2010

[11] Here We Go Magic, ‘Collector’

Here We Go Magic

“It’s got fast and slow singing and I give it 7/10,” confirms Junior. I might as well not turn up. Still, while I’ve got a moment – this is the sort of sunshine West Coast pop that makes you sound like The Thrills if you’re rubbish. Happily, Here We Go Magic are a bit different, giving ‘Collector’ a lick of pace and some tremendous wordless flutter at the end that’s unspeakably beautiful, but I’ve just tried anyway.

On their debut last year, singer Luke Temple sounded a lot more like Paul Simon. What changed? I suspect the arrival on the New York scene of son Harper Simon, drastically cramping the space for “people who sound like Paul Simon”. Perhaps there was some litigation. One to ponder.

[13] Example, ‘Kickstarts’

Example

I was complicit when this won Popjustice’s Twenty Quid Prize for the best British single of the year. In fact, I spoke up for it. In FACT, I wrote down for it too, as seen in the picture at the bottom of that link. I don’t even regret it.

Must admit there was some pressure from home. Junior knows every single word, and this time accompanied it with an unexpected cossack-style dance. Pretty soon everyone was dancing, and at the end Junior asked, “Please can you do ‘Starts Again’ again?” We were locked in an endless starts again again cycle.

Which is fine up to a point. Cheap ravey synths have a shelf-life, but the hooks stay welcome. There’s something appealingly gauche about Example’s delivery too, which at times reminds me of MC Buzz B, at others Gary Clail. If that’s not a recipe for sustained success, what is?

[14] M.I.A., ‘Born Free’

M.I.A.

“This is just noise.” “It’s exciting.” “It’s echoing, it feels loud.” M.I.A. is used to eliciting mixed responses, and all of these come from the same five-year-old. A five-year-old who’s just taken nearly five years to realise I’m making a note of her reactions, and so gets a whole lot more vocal about them.

It is just noise too, but I’m still blinded by hype – perhaps it’s not just hype after all? – and lap it up over and over. M.I.A. takes Suicide’s ‘Ghost Rider’, turns it up until it creaks at the edges, then bombasts over the top of it, ever-relevant, ever-empty. With M.I.A., What seems uncompromising on the surface is always firmly anchored by a pure pop sensibility. It was the same, really, with Suicide, whose name fascinated me when I saw it for the first time in NME’s All Time 100 Albums, published in late 1985. I’d bought the paper as a taster, a candidate to replace Smash Hits which I felt I’d outgrown (ha!) – in the end, I went for Record Mirror because Mum thought NME was a bit rude, but that list burrowed into me, a primer for a new education.

[15] Foals, ‘This Orient’

Foals

Now for some light relief.

Oh, no, it’s Foals. All city lights and satellites, ‘This Orient’ is couched in romantic urban imagery and scuttles along busily, tight but dreamy, soaring through neon expanses. It’s a bit of a pop moment, with a lovely mix of a cappella bops and faked marimba – and later some crystal synth chimes to create an aural treat around an empty shell – and stands out on Total Life Forever for all the wrong reasons. All the wrong reasons that make it a better single than the more powerful ‘Spanish Sahara’. It works in my head, anyway.

Obviously, for a serious bunch of young men, their name is hilarious. Once Junior’s recovered from that and the hectic bout of dancing she chucks herself into for the first few bars, she comes to the only possible conclusion: “It’s some people dressing up.”

[16] Alexis Jordan, ‘Happiness’

Alexis Jordan

See, this is what needs to be done with perky X Factor contestants – hook them up with Norwegian ultrapop production doyens Stargate, who can conjure up the sort of inspired decision that slaps a pretty pop vocal over Deadmau5’s ‘Brazil (2nd Edit)’. What do you get? Trance&B. Come to think of it, last time we let Stargate loose on a UK talent show contestant we got a rubbish Hear’Say single. Let’s call that inexperience.

Over here we don’t care if you’ve come from America’s Got Talent or whatever. Look at Kelly Clarkson, who appeared to turn up in the UK bearing some semblance of cred. To us, Alexis Jordan is a cute little poppet with a knack to make “hurry, hurry, hurry now, quick, quick, quick” sound poignant. She’s come out of nowhere straight into our hearts. Bless.

Just ask Junior, who’s affected by those plangent synths. “There’s no such thing as ‘happiness’,” is her alarming response, until I explain it’s “being happy” and she concedes that happens quite often. You have to work for kids’ trust, you know. We consider why Jordan’s in such a hurry: “She wants to meet her friends.” It’s something like that.

[17] Mark Ronson & The Business Intl, ‘Bang Bang Bang’

Mark Ronson & The Business Intl

The first song to make a meal of ‘Alouette’ this year does it with every bleeding idea that occurs to it. Cheryl Cole’s ultra-mannered take is bewildered, this is just bewildering. Ronson has gone back to the 80s, but rather than plunder plinky-plonk synths like every other La Roux under the sun, he turns to that decade’s forgotten everything-goes ethos and finds something cogent in a mix of squirty electro, Prince soul, teeny bop and bouncy hip hop nursery rhymes. If this doesn’t prove the man has mad skillz then nothing does.

In fact, these are just the latest in a long line of ‘Alouette’ bastardisations. Junior’s reminded of another she learned on holiday in Corfu with frankly manic dance actions to go with it. She then adds some more jerky steps, seemingly filched off Go-Jos routines from early Top Of The Popses. We have a right old ball. And that’s Ronson’s bag.

[18] Uffie featuring Pharrell, ‘ADD SUV’

Uffie

I don’t know if the joke’s on them or us or the sucker MCs, but this makes me laugh anyway. Pharrell, with half an eye on Uffie’s “ghetto ass”, is like Roadrunner at a Haribo party, bouncing off the sonic walls and generally making a hepped-up berk of himself – “Wait a minute, what I say I gotta do again?” Of course this is meant to be a dig at ADD bling merchants, and we can all get behind that, but… but… It’s gone.

Uffie should be a hit around here, but Junior just shrugs and says, “My LeapPad’s running out.” Perhaps her attention’s slightly deficit too. Uffie should be a hit around everywhere, because she has a great care-less voice, a team of cracking French zonk-disco cohorts (Feadz, Mirwais, Mr Oizo etc), a few tunes, the looks and the looks-cool. But she took four years to make an album and along came Ke$ha to do it more obviously.

[19] Owen Pallett, ‘Lewis Takes Off His Shirt’

Owen Pallett

That Owen Pallett – he can arrange my strings anytime. No, seriously, he’s really good. And when I eventually get around to committing my baroque pop masterpiece to acetate (the kids still use acetate, right?), it’ll be adorned with all the soaring beauty and heroic imagery of ‘Lewis Takes Off His Shirt’, starting off shy and polite before stripping off to bare its defiance. It will occupy that fey but assured territory between Miracle Fortress and Patrick Wolf, breathless with romance, stubborn in its grace. It will so.

And will Junior join our chamber orchestra? Her thumbs-up says, “Sign me up”; her mouth says, “It’s good. It sounds like violins”; her funnybone just shakes at the title.

[20] Lykke Li, ‘Get Some’

Lykke Li

TESTING, testing, one, two, one, two – in the place to be. Here’s the first of the last words on the year, starting in November because there are 20 working days until Christmas. We worked it out.

The entire internet was Lykke-ablaze a few weeks ago when this one surfaced. Which is odd, because I don’t remember everyone going doolally over Youth Novels in 2008 – or perhaps Junior, her mum and I were all so doolally about it ourselves that we inhabited our own remote doolally island far from the doolalliness of the hoi polloi. Whatever the case, everyone loves Lykke now and well they might: ‘Get Some’ hits all the right buttons; you know, the ones marked “voodoo”, “tribal”, “freak-blues” and “really rather rude”.

Junior’s too busy doing some sort of shimmy to pay attention to Lykke Li’s frank suggestions for her partner. A relief, because I don’t really want to explain all that. I’d have to look it up, for a start.

1991 Top 20 Singles

That’s what we’re doing at the moment, spending a couple of weeks transferring the 1991 Top 20 Singles from the old blog. Click on that link back there, and we’ll return to the front page with the 2010 countdown at the end of the month. Triffic.