WELCOME to the New Year! If 2006 was the year for new music to make ripples, this year it's all about waves so big even Patrick Swayze in Point Break would think twice.

But with so many "hotly tipped"s floating around, it's hard to know who put your faith in. Kat Dibbits picks her top tips for the forthcoming year, and chats to the "Wimbledon troubadour" who refuses to do things the way he's meant to...

JAMIE T has an opinion on everything. While the Labour government are spending their time bemoaning the apathy and bad behaviour of Britain's "yoof" Jamie is wittily casting a semi-detatched eye over the whole boozy, chaotic mess... and turning it into songs that stick in the brain like a fishhook.

But the 20-year-old from Wimbledon isn't keen on the idea that he is part of some trendy "underground", inaccessible to people with jobs who still buy their music from record stores.

He says, with typical candour: "People kept on saying to me, Oh, you're part of the underground.' And I said, What is the underground? I've never seen the underground... I've travelled on it occasionally.' There's never been this cool thing, the underground, I've never seen it. But apparently I'm part of it. Or I was."

But not, obviously, now people actually know who he is?

"No, because you're suddenly not underground once people have heard your stuff. I think maybe it's underground because the musicians aren't very good."

While most of Jamie T's (the T distinguishes him from his friend, Jamie D, and stands for Treays) pictures appear to make him look like he wears a perma-snarl, and while the NME insist on branding him an "all-singing, all-swaggering, West London rude boy", in truth he is disarmingly charming. When I suggest that the list of influences generally given for him is impressively eclectic (from drum and bass to Tom Waits, apparently), he seems simply amused. "I think the drum and bass thing is overrated sometimes," he says. "I know kids who were into drum and bass and I wasn't that into drum and bass. I listened to a lot of 70s stuff when I was growing up as a youth..." He stops to consider what he has just said. "Now I'm 20 and all grown up and all... Like The Clash and The Specials, that sort of thing. Tom Waits as well, but only the early stuff, the later stuff's all a bit too weird for me."

Similarly, comparisons with last year's biggest band, the Arctic Monkeys, are shrugged off with grace.

"I don't really know to be honest," he says. "I like the Arctic Monkeys, I think they're good, and I think the way they've gone about things is good, it's very attractive to me the way they ran around the industry. But as music goes, I don't think our music's very alike. Lyrically we're both very observer lyrics, but c'mon, get a grip. It's not that similar."

In fact, for anyone trying to pre-guess what Jamie T sounds like, comparisons aren't hugely helpful. Yes, he has an acoustic guitar, and yes, he does wield all sorts of electronic equipment. He used to be a drummer, and has a sense of rhythm all of his own. He has never used a wind section in his songs, although he doesn't rule it out. His lyrics are delivered with a smirk, but it's an affectionate one; they're half sung, half spoken, half rapped, surprisingly catchy. He never really intended to make an album, but Panic Prevention is due to be released toward the end of the month. He admits that he lives in fear of being "found out".

"I was like, Album, what album? Oh... I have to do an album,'" he says. "And basically I've been using the same ethos that I've had since I was about 16 and doing my GCSEs. Which is lie, steal your brother's coursework, copy that, and hope no-one notices. So I just feel like someone's going to catch me. I made an album out of pieces that I just recorded in my room, and it wasn't even meant to be an album."

Not only has he made the album, it is being released through a major label. So the reaction from the indie scenesters (the same ones who had dubbed him "underground") was predictable.

"I've had a few people recently actually, saying, Oh well you're signed to a major label, that's like selling out,'" Jamie says, with the first hint of irritation he has shown. "And the first thing I've got to say is, well, sorry, but when I got signed no independent label wanted me. So your cool indie rubbish means sod all to me."

Actually he doesn't say it quite so politely, but you get the gist. Because with backing from Jo Whiley and Zane Lowe amongst others, and a fanbase who knew the words to his songs practically as soon as he did (in the early days he would play half-finished songs at open-mic nights and invite feedback from the audience) Jamie T doesn't have to kowtow to anyone. Which is lucky, because a lesser artist might find their candid answers getting them in hot water. I ask him whether he thinks the music industry is aimed more at younger people than it used to be.

"I think the music industry is all about making money," he says honestly. "I think the music industry signs people they think they can make money off, and at the moment they're coming out of nowhere. And I think it doesn't really know what it's doing, I think it's worried because things are being taken out of its hands. They're not making a conscious decision to be Nostradamus and predict the future for music, they're sort of being bullied into having to take it because it was making money. I was reading one magazine the other day." He pauses. "What a bunch of toss."

What the music industry thinks isn't important to Jamie . His friends are important, but you're left with the feeling that their opinions of his music maybe aren't. "My friends hate my music," he says. "I played Sheila to a friend when I wrote it, and he was like, That sounds rubbish, why are you trying to be Paul Weller?' And then that went on to be one of my better known ones, and he turned round later and was like, Actually that's all right, that one.' He's like one of those dads who's really competitive about whether his son's doing all right."

So as one of the hotly-tipped of 2007, what is Jamie T hoping to get out of of the next 12 months?

"I don't want to work too hard," he says. "Because I really enjoy being at home and around my friends and that's important to me. So I hope to gig, because I do love it, but at a level that's for enjoyment rather than being worked to the bone. I've started to write some new songs recently, so I want to finish them. And be happy, really, is my main thing."

See. We told you he was charming.