SONGS OF 2010

It’s coming to the end of the year and it’s that time when the internet goes crazy nuts with lists. Lists of bands, albums, songs, collaborations, gigs, remixes, fucking whatever you can think of to do with music, there’s probably a list for it. So many lists. I’m not going to pretend to be above all that because I’m not, but I will at least make it nice and easy. Below are some songs that I’ve really enjoyed this year. There’s 19 tracks, I’m sure you know most of them, now I suggest you take the time to listen to them back to back and reflect on what has been a pretty decent year for new music…

Radiant Dragon – Preseli – Download

Surfaced on the Internet in Jan/Feb time if I remember correctly, this is the standout track from a very interesting artist. Spacey, sampled vocals ring around the background, but it is basically an instrumental. The fact that it still makes you sing (or if you’re feeling especially obnoxious, whistle) along, then, is probably testament to the quality of the arrangement of the song.

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FOE – A Handsome Stranger Called Death – Download

Another track to emerge round about Valentine’s Day, which is funny because I love FOE. Like, I actually love her. Hannah, if you’re reading this, I love you. Her music is gritty, it’s cool, it’s catchy, it’s English, it’s young and it’s fresh. PJ Harvey eat your heart out.

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The Other Tribe – Businessman on Diazepam – Watch

I’ve never really thought of this blog ‘championing’ any bands, but I guess when you are the first to write about an act, and you keep updating people about their movements, then that’s kind of what you’re doing. So this is me fucking championing these boys. Sweet. This tune is jumpy, ravey, poppy, infectious and just very cool. Party music of the pre-dubstep era, but not without modern influences.

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Foals – Spanish Sahara – Watch

Can’t really claim to have championed these lads unfortunately, but I can claim to have gone to one of their very early shows, to have fallen in love immediately and to be one of their biggest fans. Not like one of those weird biggest fans, I don’t have copies of photos of Yannis from when he was at school or a Foals duvet or anything, but I do think that pretty much everything they have ever put on record is fucking amazing. I don’t think anyone thought that this is what their new material would sound like when the Spanish Sahara video was the first thing to emerge after Antidotes, but it has the feel of an instant classic. A timeless, powerful, heartfelt epic from one of the best British bands in years and years.

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Morning Parade – Under The Stars – Watch

For some reason these boys don’t seem to be appearing on nearly enough 2011 watch-lists, which I can’t understand because they’re quality. Commercial, yes, but a fresh new British stadium rock band who have already written some absolute epics. I was lucky enough to get hold of an early copy of this track in the summer, and it blew me away. Nothing revolutionary, just very big and very good rock music. Enough synths to warrant some banging club remixes, enough guitars to please the puritans (that’ll be me, then) and a big enough label to turn them into the next biggest rock band in the world. Will be very surprised if their debut doesn’t soundtrack your summer.

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Jakwob – Here With Me – Download

I’m still not a complete dubstep convert (and if I’m not by now, it’s probably a fairly sure thing I never will be) but there is still room for this wobbly bastard in my top songs of 2010. Jakwob has done about a billion remixes of pop and indie chart tracks, but the end of the summer saw the young lad release his first solo single. Looped, spooky vocals layered on top of a big beat, and a breakdown with so much wobble that there is no mistaking who’s responsible for this banger. People seem to have been talking about the saturation of dubstep for a while now – something that was quite neatly summed up by the massively polarised opinions on the Magnetic Man album – and I don’t listen to enough of the stuff to pass any major comment on that. What I do know though, is that I am looking forward to continuing my polite interest from the sidelines over the next year, and seeing where the young guns like Jakwob take the genre. I suppose one direction it has already gone is the way that the young lad below has taken it…

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James Blake – I Only Know (What I Know Now) – Watch

I don’t think there’s been a ‘Top albums/EPs of 2010′ or a ‘top tips for 2011′ list without this man’s name on it, but that’s because he has so much potential. For me it’s music that makes you think more than it makes you feel, but I love that. I’m not saying that intellectualising about music is necessarily a good thing – it’s like explaining a joke – but this boy uses space within a song like nothing I’ve ever really heard, in a way that demonstrates a real degree of intelligence to his music. It isn’t going to make you scream along in joy or huddle up and cry with despair, but he will certainly make you think. There’s 5 of my shiniest pounds already riding on him to win next year’s Mercury, and it might be the opinion of every music-lover in the country but that doesn’t make it any less valid; I can’t wait for the album.

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I Dream In Colour – Take Me On A Train

If I’m going to start labeling myself a champion then I may as well slap a big thumbs up on these lads too. Singer Richard has got a cracking set of pipes and a more than capable band behind him. This track still only exists in demo form, but for me it perfectly captures their sound. Don’t get me wrong, they make bigger noises than this and the live show packs a big fucking punch, but this track makes you sing along, it makes you feel what the lead man is feeling. Again a debut full-length is expected in 2011, and assuming enough money goes into the record then I fully expect it to sound amazing. Whether it’s a perfectly crafted ballad or a massive rock anthem, there’s something so cathartic and also so endearing about these boys’ music.

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Peers – Football – Watch

Fuck One Direction, if you want to fall in love with a band of 16/17 year old boys, look no further than Peers. Unearthed on the BBC Introducing stage at Reading and Leeds this year, this track ‘Football’ demonstrates really staggering maturity for a band so young. What initially sounds like some generic Two Door Cinema Club spin-off very quickly turns into something infinitely better. Just listen to the lad sing, his voice is immense. Amazing tune, can’t wait for more.

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Entrepreneurs – Bubblegunk - Download

From one of my favourite EPs of the year, ‘Uv Been Robbed (Joking, But Not)’, ‘Bubblegunk’ is the most upbeat and poppy track from the strange but utterly brilliant producer Entrepreneurs. Just one man, by the way. I’m a sucker for a song led by driving bass and funky percussion, so this track had me at hello.

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Everything Everything – Schoolin’ – Watch

An absolutely nuts arrangement from another band with a completely distinctive vocalist. I’ll be honest, I think the album has a few weak spots, but I’m just talking about this track. Very cool percussion, brilliantly melodic bass, some pretty sweet guitar and an abbreviated title, so you know it’s cool.

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New Generation Dudes – Stevie Sunshine’s Super Solar Smoke-Out – Download

This is a ridiculous song from a ridiculous band. No-one’s heard of them, no-one will probably ever hear of them, and yet I’ve got such a soft spot for this song. It’s simple and it’s cheesy but fuck it, it’s upbeat and it’s fun. They seem to have the attitude of the Chili Peppers in the 80s, which was weird enough 30 years ago so I really don’t know where they fit in to anything, anywhere, in 2010 but whatever man, it’s a cool song.

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The Vaccines – If You Wanna – Download

A tune so catchy it should be cheesy, but for some reason The Vaccines seem to get away with it. Maybe it’s because the recording seems live (I don’t know if it actually is or not) and the production isn’t too shiny, but this is a big, catchy, guitar-driven pop song of the highest order.

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Wolf Gang – Back to Back – Download

I’m a big fan of Wolf Gang. His latest track ‘Lions In Cages’ has quite rightly started to gain him some airtime on mainstream radio, but for me this track ‘Back to Back’ that surfaced earlier in the year is his best effort to date. A bravely minimalist instrumental means that his almost haunting vocal has to carry the track, certainly through the verses, but it does this no problems. Love the lyrics, love his voice, love this acoustic version too.

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Trophy Wife – Microlite – Watch

I can’t really claim to be an expert on this Blessing Force thing that’s been developing in Oxford this year because I’ve never been to one of the live shows, but on record I do like some of the stuff that’s coming out of it (Fixers, Chad Valley, Solid Gold Dragons all sounding lush). Trophy Wife are one of the most prominent bands to have emerged from the scene, and their debut single shows why. It’s a soft and subtle introduction, but one that has rightly been hyped about because it’s a wonderfully delicate piece of music.

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Chapel Club – All The Eastern Girls - Watch

A huge tune from one of this year’s buzz bands. There is a danger with a lot of 80s-throwback music that it ends up sounding pastiche and cheesy and a little bit pointless, but these boys are so effortlessly cool that they pull it off in style. The album is due early next year and it will undoubtedly see Chapel Club arrive as one of the UK’s premier indie bands, if they aren’t already.

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The Good Natured – Your Body Is A Machine – Watch

It’s been a positive year for Sarah, and although she should really have been a ‘one to watch’ for 2010, it looks like more people are finally getting on board to make the 19-year-old a genuine ‘one to watch’ for 2011. This track came out at the start of the summer, and it sums up her sound nicely. Steady, almost tribal percussion, sexually charged lyrics, strong arrangements and a distinctive vocal.

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Unicorn Kid – Dreamcatcher – Watch

Another dangerously young gun who’s been making some great noises this year is Unicorn Kid. Where there was a danger of some of his earlier stuff just sounding like tinny gameboy music, he seems now to have developed his sound without losing its character, and ‘Dreamcatcher’ shows just how good it can be when he gets it right. It’s a very good electronic song for the first 3 minutes and 2 seconds, and when that lead line drops it becomes nothing short of euphoric.

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Jamie Woon – Night Air - Watch

‘Wayfairing Stranger’ by Jamie Woon is one of my favourite songs of all time, and so it’s perhaps unsurprising that the single he released a a month or so ago is one of my favourite songs of the year. The man oozes class. Everything I’ve ever heard him do has been so smooth, so slick, so elegant but yet never plastic. If I was John Mayer, I would look at myself in the mirror every morning with disgust and wish I could be more like the Woon.