The question I get asked most in this job (apart from "Sorry, which guest list did you say you're on?") is how to get started in music journalism.

I try to be as helpful as possible but there's no easy answer. The fact is, I got a lucky break more years ago than I care to remember and grabbed it with both hands.

So that's the full extent of the advice I'm able to offer: be lucky and don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Not very helpful at all but it's the best I can do without lying.

Or rather, it was the best I could do.

Now, mercifully, I'm able to point aspiring (multimedia) scribes in the direction of Muzu.tv and their 'festivist' competition.

According to the immaculately written press release, the lucky winner gets to report on three of the summer's biggest music festivals (Lovebox, Wireless and South West Four) for Muzu.tv.

Can't be bad, eh?

So if "VIP access, reporting from backstage, chatting with the stars, mingling with festival-goers, absorbing the fun, all with mic in hand whilst your own dedicated MUZU.TV camera crew cover your journalistic experience for one million plus people to see" appeals to you, don't ask me how to make it happen, click here.

Alabama Shakes are set to take the world by storm. At the end of last year I started to see live videos of the band - shared with me by music journo friends and industry types - playing in tiny bar rooms in their native Alabama. At first glance they're wholly unremarkable. Then and now, they look like they belong in those back room bars. This is their secret weapon...

From their dispassionate drummer, keeping time with all the charisma of a metronome, to their slightly awkward-looking keyboard player, audience expectations can’t fail to be low at first sight. These people do not look like stars.

Guitarist and bassist, both dressed more for hill-walking than an international tour, stand silently sentinel either side of singer/guitarist Brittany Howard. All spectacles, sensible dress and wild hair, she and her bandmates have clearly never clapped eyes on a stylist or vice-versa. They could be the roadies: you barely notice them as they walk onstage.

And then they play. And they explode into the room.

It’s a sucker-punch the first time you hear Brittany sing. You’re so completely disarmed by her lack of pretension, by the band’s amateur-looking, unprimped appearance that they walk up to you and knock your socks off before you’ve had the chance to defend yourself.

Amy Winehouse's beehive, swagger and vintage vixen look clearly heralded the anachronistic, soaring and sultry jazzy tones that burst forth from her, but there's nothing to prepare you for the incredible, timeless, era-transcending sound of Alabama Shakes. Their blend of classic soul, blues and rock ’n’ roll is at once utterly familiar, evoking everyone from The Rolling stones to Otis Reading, and frustratingly hard to place. Nobody sounds like this band anymore.

Fortunately everyone in the room’s socks & stockings remain firmly on their feet tonight because, after a recent appearance on Later with Jools Holland and having been championed by celebrity fans from Adele to Robert Plant, Alabama Shakes are now big news among anyone who cares about good music.

Looking at the eclectic, packed crowd in Electric Brixton tonight, it’s hard to believe that the last time the band played the capital, back in February, they performed for three nights in the upstairs room of a pub in Tufnell Park. Even then celebrity fan Russell Crowe flew in to catch a glimpse this year’s most important band in action.

I’m certain that the next time I see Alabama Shakes play live they’ll be topping the bill at a festival, a field full of devoted fans from 16 to 60 singing along to their soon-to-be classic hits.
If you’re smart, you’ll be there too.

Tommy Marth, a saxophone player for The Killers, was found dead at his Las Vegas home on Monday.

The 33 year-old played on the band's Sam's Town and Day & Age albums, and toured with them in 2008 and 2009.

The Killers released a statement on Tuesday, which read: "Last night we lost our friend Thomas Marth. Our prayers are with his family. There's a light missing in Las Vegas tonight. Travel well, Tommy."

American gossip website TMZ is today reporting his death as a suicide.

The Smiths are to reform, according to respected music website Music-News.com

The seminal Manchester indie band, who finished 16th in MSN's poll of Britain's greatest music act, have always resisted talk of getting back together and are thought to have turned down a previous offer of more than £76m to reform.

They split acrimoniously in 1987 after five years together.

Music-news cites a source who claims the band have been in talks with a well-known promoter and further claims they were persuaded to reunite after fellow Manc legends The Stone Roses put their differences aside earlier this year.

However, guitarist Johnny Marr has denied the report on his Facebook page, saying: "The rumour of the Smiths reunion is untrue. It's not happening."

Mind you, John Squire said much the same thing before the Roses announcement, so we're not giving up hope just yet!

Do you think it's true? Or is Johnny's denial good enough for you? Let us know in the comments below.

It's brilliant to see our poll to find Britain's Greatest Music Act is stirring up such debate!

Just to clarify a couple of things about how the choices were made:

• We were restricted to a list of 30 and no more.
  
• The last five decades of British music had to be represented more or less evenly.
  
• The choices were made with a mainstream audience in mind and so had to reflect both quality and popularity.
  
• We are defining an 'artist' as someone who writes/wrote most of their own material (hence no Cliff Richard, for example).
  
• Artists only a few years into their career (eg. Adele) don't qualify.

So when you're fuming that, say, Robin Trower isn't on the list, ask yourself who he should replace, bearing in mind the criteria above.

To tackle some of the most common objections aired here:

• You don't have to play an instrument on stage to be a musician. Great songwriters with great voices (eg. George Michael) are, in our opinion, perfectly valid choices.
  
• We agree there is a depressing lack of females and ethnic minorities here but, again, going by the criteria listed above, who would you include? And who from the list would you replace them with? On a more positive note, we're sure this won't be anything like as much of an issue 10 years from now when the likes of Adele, Michael Kiwanuka, Florence & The Machine, Tinie Tempah etc... have another decade's work under their belts.
  
• Robbie Williams is credited as a co-writer on the majority of his solo output. Now you, like us, may want to question the validity of co-authorship in general. While it's certainly true that many high-profile music stars (who shall remain nameless) get a co-writing credit for little more than coming up with a song's title (they get loads more money that way, you see), many of Williams' songs are clearly autobiographical. We think this is enough to allow his inclusion. You may not. C'est la vie.

And finally, to tackle some individual comments which caught my attention:

• Van Morrison is from Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom. He is therefore British and eligible for the list.
  
• ABBA were Swedish (come on, people!) and therefore aren't.
  
• John Lennon and Paul McCartney aren't listed as solo artists because their respective solo careers haven't/didn't come close to their work with The Beatles. To include all three would be to use 10% of our allocated 30 choices, which we simply couldn't justify.

I hope this clears things up and calms down the more outraged among you just a little.

At the end of the day, a poll like this can never hope to prove anything beyond the fact that you can't please everyone!

Following her stint on the X Factor, Tulisa Contostavlos has gone from hot, to hotter, to being the hottest... So, Tulisa fans gather around, because on Monday 23 April at 5pm, we'll be hosting a webchat with her.

To join and ask the star a question, all you have to do is:

• Tweet us your question on @msnents by Monday 12pm
• Join us here at 5pm on Monday

Over the course of next week we'll also be bringing you exclusive interviews with Tulisa every day.

You can also pre-order her single, Young, out on Sunday 29 April, here! Visit Tulisa's new website too!

In the meantime, have a watch of her new music video for her single Young below...

Emeli Sandé is the wonderful gift that just keeps giving!

Her latest single My Kind of Love is due for release on 28th May, and will be the fourth track to be taken from her number 1 album Our Version of Events.

The follow up single to the hugely successful Next To Me, My Kind of Love is a truly heartfelt track featuring the Emeli’s powerful vocals.

Emeli has said the track was inspired by the patients she met whilst studying medicine in Glasgow: ““During my time studying medicine, I found it hard to write, but one of the things that inspired  me were the patients and the interaction that they had with their loved ones during their time of illness.”

“When people arrived at the hospital, money and status became irrelevant and only health mattered, which sparked an honesty between people which was amazing to see.

This interaction, declaration of support and love, was the inspiration for ‘My Kind Of Love’ and something I wanted to portray in the video the track,” she added.

Having just completed her second sell-out UK tour, we predict even bigger things for the talent singer this year!

Check out the stunning video below…

"I have some serious Butterflies RN #ExcitedforCallMyNam​e.. :&" tweeted Cheryl this morning before the first play of her new single on UK radio. We had a listen whilst scoffing our brekkie and here's our verdict...

Things about Cheryl's (she's not to be called Cheryl Cole anymore folks) new single, Call My Name, produced by Calvin Harris, decided after only one listen:

• It's a catchy number bound to fire up the dancefloor but it's no We Found Love... definitely reckon it'll be a grower after a few more listens though.
• Before the full track was played, the DJ teased us with a few seconds of the intro which reminded us a bit of the afro-beat-tastic sounds of D'Banj track Oliver Twist.
• The track delves quickly into the formulaic pace of Calvin Harris productions, winding up to a beat with speed and electronic sounds that make you want to jump up and down, shout "yeeeeaaah!" and put your raving hand in the air.
• There's lots of delicious speaker-bumping bass and synth pinging - this pleases us muchly.
• The vocal - it's got multiple layers to it and makes it sound like there are three people singing at once - we want Chezza to belt it out on her own to make it sound a bit stronger. We know you can do it girl, sing it!
• If you wanna start practicing the lyrics, here's some help for you (chorus): "How'd you think I feel when you call my name / You got me confused by the way I change... Say my name baby... (verse) It's my constant thought of my baby takin' up my time... vision of you playing on my mind... Saying IIIII I love what you do to me / Need you to stay with me / IIIII love you too much to let go."
• The oh oh oh oh oh ing at the end is very good.

Overall
The track is bang-on trend-wise in terms of its sound and subject and it is definitely dance-tastic but not as amazing as we anticipated (to be fair the expectations were very, very high) but even the radio DJs reacted saying they 'liked' it, none of them said they 'loved' it though...

Anyhoo, we're sure it'll still be a massive hit and of course we're looking forward to hearing and seeing more from Cheryl's comeback album now that she's got will.i.am as her manager and an international takeover in her sights with a host of top, very cool, collaborators.

So far though, it's 7 out of 10 for us on this one.

Call My Name will be released on 10 June.

Other things about Cheryl's new music
The video for single Call My Name will get its first airing in May and was filmed in downtown LA. You can check out behind the scenes snaps from it on MSN music.

The former Girls Aloud starlet also revealed details about her new album - A Million Lights. This follows her previous solo albums 3 Words and Messy Little Raindrops and will be released on 18 June.

What do YOU think of Cheryl's new single, Call My Name?