girls rock !!

More good news for Cheryl Cole - she has won the Sugar website poll for Favourite British Female of 2008 - and by a huge margin. In taking 52% of the vote, Cheryl has shown that hard work pays off.

Just before you scoff at the notion of hard work, remember Cheryl trained to be a street dancer and got chosen to accompany will.i.am as well as recording and performing with Girls Aloud. And there was her excellent debut as a judge on X Factor UK.

In second place, with 22% of the vote, is Emma Watson, who has shown a number of other faces than just Hermione this year - so best of luck for the future.

With talented and stylish Kiera Knightley in a strong third place, it was satisfying to see pathetic gob-mouth Lily Allen way down in last place with just 2% of the vote.

It’s been another good year for supermodels, with Giselle topping the earnings list again. And it’s great to see one of our favourites, Doutzen Kroes, has zoomed up to the No 5 slot. There are no other major movers, so it’s no surprise to see Heidi Klum still near the top. Meanwhile the media negativity has not made much of a dent in the earnings of Kate Moss.

In fact, Kate has a new 3-year deal with Topshop, which suggests her casual collections have helped the clothes chain enormously. Moss has also been busy with ad campaigns, including Just Cavalli (photo).

The Top 10 models for 2008 are listed below, with their position and earnings for 2007 in brackets:

1. Gisele Bundchen, $35 million (1 - $33 million)
2. Heidi Klum, $14 million (3 - $8m)
3. Kate Moss, $7.5 million (2 - $9m)
4. Adriana Lima, $7 million (4 - $6m)
5. Doutzen Kroes, $6 million (14 - $1.5m)
6. Karolina Kurkova, $5 million (8 - $3.5)
7. Natalia Vodianova, $4.8 million (7 - $4.5m)
8. Carolyn Murphy, $4.5 million (6 - $5m)
9. Daria Werbowy, $3.8 million (9 -$3.5m)
10. Miranda Kerr, $3.5 million (new)

It happens every year, although this year appears worse than many. The so-called music experts - the critics - choose their top 10 and, as usual, they select has-been genres (why are they still picking indie?) and corporate hype (for example, MGMT, who are good but definitely not great).

Here’s the reality check:

MTV Asia has Britney Spears’ Womanizer at No 1, Paramore’s Decode at No 2, and the two American Idol Davids at No 3 and No 4. Which proves, again, the importance and relevance of TV reality shows that are talent quests.

MTV USA has Leona Lewis at No 1 with Bleeding Love and  Jordin Sparks at No 5 with No Air. So, again, proving the ongoing value of the talent that is discovered by X Factor and American Idol.

MTV Europe has Britney Spears’ Womanizer at No 1 and Beyonce’s If I Were A Boy at No 2.

MTV International (based on MTV & RADIO airplay across the whole world) has Katy Perry (photo) at No 1 with Hot N Cold - and Katy appears in the top 10 of most other charts. At No 2 is Beyonce’s If I Were A Boy and at No 3 is Britney Spears’ Womanizer.

The media likes to pretend it knows what’s hot. The public does know, and it pays to prove it. The media only says what it is paid to say.

Three of our favourite modern Amazons are at the top of the Eurochart Hot 100 for the end of the year. The chart is based on national singles sales of major European countries, including  music-crazy Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Holland, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

So Britney Spears is at No 1 with Womanizer, Katy Perry is at No 2 with Hot N Cold and Beyonce is at No 4 with If I Were A Boy. At No 3 is Amy MacDonald (photo) with This Is The Life and this tops a great year for Amy.

Amy was booked to sing at the NRJ awards in Cannes, along with being nominated for both Best International Newcomer and Best International Album. Amy joins previous winners like Christina Aguilera, Nelly Furtado, Madonna and Avril Lavigne in being recognised by NRJ. Amy has also been named as the No 1 Scot to Watch by the biggest daily newspaper, The Daily Record.

PS: the other countries included in the Eurochart sales figures are Austria, Flanders, Greece, Ireland, Norway, Portugal, Switzerland and Wallony. Maybe not as noted for their music, but still large numbers of buying public who support great singers and musicians.

In a significant double whammy on the charts, the two wonderful X Factor winners have taken the No 1 and No 2 slots for the UK Top Singles. Both Simon Cowell, who steers the careers, and Cheryl Cole, the new judge on the show and with this year’s winner, must be impressed and proud.

The huge public vote for Alexandra Burke to win X Factor 2008 was a tremendous recognition of great talent and vocal skill, and the single Hallelujah has broken all sorts of chart records. The song took the year end chart position of No 1 for the second week.

At No 2 is Leona Lewis (photo), the 2006 X Factor winner, with her powerful and emotional version of Snow Patrol’s Run, a magical sort of song that seems to come alive for Leona and sends shivers up the spine.

The year end for World Top Singles and World Top Albums saw Britney Spears in the number one slot in both charts. Beyonce was not far behind, in number three slot in both charts.

Womanizer topped the Singles chart again, crowning its 11 weeks on release, while the album Circus sold another 419,100 in the week to take the crown. For Beyonce, If I Were A Boy was No 3 in the singles and I Am … Sasha Fierce was No 3 in the albums with sales of 379,000 for the week.

Beyonce was also at No 5 in the singles chart with Single Ladies. Katy Perry was in No 2 slot with Hot N Cold. That left Rihanna to round out the top 5 singles with Live Your Life with T.I. In other words, all the boys were well down the rankings. As we say, girlsrock !!

Taylor Swift has a strong finish for the year with Fearless at No. 1 on The Billboard 200, selling 330,000 copies in the United States. The album outsold big debuts from Keyshia Cole and Jamie Foxx, which had been expected to do better.

Cole’s A Different Me started with 322,000, a career-best sales week for the R&B singer. Foxx’s Intuition shifted 265,000 copies.

Britney Spears’ Circus was still in the top 5 with 196,000 along with Beyonce’s I Am … Sasha Fierce at 195,000.

The soundtrack for Twilight is just behind at 156,000 copies. Also of note is that Twilight, the film, made the top 10 for film earnings in 2008.

A few weeks ago Beyonce Knowles and husband Jay-Z were named Hollywood’s richest couple. Now Beyonce has been named the richest star under 30 with earnings around $80 million.

With five other girls in the top 10, modern Amazons are proving there is not always a glass ceiling for earnings in many fields. Filmstar Keira Knightley (at $32m) is in 6th place, tennis champion Maria Sharapova is 7th with $25m and Miley Cyrus is 9th with $25m. A surprise is the absence of Britney Spears in the top 10.

After Beyonce, number 2 is Justin Timberlake with just over half the earnings at $43m. Number 10 slot is taken by Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen at $15.

2008 has turned out to be a fantastic year for music and a tremendous year for Beyoncé Knowles in so many sides of her creative development.

December is the crowning month for Beyoncé with two singles in the top 10 - Single Ladies and If I Were A Boy - and the album I Am… Sasha Fierce also at number 3 in the album charts. Plus, of course, the release of Cadillac Records with Beyoncé in the role of Etta James in the musical biopic about the heyday of Chicago’s Chess Records.

Filming began in February 2008 with Beyoncé also serving as co-executive producer. Yet the singer was still able to record 75 tracks for the new album, working with great musicians and collaborators, including the Neptunes and Danjahandz.

Beyoncé then chose 16 songs, splitting them into two styles. The I Am… set will capture top 40 charts, courtesy of working alongside such songwriters as Toby Gad, Amanda Ghost and Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds. Sasha Fierce is the R&B set with production credits including Lil Wayne’s Jim Jonsin and Bangladesh. Meanwhile the track Diva explores “a female version of a hustler” and Video Phone may also be used for marketing.

So that’s music, film and advertising wrapped up! Whatever next?

You may not know the name yet, but with friends like Andrea Bocelli at home (Italy) and Fox TV (USA) it may not be long before Elisa is a household name around the globe.

As well as 10 years of success in Italy and on the art and singer/songwriter stages, Elisa had the 5th most popular album for 2008 on the Billboard chart. Elisa performed at The Roxy Theatre in Los Angeles recently and met champion dancer Lacey Schwimmer. Elisa’s single Dancing had been used on the Fox  show So You Think You Can Dance, and used for a dance by Lacey.

After the Roxy performance, the two met for the first time and swapped notes (and maybe a little gossip). It could be said that Elisa’s music helped Lacey’s career, and Lacey’s dance helped launch Elisa’s popularity in North America. Like all ‘overnight’ successes there is a mountain of talent and hard work behind Elisa’s rise to fame.