me Bwana and Fire Town’s Phil Davis in new band Emperors Of Wyoming.

Together, they’ve made one of the best albums of the year, a set which will appeal to anyone who ever owned a Tom Petty or Steve Earle CD.

Add Neil Young and Jack White to that list, perhaps. Yes, it’s that good.

“We wanted to mix up bluegrass, country and acoustic folk using cutting edge technology and ancient instruments,” says Vig. “Then we added rock guitar, bass and drums.

“People I’ve played it to are kind of surprised. When I say we’ve got a ‘country’ record they’re not quite sure what to expect.

“There are two schools of Nashville. There’s the old school - pedal steel guitar and twangy vocals.

“Then there’s the new school, which is more pop and can sometimes crossover to commercial radio.

“Take Taylor Swift for example. “To me she’s not country at all. She’s a pop artist, pure and simple.”

The Emperors’ eponymous debut album is anything but pop, offering credible crunch and indie appeal.

Petty-style rocker Avalanche Girl is bright rock and roll, Never Got Over You a throwback to the days when Steve Earle was “new country”.

Cornfield Palace is more direct, but in a jangly lyrical way, while Brand New Heart Of Stone is hewn from Creedence choogle. Both I’m Your Man (no, not the Wham hit) and Sweep Away smack of Exile-era Stones.

A double-header finalé rocks up 19th century Wisconsin river ballad The Pinery Boy, followed by a brooding, stormy cover version of John Martyn’s Bless The Weather.

The emperor’s new clothes never looked finer.

3. The Civil Wars : Barton Hollow

We’re counting down to Christmas Eve with the albums of the year. Come back tomorrow to see what’s next ...

You’ve seen it before on reality TV. Struggling solo acts are paired with each other for surprising success.

It could only happen on X Factor.

Well, no actually. That’s not strictly the case. And the result doesn’t have to be mainstream manufactured Cowell clone chart pop.

Pair two credible artists and you may just end up with incredible results.

Put singer-songwriters Joy Williams and John Paul White together and you get the hottest contender yet for album of the year. Because The Civil Wars’ debut set Barton Hollow isn’t just good, it’s spine-tingling drop dead gorgeous.

Both Williams and White were battle-worn troubadours winning rave reviews but going nowhere until they separately enrolled on a songwriting camp course.

“The courses are like blind dates,” says Williams. “They are 20 or so writers. You pick straws, they pair you up, and off you go to see if you can write songs together.”

The Californian choirgirl with a love of The Beach Boys and The Carpenters found herself in a room with the Alabama rocker who liked nothing more than to holler his favourite AC/DC rock anthems. “Let’s be honest,” admits White. “Neither of us wanted to do this, but we did. We drew straws and they put us in a room. It didn’t look promising - chalk and cheese.”

But some things are meant to be.

“The very first day we started singing together, it was like we’d been doing it all our lives, “ says Williams. “When we harmonised, we each knew instinctively where the other was going. It was magical.”

So is the Americana-fuelled album, which more than matches the magic worked by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’s Raising Sand.

From respectfully retro 20 Years to folk-flavoured Birds Of A Feather, the gentle harmonies are seamless. The likes of Girl With The Red Balloon and Falling will subtly seduce your senses.

When they step up the pace, the title track nods to post-Zeppelin Page & Plant, and a bunch of bonus covers include Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean and Leonard Cohen’s Dance Me To The End Of Love.

Built from blues, country and folk, you may not hear a better album this year.

Since writing this review, of course, Civil Wars have put everything on hold, citing “internal discord and irreconcilable differences of ambition”.

Let’s hope they resolve those differences soon.

4. Jay James Picton : Play It By Heart

We’re counting down to Christmas Eve with the albums of the year. Come back tomorrow to see what’s next ...

I first stumbled upon Jay James Picton midway through a charity album called Songs To Save A Life, designed to raise funds for The Samaritans.

The young Welshman had contributed a soul take on Carole King’s You’ve Got A Friend so impassioned that it raised the hairs on the back of your neck.

Since then, he’s hunkered down in the studio and recorded a debut album of his own songs, winning big name fans such as The Who’s Roger Daltrey, Booker T Jones, John Legend and Hal David (he of Bacharach & David fame).

All of which is remarkable when you consider that five years ago, he hadn’t sung a note.

He was a PE teacher with the Royal Navy until an injury sustained in a rugby match left him on the sidelines.

One drunken New Year’s Eve he spotted a cheap five-string guitar in a shop window, bought it on impulse and taught himself to play. “I didn’t really listen to music when I was growing up,” he admits. “I wasn’t into music at all, up until five years ago.

“I messed my knee up, got drunk on a night out with the lads and bought this guitar, which I promptly consigned to a cupboard.

“But I’d played sport everyday of my life so it was a massive thing not to be able to work out or take part. I was a bit lost and needed something to focus on, and that’s why I decided to learn to play the guitar.

“I started humming along and then singing along as I was just trying to keep the rhythm. It all happened really quickly and out of the blue, to be honest. Suddenly I realised that I could sing.

“Writing came a little later because I’ve not been very good at expressing myself. Generally I don’t read books and I’m not very good at English so writing is not something I’d ever done, to be honest with you.”

All the more remarkable, then, that Play It By Heart isn’t just a good album.

It's almost the best album of the year.

With a soulful vocal that somehow blends old school class with indie credibility, he’s the male Amy Winehouse.

It’s an album of contrasts, too.

Opening with a spluttering rock guitar chord and the sparse soundscape of Another Man, it ends in The Boy That Wants To Fly, which is surely a Bond movie theme in the waiting.

The title track will delight both Stax soul collectors and the urban R&B crowd, a companion perhaps to Adele’s Rolling In The Deep, while the gossamer Spiders would sit comfortably with anything by Chris Martin or Damien Rice.

Best is Gravity, an utterly gorgeous love song which boasts an irresistible hook. You won’t hear much better.

5. Andy Flannagan : Drowning In The Shallow

We’re counting down to Christmas Eve with the albums of the year. Come back tomorrow to see what’s next ...

Visit the Houses of Parliament and odds are you’ll spot Andy Flannagan.

The former NHS hospital doctor is a political protest campaigner with a knack of getting himself heard.

No surprise, then, that he’s also a storyteller and a songwriter.

But who would have thought he’d record an album that may just be the best you’re likely to hear all year?

Drowning In The Shallow is a gorgeous set of songs drawn both from personal loss and the ills of society.

But where the likes of Billy Bragg tend to be strident, Flannagan’s musical mood is mellow, the bite hidden in the lyrics to catch you unawares.

“There are themes of broken places, things and people, including me,” he says. “The thread that runs through the songs is inspiring people doing inspiring things in difficult places.

“You’ll hear about folks who have given of their lives in the toughest parts of this planet, from Chennai in India to an orphanage in Uganda.

“One person who truly inspired me is Mick Duncan. He gave up a life in New Zealand to go and live amongst slum dwellers in the Philippines.

“I remember something his daughter said when they came back.

“‘What’s it like being in the middle of all that poverty?’ she was asked. ‘I never saw any poverty. I just saw my friends,’ she replied.

“Could we be the generation that doesn’t have to start lots of projects to connect with and help the poor, needy and marginalised among us, but we help them simply because they’re our neighbours?”

Flannagan’s use of acoustic guitar and cello has prompted Damien Rice comparisons, but they’re wide of the mark. His gentle vocal sets him alongside
the likes of Martyn Joseph.

The title track is drop dead gorgeous, while Addictions is a wry look at a dysfunctional society where we’d rather watch TV than talk.

But it’s two tales of tragedy that inspire the highlights here.

Fragile, remembering friends killed in the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, is deeply moving. And I Will Not Be Leaving, about Joseph, a baby boy left alone for days at birth, has a desperate beauty to it.

Flannagan is setting out on his ‘Invisible Tour’, playing hospices, prisons and homeless shelters for free, bringing hope where it’s in short supply.

It’s typical of the man. Like the album, just what the doctor ordered.

6. Luke White : Outside In

We’re counting down to Christmas Eve with the albums of the year. Come back tomorrow to see what’s next ...

Used to be you couldn’t find enough half-decent singer-songwriters to fill up the Brit Awards shortlist.

Now they’re a ten-a-penny and the problem is more sorting out the wheat from the chaff.

For every moment of rare wonder, there are hours of wellmeaning but weary navel-gazing.

Tom Baxter, Duke Special, Scott Matthews and David Ford have all been essential. Ed Sheeran has grabbed the genre by the scruff of the neck and dragged it into the charts.

Now step forward Luke White, who combines singer-songwriter sensibilities with widescreen pop, and somehow makes the mainstream deeper.

Musically, think Turin Brakes meets ABC. And, indeed, the young British singer’s voice recalls that of Brakes’ Olly Knights and Gale Paridjanian, which, of course, is no bad thing.

And then, there’s the fact that each and every track – bar a couple of brief instrumental links – boasts a barbed hook that lodges in the back of your consciousness and refuses to let go.

Typical is Black Market Red Roses, a song about the lengths to which lovers will go, which opens like U2 with a gently insistent beat, building to a credible indie pop romance.

Made Of Love, chosen as the debut single – last year’s EP The Performing Man was just a taster – and already winning fans on youtube, is a song Chris Martin would kill for.

Opening with 80s retro synth and reverb guitar, it’s lush pop with a seductive chorus and the chance for White to dust off his guitar.

Waiting To Say Goodbye takes it back to piano-vocal basics, as does Don’t Be Worried (Light Will Find You), the latter currently being championed by Coldplay’s hypnofeed. Stay Young boasts gorgeous guitar licks, and Stupid Kind Of Love is the sort of thing that Crowded House’s Neil Finn used to do so capably.

The album title comes from the lyric of Maybe She Is Magic, a song that’s more mainstream than most, and may well put you in mind of Jocasta cult classic Inside Out.

If there are weaknesses, they show up in Goodbye Skin, which tends toward blandness before saving itself at the close.

Best of the bunch is She’s A Dancer which nods to Turin Brakes circa Ether Song, but may just be better even than that...

All white, indeed.