Monty Don

Is there a rapist in Linkin Park?, asked worried Yahoo Answers member Zack Garrison earlier this year. While they may be his favourite band, he made it clear that, should Chester Bennington or one of his companions prove to be a sex criminal, Zack could not condone such behaviour. Although there is almost definitely at least one rapist in Linkin Park, poor little Zack was getting himself confused with one of the year's biggest viral videos, Antoine Dodson being interviewed about an intruder who had snuck in to his sister's bed the previous night - in Lincoln Park. The clip quickly began filling inboxes and Facebook walls the world over, and it wasn't long before this followed hot on it's tracks:

The song became possibly even bigger than the original clip, and was even packaged up and released as a genuine single (oh go on then, have a download). While usually a staunch cynic when it comes to such gimmicks - I find the rest of the 'auto-tune the news' videos gratingly unfunny - I was rather smitten with the 'Bed Intruder Song', and it became one of those songs where I'd find myself reaching for the 'play again' button as soon as it had run it's course.

And here, eventually, is where we've reached the point of that intro. While 'Bed Intruder Song' - perhaps shockingly - doesn't feature at all on my list of favourite songs of the year, the tracks that comprise the top 10 have, on more than one occasion, been hastily scrambled back to the start so that I can listen to them two, three, four times on repeat. While some eyebrows may be raised over the course of this final section of the list, you can be assured that it's my sense of enjoyment for these tracks that prevails over any kind of deep critical dissection of the songs themselves - a fact that should be made abundantly clear when you see what enters in tenth place. That, of course, is not to say that these songs are anything short of masterpieces in their own right.

Finally, before I begin the final push towards the end, I'd like to say that it really would be lovely to hear what you have to think. I know the majority of you don't have the free time or will-power to trawl, as I have, through all the songs you've heard this year and then arrange them in order of preference, but if there are a few stand-out tracks that you feel have been highlights then do let me know, as I always enjoy discovering new sounds. Drop a comment at the bottom of the page, send me a message on Facebook, post me a sheet of papyrus inked with your own blood - I'm not fussed how you do it, it'd be greatly appreciated no matter what.

Anyway, as the Sex Pistols once almost said: 

NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS, HERE'S SOME BAJAN R&B

10. Rihanna - Rude Boy

"giddy up, giddy up, giddy up babe"

While I'm generally a fan of much of Rihanna's work, this has surely got to be the best song of her career to date. A departure from anything else she's done, 'Rude Boy' took a splash of dancehall, a drop of ragga, and a pinch of M.I.A. to conjure up one of the summer's biggest anthems. You could turn no more than two corners at this year's Notting Hill carnival without hearing the sassy lyrics blaring out of some float or soundsystem. It's been embraced and remixed by all corners of the music world, and you'd be just as likely to hear Rihanna's teasing challenge oozing out of the speakers of a drum 'n' bass night as you would on a Saturday night Oceana dancefloor. The video - 'inspired', let's say, by M.I.A.'s promo for 'Boyz' - is captivating to say the least, and reaffirms the song's status as a real temperature-raiser. 'Rude Boy' is one of those rare gems in pop music that's a refreshment rather than an imitation, and a moment that Rihanna may never top.

9. Tensnake - Coma Cat

"can I get, can I get-get?"

When a track becomes such an anthem as Tensnake's 'Coma Cat' has, it's no surprise to see attempts at criticism springing up from various quarters. Suddenly, every snide music critic became a fan of obscure '80s funk jam 'What I Like', pointing out that the infectious bassline from Tensnake's banger was in fact just lifted from the Anthony And The Camp semi-hit. Such comparisons and critiques are completely pointless: the fact of the matter is that 'Coma Cat' is a brilliant song in it's own right, regardless of what's been fed in to it to make it so. One of the greatest talents electronic music producers possess is the ability to pluck just the right sample out of music's murky vaults, and turn it in to a thing of modern-day beauty. From the wailing call to prayer that opens the track, to the simply effective vocal sample that peppers the track, to the gorgeous, ecstasy-inducing chimes of the melody, this is a tune that cannot fail to affect the listener in some way. And that 'way' is usually a sense of euphoric, unbridled joy.

8. Swindle - Airmiles

"bom-bom-bom-bom bom-ba-dom-bom"

There's little point these days in trying to define many of the tracks that emerge around the edges of the worlds of dubstep, funky and grime, as some producers treat pigeon-holes as if they're actually just spaces to put pigeons in. While 'Airmiles' definitely falls in to the minuscule midpoint that a Venn diagram of musical genres would create for it, there's at least one way to describe it: savage as fuck. Leading in with a misleadingly contemplative and calm synth opening, it doesn't take long for the underfed pittbull terrier that lies at the heart of the track to break free from it's leash. A ragged rave riff comes hurtling in, swiftly followed by some domineering beats to leave no-one in any doubt that this track don't take no shit from no man. You'll either be left cowering behind your couch, or jumping around like a loon. Or you could combine the two, and create a kind of eccentric new dance. Yeah, do that.

7. Aloe Blacc - I Need A Dollar

"I had some good old buddies, names is whiskey and wine"

I'm yet to meet anyone who actually first discovered this fantastic neo-soul treat through watching US show 'How To Make It In America', but apparently that's how it found its fame. The song is a throwback to Depression-era blues, and is poignantly befitting of these times of current financial woe. Telling the story of a young man's struggle to find and secure employment - possibly based around Aloe Blacc's own troubles, if I remember correctly - the track is an observational narrative of the difficulties and pitfalls that face America's underprivileged. As with all the best blues tracks, this troubled tale is set against a soulfully groovy backdrop, with the hints of hip-hop that you might expect to find on a record released on Stones Throw. 'I Need A Dollar' is a kind of fable for current times, highlighting the struggles that arise in the world's most advanced Capitalist society. The fact that it does this in gloriously swinging fashion does it no harm, either.

6. James Blake - CMYK

"look I found her red coat"

Kelis may have already found approval earlier in this list for her electro make-over in 2010, but it's her work from way back in 1999 that's to thank for one of this year's most brilliant and iconic moments. Plucking a sample from the ex-Mrs Nas' early hit 'Caught Out There' (the one that goes "I HATE YOU SO MUCH RIGHT NOW!"), fast-rising producer James Blake has tweaked it to perfection to create an irresistible vocal hook that has kept lovers of bass music addicted since it's release. Opening in entrancing style, 'CMYK' eases in to existence with a set of halcyon keyboard strokes that sound like they should be used as sound effects for raindrops in an animated Beatrix Potter cartoon, rather than forming the start of an innovative dubstep instant-classic. Then, with the track still as sparse as Vince Cable's Christmas card collection, Blake ushers in Kelis' "look I found her *damn* red coat" snippet, before gradually elevating proceedings with a hazy set of synths, and then - W-W-W-WOMPH. With crashing bass thuds a lot more subtle and calculated (and better) than the kind found in much of the terrible, Nero-style dubstep, James Blake burns a lasting CMYK imprint on the listener's brain. It's a shame that he seems to be heading in a bit of a naff new direction - 'Limit To Your Love' is decent and all that, but at the end of the day it's just a man covering a Feist tune, but a bit stripped-back. 'CMYK' is a lot more exciting.

5. Gyptian - Hold Yuh

"gyal you give me the tightest hold me eva seen in my life"

Long before it was officially released on these shores as 'Hold You' (rather than 'Yuh'), I first discovered this track by reading an article dedicated to it in the Guardian. I know that my choice of newspaper may now leave my credibility in tatters as far as judging dancehall/reggae is concerned, but seeing the author exalt 'Hold Yuh' to the ranks of such modern reggae classics as 'Welcome To Jamrock' and 'No Letting Go' piqued my interest. Described as a "slowburn hit", I prepared myself to not be blown away upon first listen - and I wasn't. In fact, it took a few listens for the understated genius of this track to sink in. But when I eventually 'got it', woah - I adored it. While my ears are a bit too Caucasian and Guardian-reading to actually decipher many of the lyrics, it's the manner in which they're sung - brimming with soul and passion - that makes the impact. The enchanting piano pattern could just as easily belong to an early rave anthem if sped up a bit and plonked on some house beats, but as it is it's bewitchingly simplistic, holding the whole tune together with effortless class. The lack of any major other accompaniment, save for some restrained bass and percussion, ensures that 'Hold Yuh' is a dancefloor classic that's actually fairly hard to dance to.

4. Letherette - In July Focus

".............."

While there are obviously words being sung, they're tantalisingly indecipherable in Letherette's sublime 'In July Focus'. Or at least they are for me, do feel free to have a crack at them yourselves. I find it hard to write about this song without descending in to gushing, sickly-sweet clichéd superlatives, but it really is just that blissfully disarming. The primary description that comes to mind when I try to detail the nature of the vocals is that they're like a chorus of golden angels whispering sweet nothings in my ear, which is hardly the kind of inventive language that's going to land me the job of Music Editor at The Independent on Sunday. But seeing as I'm not actually applying for that job at this present moment in time, I may as well persist with my shiny happy descriptions. This sounds like the kind of music that Bambi would produce had he not descended in to a life of drugs and crime after his mum died, and instead chosen to make instrumental hip-hop. In case you're still wondering, yes, I was talking about Bambi the animated Disney deer there, not some obscure rapper from Queens that I'm expecting everyone to have heard of or anything like that. Just get off my back, OK? And hurry up and give me that Indie on Sunday job, I needs the scrilla aiight?

3. Midnight Magic - Beam Me Up (Jacques Renault Remix)

"beam me up, beam me up, beam me up, beam me uptown"

Permanent Vacation should really give themselves a jolly good pat on the back. They're the label responsible for 'Coma Cat', Azari & III's 2009 belter 'Reckless With Your Love', and this, possibly my favourite so far from their gloriously chic catalogue. While reports that in hidden Fijian bunkers teams of narcotics peddlers are busy compressing this song in to ecstasy tablet form are still unconfirmed, you'll definitely need some pretty potent sleeping aid to bring you down after the uncontainable euphoria of this re-rub of Midnight Magic's 'Beam Me Up' enters your bloodstream. If you've read everything up to here in this post you'll probably be weary of my incessant superlatives by now (these are my utmost favourite songs of the year, after all), but nigh on everything about this track is brilliant. If I had to pick the most brilliant part, I might say that the piano riff, which dances steadily and irresistibly along throughout, was the most brilliant. Or I might say that the soulful rapture of the vocals, soaring to heady crescendos before floating "back downtown", were the most brilliant. Or maybe the most brilliant bit is the trumpet part in the latter half of the track, reaffirming the song's status as a bona fide disco-house sensation. Nah, it's too hard to choose - it's just brilliant from start to finish.

2. The Hundred In The Hands - Dressed In Dresden

"you be bombed Berlin, and I'll play Stalingrad"

I've listened to a hell of a lot of music over the past year, so it takes something really quite special to make it in to this Top 10, let alone at number 2. There's also always the danger with lists such as these of falling in to the trap of favouring the more recent releases, as they're fresher in the mind. However, 'Dressed In Dresden' is a song that I first heard right at the end of 2009, and its appeal over the past twelve months hasn't waned in the slightest. Featured on the '2010 From Warp Records' promo that the label released as a kind of sampler for the year ahead, this was a song that very much had me at "hello", if "hello" translates in to musical terms as "a tight, catchy guitar riff". My full-on indie-loving ways may now be a thing of the past, but here was guitar music that got me really excited. Of course, it's not just your bog-standard indie fare here - with only two members of the band, there's evidently some electronic trickery at play to create such a layered sound. On top of the pulsating, techno-y drum beat there are a number of fluttering polyrhythms that bound around the track under the jagged guitar and WW2 references of the lyrics, which themselves are engagingly cryptic but strikingly ardent nonetheless. This initial offering from THITH was pleasingly followed by a solid album around the middle of the year, but while the new tracks did nothing to disappoint, 'Dressed In Dresden' still blitzes them all - if you'll pardon the pun.

1. oOoOO - NoSummr4U

"maybe, we can fall in love"

It's been quite an interesting year for pop music. Dubstep has "gone pop", courtesy of Magnetic Man, Katy B, et al (unfortunately that 'et al' is just used in the regular sense, and isn't an abbreviation of Hyetal, who's great but is some way off making an imprint on the mainstream). Pop has been gifted arguably one of its defining albums of all time this year, in the form of Kanye's 'My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy', while the current Queen of Pop, Lady Gaga, has smashed all number of different records over the past twelve months. There's a strong prospect that not one, but two tracks of complete silence will have featured in the UK Top 40 by the time the clocks tick over into 2011, and this year saw The Beatles launch an assault on the charts for the first time in 40 years thanks to their eventual deal with iTunes.

"Yeah, what's ya point?" I hear you murmur, wearily. Well, the point is that 2010 has also seen pop music start to be dragged down from its glitzy perch in to the murky depths of the underground. R&B in particular has found its glamorous mansions being pillaged by eager dubstep and garage producers - we need look no further than number 6 in this list to spot evidence of such antics. But now seems as good a time as ever for the admission that I'd been trying to prolong as much as possible: I don't actually know how the hell you say the name of the artist responsible for my favourite song of the past year - oOoOO. I've read somewhere that it's simply pronounced 'Oh'. Let's go with that. Known outside of his ridiculously unconsumer-friendly moniker as Christopher Dexter Greenspan (but even then that's not his real name), this is an artist who has invariably been shoved under the 'witch-house' label to describe his music. Even if you're aware of what the term means, ignore it. I'm not a fan of the constant genre-bashing that goes on - "you can't call that dubstep!"; "how is this techno?!" - as often it's quite nice and useful to be able to group various pieces of music under one umbrella term, but oOoOO's is a style of music that's best defined by the man himself, rather than by others who are insistent on witch-housing him. Labelling his music, "pop music for the unconscious", and stating an affinity closer to Britney and Christina than with any other witch-house dwellers, this is a man who clearly has a love for the mainstream.

'NoSummr4U' is a stupefying song. Squirming in to existence with a dank smothering of synths and brooding kick drums, it sets out its stall as the most distortedly despondent 'pop' you're ever likely to hear. A series of tumbling arpeggios shoot from the gloom, brushing it with flashes of illumination like distant fireworks in an industrial wasteland. Then the vocals: take me, take me to the water, summertime, summertime, maybe, we can fall in love. Perhaps a little flat when read in print, but when they're seeping out of your headphones, in one instant haunting, in another comforting and silky, you can quite easily forget where you are. As further lyrics emerge, the end sound of "I listen to the rain outside" reverberates ad infinitum back in to the shadows from whence it sprung, as if consigned to a life of perpetual resignation. This is a running theme of oOoOO's work: with a deep love for that which fills commercial radio, his music is a mournful, reflected take on pop music, like an echo that's destined to always linger in the shadowy depths of the cave rather than leap directly from the source.

As this is getting rather lengthy and I've essentially just been paraphrasing myself for the past few lines (from a review I wrote of his 'oOoOO EP', which doesn't even feature this track), I'll wrap things up there. If you've read the entirety of this post in one sitting, then by God you deserve the several bottles of wine that I'm gonna buy you through sheer amazement. If you've ploughed through it all in several bite-size chunks then that is still no less of an impressive feat, and I really am extremely grateful and appreciative to anyone who's bothered reading everything on this page. The sane ones among you will probably have scrolled straight to the bottom to see what was number one, probably contorted your face in to a mixture of bemusement and disinterest, and then got outta here sharpish. In which case you're probably no longer reading this, so it's suffice to say that I went down on all your mothers last night.

Once my hand has recovered from the extreme cramp and agony that it will find itself in once I've finally put this post to bed, I'll compose another entry in a bit about my Top 10 Favourite Albums of the year. So that's something to look forward to, eh?

bye.

Percy Thrower

20. KiNK - Existence

Combining deep house with the spirit of early '90s rave, this was both a euphoric, point-your-fingers-to-the-sky banger and a considered slow-burner in equal measure. After a steady, tightly produced intro, the acid rain clouds that are gathering overhead suddenly burst, unleashing a downpour of old-skool piano riffs to leave you with a big grin on your sopping wet face.

19. Zola Jesus - Night

A leading figure in the rising gothic ambient movement that's reared it's mascaraed head in 2010, Zola Jesus released an experimental collaborative EP with LA Vampires as well as solo album 'Stridulum II' this year, and it's from the latter that this towering, atmospheric number comes from. Starting as it means to go on - i.e. ominously - a scattering of whispered voices pave the way for Zola's majestic, Siouxsie Sioux-esque voice to tread alongside the unforgiving and powerful beating of the drum that drives the track, creating a strong contender for 'anti-anthem of the year'.

18. Pantha du Prince - Stick To My Side (Four Tet version)

Reading like a list of the most highly talented but potentially conversationally awkward dinner guests that one could invite round for some Christmas turkey, Pantha du Prince, Noah Lennox (aka Animal Collective's Panda Bear) and Four Tet combine to make a track that easily lives up to its production credits. Taking the already excellent original from the heart of Pantha du Prince's 'Black Noise' album, Four Tet leaves the vocals more or less in tact but injects some of his trademark warm, chiming techno to give the song a bit of a mood lift, and to my mind pushing the song to an even higher level.

17. Girl Unit - Wut

'Wut' is like a more brazen, in-your-face version of Joy Orbison's 'Hyph Mngo', which I can assure you is in no way an insult. Featuring the same sense of wistful euphoria as Joy Orbison's masterpiece, this became a staple of many-a DJ set across the land, often serving well as an end-of-night closer. The Night Slugs label released a bountiful amount of quality material this year, and Girl Unit's seven-minute epic is a fine pinnacle of their 2010 catalogue.

16. Darkstar - Gold

As has become the norm amongst heralded dubstep producers recently, here was Darkstar's turn to cover one of The Human League's obscure early '80s B-sides. Er wait, what? In fact, 2010 was a year in which Darkstar did very little by the book, switching from the beat-driven dubstep style of early tracks such as 'Need You' to, well, mellow synth-pop. After a bit of confusion it became obvious that it worked, as this exquisite cover of 'You Remind Me Of Gold' proved.

15. Deadboy - If U Want Me

Deadboy strode on to the scene in impressive fashion towards the end of 2009 with his 'U Cheated' EP, and his love for a R&B vocal and a funky bassline showed no sign of dwindling as we moved in to a fresh decade. This lusciously captivating delight filled mixes and sets for months, and further fuelled Numbers' ability to consider themselves as one of the year's top labels.

14. Fritz Kalkbrenner - Facing The Sun

Brother of legendary German techno producer Paul Kalkbrenner (of, amongst a wealth of other things, 'Berlin Calling' fame), Fritz took further steps towards his own solo career this year with the release of his début LP, which was led by this blissful brain-warmer. While the guitar is an often overlooked instrument in the worlds of house and techno, the delicate riff on 'Facing The Sun' is really rather gorgeous, especially when layered with the poignant beauty of the vocals. The production on the track is deep and organic, resulting in one of the most enchanting treats that you could bestow upon your ears this year.

13. D Double E - Street Fighter Riddim

To my thoroughly unqualified and amateur grime mind, this was this year's 'Next Hype'. I think by that I mean 'Street Fighter Riddim' was one of those tunes that transcended the confines of the grime community, and made a name for itself in the wider world. A bit like P Money's brilliant '1 Up' last year, the lyrical theme here is retro console games, but the real appeal of this tune is in the production, namely the brutal bass stabs that pepper the track behind D Double E's snarled spitting.

12. Débruit - Nigeria What?

Let's face it, an EP that comes complete with 3D specs to observe the cover art properly is either gonna be brilliant, or shit. Delightfully, the entirety of Débruit's internationally-flavoured 'Spatio Temporel EP' was great, but the particular highlight was the disarming closer, 'Nigeria What?', which expertly fused squelching bass bubbles with a sub-Saharan riff and hot vocal snaps. 3D glasses may have been required for the artwork, but the music itself belonged to a whole other dimension.

11. Flying Lotus - Do The Astral Plane

I don't think I'll ever find an intro to a song that makes me as happy as the gentle, abstract scatting that ushers in 'Do The Astral Plane'. The most danceable track on his latest 'Cosmogramma' album, and possibly the most danceable of his career to date, Flying Lotus deploys a joyfully simplistic tune which has become perfect 'call and response' fodder for the close of his live shows. Featuring his typically micro-managed production, 'Do The Astral Plane' is like it's own little world, where hip-hop, jazz and string samples coexist happily together in permanently sun-soaked fields. This song is probably what would emit from your computer speakers if you typed 'bliss' in to that programme that speaks what you write.

Toby Buckland

Already established as the production brains behind The xx and with a rapidly growing reputation as a master disc spinner, Jamie 'xx' Smith has created a remix record for Gil Scott-Heron's 2010 'I'm New Here' album (entitled, in remixed form, 'We're New Here'), due for release in February. I'm not sure what kind of rubbery gold he's crafted the beat to the above track from, but I am sure that it's already likely to feature highly in next year's favourite songs list.

Returning to this year's list, though, and it would appear that 'The Man' is doing his very best to curb the snowballing influence of this blog. Having already frozen both my financial and physical assets (my hands are currently being stored in cryogenic tanks in northern Kyrgyzstan, meaning that I'm having to write this using a Twiglet that I've taped to my tongue), I received an e-mail the other day from the blogging site informing me that my previous post had been taken down due to a copyright claim. When I investigated further, some of the download links to the higher profile artists had been deleted. I've replaced those with links to YouTube and re-upped the post, but - in an attempt to boost exposure for lesser-known producers by offering a solitary track as a sampler - I'll try and maintain download links for as many tracks as possible. Hopefully if you enjoy a song that you download from here you might buy the EP/LP it's from, or pay money to go and see that particular band/DJ live, and most of the songs that'd get me in to trouble will be ones that you'd probably know/own already anyway.

So with that in mind as we continue the Top 50 songs countdown, the more commercially heavyweight songs that feature on the list will just link to YouTube videos, as I'm presuming that download links would just get taken down anyway before too long.

30. Rudi Zygadlo - Resealable Friendship

One man's love for all things horse tranquilliser, squeezed in to a shivering and shuddering synthetic ode.

29. Tinie Tempah - Pass Out

Tinie Tempah's triumphant début single was one of those great pop music moments where everything just fitted together perfectly - the charmingly naff lyrics, the rolling swagger of the bassline, and, of course, that glorious drum 'n' bass finale.

28. xxxy - This Much

From the ever-increasingly difficult to define genre that spans dubstep, garage, 2-step and techno, this expansive, heartfelt offering from Manchester's xxxy is as much a treat for the mind as it is for the feet.

27. Crystal Castles - Baptism

While Crystal Castles' follow-up album didn't exactly explore any new territory, neither did it fail to live up to the high expectations surrounding it, and 'Baptism' is as good as anything in their back catalogue.

26. Kele - Tenderoni

Bloc Party's front-man decided to further explore his dance leanings with his first solo record, and this is as euphorically great as the world of pop has reached in the past few years.

25. Daedelus - You've Heard

A rollicking, triumphant offering from the Ninja Tune/Brainfeeder stalwart's split EP with Teebs, as part of the LA Series set of releases.

24. Submerse - Hold It Down

A sublime slice of forward-thinking garage, combining an exquisite backdrop of strings with a brilliant R&B-tinged vocal (I think I read somewhere it samples Brandy). This is UK bass music at its deepest, emotional best.

23. Katy B - Katy On A Mission


Benga's decision to haul his track 'Man On A Mission' out of the archives and combine with established Rinse FM sweetheart Katy B to create this crossover gem goes some way to atone for much of the tat that he's been pumping out as part of Magnetic Man. 'I Need Air' may have paved the way for "dubstep" (I Need Air ain't dubstep, love) to stumble in to the mainstream, but 'Katy On A Mission' has been the real success story this year.

22. Gonjasufi - Ancestors

The highlight from his Gaslamp Killer-produced 'A Sufi and A Killer' album, this combines Gonjasufi's softly abstract twang poured over GLK's beat-laden world of haze. I think a doobie-spliff or two might have been passed around whilst they were making this.

21. Addison Groove - Footcrab

Insane-Insane-Insane-Insane. Footcrab-Footcrab-Footcrab-Footcrab. Makes perfect sense, no? Well maybe not on paper, but when you listen to established dubstep producer Headhunter's first release under his Addison Groove alias you'll find that, even though almost no other song like it has ever existed, 'Footcrab' just makes a whole lotta sense. Taking inspiration and characteristics from the juke scene in Chicago, Addison Groove has created one of the most fascinatingly unprecedented tunes of, well, the past decade. An instant, genre-defining classic akin to 'Hyph Mngo' or 'Aidys Girl's A Computer', this is a moment of individual brilliance that will stand alone for quite some time.

Geoff Hamilton

2010 has been another solid year for musical output, with some really exciting and forward-thinking stuff coming from across all genres. However, in amongst these shiny gems and mouth-watering offerings, the year has produced another, almost even more remarkable phenomenon: I think I might have discovered the worst song I've ever heard.


While, for obvious reasons, a lot less attention is directed towards the stinkers than the highlights when it comes to end of year round-ups, I feel that this song represents something other than 'just a bad song' - I truly believe that 2010 has spawned the utmost worst thing ever committed to record. For me, this song stands head and shoulders above anything that has preceded it, and it'll take a Herculean effort from future generations to surpass its borderline-audacious atrocity. You may be thinking to yourself: what is this song that is seemingly even more of an abhorrent sound than eavesdropping in on Paul Henry and Rev. Terry Jones eagerly comparing recipes for how to make burgers out of babies with cleft palates whilst tossing each other off at an average speed of 23mph? Duck Sauce's 'Barbara Streisand' was certainly bad, but was so uncontrollably stupid that it became one of the year's most infectious anthems. In any other year, Alexandra Burke's 'Start Without You' would've been rubbing its hands as eagerly as Ricky Hatton in the back room of a Bogota pie shop, as it would normally be a shoe-in for the title of 'Worst Track of the Year'. However at least Burke's effort had a shred of infuriating catchiness to it, no matter how much you may want to slice out your eardrums with some unreasonably salty Kettle Chips whenever you heard it. No, this is a song that had literally nothing - NOTHING - going for it. It is, of course, The Saturdays - 'Missing You'. 


Here was a song that seemed to almost revel in its own terribleness. Unlike many of the worst songs that have been unleashed on the world, 'Missing You' is too slow to be catchy, and the plodding nature of the track simply draws even more attention to the undeniably dreadful lyrics, singing, production, whatever - name any aspect of a song, and here was the perfect example of how not to do it. The initial vocal refrain - the video suggests it comes courtesy of Frankie, who is the worst singer of the bunch anyway but in truth it's auto-tuned beyond any kind of personal identification - is laughably appalling, and I seem to remember that when I first heard it wafting out of the radio I snorted in such strong contempt that I almost lost several weeks' worth of snot as a result. Rarely does a song exist to serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever, but this one is a categorical exception to that rule. If it's lyrical theme could be described as anything other than diabolical, it would probably be 'sombre', which, combined with its slow tempo, would make it somewhat of a buzz-kill if dropped in a club. Not even a bona fide moron would listen to this song reflectively during a quiet moment of their own time and feel that their own emotions were mirrored in the song, rendering it both publicly and intimately pointless. Every night before I go to sleep I take five minutes to kneel at the foot of my bed, shut my eyes and clasp my hands together, and transmit unbridled gratitude to any celestial beings that may be out there for the blessing that up until now this song has never come on whilst I've had a cheese grater in my hands, as if such incidents were ever to align then I would be left with no choice but to shred my face in to a bloody, cheddar-tinged pulp.

Anyway, time to saunter down to the other end of the quality spectrum - here are numbers 40 - 31 of my Top 50 countdown:

40. Lady GaGa - Alejandro

The obligatory GaGa entry. There may be some of you who'll question whether this is in fact a move for the better along the quality spectrum, but to those people I say: Fuck you, and stop sending me pictures of your faeces.

39. DJ Zinc feat. Ms Dynamite - Wile Out

Never fear, I'll yank my waggling tongue off the Radio1 daytime playlist's clitoris soon enough, but this crossover UK Funky hit became a tune that deservedly gained appreciation from all quarters. Now, how did those lyrics go again...?

38. Illum Sphere - Titan

For me, this was the highlight from an excellent year that the Manchester producer enjoyed. For him, the highlight was probably being booked by me to play in Sheffield. I mean, I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm not.

37. DJ Rashad - Who Da Coldest

It should be common knowledge by now that adding an element of 'acid' to any type of music makes it infinitely better. Acid house, acid jazz - now here's acid juke, courtesy of one of Planet Mu's multiple signings from the genre, DJ Rashad.

36. Kavsrave - PClart

Just one of the many gems that the Glaswegian imprint Numbers - probably label of the year, along with Night Slugs - bestowed upon the world in 2010.

35. Yeasayer - Ambling Alp

Psychedelically twee indie from the New York outfit's second album.

34. Joe - Claptrap

Introducing the notion of a 'clap-along classic', courtesy of one of 2010's most interesting tracks. Or, alternatively, as an old Yorkshireman exclaimed when it burst out of my phone to indicate the arrival of a new message: "That's a stupid noise".

33. Giggs - Look What The Cat Dragged In

While I'm not a consistent fan of everything that the slow-paced Londoner does, the swaggering production and calculated lyrics on this one make it fairly hard to resist.

32. Balam Acab - Regret Making Mistakes

The first appearance in the list of the musical style that would invariably be classified as 'drag' or 'witch-house', this track is off the very first EP that the newly formed Tri Angle label released, and it's really very good, combining an oppressive, unrelenting background with hauntingly harmonic vocals. Bloody gaw-jus it is.

31. Ikonika - Idiot

A woman who rarely puts a foot wrong, Ikonika released her début LP on Hyperdub early this year, with this typically frantic and bleepy (as we say in the music reviewing world) offering paving the way as lead single.

SEE YAZ NEXT TIME, PIP PIP!!!!!!!!!!

Alan Titchmarsh

As befits the sloppy and lazy nature of this particular smudge on the face of the world wide web, rather than going to the trouble of thinking of my own words and writing with my own fingers as to why this blog has remained post-less for several months, I've chosen to plunder a website dedicated to "sorry I haven't posted in a while" entries that other bloggers have used. After skimming through a few, these are the entries that I feel best represent The Hardcore & The Gentle's absence:


"Sorry I haven’t posted in awhile. I just feel nobody reads this and my life hasn’t really been too interesting for awhile…."


"Sorry I haven’t posted.. and no I haven’t weighed myself since my last post.. I’ve been just way too busy."


"Okay ya’ll sorry I haven’t posted anything lately, buhuttt….

I’VE BEEN WORKING ON MY QUEEN MUSICAL!!!! Entitled, The Rhapsody."

I know that many of you have felt confused, angry, upset, and even - in certain cases - indifferently underwhelmed by the lack of posts that this blog's been churning out, but fear not friends: The Hardcore and The Gentle is back. Of course, much has been said about this blog in the past six months. Some have dubbed it 'the forefather of WikiLeaks', a trailblazer amongst websites that publish widely unpopular content that startlingly makes its way into the public domain for others to read. Elsewhere, a Snappy Snaps employee from the Hampstead Heath area described reading The Hardcore and The Gentle as, "an even more dismaying and sickening experience than staring deep in to the depraved red eyes of George Michael as he comes careering towards you through a blizzard of broken glass and blown-up sample school photos". Other sound bites relating to TH&TG from 2010 include Vince Cable labelling it (or should that be 'cabelling it'? *titter*), "irrelevant"; the Pope hinting that, under certain circumstances, it could be a necessary evil; and the entire panel of X Factor judges branding it, "unconditionally brilliant".

So now that you're pretty much up to date with the various perceptions of this blog since it went AWOL, let me begin to ease you in to another retrospective look back at the year. As anyone who keeps up with the mainstream British media will know, 2010 started way back in January. Then it was February, then March, and before we knew it, April had arrived. May came hot on its tail, June was no slouch either, and, while things looked sketchy at points, July, August and September followed, although to this day no-one's quite sure in what order. October came next, although some chose to skip straight to November - more fool them, I say. And now we've arrived in December. And it's at this point of the year that I'm going to stop listing months and embark on listing songs instead - my top 50 favourite songs from 2010, to be precise. While last-minute claims by Panorama concerning irregular betting patterns surrounding the Top 50 list threatened to destabilise both this and future posts, David Cameron, Prince William and David Beckham have spent the last 48 hours fervently sucking my balls in an effort to defuse the situation, when they really should have been running a fucking country, serving as an emergency rescue helicopter pilot, and not cheating on their wife instead.

But all is good now, so I'll leave you with entries 50 - 41 (with a download link for each thrown in for good measure) of my Top 50 Favourite Songs of 2010, while I go off to rub some Nivea Ball Moisturiser on to my now heavily chafing balls. Voila:

50. Foals - Spanish Sahara

In which the Oxford math-rockers slide from the frantic ADHD of their earlier work to the svelte, measured style that fills their Mercury-nominated second album, 'Total Life Forever' - to impressive effect.

49. Jaga Jazzist - One-Armed Bandit

The title track from Norwegian experimental jazz outfit Jaga Jazzist's latest album, with enough layers and changing patterns to make it the Norwegian experimental jazz equivalent of 'Paranoid Android' or 'Bohemian Rhapsody'.

48. Teengirl Fantasy - Cheaters

A modern-day moral sermon, in deep, groovy electronic form.

47. DJ Nate - Footwurk Homicide

This list includes a handful of tracks from a couple of 2010's burgeoning genres, and this represents the first appearance of Chicago's 'juke' music in the Top 50. Now is not the time nor place to discuss the rise of juke, but basically it's generally not actually that good, despite what many websites may claim to the contrary. However there are some gems, with this swaggering effort by youngster DJ Nate definitely being one of them.

46. Kelis - Acapella

Kelis made the transition this year from sassy, milkshake-slurping R&B vixen to sultry, David Guetta-befriending electro queen. I for one liked it. However, David Guetta is a massive cunt. That is all.

45. FunkinEven - Heart Pound

With The Hardcore and The Gentle darling Floating Points not really doing much this year, it was left to others on the Eglo imprint to dazzle. FunkinEven had a stellar 2010, with this slightly Detroit-esque belter my particular fave.

44. Aeroplane - We Can't Fly

Aeroplane divided in two and released a patchy début album in October, but this cut of disco-house heaven was a great example of what's earned them such high praise in the past.

43. MMM - Nous Sommes MMM

One of the subtlest yet most devastating bangers to ravage dancefloors this year, the French duo's track was a deadly tool for any and every techno DJ the world over.

42. DJ Roc - King of the Circle

Mo' juke fo' y'all! This one starts off all film noir, before easing in to juke's characteristic high tempo beats and sampled vocal snatches.

41. Bag Raiders - Snake Charmer

I'm always a shucker for a jaunty and infectious little tune, and with this tune being as jaunty and infectious as they come it's just left to some solid electro beats and dissipated percussion to make this one a real shoulder-shaker.

Some shizzle from two thousand and tizzle

A lot has changed since the last blog post on here. The UK public have rejected The Strangler's maxim that there's "never a frown with Gordon Brown", leaving the country in the hands of men like this. Iceland and Greece, two countries that had previously been considered the height of cool, have proved themselves to be nothing more than ash-spouting, money-grabbing twatsacks, hell-bent on squatting over Europe and taking a big steaming dump, thereby stinking out the whole continent with the pong of dried fish and tzatziki-laced faeces. And the world was rocked by the injustice suffered by a young man who, despite allegedly committing nanacide, was still a much loved member of the community and would forever remain the subject of affection for one particular lucky lady. The world was rocked even further when it gradually, and then definitively, transpired to be a hoax, but the whole affair raised the important discussion of when it is and isn't justified to stab your girlfriend's nan, a moral dilemma which we can only hope is something that future generations will think long and hard about. Tehehehe, long and hard.


Anyway, there's also been plenty of bootylicious music released since the last post, so in one of the many moments of madness I experienced during my recent fortnight-long crystal meth binge I decided to bundle together some musical highlights from the year so far, and slap them on here for you to observe with little interest. Having laden myself with the stupid and generally irrelevant blog title of 'The Hardcore & The Gentle', I thought I'd attempt to make the most of a bad situation by dividing the tracks I'd collated in to 'Hardcore' and 'Gentle' categories. For the sake of making this pathetic attempt at descriptive shoe-horning work, the 'hardcore' tracks are generally faster, more dancefloor-orientated beasts, while the 'gentle' are more chillin' little numbers. Ya dig? Let it be known that this is neither a well-thought out nor comprehensive and thorough selection, but if you've been reading this blog for any longer than a minute then you'll already have realised that's just business as usual. Oh, and for any long-term fans of my online file-hosting habits, I've now switched from Mediafire to Zippyshare to upload the songs, as Mediafire is a gigantic piece of shit and was probably invented by a man with a Greek dad and an Icelandic mother. It should still be easy as peasy to download the songs, if for some reason you wanted to do that.

HARDCORE

• F - Energy Distortion - needless to say it can be a tough task finding tracks on Google by a producer known simply as F, but as the techno-dubsteppy skittering of Energy Distortion proves, the hunt is very much worthwhile.
• Deadboy - If U Want Me - Deadboy's U Cheated achieved the much-coveted sixth spot in my countdown of favourite songs in 2009, and he's followed it up with another excellent R'n'B-tinged dancefloor stormer. The man certainly knows how to conjure up a funky bassline and catchy vocal hook, and If U Want Me has already become a staple tune for any mix with even an ounce of self-respect.
• Scratcha DVA - Ganja - this tune uses a similar 'Clangers on pills' sound effect that Mujava used on one of the millennium's greatest dance tracks so far, Township Funk, and if listening to Ganja doesn't make you wanna wobble your legs and wave your arms around like a funky octopus, then you're not quite right in the 'ead mate.
• Kyle Hall - Must See - after dipping his toes in to the dubstep paddling pool with his Kaychunk / You Know What I Feel EP on Hyperdub, the young Detroit prodigy returns to the familiar realm of jazzy house on his latest release. Plus, all of his previous releases are now available to buy on Bleep, which would not be a bad investment at all if you've got a few spare bob lying around.
• Omar Souleyman - Ala Il Hanash Madgouga - Syrian psychedelic folkster Omar Souleyman has returned with another album packed full of frantic craziness with a delightful Middle Eastern flavour, perfect for white British boys such as myself to sit at home listening to while pretending that the majority of people from the originating region don't hate our guts.
• Ceephax Acid Crew - Castilian - if Arabia does ever grow tired of white British boys such as myself leeching off their psychedelic exports, then fortunately we'll always have United Acid Emirates, the latest album from Squarepusher's brother, Ceephax Acid Crew (funny names they have in that family, eh?). As usual it's chock-a-block with bleepy goodness, with a pH level so low it'd turn litmus paper the colour of Lenin's tongue. Cor, what a bloody brilliant string of references that was.
• MMM - Nous Sommes MMM - for those of you who, like Girls Aloud, don't speak French, the title of this song translates as "we are MMM". I think it's probably called that because it's produced by MMM. Therefore it's MMM making the track, and they're pointing out that fact to you through the song title. In French. Who says this blog isn't informative or culturally relevant?
• Actress - Always Human - Actress' last album, Hazyville, was pretty brilliant, and his follow-up, Splazsh - released on Damon Albarn's label Honest Jon's - is of a similar pedigree. Muffled, moody dub-techno flows throughout the record, affirming Actress' status as one of the top innovators on the British scene at the moment.

gentle

• Emeralds - Candy Shoppe - guess which one of the following descriptions refers to this song by American trio Emeralds, and which one refers to the song of a similar name by American one-man shit factory 50 Cent: 1.) an exquisitely crafted track of floating beauty, this is musical creation at it's most intelligent; 2.) typically posturing nonsense from one of the music world's most unnecessary and unwanted acts. Actually, there can be no right answers when 50 Cent's concerned, only woe and misfortune. So don't bother answering that question.
• Randy Barracuda - Streisand Effect - while the song and artist name probably aren't purposefully linked here, I imagine that if you called up a veterinarian in a moment of concern for your overly-horny pet fish, their response would be, "You've got a randy barracuda? Has it been watching 'Hello, Dolly!'? It has? Ah right then, it's just suffering from the Streisand Effect. Just put it in a cold bath for half an hour and play it Fergie's music videos on repeat - that should do the trick" ~ [half an hour later] ~ "Your barracuda's just slit it's wrists in the cold bath? Ahh shit..."
• Ramadanman - I Beg You - in which Ramadanman takes a phrase popular with both doomed medieval prisoners and modern-day young people from London and bases a song around it, using his characteristic pulsing drum patterns and a haunting vocal sample.
• The Crystal Ark - The City Never Sleeps - Gavin Russom follows up his awesome acid house project Black Meteoric Star by moving in to the guise of The Crystal Ark, with this track a deep, sprawling tribute to South American music. A twelve-minute masterpiece.
• Holy Fuck - Red Lights - the only way to express how continually brilliant Holy Fuck are is by simply exclaiming the group's name in sheer wonderment, as this track - along with the rest of their new album, Latin - is friggin' ace. With their last album, 2007's LP, being one of my top favourites from that year, combined with completely wowing me when I saw them live a couple of years ago, the Canadian outfit can do no wrong in my eyes, and fortunately the strength of their new record won't be changing that opinion anytime soon.
• Scuba - You Got Me - a few of the tracks listed so far feature on some of my favourite albums of the year, but Scuba's Triangulation is possibly currently sitting at the top of that pile. The album is class from start to finish, and I could've chosen any number of songs from it to demonstrate it's greatness.
• Mark E - Slave 1 - while not strictly from 2010 (as the album title 'Mark E: Works 2005-2009' would strongly imply), the compilation was only released this year so it blatantly still counts. This is the kind of deep house that Haagen-Dazs should be turning in to an ice-cream flavour, as it is absolutely delicious. They probably won't though, they never listen to my ice-cream flavour suggestions. All I've got for my attempts at helping is a draw-full of 'cease and desist' orders, and regular home visits from a psychotherapist.
• jj - Into The Light - this isn't actually the best song from Swedish group jj's newest album, which in turn isn't quite as good as their last album, but if you can show me a better example of a song fusing melodic synths and floating vocals with snippets of Italian football commentary describing Zlatan Ibrahimovic scoring a goal (or at least, that's what one would presume is happening), then by all means I would love to hear it. Oh, what's that? You can't find a better example? WELL FUCK OFF THEN.
• Toro y Moi - Lissoms - "lo-fi", "chillwave", and "glitch-hop" are all words that are bandied about a lot these days, often with the person using the words not really knowing what they're talking about, but this lo-fi piece of glitch-hoppy chillwave is really, erm.... really good. Yeah.
• Flying Lotus - Do The Astral Plane - the United Nations recently passed a motion making it illegal to say a bad word about Flying Lotus (the punishment for any dissident being to swear an oath to a block of wood with a smiley face crudely painted on, acknowledging that even it has superior musical knowledge to the FlyLo hater), which would be problematic and dictatorial if it weren't for the fact that it's very hard to say a bad word about Flying Lotus in the first place. I'm still undecided as to whether Steven Ellison's latest offering, Cosmogramma, is his best to date, but one thing's for certain - it's certainly very good. Or at least, that's what Reinhard - my crudely painted wooden superior - has told me.

BYE BYE !!!!!!!!!!!!

Guess who's back with some brand new tat?

Even a leper with sub-par numeracy skills could count on one hand the number of days since the last The Hardcore and The Gentle post that I haven't been pestered by a pleading cohort of distraught readers, desperate to know when the next post will be hitting their cyber-doormats. Well, without meaning to stick my tongue too far down the fully waxed blog hole of The Rt Hon. Dan Boadan, I read his excellent new blog post earlier today (http://bit.ly/9VZL2R) and was inspired to get back on to the blogging circuit myself. Plus it's too rainy for hopscotch, so a lad's gotta entertain himself somehow.


In an inglorious return to the early days of this blog, I'm not actually sure exactly what I'll be writing here, but I'm fairly sure that I'll be writing it nonetheless. One thing's for certain though: whatever it is, it'll be rambling tat. Rather than carry on reading this, you may instead find an iota more interest in an interview I did with veritable bad-ass Detroit dweller Kyle Hall which is now online, but which I will refrain from linking to here because last time I did something like that it resulted in all kinds of grief, not least the misjudged creation of a Facebook group for this blog. The interview is basically just more rambling, but this time it's me channelling the rambling rather than perpetrating it myself. Google "Kyle Hall Sound Revolt" if you enjoy a) Detroit-style house/deep house, b) interviews, AND c) me (it's gotta be all or nothing I'm afraid, there's no room around here for interview-loving deep house fans who don't have a shrine to me in their kitchen).


Always one to fart in the face of well thought-out and coherent blogging, I will now proceed to fill up the next half a page of your sorry little lives with possibly my laziest and worst quality bit of blogging to date - and regular readers will know that that's really saying something. A while ago, like many other people wot write on the internet, I knocked up a blog post about things that I'm looking forward to in 2010. That was near the start of February, already pushing the boundaries of acceptable timing for 'Beginning of the Year' lists. It's now almost April. I'm not entirely sure why I never got round to publishing that post, but in the spirit of recycling and unimaginativeness I've now decided to crop two of the entries from the list - one now horribly outdated, the other horribly pointless in the first place - and will post them in this blog entry. I'm not even gonna update them. Not one bit. I'm literally just gonna copy and paste from the un-posted post and leave you to wallow in the resultant misery, hopefully cursing the day that you ever laid eyes on this blog.


To mock you even further, I'll change the two extracts in to different coloured text, meaning that the most eye-catching parts of the page will in fact be the most atrociously lacklustre. Oh, and the reason why these two sections have been chosen over the rest of the list is that I felt some parts of them were amusing - so please prepare yourself to enter the biggest laughter-vacuum known to man for the next handful of moments.


Bestival


I'm writing this two days after the first acts for this year's Bestival - easily the best festival on the face of the planet, bar none - have just been unleashed on the world, and it's already looking to be yet another excellent few days on the Isle of Wight. At this point you may wish to find a quick crossword (no cryptics, please) or easy-to-medium level sudoku to partially fill in, as all that this poor excuse for a blog has to offer for the next few seconds of your life is a list of acts that have caught my immediate fancy from the line-up, which will of course be of less interest and benefit to anyone than a lecture by Ian Wright on how to correctly attach a mackintosh to a dog. If you don't happen to have a newspaper or puzzle book to hand, then why not distract yourself with a flick through this BBC News gallery of pictures of pot holes, which should also prove sufficiently more interesting than what I have to say. Anyway, from the first acts announced, I'm eagerly looking forward to: LCD Soundsystem, Flying Lotus, The Gaslamp Killer, Vitalic, Chilly Gonzales, Nathan Fake, Dixon, Joy Orbison, SBTRKT, Untold, and, of course, ROLF MOTHERFUCKING HARRIS. And when I say that Bestival is the best festival, I'm not just saying it's "the best" as someone might say "OMG Creamfields is THE BEST FESTIVAL, it always has all the biggest DJs" or "OMG Reading is THE BEST FESTIVAL, it's a great opportunity to get really pissed and watch The Enemy whilst surrounded by 14 year olds" - Bestival is the best because it has a really great and diverse line-up, with just the right amount of top names so that in most cases you'll be able to see everyone you'd wanna see (unlike somewhere such as Glasto, where there'd be more clashes than a West Ham vs Millwall fans' Monopoly marathon), plus there's been a huge amount of effort put in to the little details so as to give the festival a brilliant atmosphere, plus it has the fancy dress theme which adds further fun and quirkiness to proceedings. Now all that's needed is for the mysterious female artist that Rob Da Bank is being coy about to turn out to be Bjork, and for the weather to be a repeat of 2009's glorious sunshine, and hey presto - I'll be in festival Valhalla. And although she'll probably be slowly rotating on a spit in one of Hell's finest ovens by then, it'd also be pretty cool if Lady Gaga was the mysterious female. Just no way near as cool as if it were Bjork. Actually, yeah - fuck off back to Hell Lady Gaga, you whore-foreheaded hussy.


For that last part about Lady Gaga, I'm making a reference to this news release from the good folks at Westboro Baptist Church, which I'd posted earlier in the post. Except I didn't post it. If you know what I mean. Anyway, I think it's fairly safe to say that that extract wasn't as good as I'd remembered it, so we'll move swiftly onwards and downwards to this one:


Electrik Red

Not that anyone, including myself, wanted my thoughts on this particular matter, but Electrik Red are my tip to be the next American pop group to make it big in the UK. Having released their début album in the U.S.A. last year to critical acclaim, the likelihood is that they'll follow the typical pattern of attempting to break the British market sometime this year, and to my mind they've certainly got the goods to do so. Although I'm not exactly the most devoted fan of sassy, female-empowering R&B, Electrik Red have got some great beats and tunes, and the lyrics are akin to those of Destiny's Child, leaving me feeling like a natural born woman. They have an arsenal of tunes that are easily head and shoulders above the majority of dreadful pop and R&B that currently resides in the UK chart - here might be a good point to nominate Jay-Z & Mr. Hudson's 'Forever Young' as an early forerunner for biggest heap of (barely) musical shit of 2010. Jeez that song sucks.

Electrik Red - W.F.U.

Electrik Red - Freaky Freaky

And that was also thoroughly not worth the effort of holding down CTRL + C, CTRL + V. I do apologise, hopefully the normal level of only slightly shit blogging will resume soon, and, if you're really unlucky, on a more regular basis.

Songs I'm Currently Loving

I have a little system of collating the songs that I whack in this section, whereby any song that makes me go "oooh" when it comes on in my music library gets copied in to a little folder in a dark and dusty corner of my hard-drive, where it sits until I get round to writing a new blog post and upload the songs in the folder on to Mediafire. As it's been donkeys years since the last post, a fairly hefty pile of tunes which, according to myself, I'm "currently loving" has accumulated in said dark and dusty corner, and as is often the case with any song or small child, it doesn't take long before one stops loving it. I've trimmed the collection a bit, so you're now left with a bunch of songs that "I am or have previously been loving". To give you an idea of what was once loved but has now been trimmed, let's just say that '3 Words' by Cheryl Cole feat. Will.i.am was recently reported skulking round the dark and dusty corner. Hmm...

• Gonjasufi - Ancestors - Gonjasufi's album came out a little while ago, with production credits going to The Gaslamp Killer, hence the album title 'A Sufi and A Killer'. It's very good.
• Ikonika - Idiot - Ikonika's album is out soon. It's very good. 'Idiot' is probably my favourite track of hers to date, and for those of you who who live in the Sheffield area and possess a functioning set of eyes, my review of her album 'Contact, Love, Want, Have' should be in the forthcoming April edition of Now Then.
• Actress - Crushed - Actress' new album, 'Splazsh', is out soon. It should be very good. His first album 'Hazyville' is a gem, with 'Crushed' being a particular delight.
• Hot City - No More - Hot City are hot shit(ty) at the moment, having released many-a killer tune already and with a brand of bouncy house/techno that makes me utterly gutted ("Utterly Gutterly"?) to have missed them when they hit Sheffield a few weeks ago.
• Nathan Fake - Bored of House - someone I did manage to catch in the City of Steel recently was Nathan Fake, one of the residents of the 'Blog Favourites' section on the right-hand side of this blog. His sound has changed somewhat since he first burst on to the scene, and while he continues to impress on his releases my favourite of his records is probably still the 'Watlington Street EP' from which this track cometh.
• José James - Blackmagic (Joy Orbison Remix) - someone who no-one will be catching in Sheffield any time soon is Joy Orbison, thanks to Metropolis & Wax:On's undying uselessness. Having been on the original line-up for their next event, he's now mysteriously disappeared and has been replaced with Emalkay, which is like someone chopping off your penis and replacing it with an adder. And when I equate Joy Orbison with a penis I mean he's a source of warm pleasure, rather than a knob. Or, in my case, a massive knob. WHEEEY!
• Omar-S - Strider's World - the man largely responsible for elevating the aforementioned Kyle Hall in the world, Omar-S has never been too bad at the ol' song making himself, with this track from a while back being the very embodiment of the word "dope".
• Nat King Cole - Lush Life (feat. Cee-Lo) - I recently had the good fortune to stumble across an album of hip-hop reimaginations of Nat King Cole by a range of top producers, and this is a particular beaut. The album's called 'Re: Generations', well worth tracking down.
• Freeway & Jake One - Know What I Mean - hip-hop albums can be very hit and miss, but in the case of Freeway & Jake One's 'The Stimulus Package', it's most definitely a hit, with this song a prime example.
• The Laughing Windows - Beta Test - if you scroll down the comments on the MySpace for The Laughing Windows, you'll find one that says simply "BRUTAL SHIT!", left by none other than perennial bad-ass motherfucker, The Gaslamp Killer. And that's really all that needs saying.
• Broken Haze - Block - The Hardcore and The Gentle's favourite member of the Canidae family, the mighty Terror Wolf, recently pointed me in the direction of a natty free album from Jus Like Music and Apple Juice Break, which can be downloaded here: http://juslikemusicrecords.bandcamp.com/. It features a host of good but unfamiliar names from the worlds of dubstep, hip-hop and general electronica, with this track by Broken Haze providing some excellent whomps and glitches. And while he's being mentioned, make sure to check out a recent mix from the one and only Terror Wolf here: http://www.zshare.net/download/73596754e3f019f2/