Wasn’t it lovely to see such well-turned-out boys doing synchronised dance moves with their guitars, like a bank-clerk Status Quo? A glossy take on antecedents Orange Juice and Josef K, they were a British (not Scottish; come on, the whole union supports them when they’re successful) counterpoint to scuzzier new wave revivalists from the States, with grooves, tunes, wit and freshness to make them appear original. Somehow it’s been an exercise in water-treading since, but ‘Take Me Out’ still buzzes – although oddly, it sounds slower now.
Junior says: Nothing. Her feet do the talking, as do her sister’s. Synchronised. Music for girls to dance to.
Best bit: The hulking riff we’ve all been waiting for. We know it’s coming and we build up to it like we’re in Toy Dolls.
The Neptunes make St Louis chancer sound like the bleeding edge of R&B. Everyone else squeals, “I think my butt’s getting big!” and jacks their body like this is the most groovalicious, dunderheaded, irresistible cut in years – which it is.
Junior says: “It’s normal.” I guess it is now; those Neptunes made their bag the norm. She also appears to be bogling. That’s primary school for you.
Top of the world, ma. Williams was at that point where he could release a fart and it’d waft merrily to No.1; somewhat like ‘Faith’-era George Michael, except ‘Faith’ stalled at No.2. But you get the drift. ‘Rock DJ’ is no mere emission – it’s a cocky summing-up of our man’s place in the world at the turn of the century, and yes, that place is somewhere beneath a heap of writhing groupies. A punishing bassline, lyrics that sound as if they were thrown together while he was at the bottom of that pile, rapping that would make even the great John Barnes wince – it all adds up to a will-this-do? that certainly does.
Junior says: Of the single sleeve, “It looks like sausages.” OK. No real comment on the song, but she and her sister danced around in circles, like Robbie but without the tiger pants.
Best bit: Yes. All a bit downhill for the lad after this.
I didn’t mean to do it, but this is Bright Eyes all over again. Most of them anyway, plus M Ward. OK, that makes this Jenny Lewis with The Watson Twins and Monsters Of Folk. Like the album though, it’s Jenny Lewis all over, the Rilo Kiley singer’s pure tones rendering all things beautiful – and slightly sarcastic. Here she takes her sweet heart of the rodeo on a grapple with the buffeting forces of religion and hypocrisy, coming out bloodied but unbowed and with a nice country ballad to show for it. Everyone wins.
Junior says: “It’s quite pretty, isn’t it, Mummy?” She wasn’t talking to me. Conceding it’s “slow”, she turns her attention to the cover, noting that the ladies with Jenny are twins, because “they have the same handbag”.
Best bit: Jenny demurs, leaving The Watson Twins to trill the accusing “not your wife”.
HERE WE ARE at last, on the coast of Armageddon. ‘Four Winds’ is the apocalypse as whoop-up hoedown. Conor Oberst slaps a full band on this country-blues squall and smudges a state of the nation address with religious panic, death-soaked imagery and weary resignation. It’s a barrel-load of fun.
Junior says: “It’s fine.” To a suggestion it’s about the end of the world, she offers, “It sounds sad. It would sound happy if it was about the start of the world.”
Best bit: “They said, ‘You’d… better look alive’”.
Yeah, everyone else has done theirs already, but we like to think we’ve taken extra care over our chart. We haven’t been lazy. Nearly there now. Might even start tomorrow. Or Friday. Definitely Friday. Definitely not next week.
A note from our editors: we have reserved the right to utterly – and unabashedly – renege on previous opinions. Like, you know, the No.16 single from 2006 might be in it while the No.3 isn’t. Feelings CHANGE, man, and sometimes we may have been wrong. OK, not wrong as such – overcome by the vapours, maybe.
See you then.
UPDATED UPDATE: Monday, then. Monday the 1st. Let’s stick to something we can manage. All my proper work will be done and the full chart will be worked out, not just guessed. Ho hum. Anyone still reading?
For all its ecstatic brilliance, it’s annoying that I’ve known what the single of the year is for most of 2009. But it seemed so obvious when I heard it. I hadn’t been expecting truly great things from Animal Collective – maybe more of the same quirky pop, bellowed harmonies, abstract lyrics and squelchy textures – so when they came up with this dense, sticky, Beach Boys rave track that actually seemed to be about something (Panda Bear’s kids and – erm – Adobe slabs), it was as welcome as a fat cheque on a… well, right about now, please.
It’s struck me that I might simply be a sucker for this because I have daughters (and everyone likes to think that song is about them, don’t they? Don’t they?), but listen to those Frankie Knuckles-nabbing synths and the slow introduction of the bass that makes it sound like Orbital – and then the steady rise and layering of the sonics, the two different hooks that could stand as a chorus. And the “Woo!”s. Your hands are in the air, aren’t they?
On this play, Junior pranced like a deer from kitchen to living room, but she’s been tuned into ‘My Girls’ all year, along with its album Merriweather Post Pavilion, a mainstay of the car in 2009 – and probably the album of the year too. The Horrors’ one was good too, mind you. And Grizzly Bear’s. And Wild Beasts’.
We’re not going to do an album chart though. We’re going to do the Top 50 Best Singles of the 2000s, and we’ll start next week. Merry Christmas, all you cats.
I don’t mean to seem like I care about material things…
And now we come to everyone’s second favourite single of the year. ‘Zero’ is brilliant, a long-, long-awaited blossoming of Karen O and co’s always obvious pop chops; a striding, mammoth synth sledgehammer here to deliver us from indie wetness; a brazen bit of late-Noughties electro land-grabbing; a bassline-bouncing hot rock in leathers; a massive sigh of relief in the face of hitherto diminishing returns; and a Blondie-on-Berocca zig-zag through Julian Casablancas’ electric dreams.
Junior sings, “This time, baby, I’ll be blaaaaaiiiiiiirrrrproof”. It sounds like an anthem for a resistant European Union.
She loves this song, loves its chorus whatever its words. This is understandable – gratifying, even – because ‘Bulletproof’’s toytown hook is one of the most delightful I’ve heard in years. It seems based on minimal effort (Elly Jackson pouting, sullen, around the studio) but the results are perfect, like an even more immediate ‘Ready For The Floor’. And like Hot Chip, La Roux’s cheap Casio sound is just that bit too tacky to sustain an album. Let’s hear it for the singles.
This would have been a better Christmas No.1. It has droney vocals, seemingly endless monotony, a metronomic rhythm like the slow trundle around the Boxing Day M25, that pervading sense of doom – in all, it’s a real festive cockle-warmer. But of course it neither has *GASP* swearwords nor the relentless Cowell machine behind it, so there was never a snowball’s chance. And no one thought about it. Next year then.
The Horrors can comfort themselves with all the critical garlands they received for an impressive step forward. Only the gloom and occasional tough riff remained from their (pretty funny) goth-garage debut; otherwise, Primary Colours was a fug of glacial synths, Krautrock basslines and happy-go-lucky Joy Division ambience. ‘Sea Within A Sea’ was the astonishing curtain-raiser, galloping in on a Satanic groove, hanging around for five teasing minutes, then sailing away between banks of tinkling keyboards. It’s good.
“I like the singing,” came an atypical response, “but I don’t like the music.” She said that, but she performed a wafty indiegirl dance for the full seven minutes, with some slapstick falling-over thrown in. Slapstick. It’s what The Horrors are all about.
