2013 Top 20 Singles

[11] David Bowie, ‘Where Are We Now?’

2013-david-bowie

There’s been an awful lot written about David Bowie this year – I alone am responsible for an album review, reviews of all the new tracks on the deluxe reissue, a couple of celebratory pieces about his return, a 1200-word timeline of his triumphant year and a small insert or two in year-end pieces – so why bother with any more? Maybe just to relive the moment this wistful, hopeful track turned up on 8 January. I was working at home in my cold garden office and turned on the computer to find the internet alight. It had only been a year or so since NME had published my blog about it being right and timely that Bowie had “retired” because, simply, he hadn’t seemed capable of the really good stuff for a couple of decades or more. I was thrilled to be wrong. ‘Where Are We Now?’ was knowing but genuine, and wrenched at the heart for reasons hard to place. Just because he was alive? That he seemed as if he was being swallowed up by rolling tides of personal history? That he appeared nervous and frail in that brief cutaway? That he looked like a pasty teddy bear?

“Is it the two faces?” asks Junior, just listening to the audio. “The boy and the girl? Is he old?” She doesn’t like it, unmoved by those old Potsdamer Platz haunts. Junior 2’s a fan, Junior 3 shakes her head. That’s two out of three refusing to toe 2013’s party line. Mavericks.

[12] Yeah Yeah Yeahs, ‘Sacrilege’

2013-yeah-yeah-yeahs

Junior: “It’s really cool.”

That’s the Yeah Yeah Yeahs all over, isn’t it? Karen O is specifically cool because she’s gangly. She is the CJ Cregg of rock, the new new wave Racnoss who can carry off dressing like Su Pollard because she doesn’t give a monkey’s, and ‘Sacrilege’ is the alt.rock ‘Like A Prayer’. Praise be!

[13] Laura Marling, ‘Where Can I Go?’

2013-laura-marling

Junior laughs at the opening “I was a daddy’s girl…” She’s got theories about our family – Junior 2 is the daddy’s girl, Junior 3 is mummy’s all mummy’s, and she’s there for both of us. Or just ambivalent. She’s not impressed with how hushed Laura Marling is as this begins, but enjoys the song getting sturdier in increments as the first fruits of Marling’s fourth album show her getting more confident as they unfold, over just a few short minutes.

Marling refuseniks hear nothing more than a folk singer delicately plucking her acoustic over album after album – and possibly with a funny accent – but Once I Was An Eagle genuinely sounded different. I find her bluesier now, more soulful too, nearer to Van Morrison than Bob Dylan (although there’s plenty of Dylan in the latest album, occasionally knowing too). Actually, Marling could be the new Maria McKee, blending rock and soul with intriguing songwriting depth. And she’s still only 16.

[14] Katy Perry, ‘Roar’

2013-katy-perry

“Yeah!” Junior’s a big fan of Katy Perry’s hackles-up anthem of defiance, and she and Junior 2 agree the best bit is the “rrrrooooAAAAR” – they have a looming, claws-out dance move for it too. So it’s the cartoonish element that works for them, although it’s all rather lurid.

The song’s a little trite even if you plug it into the backstory, but never underestimate the power of a large chorus. Perry, like Pink, is a bombastic 80s soft-rock singer disguised as a 21st century popstar. A Pat Benatar de nos jours, if we’re going to be a pseud about it, which we are. There’s nothing cool about this, never was, but production so polished you could do your hair in it is enough to suggest there is. Anyway, who cares when that “fiii-yah” burns like St Elmo’s? John Parr would be proud of this one.

[15] Phoenix, ‘Entertainment’

2013-phoenix

“I like the rock music,” says Junior. “I just like the song,” says Junior 2. I like the band. ‘Entertainment”s not much more than the tune from the China Garden music box my older sister had when we were younger, turned up to 13, but it’s the kind of rush Phoenix do well. Like the zoom on ‘1901’ and the flight from “…giiiirlfriieeeend” on, yeah, ‘Girlfriend’. That’s all very Phoenix – lovely moments in search of the one great song that’ll have them cherished forever, not just pigeonholed as the hipster’s Gallic hipsters, and I’m not sure they’ve found it yet.

[16] Duke Dumont featuring A*M*E, ‘Need U (100%)’

2013-duke-dumont

When you get to a ripe old age like mine, you feel a special affinity for dance records that sound like the floorfillers of your youth. Inner City were a mainstay of the very first tapes I made for parties – when DJing was all about the pause button – and perhaps it was the same for Duke Dumont too. A*M*E is no Paris Grey but she’s got an urgency that fits this sharp, brittle cut, her vocal bursting out like lava seams.

The very first notes are met with beams from all the Juniors, who sing along word-perfect. Junior 2 even has a wiggling shoulder-dance to match the beats on a record that crosses the generations.

[17] The Flaming Lips, ‘Peace Sword (Open Your Heart)’

2013-flaming-lips

Junior’s yawning now. Come on, this is The Flaming Lips getting back to what they do best – breaking all the dials on the decibel meter and tripping out with love for everyone in the room. And that synth whistle moves sweetly through the changes. Come on. “I like the way he keeps in time with the music,” concedes Junior. “How do they remember the words?” Well, I’m not sure Wayne Coyne picks from a very large cache.

Junior 2 gives it the thumbs up. ‘Peace Sword’ is a bright spot in a year when the Lips have layered on the doom, checking out the human psyche and not liking what they find in the brilliant The Terror and, um, pretending to split up on Twitter. It’s a far cry from larking about in a giant beach ball. Actually, it’s not that far, is it?

I keep singing Paul McCartney’s ‘Let Me Roll It’ to this.

Anyway, the panel’s getting restless. Time for some pop.

[18] Boy George, ‘King Of Everything’

2013-boy-george

They all came back, David Bowie, Justin Timberlake, Adam Ant, Boy George, all these pretty things who still had something to say. Boy George’s This Is What I Do shared qualities with Dion’s Born To Be With You – shooting for redemption, cleaning up the old act – just with rather more sunshine reggae interludes. In King Of Everything (“Put down the booze/Let the demons win the fight/I drop my gloves to the ground”, “Tempting myself time and time again/Like self-destruction was so cool”), George was contrite but bombastic, with a tingler of a bridge and a gloriously lived-in voice to lift the song out of the Oasis swamp.

Some people don’t think he managed that. “It’s a bit slow and drooping,” says Junior. But surely that’s its stately power? Junior 2 shakes her head. Junior 3 has fallen asleep.

[19] Prefab Sprout, ‘Billy’

2013-prefab-sprout

“We had this song at home,” points out Junior 3 as we try this out in the car. She’s right. Prefab Sprout have been part of my staple musical diet for nearly 30 years so the girls are never going to get away with it. ‘Billy’ – probably the most immediately lovable track on surprise Paddy McAloon comeback Crimson/Red – does all the right Sprout things: a fanciful story, a succession of shivering catches (if not hooks, which might explain the lack of hits) and a woollen warmth.

There’s a song on the album (‘The Songs Of Danny Galway’) that plays out a meeting between McAloon and Jimmy Webb, but ‘Billy’ is where Webb really looms. A melody of tear-choked comfort, imagined wide vistas, harmonica taking us to the prairies – it just needs McAloon to leave the house for once and go and find a string section. “I like the harmonica,” says Junior, which would please Paddy. He’s letting his feelings show.

[20] Primal Scream, ‘2013’

2013-primal-scream

I imagine Bobby Gillespie wrote this – or at least named it – with the top of year-end lists in mind. It works better as the opening song though, and that’s why it’s not 19 or 18 or 17. A bit of manipulation for dramatic effect.

More Light is one of those albums where Primal Scream take their two favourite things – louche rock from 1972, proto-punk from 1973; basically whatever was buzzing when Gillespie turned a teen (that’s why all the albums I make sound like It Bites) – and mix them together. ‘2013’ even chucks in jazz and space-rock and standard polemic about Robespierre and lost voices of dissent to provide a grab-bag of classic ‘Scream. It should be hilarious but somehow it’s kind of thrilling. Skinny-limbed chutzpah goes a long way.

Junior has some affinity with this lot – “like that [Screamadelica] t-shirt that I’m wearing on your mousemat” – and with a slight grimace admits, “I sort of like it”. Her five-year-old sister (Junior 2) shrugs, while yet another sister (three-year-old Junior 3) says, “I think it’s great”. See, we’re getting somewhere already.