music

[7] Rihanna featuring Jay-Z, ‘Umbrella’

Rihanna featuring Jay-Z, ‘Umbrella’

All this “featuring” lark really messes up your mp3 tags, don’t you think? On to more pressing concerns – here’s 2007’s big single, notwithstanding the Leona Lewis chicanery. A note: Leona’s single is quite good, if you can stomach that sort of thing. It’s not a patch on ‘Umbrella’, though, which picks up simple tools, fashions something vaguely unarresting but somehow ends up splendid. I was startled at the universal adoration poured its way, at least at first, but ended up shivering under Rihanna’s um-ber-rella-ella-ella-ay-ay-ay like everyone else.
 
Junior wasn’t particularly interested in yesterday’s gala play of this single, although she has been known to sing along with the simple title repeat – which has to be one of its chief strengths. Then there are the power chords, which give rock ballad muscle to an ostensibly r’n’b crooner. It’s a record with depth and everyman appeal, and somehow didn’t pall even into its third month at the top.
 
Only Wet Wet Wet have pulled off that trick before. Right, kids?
 
Right. Right, eagle-eyed viewers will have noticed we’re attempting two a day here. Expect the trend to continue, and the No.1 to be unveiled with breathless fanfare after a few festive beers on Friday afternoon.

[8] Maxïmo Park, ‘Our Velocity’

Maxïmo Park, ‘Our Velocity’

These Geordie lads and their acclaimed debut A Certain Trigger passed under my radar when they were making big noises a couple of years back – I expected workaday rock, nothing remarkable enough to pique interest – so I was surprised at just how good they can be when I was called on to review ‘Our Velocity’ in the spring. Its tautness and deft use of an inspired array of bridges, choruses and middle eights bowled me over, along with its assured mix of ferocious guitars and vulnerable sentiments. A cracking five star track with not a note wasted.
 
The onslaught had Junior feeling the speakers for the bass boom, but she wasn’t taken for long. There were desk drawers to be opened, one after another. So, it was immediate for her, if not entirely captivating.
 
To give the Maxïmos their full due, the equally brisk ‘Girls Who Play Guitars’ was No.21. Or 22. Either way, a strong showing.

[9] Arcade Fire, ‘Intervention’

Arcade Fire, ‘Intervention’

Is there an Arcade Fire backlash yet? Now that Q have put Neon Bible at No.1 in their albums of the year, I imagine it’s about to start. I mean, come on, a good half of it is what the skip button was invented for.
 
But ‘Intervention’ wears its overblown charms with justifiable pride. It fashions the opening fanfare from Boy Meets Girl’s cheese-riddled ‘Waiting For A Star To Fall’ into something dramatic, something glorious, and piles headlong into a chest-beating damnation of church and state. Ridiculous. No strangers to pomposity, this most sullen (apart from the beaming, accordion-playing Regine Chassagne) of bands get away with it because of their profound well of top pop tunes.
 
Junior raises her arms to the sky for the organ’s opening notes then swims through the air like one of the eerie water babes from their stage films. We thought she was with her grandparents while we were at Glastonbury, but it seems she was there – squirreled away in a wellie?

[10] Gwen Stefani featuring Akon, ‘The Sweet Escape’

Gwen Stefani featuring Akon, ‘The Sweet Escape’

Woooo-hoooo. Yeeee-hoooo.
 
I thought it seemed throwaway at first, even annoying – certainly annoying – until I realised that these were its lasting qualities. In a pop world about to succumb, yet again, to some insultingly dreary X Factor pap, we should hold platinum-plated Gwen to our hearts and, for once, thank the Lord for Akon.
 
Most importantly, this is a record that Junior loves like a brother (or sister – she changes her preference every day) and gets palpably excited about whenever she hears the opening clanging chords. This time, she punched the air with her fists, sang along to the obvious bits and even attempted the tongue-twisting bits, and stood in front of the right hand speaker for the duration.
 
So if you don’t understand the song, find a youth that does. I gather that it’s effortless pop gold.

[11] M.I.A., ‘Jimmy’

M.I.A., ‘Jimmy’

No.11 might be a bit high for this, but I also wanted to pay tribute to a sparkling album, Kala. It’s a flibbertigibbet of a record, magpie eyes on an array of styles, brimming with ideas, and ‘Jimmy’ is its catchy pop face.
 
Much has been made of M.I.A.’s careless politicising on this song – “Take me on a genocide tour, take me to Darfur” – which, while they lyrics are somewhat glib, is missing the point. Boney M are past masters at this, weaving outrageous tales of a priapic Russian monk into a disco storm, and by accident or not, ‘Jimmy’ does sound a lot like ‘Rasputin’. It also recalls ABBA’s ‘Gimme Gimme Gimme’ and hence Madonna’s ‘Hung Up’, with Bollywood strings (it’s a semi-cover of a Bollywood soundtrack tune about Jimmy Aaja, Disco Dancer!) creating an endless swirl around the dancing beats. Annoyingly contagious and infectiously vexing.
 
These strings have Junior twirling around too, with and without Dad. She holds a hand in the air, turning it around and around in apt style. The picture disc was a hit too, and she insisted on putting it on the turntable herself, superfly young DJ.
 
 
20-11 always feels a touch random, as if it doesn’t matter where each song is placed. 10-1 is more rigorous. Readers, it’s been a bit hectic, so take time to digest and ruminate. We’ll resume on Monday, December 17. Cheerio.

[12] Jamie T, ‘Calm Down Dearest’

Jamie T, ‘Calm Down Dearest’

Wimbledon’s premier rap-skiffle rodent had a big year, what with that Mercury nomination (and he really should have won – or did I say that about Bat For Lashes? Anyway, Panic Prevention was wildly inventive, clever and fun) and a packed John Peel tent singing along to this track at Glastonbury. His range is clearest on ‘Calm Down Dearest’, which sounds like Saint Etienne’s ‘Nothing Can Stop Us’ sung by a particularly verbose drunkard. It’s even better than I paint it.
 
It was greeted with stomping feet by Junior, who also chose to mirror the lyrics with a snarly face. Has she seen the lad? It was uncanny. She threw all this into the first couple of bars, missing the later subtleties of Treays’ affecting semi-ballad – “racking and stacking them lines” – subtleties that fair bring a tear to a wincing eye.

[13] Asobi Seksu, ‘Thursday’

Asobi Seksu, ‘Thursday’

Asobi Seksu are reminiscent of an ultra-melodic My Bloody Valentine, all breathy shoegazing and drifting “aaahhh-aaahhh”s; ‘Thursday’ is a beautiful single and Citrus is a beautiful album. Buy it.
 
Junior liked the colours on the sleeve and gave the song some brief hip-swinging while balancing a book of Christmas carols on her head. That pretty much sums up the indie-friendly sounds and whispering slow-build of the tune’s warm firelight.

[14] Girls Aloud, ‘Sexy! No No No…’

Girls Aloud, ‘Sexy! No No No…’

Junior jangled her keys to this one. I say “her keys”: she’d nabbed Nanny’s spare set from the dining room table and was refusing to give them back, a proper feisty Girl Aloud with no intention of relinquishing a winning position against all odds. They’re a phenomenon, this lot, showing staying power only rivalled by the execrable likes of Westlife and their peculiar hold on a lobotomised fanbase. That Girls Aloud have managed it while reeling out one inspired pop hit after another is something to be applauded, and cherished.

There are signs, however – sadly – that they’re slipping. The album Tangled Up is bland by their freewheeling standards, while ‘Sexy! No No No…’ is good but it’s no ‘Biology’ nor ‘Long Hot Summer’. It’s here by dint of its surprisingly forthright power, demanding inclusion simply because the consequences of omitting it are too chilling to imagine. It’s one big tease, lyrically and melodically, as the girls discover the potential of remaining demure and the writers experiment with the dispensation of a recognisable chorus. Bravo. I think.

[15] Groove Armada, ‘Song 4 Mutya’

Groove Armada, ‘Song 4 Mutya’

Even the irredeemably naff can be saved by the right muse – and po-faced bundle of pop aggression Mutya Buena must be the right muse for anyone. Up until this point, Groove Armada had only shown a facility for grindingly predictable beats, rubbish gimmicks, chill-out mogadon and anaemic tunes, but Mutya awoke some deep-buried wit and invention, and a great dance-pop hit was born.
 
Splashy, fizzing synths (think DeBarge, think Chaka Khan, think Scritti Politti’s ‘Wood Beez’ and all that) give the music its zip and Mutya’s Catherine-Tate-a-like Jafaican drawl (“Ah feel fine. What about you? I betcha been crayin’, I betcha been goin’ around town layin’”, if you catch my drift) gives it attitood, while the Armada boys themselves (I picture them as a dull Adam and Joe) provide a glorious, catchy chorus to cement the song’s place in the year’s Top 20. Just a touch more bass would’ve put it even higher.
 
“Is that who has replaced me? What a diss!” had the conspiracy theorists rubbing their hands at a perceived smack at Amelle Berrabah, the beleaguered new Sugababe, but it was just a scorned ex-girlfriend type of thing. Probably. Anyway, the biggest “diss” came from Junior, who turned the CD player off after a few bars. At the second attempt she offered some headbanging to the chunky beats, but the moment had passed.

[16] Kylie Minogue, ‘2 Hearts’

Kylie Minogue, ‘2 Hearts’

Kylie has been at the very frontier of pop ever since the triumphant ‘Spinning Around’ comeback in 2000 – nor was she doing too badly a decade earlier – but has she actually been making many good records? I’ll help you here: no, she hasn’t. ‘Spinning Around’ itself was serviceable but horribly dated, and we’re legally obliged to praise ‘Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’. Add to these the sparkling filter disco of ‘Love At First Sight’ and the dreamy Scissor Sisters collaboration of ‘I Believe In You’, and that’s about it. So expectations were oddly high for the comeback – perhaps it was just nice that there was a comeback at all.
 
It’s an unusual comeback, at least. While sister Dannii may consider shockingly tired Hi-NRG bilge the very apogee of cutting-edge pop, Kylie knows there is another way. ‘2 Hearts’ harks back to glam rock, with some knowing disco dust, and enslaves the world with its “wooo!”s. Not a particularly remarkable song, and a bit empty on first listen, it grows with repeated plays and becomes quite charming. Go on, the Kylester.
 
It goes down well with Junior on this, her second, maybe third listen. She plays her imaginary piano on the TV unit and wheels around, dancing with bubble wrap. We’ve just moved house; we don’t keep a ready supply of bubble wrap in the living room.