(What's So Crazy 'Bout) Peace, Love And One Direction

If you've ever sat through an evening of amateur comedy, you'll be well acquainted with the Acme 'Observational Gag Format' of: "Right, so I've been thinking a lot about [subject] lately... have you ever noticed how [subject] always does [whatever it is subject does]? What's that all about!"

Some comedians have made enormously successful careers out of doing just this, however most of the time the deliverer will be a slightly haggard-looking man in a pub's part-time comedy annex, part-time storage room, nursing a beer belly that suggests he's spent a large amount of time in similar taverns watching amateur comedy before incorrectly drawing the conclusion that he could in fact do this himself. Often the subjects of his observational scything will be everyday matters that we, the audience, are all familiar with, which he'll then proceed to deconstruct before our very eyes before probably saying 'penis' and slouching off stage. One particularly unsuccessful attempt at uniting an assembled crowd with thigh-slapping hilarity and shrieks of, "YES! YES! That's EXACTLY what that's like!" that I witnessed was a stand-up start with the question, "so, who here smokes weed?", and, upon being met with blank stares - the queue to the Amsterdam McDonalds this was not - proceeded to descend in to a defensive ramble about why the stand-up smoked weed, with little comic effect.

Anyway, Channel 4's 'Crazy About One Direction' documentary is essentially this joke format, with teenage girls the subject in this instance. In a similar way to the sociological forecasting that within 60 years white Britons while cease to be the majority ethnic group in the UK, so we are faced with the very real prospect that the number of teenage One Direction fanatics outpouring their love for the former X Factor runners-up through online forums will soon pale in comparison to the amount of grown adults taking smug swipes at their obsessive behaviour from their supposedly more mature corner of the internet. Following 'Crazy About One Direction's screening, Twitter parted like the Red Sea - on one half the aforementioned fandom, perhaps understandably a bit cheesed off at how their kind had been portrayed by C4, while the other half consisted of older folk, scoffing at how idiotic these kids are. I know I've completely misused the Red Sea allegory there, so as slight recompense I should add that the group passing untouched through the nautical corridor are One Direction themselves, who, along with their marketing team, will not be losing one moment of sleep over the documentary, which the placing of adverts for the group's forthcoming film during the breaks was testament to.

A similar inter-generational spat had previously erupted after GQ revealed that the boy band were to grace the cover of their latest issue, a piece of promotional coverage - akin to C4's documentary - that 1D's fan-base seemed to take issue with. Death threats were rapidly dispatched to the GQ editorial staff - by sticking menacingly anonymous cut-out newspaper letters to a sheet of paper and being stuffed in to an untraceable letterbox? No, you big plum, by Twitter of course. GQ then collected some of the most outrageous of these reactions and rewarded their advertisers' continued loyalty by posting them in a click-bait article online, spawning a flurry of extra page hits and yet more warmongering in its comments section.

After a brief scroll through these messages, it becomes clear that the ultra-defensive fans aren't the real cretins here - it's the fully-formed, ballot-casting, rental car-hiring, income tax-paying adults that take time out from their daily lives to argue with and mock their adolescent online cohabitants for the opinions that they peddle, probably with precious little to do during school holidays with the prospect of GCSEs looming large. My computer usage during my formative years was mostly devoted to playing Football Manager and wanking (to porn, I hasten to add, not Football Manager), not checking my Nectar points online and adding high-flying strangers to my network on LinkedIn. Whilst some of my peers may have spent their time slightly more productively - if we've somehow found ourselves in an unholy world where 'winning back-to-back trebles with Atletico Madrid' is considered unproductive - this was fairly typical teenage boy behaviour, just as obsessing over boy bands is typical teenage girl behaviour. Always has been, and always will be. Why some of the older generation feel the need to take issue with this is bemusing - would the same gaggle of eager finger-waggers feel a similar obligation to sneeringly correct a six year-old's claims that if you eat enough pizza you'll turn in to a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle? (Less out-dated children's references are available for Premium Members only)

Admittedly, based on the documentary some of the One Direction fans' behaviour is rather bizarre, occasionally bordering on mildly terrifying, but unless puberty has changed since my day (and under this Coalition mess of a government it may well have done, amiright) these girls will reach a more rational plane of thought in a few years, probably around the time One Direction are usurped by the next gaggle of good-looking, adequately-voiced young men. I suspect anyway that part of the ire directed against 1D fans stems from a jealousy of the band themselves, and seeing as there's little your man at his keyboard can do about the group's international success and fame, they feel they can play some part in derailing their efforts by giving both barrels to those that must be braincell deficient enough to support and defend them. I for one don't enjoy One Direction's music, but nor do I let this or their stratospheric status bother me. Would I want to live like Harry Styles, travelling around the world in luxury, bedding a string of beautiful women (...and Caroline Flack) and raking in millions from record sales and merchandise? Yes, I most definitely would. Does shagging Taylor Swift win you La Liga 'Manager of the Year' three-times on the trot though, Harry? No, it doesn't Harry. It doesn't.

* * * * *

Given that One Direction originally shot to fame after finishing third on the X Factor a few years back - always a slightly baffling fact considering the second and first-placed contestants have enjoyed nowhere near the same adoration from the voting public - and I think I saw an advert the other day saying it's approaching the show's tenth anniversary edition, I thought I'd do a very brief run-down of the best songs to have emerged from UK talent shows. For the sake of this not descending in to a list of my favourite Girls Aloud songs, I'm restricting the tracks to the singles that are given to the winning acts upon victory. So, in order, here are the best reality pop songs of the past decade or so:

5. Joe McElderry - The Climb [X Factor, 2009] - DISCLAIMER: this song is, of course, not good, however it turns out that barely any of the winners' singles are so this is here simply for the commendable fact that without its existence, Rage Against The Machine would never have reached Christmas #1

4. Leona Lewis - A Moment Like This [X Factor, 2006]

3. Hear'Say - Pure & Simple [Popstars, 2001]

2. Will Young - Evergreen [Pop Idol, 2002]

1. Girls Aloud - Sound of the Underground [Popstars: The Rivals, 2002]

enjoy.

Favourite LPs #3 - Samantha Greenberg

No Doubt - Tragic Kingdom (1995)

By Samantha Greenberg

The world is harsh when you're 15. You hate everyone and no one likes you. You're emotional and erratic. The pop-ska anthems of No Doubt's first album are certainly tailor-made for you. You listen to "Don't Speak" when you're crying and alone. You belt out "Just a Girl" and "Excuse Me Mr." in the car with your friends. You sang "Sixteen" and "Sunday Morning" in front of the mirror. Or at least I did.

True story, for about a year, my cell phone answering machine message was the chorus from "Spiderwebs": 

"Sorry I'm not home right now
I'm walking into spiderwebs
So leave a message
And I'll call you back."

It was angsty but not depressed. Pop-y but not saccharine. Girly but not weak. I got the album when it came out and I was all of 6 years old. I don't know what my father, who introduced me to David Bowie and The Who, was thinking when he let me get that CD. He loves me that much, I guess. Tragic Kingdom was my music. It was my taste - not something that my dad taught me to like or my friends suggested. It's an album that, from start to finish, is completely unskippable. Not one song falls short. The sound may be repetitive but the energy (and horns) keep it from feeling stale. To this day, it remains highly played on my iTunes account. I may reach for it less and less but I'm always happy when a Tragic Kingdom song comes on shuffle. 

I know it's not the best musically or lyrically or conceptually. But our favorite albums aren't always based on logic - they come from memories and emotions and time. For what I wanted, for what it gave me, Tragic Kingdom is the best.

Track list:

1. Spiderwebs
2. Excuse Me Mr.
3. Just A Girl
4. Happy Now?
5. Different People
6. Hey You
7. The Climb
8. Sixteen
9. Sunday Morning
10. Don't Speak
11. You Can Do It
12. World Go 'Round
13. End It On This
14. Tragic Kingdom

Wanna write about your own favourite record? Just holla, yo.

Favourite LPs #2 - Nathan Crouch

Weezer - Weezer (or, The Blue Album) (1994)

By Nathan Crouch

You can’t write about Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’ without talking about ‘grunge’. You can’t discuss King Crimson without saying ‘prog’. No overview of either Oasis or Blur could ever be complete without reference to the journalist-fuelled battle for ‘Britpop’ glory that dominated their early history, despite how different they were, and how little either cared for the crown. Some albums are so synonymous with a certain sound that it becomes impossible to write a retrospective review without taking this into account. This can prove frustrating for the artists themselves, as almost all of these musical buzzwords are the pigeon-holing brainchildren of journalists, and a lot of the time these buzzwords place far more focus on the look of a band than its sound.

Unfortunately for Weezer, this proved to be the case, for when their debut album emerged in 1994, the pigeonhole parade took one look at the cover and cast them as ‘Nerd Rock’ until their dying days. Within their sound may be contained the gain-heavy power chord freak outs of Pixies, the sweetly acoustic serenading of Cat Stevens, and a fair few (simplified) solos stolen from the glory days of Glen Danzig, but despite all of this, they wore glasses. Not only in public, but on stage, and in music videos. In addition, not a single one of their songs was about drug addiction – no winking references to spoons, no reports on visits to Dr Greenthumb, not even a passing mention of anything ‘brown’. Indeed, it seems that when lead singer Rivers Cuomo chimes about how much he enjoys hanging out ‘In The Garage’, it’s less for its hot-boxing potential and more about an irony-free desire for Dungeons and Dragons and X-Men comics. 

Wherein lies Weezer’s main appeal on their debut ten-track pop masterpiece: as with all great music, it’s incredibly honest. All the best musicians find the best ways to convey where they come from, be it Compton, Trench Town, Outer Space (google ‘Sun Ra’), or in this case, Suburban Nowheresville, Connecticut. No band who puts a couplet like ‘Come sit next to me, pour yourself some tea’ in the opening song of their first album could be aiming for street-cred, and it would almost be embarrassing to sing along to on the bus with your headphones were it not for the magic of Weezer: they sang infectiously catchy songs that make you not care about how lame you may look dancing to them, because you’re having too much fun. They would often recall the crooning pop numbers of Buddy Holly, with a modern post-Pixies adherence to loud-quiet-loud that gels perfectly - take the distortion out of ‘Holiday’ and you’ve got the sound of a hit 50’s 7 inch. From Holly to glam rock, at its best the Weezer sound is a compendium of every music that teenagers at various points enjoyed putting on in their bedrooms and turning up loud for the pure joy of rocking out, free of inhibition.

What differs ‘The Blue Album’ from the later, suckier work of Weezer on albums like ‘Make Believe’ is the subtle blend of angst and insecurity that infuses ostensibly happy numbers like ‘In The Garage’, and conversely the notes of hope and optimism that run through more miserable titles like ‘The World Has Turned and Left Me Here’. Latter-era Weezer are a little too content to wear their emotions on their sleeves, picking one feeling per song from the emotional spectrum and sticking to it, but the Weezer of yore had a wonderful way of making sad songs sound happy, and vice versa.

Thus, the success of ‘The Blue Album’ is a simple formula: ten perfectly crafted pop songs, from bouncy 3/4 opener ‘My Name Is Jonas ‘ to the dreamy walking bassline that fuels closing 8 minute wonder ‘Only In Dreams’, that encapsulate the main advantage of being a nerd: the ability to enjoy cheesy nerd things without giving a shit. And that’s pretty cool. 

Interesting side-note: The influence of this album has stretched far and wide, to bands as bizarrely un-weezer-ish as Deftones and Biffy Clyro, who have both covered tracks from this album – it is certainly worth seeking out the latter’s rendition of ‘Buddy Holly’ as an example of artistic license gone magnificently insane. Remember that episode of ‘Family Guy’ where Peter turns a production of ‘The King and I’ into a war epic about robots from Space? This is the audio equivalent of that: 

Track list:

1. My Name Is Jonas

2. No One Else

3. The World Has Turned And Left Me Here

4. Buddy Holly

5. Undone - The Sweater Song

6. Surf Wax America

7. Say It Ain't So

8. In The Garage

9. Holiday

10. Only In Dreams

Wanna write about your own favourite record? Just holla, yo.

Favourite LPs #1 - Alex Bate

At the Drive-In – Relationship of Command (2000)

By Alex Bate

I bought this album after seeing At the Drive-In deliver a blistering version of One Armed Scissor on Jools Holland, then whizz a chair past Robbie Williams’ head when they finished. This performance summed up the feel of the album exactly, a startling combination of noise and energy leaning occasionally towards the unhinged/bat-shit mental.

Opener Arcarsenal slowly builds up before exploding into life, and is followed by one post-hardcore monster after another. Listening to songs like Cosmonaut and Sleepwalk Capsules feel like being driven the wrong way down a motorway, whilst Enfilade and Quarantined are brilliantly edgy slow-burners.

The energy of the songs is backed up by lyrics ranging from the baffling (“Lazarus threw the party, Lazarus threw the fight,” “this syringe will take a lifetime, it’s filled with bait and tackle”) to the powerful – particularly Invalid Litter Dept.’s account of the Ciudad Juarez drug murders. All of this is delivered in Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s inimitable yelp, although Iggy Pop gives a good attempt to mimic it when he turns up on Rolodex Propaganda.

When At the Drive-In broke up after this, their next bands they formed showed what each individual brought to the band, with Bixler-Zavala’s The Mars Volta producing staggeringly creative but frustratingly inconsistent music, whilst Jim Ward’s Sparta were solidly competent almost to the point of boring. However on Relationship of Command they each take their respective Lennon and McCartney roles, with Ward helping to shape Bixler-Zavala’s creativity into something resembling coherent song structures. What this leaves you with is one of the greatest punk records ever written.

Track list:

1. Arcarsenal
2. Pattern Against User
3. One Armed Scissor
4. Sleepwalk Capsules
5. Invalid Litter Dept.
6. Mannequin Republic
7. Enfilade
8. Rolodex Propaganda
9. Quarantined
10. Cosmonaut
11. Non-Zero Possibility
12. Catacombs

Wanna write about your own favourite record? Just holla, yo.

Long Players

2010 was not a particularly great year for albums. I realised this when I was trying to compile my Top 10 list, and realised that, with a handful of exceptions, nothing really made me sit up and take notice. Further evidence of the LP's annus horribilis came when various journals released their own End Of Year lists: FACT Magazine's top spot belonged to Forest Swords' 'Dagger Paths', which is a great record but is by all accounts an EP rather than a full-length album. Pitchfork even decided that all three of James Blake's EPs from the year could be rolled in to one and dumped in eighth place, as if no-one would notice that they sounded completely different from each other and weren't one complete record. And, of course, Kanye West dominated the higher reaches of almost every list that popped up. The entire music critic world went in to complete meltdown when 'My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy' became a beautiful dark twisted reality right at the end of '10: while Pitchfork and FACT - amongst others - were excitedly slapping their maximum number of stars on the record, it was less well received in other quarters, with The Guardian dubbing it an, "uninteresting echo chamber that maintains the steady downwards trajectory of West's albums", while some viewed it as overindulgent and pretentious.

While I would firmly spurn the haters on this one, Yeezy doesn't feature in my final selection of favourite albums from the past year. Here are 10 records that do:

10. Baths - Cerulean

::: Aminals :::

'Cerulean' sounds somewhat like an extended collection of the abstract hip-hop tracks that pepper Bibio's 'Ambivalence Avenue' - and seeing as that album was numero uno in this list last year, that's definitely no bad thing. The basis of Will Wiesenfeld aka Baths' music is akin to that of beat-makers such as Flying Lotus and Teebs, but - as with Bibio's hip-hop outings - his songs contain a more intimately human quality to them than some of his peers. This is helped by the fact that, unlike many manufacturers of beats and bass, Wiesenfeld contributes his own vocals at points on the record, adding to the warm, personal feel of the album. Could 'Cerulean' be to the world of abstract hip-hop what 'In Rainbows' is to the rest of Radiohead's back catalogue - namely, the first appearance of a romantic record? If it is, it'll of course require it's own genre name. Heart-Hop? Lovestep? Rom-Hip-Nol? Maybe not...

9. Four Tet - There Is Love In You

::: Sing [YouTube] :::

In times gone by, folk would express their incredulity or shock with phrases such as, "Ye Gads!", or, "Gordon Bennett!", or, "Shit!". Nowadays, it's hard to tell if a person is surprised unless they exclaim, "Oh no he didn't!", with the "didn't" of course pronounced as "dih-ent". Sideways movement of one's fingers in front of one's face is a suitable replacement when communicating with the deaf. I bring this up because, back in January of last year, this was the only suitable way to greet the news that Four Tet, with a glittering career that spanned back to the late '90s, had just released what was probably his best album yet. 'There Is Love In You' arrived like the culmination of the increasing prevalence of house and techno in Kieran Hebden's work, as hinted at with 2008's 'Ringer EP' and his pulsating collaborations with Burial in 2009. Despite seeming a world away from the 'folktronica' of early releases, Four Tet had steadily been making the transition to more beat-driven work rather than making any sudden departures, so the only real surprise on this LP is that, after over a decade of releasing material, he's still churning out brilliant, innovative music. Oh no he dih-ent!

8. Grimes - Halfaxa [available for free download]

::: Devon :::

If I was to make an album, I'd probably record myself reading Treasure Island to a cat as it slinked around our neighbourhood, intermittently playing blasts of Rihanna's 'Only Girl (In The World)' on my phone when I felt that the track needed an injection of oomph. After I'd finished recording, I'd probably copy it on to no more than 20 CD-Rs and give them away free to friends and family, and then assume that this would suffice as their present whenever their birthdays next came along. I wouldn't be making any money out of the venture, but neither would my album be considered to be one of the year's finest releases. This, I'm sure, is only the beginning of the differences between me and Canadian experimentalist Grimes. Whereas she also released her début album for the grand total of zilch, hers happened to be brilliant, whereas mine will be under-appreciated in my own lifetime, to say the least. 'Halfaxa' is a collection of delightfully twisted 'n' psychedelic yet cute 'n' dreamy songs, full of infectious vocals and toe-tapping beats. Think Bjork smoking weed with The Cure at an abandoned '80s discotheque. But, like, in Narnia.

7. Lone - Emerald Fantasy Tracks

::: Moon Beam Harp :::

Although admittedly it hasn't made the Number 1 spot, when I listen to this album there seems very little point in any other music ever made. This is a record that's perfect for pretty much any situation. It's an ideal pre-, mid-, and post-rave soundtrack. It's great for a countryside cycle. It's great for an inner-city stroll. Why not listen to 'Emerald Fantasy Tracks' while shopping for groceries in your local supermarket? Why not indeed. The heart of this album pumps out blood in the form of classic old skool rave riffs, but this is not necessarily music to don your hi-vis jacket and flail your arms in the air for seven hours non-stop to. Lone has taken the kind of acid piano stabs that filled fields in '92 and given them a deep rinse, creating a string of songs that are subdued but still euphoric. It's blissfully easy to submerse yourself in the album, letting it bathe you in gloriously ecstatic sunshine. Or, if you're on an inner-city stroll, heavenly-scented smog.

6. Daughters - Daughters

::: Our Queens (One Is Many, Many Are One) :::

One of the most famous catchphrases to emerge from Monty Python's Flying Circus is the immortal line, "and now for something completely different", used to introduce a scene that was radically unrelated to what had preceded it. To give you an idea of the propriety of the phrase for this situation, let us briefly study the Last.fm tags for Lone, and the tags for Daughters. Lone: 'chill', 'deep', 'ambient', 'idm'. Daughters: 'grindcore', 'hardcore', 'mathcore', 'noisecore'. As you might be able to tell, this is music that will not only rudely awaken you from that Lone-induced hazy trance you'd slipped in to, but it'll then force you at screwdriver-point to run a double marathon through torrents of mud and sludge, only to inform you once you've finished that it hates people who run muddy sludgy double marathons, before stabbing you in the eyes with the screwdriver. I know very little about hardcore punk / 'noisecore', and can't entirely remember how I stumbled upon this album in the first place. Each song is a ball of contained, calculated raw energy, channelled through an experimental-yet-coherent blast. It's the most savagely uncompromising album I've heard all year, and all the more enjoyable for it.

5. Oriol - Night And Day

::: Joy FM :::

I can assure you that, if you haven't already experienced it, that track there will be one of the funkiest things you've heard in a while. While last year's albums list had Dam-Funk's 'Toeachizown' on groove duty, this year sees Oriol representing all things sleek and sexy. Being myself a product of the pretty but as a whole musically uninspired university town of Cambridge, I was first drawn to Oriol when I found out he was a resident of the 'Bridge, and was signed to Planet Mu. In terms of musical exports, the drum'n'bass holy trinity of Logistics, Nu:Tone and Commix loom heavily over the town, so I was interested to sample this different flavour being stirred up in the city. While Planet Mu sometimes has a tendency for fairly inaccessible bleeps and groans, Oriol's music is nothing of the sort: smooth, chilled-out sultry vibes, bursting forth from the 1980s like a swarm of synth-playing cherubs. A record similar to 'Emerald Fantasy Tracks' in it's ability to soothe and induce warm, comforting rapture, 'Night And Day' should really rank alongside great Cambridge achievements such as the discovery of DNA (I was gonna try and work in some clever little play on 'Night And Day' having the same initials as DNA, but felt that it might be a bit pointless and long-winded, a bit like this caveat that I'm now dragging out way longer than is literary acceptable).

4. Guido - Anidea

::: Way U Make Me Feel :::

Having boasted two of the most impressive singles of 2009 with 'Orchestral Lab / Way U Make Me Feel' and 'Beautiful Complication / Chakra', Guido was already, as they say, shit hot. With his début album in 2010 - on Bristol label Punch Drunk, as with the singles - also transpiring to be brilliant, Guido currently boasts an impressive 100% success rate: three records released, three masterpieces. While 'Anidea' does include three tracks from the 2009 singles, the rest of the album has been fleshed out wonderfully, with fresh tracks like 'Cat In The Window', 'Mad Sax', and the title track all further demonstrating Guido's production prowess. However, there's one master-stroke on this record that trumps everything else. When it was released in '09, 'Way U Make Me Feel' was already a great track, but at the time was an instrumental. For the album cut, however, the vocal talents of Yolanda (not of '...Be Cool' / We No Speak Americano fame) were employed, and the result (available for d/l above) should really be considered one of the greatest R&B/soul songs of at least the past few years. As many producers from dubstep roots have been doing recently, Guido is transcending the mother genre and experimenting with other styles. However, few other producers follow the same line that Guido does, meaning that 'Anidea' is a truly unique and exciting album.

3. Scuba - Triangulation

::: Tracers :::

When I first heard this record when it came out in March, I immediately felt that this would be the best album of the year. As it turns out, thinking that after only quarter of the year was a bit premature and it's eventually been squeezed down in to third place, but 'Triangulation' is still an album of undeniable quality. Pushing in a more techno-infused direction than his 2008 album 'A Mutual Antipathy', Scuba conjures up a world of urban metallic machinery on his tracks, with the mood often bewitchingly repressive. The production is meticulous, each track haunted by a swirl of musical antimatter that seeps in to the song and then proceeds to squeeze itself back outwards through every minuscule gap, emitting snatches of crackling noise at timely intervals. While generally quite a reclusive album, there are still offerings that could easily command a dancefloor's attention, such as the romping 'On Deck', the Untold-esque 'You Got Me', or the slightly more expansive 'Tracers'. 'Triangulation' is very much an album that belongs to 2010, encapsulating the leaps and bounds that dubstep has gone in recent years.

2. Robyn - Body Talk

::: Dancehall Queen [YouTube] :::

Robyn is somewhat of a glorious oddity in the world of pop. She released three studio albums between 1995 and 2002 before finally finding proper mainstream recognition in 2005, when tracks like 'With Every Heartbeat' heralded the arrival of one of pop music's all-time great albums, the self-titled 'Robyn'. She then waits five years to release her follow-up, and when she does, it's not one record, it's three. 'Body Talk Part 1' marked Robyn's return in June, followed a few months later by 'Part 2', culminating in November with the release of 'Body Talk', which draws on tracks from the previous releases as well as adding on a few more to form a full album. And oh my sweet Jesus Jones, what an album it is. Robyn has a talent for making music that any of her American counterparts would eat an entire dress of raw meat to be able to recreate; penning most of her own lyrics, her production team-mate on 'Body Talk' is fellow Swede Klas Ahlund, who crafts the kind of wonderful electro-pop that must make David Guetta smack himself repeatedly in the face with a garden trowel through insane jealousy whenever he hears it. The album has some big singles: the incredible 'Dancing On My Own', the entrancing 'Indestructible', and 'Hang With Me', which at points sounds somewhat like 'Handle Me' from 'Robyn', but both are great songs so no gripes there. Then there are the songs that comprise the rest of 'Body Talk': the pulsating self-conscious/rebellious 'Don't Fucking Tell Me What To Do'; the Back To The Future-referencing 'Time Machine'; the horribly cruel 'Call Your Girlfriend'; the bonafide dance anthem that is 'We Dance To The Beat'; the collabs with Royksopp and Snoop Dogg; and 'Dancehall Queen' that I've linked to above, which is arguably one of the best dancehall songs in recent memory - and it's from Sweden. Those are just a selection of highlights, but there's not a dud moment on 'Body Talk'. If it's gonna take Robyn another five years to release her next album, so long as it's as world-beating as her previous two outings then I'll be happy to wait.

1. Eleven Tigers - Clouds Are Mountains

::: Songs for You :::

Since I started writing this blog last year and compiled my Top 10 favourite albums at the end of 2009, I started keeping an eye out in 2010 for records that I could seize upon for this year's list. Having fallen in love with last year's list-topper, Bibio's 'Ambivalence Avenue', I was eager and excited to discover an album of similar calibre this year. So it was with disappointment and frustration that the winter months slipped by, then Spring turned to Summer, and eventually Summer began to shrink in to the final throes of 2010 - and I was still without any album that conjured up any kind of real interest. I started to reflect back on albums such as Flying Lotus' 'Cosmogramma', Pantha du Prince's 'Black Noise', Ikonika's 'Contact, Love, Want, Have', and thought, "OK, I know these are good, but they don't really arouse a whole lot of emotion from me - is this what I'm gonna have to settle for? Is 2010 just gonna have to be written off as a fallow year in terms of truly outstanding LPs? Where's my effing Bibio, bitch?!"

Then one day in October I was idly indulging in my favourite past-time of scouring the web for potentially good music when, through a fortuitous chain of clicks on Last.fm, I happened across this Lithuanian guy called Eleven Tigers who'd moved to London a few years ago and been inspired by Burial, and had a shoutbox full of gushing praise for his album, 'Clouds Are Mountains'. One user was particularly enthusiastic, and I followed a link to his blog post he'd written about the LP where he further lauded it, so I decided to track the album down to check it out for myself. It has 14 tracks and is just shy of an hour long. After less than six minutes, spanning just over two and a half tracks, I knew that this was without doubt the most incredible thing I'd hear all year.

Since I obtained the album, there are few occasions when I've started listening to it and haven't ended up listening to the whole thing. Sometimes this'll involve me lying in bed just gazing at my iTunes library while it plays, while the clock plods along to times like four in the morning, ignoring my need to be asleep around then. What sets 'Clouds Are Mountains' apart from other albums I've heard in 2010, and what makes it so spell-bindingly hard to leave, is that the majority of the record is segued in to one continuous run. Individually, the tracks are brilliant. However, when they're seamlessly flowing through your ears they become really quite magical. The style of music is a kind of dubby techno, which as a genre can be hypnotic enough at the best of times, but when it's so expertly produced as the tracks here are, it feels like a crime to tear oneself away from it. It's a largely instrumental record, but while vocal samples may be sparse they are so spot on when they do appear that they really brush proceedings with a haunting, yearning beauty. As a musical creation it couldn't be much more different from Bibio's gentle folk-leanings, but it is nonetheless a more than worthy successor to the Number One spot.

Honourable mentions: 

• Actress - Splazsh
• Darkstar - North
• Earl Sweatshirt - EARL ('nother freebie]
• Jimmy Edgar - XXX
• John Roberts - Glass Eights

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.