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The heroic GarageBand - music-making made easier

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"There is good and bad in everyone…" crooned Stevie Wonder on his and Paul McCartney's Ebony And Ivory and the soul genius fella certainly had a point.

As we head towards 2009, MusicRadar has rounded-up the people, businesses and events of 2008 that provided moments of heroism or villainous badness.

Let us know who your heroes and villains are too…

MusicRadar's heroes of 2008

Live music

For a while, it looked like a mixture of licensing rules, the smoking ban and Guitar Hero parties would reduce live music to organised office excusions to The O2. No fear. In 2008, people had a world of choice for live music - weirdsville gigs everywhere from swimming pools to submarines, zillions of micro-festivals springing up, mainstream bands getting back on the tourbus (if only because there's no cash in CDs) plus pubs and clubs still giving local bands their first step on the ladder. Like music? Play music? This is your time. Mike Goldsmith

Elbow

Elbow - cheer up, you won!

Eighteen years after they originally formed – and still with the original five members – Elbow finally started to sell significant numbers of albums after The Seldom Seen Kid won the UK's 2008 Mercury Music Prize. Industry awards can be grating and pointless, but this gong-show at least one pointed rock fans towards a band of un-glamourous, ordinary blokes who are capable of sneaking extraordinary music under the mainstream radar. They get my vote for heroic perseverance. Michael Leonard

GarageBand

Justice released their debut album - Cross - way back in June 2007, but it's easy to hear why their ultra-clever rock-inspired electro is still making waves in late 2008. And the best bit? They did it all in GarageBand. If you've got a Mac, chances are you've already got Apple's so called 'entry-level' software and you're only a simple tutorial away from being a bit clever yourself. Still not convinced? Ask Oasis or Fall Out Boy, they already know… Tom Porter

The Killers

For making Day & Age, their best album yet and one of the 2008's most satisfying efforts. More importantly, they did so in a graceful, un-hyped, non-retail-exclusive manner. This is as it should be: a band working at the peak (for now) of their creative powers, surprising us and themselves with songs that will grow exponentially into the thicket of one's senses. Joe Bosso