It’s that time of the year again when people start compiling “best of” lists and trying to decide what was their highlight of another year in the music business. We’ve already had Mike’s take on who to watch for next year in his picks for the BBC’s Sound of 2009, and now we want yours.

Alongside your picks for the top of 2009 and your best of 2008, we also want to know a bit about what you think about TGTF, and where you think we can improve - we know we’re not perfect, and we want to find out what we can do better in 2008, what you like and what you don’t like.

But, I hear you ask, why should you enter?

Well, we have TWO iTunes vouchers of £10 each to give away to two people who complete the survey (it’ll only take 5 minutes, honest!)

So, just as with our competition to win a copy of the Virgin Book of British Hit Singles (which over 300 of you entered, and was won by Alice), enter your thoughts below and we’ll get back to you in the new year!

Good luck!

Still stuck for a Christmas idea for a loved one? Or need the definitive book to settle those pub quiz arguments?

Well, the 2008 version of the Virgin Book of Hit Singles has just been published, and you can’t get much better than its impressive 661 pages of musical knowledge.

We spent a night down the pub (being the hardcore students that we are…) analysing it and it held up pretty well, bringing back memories of one hit wonders such as “Mambo No 5″ by Lou Bega and “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)” by Baz Luhrmann… classics.

It’s all there, and it’s your definitive guide to what’s right or wrong, solving those arguments and finding those obscure acts that nobody’s heard of.  It seems it’s all there and after a few hours of browsing we could only find one mistake  on page 437 - it that says “Vampire Weekend - Dutch producer”. I thought they were a US four piece unless I’m much mistaken! Still, they’ve got to be allowed one mistake in the whole book, eh?

Alongside all the British Hit Singles ever, there are also some interesting page long asides about some of the most interesting artists (and, er, Tony Wilson) covering a bit about their stories, which is fascinating and gives a bit more depth to the facts.

So, if you’re stuck for a useful Christmas present (or just a bloody good door stop) why not get yourself a copy of the 2008 Virgin Book of British Hit Singles? Buy a copy here - it’s just £12 at the moment from Amazon.

So I know a lot of readers of TGTF are avid MySpace users, and quite a few of you are still at school… so did you know about the MySpace School Invasions?

It’s basically a popularity contest for schools, with the school with the most votes from the MySpace School Invasions page winning an exclusive party.

The prize includes an all-expenses paid party with live performances from rock band Fightstar and DJ sets from Kate Nash, The Wombats, and DJ Ironik. The school that receives the most votes on the profile will host the event.

As well as winning their own exclusive party, the school will receive £10,000 worth of music equipment and a music masterclass with an established band. As part of the workshop, the band will share tales of how they got started and offer tips and advice about getting into the music industry.

Interested? Why not log into your myspace account, head on over to the School Invasions MySpace.

I’ll be honest… my knowledge of Israeli rock singer-songwriters is lacking at best.

However when I got a press release earlier today introducing me to Aviv Geffen, I was intrigued - he’s got over 14 albums released over 15 years, and seems to be rather a big deal in the Middle East.

And now he’s coming to the UK.

He’s playing an exclusive London gig on 10th of October at London’s Roundhouse in preparation for releasing a single and album in the UK for the first time.

In the same press release, the F-Gen competition was announced, which sees Aviv opening the doors for video directors, stylists and artists to completely design the look and feel for the upcoming video’s, artwork and tour costumes ahead of a full UK tour and single release next year reportedly.

So, if you fancy something a bit different why not pop on down to London’s Roundhouse to catch Aviv next Friday… tickets are £8 each from the Roundhouse Box Office.

I love Simian Mobile Disco’s album, it almost made my Albums of 2007 post last year.

Those nice PR people have offered us the chance for you, (yes, YOU!) to win tickets to see them on their current DJ tour around the UK, or for those of you in the USA for their upcoming tour. And if you don’t win tickets, you can watch some videos - all good, no? Enjoy!

Current indie darlings The Pigeon Detectives and GoodBooks are set to play a special show during London Fashion Week.

The bands will appear with Malvern singer/songwriter Sam Isaac at Gibson Guitar Studio on Tuesday 18th September as part of ‘The Big British Sound’ series of events.

To be able to go you’ll need to enter a prize draw on the Ben Sherman website.

If you don’t win tickets it’ll be shown on MTV Two on Saturday 13th October at 9pm as part of their ‘Best of British’ night.

Things are heating up for Hard-Fi as they announce that they’ll be playing a special one off gig to celebrate their new album launch.

They’ll be playing Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street in London on Sunday 2nd/3rd September at midnight. The band will be performing live as well as signing copies of the brand new album “Once Upon A Time In The West” fresh from release.

To win tickets all you have to do is answer the below question:

What Balearic island did HARD-FI recently play?

Simply email in your full name, address and contact telephone number to competitions@atlanticrecords.co.uk - with the subject title ‘HARD-FI VIRGIN COMP’

I don’t know when the competition closes, but give it a go shortly and you’ll find out!

(As a hint, remember that they recently played Ibiza Rocks festival.)

Photo from sarahphotogirl’s flickr stream.

Threadless.com is an American community centred T-shirt store that was started in January 2000 by two Chicago based illustrators, Jake Nickell and Jacob DeHart. Threadless’ press pack mentions that “They came up with the idea after Jake Nickell won the NMUF London tee shirt competition. It felt good to win a tee shirt competition and we thought it’d be cool to extend that to the level that Threadless has become,”.

After winning this competition, Threadless was born, taking on a community feel where people submit t-shirt designs, with the Threadless community rate each design on a 1-5 scale and whether they’d buy it or not. The highest rated each week are then turned into limited edition T-shirts, which are available for 15 US Dollars a T-shirt, which are periodically reduced down to $10 for seasonal sales.

Just having the guts to take the plunge and set up such a radical idea as this gets my full kudos to the guys - I’ve more or less got my whole collection made up of Howies or Threadless Tees. Howies tees feel better, but Threadless’ are cheaper and have funnier designs, and more available.

They’re not setting out to be uber-ethical, or uber-hip. They’re just Threadless, and they’re great.

Some of the research of this entry came from an assignment I did as part of my course, available here. It is a 1.6 MB PDF file and got 70% (A first - just!)