..And the nominees are:

Feist
Ledisi
Paramore
Taylor Swift
Amy Winehouse

There is an all-female line up in the nominations for Best New Artist for this year. Of course, I am disappointed by the exclusion of Daughtry and Elliott Yamin in this list. I felt they also made great-sounding debut albums this year. Especially Daughtry who also had several nominations in the Rock categories.

Aside from Amy Winehouse and Paramore who had hit songs on local radio, the other three are practically unheard of hereabouts. I thought I was quite updated with music news so I am familiar with Feist and Swift, but the name of Ledisi is totally new to me.

Amy Winehouse should be the clear favorite here, since she has 5 other nominations in major categories, including , Album of the Year for her US breakthrough album "Back to Black", as well as Record of the Year and Song of the Year for "Rehab". She is an English soul, jazz, R&B singer and songwriter, 24 years old this year. She actually had her debut release back in 2003 in Great Britain, entitled "Frank."

Feist is an indie-rock musician from Canada. She actually won the Best New Artist Juno there back in 2004. In the US, she gained prominence this year when her song "1234" (from her third solo album "The Reminder") was used in an iPod Nano commercial. The song eventually reached #8 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Taylor Swift represents Country music in this list. She is only 16 years old when her self-titled debut album was released late 2006. She has three Top 40 hits already with this album ("Tim McGraw", "Teardrops on my Guitar" and "Our Song"). In October 2007, the Nashville Songwriters Association International honored her with their Songwriter / Artist of the Year Award, making her the youngest artist ever to win the award.

Paramore is led by lead singer Hayley Williams. She is only 18 years old this year. It actually released its debut album back in 2005. But mainstream success hit with their album "Riot" released this year. The single that did it for them is "Misery Business," which peaked at #34 on the Hot 100.

Ledisi is an R and B singer from New Orleans. She had independent albums released in 2000 and 2002, but it was only this year when she had her major-label album called "Lost and Found". From this album, she had a single "Alright" which had only hit the R&B charts.