Apparently I can still add content to this blog. Who'd have thought?
So here, a full year after the last update, are the 10 singles I listened to most often in the past 12 months (ordered by the play count in my iTunes library). They're not a bad bunch, and you'll find a handy YouTube playlist at the bottom of the post.
10) George Ezra - Shotgun
Shotgun was a last-minute addition to George Ezra's second album, after label boss Ferdy Unger-Hamilton told him the album "wasn't finished".
"It was one of those awful, 'I think you need to write another song even though I don't know you very well' conversations," Unger-Hamilton told a recent edition of Music Week. "He came back with Shotgun within about 10 days and I was like, 'this is fucking amazing'."
He wasn't wrong. This echoed round our kids' school playground all summer, albeit with the slightly altered lyrics: "I'll be riding shotgun / underneath the hot sun / you look like a dumb-dumb."
Legendary.
9) Theophilus London - Bebey
The bassline of the year was written at a McDonald's in Brooklyn at 3 in the morning while Theophilus waited for a bus. True story.
8) Mark Ronson ft Miley Cyrus - Nothing Breaks Like A Heart
This place was reserved for Kacey Musgraves' country-disco crossover High Horse until Miley swooped in during the closing seconds of 2018 with a country-disco crossover of her own. A shimmering, splintered break-up anthem that's so convincing I was momentarily surprised when Miley got married to Liam Hemsworth.
7) Calvin Harris ft Dua Lipa - One Kiss
I hated this at first, which just goes to show what I know. The UK's biggest-selling single of the year, fact fans.
6) Jade Bird - Uh-huh
Jade Bird appears to be bitching about her ex's new girlfriend... but wait for the middle eight and there's a delicious twist:"She's got you where it hurts / But you don’t seem to see / That while she's out at work / She's doing what you did to me". Yeowch.
A relentless rock song with a shout-your-throat-raw chorus, it marked Jade's coming of age as a songwriter. If she isn't a massive star by the end of 2019 the world is an unjust and deplorable place.
*Checks the news*
Oh shit.
5) Tove Styrke - Sway
"Sway to me, is one of the most romantic songs on the album," said Tove Styrke, the day she released Sway - the latest in a long procession of perfectly-crafted pop songs.
"The album is like a collection of little love stories, and some of them are like not romantic at all because life's like that, you know? And some of them are really like, pink and like, everything is good. This is one of those songs, I love it so much."
Me too. *swoons*
4) Rosalía - Malamente
Spanish star Rosalía made quite a few "best of 2018" lists with her subversive and brilliant album El Mal Querer, which blends traditional Andulasian flamenco music with trap drums and suitcase-rattling basslines.
The record tells the story of a woman who's imprisoned by a jealous lover, and this is the opening chapter - subtitled "Augurio" (Omen) in Spanish. A moodier, more compelling piece of R&B is hard to find, while the video is crammed full of the slick choreography and loaded imagery you'd normally expect from Beyonce.
3) Let's Eat Grandma - It's Not Just Me
Interviewing Let’s Eat Grandma earlier this year, I told them how much I loved the lyric “you left a dent in my home screen” and the way it captured that state of obsessively stabbing at your messages app, in the hope of a new message from your obsession.
They looked at me like I was deranged and said, “but it’s about someone dropping my phone”.
Ah well, this is still a towering achievement. Five minutes of restlessly inventive, shape-shifting pop that sucks you in, shakes you up and spits you out.
2) Ariana Grande - Thank U, Next
No-one navigates the choppy waters of modern pop stardom better than Ariana Grande, whose music this year tussled with her own personal dramas, acknowledging a tough transition to adulthood, while remaining wryly self-aware about her image.
Nothing said this better than Thank U, Next. Supposedly released to overshadow her ex-fiancé's return to Saturday Night Live, it was actually a gracious and thoughtful reflection on the end of their relationship. The video, which riffed on teen comedies like Mean Girls and Legally Blonde, made deliberate comparisons between high school gossip and social media fixation on her personal life - the message being, "I'll take care of myself, if that's alright with you".
But the best bit is when she (metaphorically) turns to the camera and winks: "At least this song is a smash". In the future, they'll write textbooks about this.
1) Janelle Monae - Make Me Feel
I could never shake the feeling that Janelle Monae was too slick to be funky. Her first two albums, great though they were, felt sanitised and fussy, unable to get down in the dirt and really scuff things up.
The Dirty Computer album gave us the context - Janelle's music was buttoned-up because she felt her sexuality and her identity were being stigmatised. Make Me Feel was the moment she broke out of the shackles, with a filthy slinky chorus, a bassline like a trampoline, and a sticky, celebratory "sexual bender".
Better late than never... These are the records that went on repeat at Discopop TowersTM in 2017. Which was a week ago.
10) Muna - About U
When you're beaten and a friend unexpectedly comes to your defence. When you're silently hurting and someone notices. When you just need to be understood. That's what this album is, but songs.
9) Billie Eilish - Don't Smile At Me
Technically an EP, but longer than most Beatles' albums, so I'm allowing it.
Billie Eilish has a faultless ear for melody, a lean-closer voice and a bucketful of acidic lyrics. Everyone, including me, goes on about Bellyache, where she fantasises about killing her friends. But my favourite (because I actually lived it) is Party Favor, where she casually and callously dumps her boyfriend on his birthday. "I hate to do this to you on your birthday," she coos. "Happy birthday, by the way".
8) Wolf Alice - Visions Of A Life
Good luck summing this one up. Ellie, Theo, Joff and Joel sound like they've raided the musical pick'n'mix counter, grabbing handfuls of grunge and dream-pop and punk shoegaze and anything else that takes their fancy - Ellie even borrows Neil Tenant's deadpan vocal "stylings" on Sky Musings. But somehow it works. You can holler along to Beautifully Unconventional, you can spit at Yuk Foo, you can swoon to Don't Delete The Kisses.
"I think hummus is quite a good analogy for our album," Ellie told me in September. "You get all these different varieties but at the end of the day they're all hummus."
Told you it was impossible to sum up.
7) Kendrick Lamar - Damn
The fire, the fury, the blood, the piss, the faith, the doubt, the humility, the false humility, the Rihanna duet, the breezy, casual competence of it all. At this point, he's basically showing off.
6) Paramore - After Laughter
Paramore's technicolor fifth album completes their transformation into pin-sharp pop stars - but not, like, Katy Perry or anything. ("I can't imagine getting up there and playing a Max Martin song – at that point we might as well just stop," guitarist Taylor York told The New York Times in April).
Instead, they take their cues from the angular elbows and polyrhythms of Talking Heads and Cyndi Lauper, while Hayley Williams picks at the scabs of her depression in a procession of unflinchingly stark lyrics.
My favourite track is Rose Colored Boy - where she rages against an irritatingly glass-half-full acquaintance. "And oh, I'm so annoyed," she hisses, "'Cause I just killed off what was left of the optimist in me". Sad-dancing hasn't been this good since Robyn last released an album.
5) Lorde - Melodrama
Too clever for its own good, Lorde's second album suffers from a surfeit of ideas. When they work (the conspiratorial tongue click on Perfect Places, the submerged vocal samples of Sober) it's glorious. But other tracks threaten to collapse under the weight of their ambition. It's telling that the standout moments are the simplest: Liability and Writer In The Dark.
But you can't argue with Ella Yelich-O'Connor's facility with melody, nor her gothic, awkward, evocative lyrics - somehow cool in their lack of coolness.
"We're the greatest/ They'll hang us in the Louvre / Down the back... but who cares? Still the Louvre" is a stand-out, but my absolute favourite is "I'm closing my teeth around this liquor-wet lime".
A flawed masterpiece.
4) Dua Lipa - Dua Lipa
Was it groundbreaking? No.
Did it rewrite pop history? No.
Was it an unimpeachable collection of pop songs? Yes.
New Rules was the standout, naturally, but you get six other singles for your money, from the self-descriptive Hotter Than Hell to the ridiculously danceable Blow Your Mind (Mwah). And check out Dua's sultry, husky vocals on Thinking 'Bout You for proof that she's set to be the UK's finest pop star.
3) St Vincent - Masseduction
All seedy glamour, giddy highs and unsettling lows, St Vincent's fifth album is as sticky and messy as real life gets.
Over crunching programmed beats, her stories invariably deal with loss of control ("I cannot stop the airplane from crashing," she sings on the title track), with references to mood-stabilising drugs, and a soul-crushing break-up ("how can anyone have you and lose you and not lose their mind, too?" - Los Ageless).
Annie Clark's most personal album to date, it's also her most pop-fuelled. She's ably assisted in this by Jack Antonoff, who also produced Lorde and Taylor Swift's latest albums, but never surrenders her wit, her inventiveness or her fury.
2) Kesha - Rainbow
When life gives you lemons, make a defiantly bonkers hillbilly pop record.
Kesha may not have won her freedom from Dr Luke, the producer and label boss she accuses of drugging and sexually abusing her (claims he denies) but she was finally free to make the music she wanted.
Out go the vocoders and retrospectively creepy lyrics about being drunk and out of control. In come throat-shredding vocals and revelatory songs about resilience, compassion, independence and, er... dating Godzilla.
The back story makes it compelling, but it's the songs that keep you coming back.
1) Laura Marling - Semper Femina
Acres of newsprint were wasted discussing how Laura Marling wrote about femininity from a male perspective. For a start, she abandoned that conceit half-way through (although the record is broadly about female archetypes, from the wild child to the artist's muse). But worse than that, it steers your attention away from the mesmerising beauty of these songs.
The album opens with Soothing, whose prowling, sensuous bassline suggests all kinds of sex, until Marling kicks her lover out: "I banish you with love". On Wild Fire, she channels Lou Reed, while shaming a plonker who tells her "you're at your most beautiful when you don't know you're being watched". "Maybe someday when God takes me away," she drawls. "I'll understand what the fuck that means."
Musically, she's never sounded more relaxed. Under the watchful guidance of Blake Mills (Alabama Shakes, Fiona Apple) she lets in all sorts of new musical textures - backmasked vocals, sweeping strings, even a guitar solo - that add to the dramatic acuity of her lyrics.
Beguiling and brilliant, it's the best album of her career.
Here's a playlist of tracks from the Top 10 albums. You can see numbers 11 to 20 below.
FYI: The next 10:
11) SZA - CTRL
12) Taylor Swift - Reputation
13) Lana Del Rey - Lust For Life
14) Stormzy - Gang Signs & Prayer
15) J Hus - Common Sense
16) Haim - Something To Tell you
17) Niia - I
18) Feist - Pleasure
19) Jessie Ware - Glass House
20) Jay-Z - 4:44
So it's been... er, five long months since I last updated the blog. But I couldn't resist compiling my Top 10 singles of the year.
This year's list is extremely pop heavy, even for me, but the choices are determined by my iTunes play counts, which means they represent the songs I actually listened to over the last 12 months.
So here we go... in reverse order, with a playlist of the videos at the bottom of the post.
10) Lorde - Green Light
Max Martin called Lorde's comeback single "incorrect songwriting" but to my mind, that's a compliment. Green Light's awkward lurch from verse to pre-chorus encapsulates everything that's brilliant about Lorde - a pop star who's not afraid to embrace her weirdness (cf her performance at this year's MTV Awards).
Green Light isn't the best song on Melodrama, but there's something graceful about its clumsiness that kept me coming back for more.
9) Don't Kill My Vibe - Sigrid
Rae Morris made it into my Top 20 with the sublime Do It, a song about falling in love with her producer. Don't Kill My Vibe tells the opposite story - of how pop-star-in-waiting Sigrid Raabe was patronised and demoralised by an obnoxious studio boffin. Working with more sympathetic collaborators, Sigrid poured her scorn into this undeniable pop banger - and unwittingly set the scene for the song at number eight.
8) Praying - Kesha
Kesha could have come back swinging - she'd spent years in legal limbo, fighting her boss and mentor Dr Luke, who she accused of psychological and sexual abuse. But her response was much more compassionate than anyone expected.
The star doesn't hide her anger ("we both know all the truth I could tell") but turns it into a plea for redemption. "I hope you find your peace, falling on your knees, praying," she sings. If only we could all be so forgiving.
7) Little Of Your Love - Haim
AKA the song that saved Haim's second album. As Este confessed earlier this year, "There was a time where I was like, 'OK, why is every song I’m writing sounding like the theme from ‘Jurassic Park’?'"
Little Of Your Love broke that curse. Commissioned for (but not used in) the Amy Schumer movie Trainwreck, it relieved Haim of the pressure of following up their first album, allowing them to write a joyous, freewheeling True Blue tribute that's become a highlight of their live set. It also has one of the best videos of the year, which you can see at the bottom of this post.
6) Mistakes - Tove Styrke
Tove Styrke released two absolute corkers this year: Say My Name and Mistakes are cunningly detailed songs, employing multiple vocal layers and pixel-perfect production to embellish Tove's seemingly straightforward pop melodies.
Mistakes is my favourite of the two, thanks to that slap-back snare drum and a delicious portamento in the vocoder refrain. But it would be remiss of me not to mention Say My Name's "wear it out like a sweater that you love" lyric.
5) Lust For Life - Lana Del Rey ft The Weeknd
"My boyfriend's back and he's cooler than ever". Lust For Life is Lana's most radio-friendly single since Summer Sadness, and one in which she invites The Weeknd through the airlock of her interplanetary spacecraft.
It's a curious duet. Despite the chorus's demand to "take off all your clothes" the singers perpetually circle one other - mesmerised, rather than ravenous. But there's something beguiling about their soft-focus sensuality that keeps me coming back for more.
4) Hard Times - Paramore
A fluorescent, upbeat pop song about plumbing the depths of depression. "All that I want / Is a hole in the ground," sings Hayley Williams. "You can tell me when it's alright /For me to come out."
The counterpoint is the point. Taylor York's triangular, new wave guitar hooks and Zac Farro's creative drum fills make the bleakness of Williams' lyrics all the more stark. Radiohead, take note.
3) Bellyache - Billie Eilish
The best debut of the year? 15-year-old Billie Eilish fantasises about killing all her friends and going on the run - only to get an ulcer from the guilt.
Reviews rightly focus on the lyrics, but the music is equally ambitious - switching from peppy acoustic balladry to the gut-churning bass drop of the chorus. Billie Eilish is going places in 2018, and not just to escape the law.
2) New Rules - Dua Lipa
How often does someone come up with a new lyrical conceit for a break-up song? Almost never, that's how often. But Dua Lipa found a new angle with her step-by-step guide to avoiding your ex - and it became her proper breakout hit.
New Rules was the first single to really capture the star's witty, approachable Twitter persona ("It's so cold outside my nipples could key a car rn") but it also benefitted from a super-smart video; which saw Dua being supported by her girlfriends as she struggled to stick to the four-point programme.
The video rightly became a viral success... and not just for its gif-tastic choreography and themes of female solidarity. Someone "in the know" told me the pastel palette was deliberately chosen to reflect the most popular colour schemes on Instagram. How 2017 can you get?
1) Bad Liar - Selena Gomez
The way it interpolates Talking Heads' Psycho Killer. The way the lyrics spill out like an infatuated teenager's love letter. The line "just like the Battle of Troy there's nothing subtle here." The nuance in Selena Gomez's delivery - alternately awe-struck and assertive. The way she tries to deny her feelings ("you're taking up a fraction of my mind"). The melody in the chorus. The counter-melody in the chorus. The line "every time I watch you, serpentine".
The whole damn thing is perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect.
FYI: The next 10 would have been:
11) St Vincent - Los Ageless
12) St Vincent - New York
13) The Killers - The Man
14) Kendrick Lamar - Humble
15) Laura Marling - Wild Fire
16) Tove Lo - Disco Tits
17) Dagny - Love You Like That
18) Foo Fighters - Sky Is A Neighbourhood
19) Camila Cabello - Havana
20) Rae Morris - Do It
The best new track on Dua Lipa's eponymous and epochal debut album is New Rules, a song about trying to keep your distance from a boyfriend who's bad for you. In the lyrics, Dua sets out four commandments to avoid falling back into his arms.
One, don't pick up the phone
You know he's only calling 'cause he's drunk and alone
Two, don't let him in
You'll have to kick him out again
Three, don't be his friend
You know you're gonna wake up in his bed in the morning
And if you're under him
You ain't getting over him
It's a quirky, and funny take on the break-up song, and now it's got the video it deserves; with Dua's girlfriends doling out the advice through the medium of a heavily-choreographed, colour-coded slumber party.
"These are the kind of rules you tell to your friends and they would tell to you," she told me at Glastonbury. "So, with the video, I wanted to show unity between women and girls.
"I think it really tells the story of women looking out for each other."
Huge apaologies for the (latest) break in blog posts. It was a double whammy of work deadlines leading into a family holiday. But I'm back once again like the "renegade master" ("tired father of two"). And here's a round-up of what I listened to in the break.
Paramore - Hard Times
Paramore have really been through the wringer - with an ever-changing line-up and all sorts of legal demands from former members. It got so bad they nearly packed it all in: "Two years ago I asked Taylor (York, guitarist) if we could start a new band," Hayley Williams told The Guardian. "I was so sick of this crap. I said we should just try something new, give it a new name."
But, as she's done many times before, Williams clung on and turned the bad times into a rollicking radio hit. The aptly-named Hard Times takes its cues from Talking Heads and Blondie, all clipped guitar lines and arch vocal stylings. It is an utter triumph.
Lana Del Rey ft The Weekend - Lust For Life
Of course, in Lana Del Rey's world, "lust for life" translates as "drifting woozily over a moonlit graveyard" but what a song. What. A. Song.
Katy Perry - Bon Appetit
Plans for Katy Perry's political album have been shelved in favour of this ode to oral sex.
Kendrick Lamar - DNA
Kendrick's new album, DAMN FULL STOP, doesn't move me in quite the same way as To Pimp A Butterfly - its lyrical and musical introspection makes it a much tougher listen. But DNA is a standout, with Mike Will Made-It's starkly simplistic beats focusing your attention on Kendrick's densely-layered lyrics.
The video, in which he takes possession of Don Cheadle's body, is also worth watching.
Goldfrapp - Systemagic
The lyrics are some old bollocks about the moon - but the song is vintage Goldfrapp, with Alison's ethereal vocals the chocolate sprinkles on Will Gregory's synth cappuccino. (Sorry, I'm all out of metaphors).
Ardyn - Together
Ardyn are twin brother and sister Rob and Katy Pearson, who hail from Gloucestershire. Their new single was written in a caravan on a keyboard purchased from Lidl; and it's messy tangle of strummed guitar and dark-pop harmonies is an absolute delight.
Haim - Right Now
Haim's comeback song is very emphatically not a single (that comes next week, fact fans), which is a relief as Right Now feels very much like track nine on a 10-track album. Great video, though.
Tove Styrke - Say My Name
Tove Styrke's second album, Kiddo, was my favourite record of 2015 - and now she's back, with a typically quirky take on Swedish pop. Her girl power lyrics have transmuted into something altogether more sex-obsessed, but her wayward lyrics are still superb: "Say my name - wear it out like a sweater."
Dua Lipa ft Miguel - Lost In Your Light
A steamy banger, in which Dua and Miguel tussle over lyrics like "let me ride in your love all night". Phwoar.
Harry Styles - Sign Of The Times
According to Cameron Crowe's Rolling Stone profile of Sir Harry Stylesworth, this song is written from the perspective of a mother who, while in labour, is told she will die if her baby is to survive, which is quite a thematic departure from, say, Best Song Ever.
I'm still ambivalent about the song. Depending on my mood, it's either a brave attempt to write a power ballad that mixes the best bits of Life On Mars and Purple Rain, or a Stereophonics cast-off that outstays its welcome.
Royal Blood - Lights Out
This is going to KICK OFF at the Pyramid Stage come June.
Kygo ft Ellie Goulding - First Time
Yet another midtempo EDM song that wimps out at the chorus. Note to producers: A squiggly synth line is no substitute for a melody, and we're onto your trick now.
Ride - All I Want
I wasn't expecting much from the Ride reunion. The Stone Roses aside, I was never that keen on shoegaze indie; and Andy Bell's stint in Beady Eye didn't exactly set the world alight. But this is, somehow, rather brilliant.
Ibibio Sound Machine - The Chant
Fronted by London-born Nigerian singer Eno Williams, Ibibio Sound Machine smash together West African funk and British electro-pop in a way that will make your jelly shake right off its plate. The Chant has just been added to the 6 Music playlist, and rightly so.
DNCE ft Nicki Minaj - Kissing Strangers
Ridiculous. Good. But not ridiculously good.
It's almost as if everyone is clearing the decks before the Brits send Katy Perry and Bruno Mars roaring back up the charts...
Dua Lipa - Thinking About You
A funky little ballad, powered by a finger-plucked guitar and (later on) a chunky hammond organ. It's an "instant grat" track for anyone who pre-orders Dua's debut album - and if all the album tracks are this quality, we're in for a treat.
Ed Sheeran - Touch (Little Mix cover)
Cheeky chappie and all-round pop overlord Ed Sheeran popped into Radio 1 yesterday, where he revealed he's dropping another double single this Friday. Disappointingly, it won't be his cover of Little Mix's Touch, which remains a total banger, even on an acoustic guitar.
Jamiroquai - Cloud 9
Starring Penelope Cruz's sister, Monica, this is described as a "playful, Tarantino-inspired homage to the iconic visuals for the band's smash single Cosmic Girl". In other words, Jay Kay gets to drive a sports car around a winding clifftop road like a better-dressed Jeremy Clarkson. After the excitement of Jamiroquai's comeback song, Automaton, this is very much back to the old template.
Bonus track: Spoon - Can I Sit Next To You
One for the 6 Music listeners, this is jibbering, jittering slice of indie-funk from a band who always deserved to be bigger.
Dua Lipa is finally on the cusp of her first top 10 hit this week. All that Be The One has to do is climb one place to reach the top quarter of the top 40. This acoustic performance, which has just been published by The Line Of Best Fit, proves why she deserves to make it. Come on, the British public: Stop streaming that dire Chainsmokers track and cue this up instead.
The mood is set to "moody". The tempo is set to "sultry". The lighting is set to "is that you, Brenda, or am I frotting a pillow?"
Yes, it's the new collaboration between dance lynchpin Martin Garrix and Bambi-eyed pop goddess Dua Lipa. The song is built around an incredible lyric: "Is the only reason you're holding me tonight because we're scared to be lonely," which is a feeling all but the luckiest of us can identify with.
I don't think this is going to be the song that finally gives Dua the Top 10 hit she needs (luckily, it looks like the re-release of Be The One is going to do that) but it's another amazing single to add to her armoury.
At this rate, she'll have enough for a greatest hits before she release her debut album.
Poor old Dua Lipa. She's been teetering on the cusp - the actual cusp - of pop superstardom for a whole year, but the gravitational pull of streaming on the Top 40 has slowed everything right down.
Her singles have been played in all the right places, she's made some amazing videos, collaborated with Sean Paul, been nominated for a Brit and given this bizarro performance on Dutch TV.
Don't let them eat you, Dua!
So what's gone wrong? Well, nothing, really - except that Dua has yet to breach the top 10. And that's not really her fault.
The awful truth is that people don't listen to new music on Spotify. Ed Sheeran? Yes. Justin Bieber? You betcha. But an artist you don't know? Even one with smoky eyes and a penchant for chokers? Not a chance.
She'll get there eventually, because she is a HUGE talent, but it's a long, slow grind. With that in mind, she's had to delay her album for a third time. Originally due last summer, then scheduled for 10 February, it's now coming out in June - as Dua explained in a tweet this morning.
Which is a real shame. To help ease the pain, though, we have a brand new song called Thinking 'Bout You, which presents a whole new side to the singer - showcasing her husky voice over a gently strummed acoustic guitar. It's quite the revelation.
According to the Big Bible of Pop (2016 edition), every song has to start with a moody synth chord and a disembodied human voice burbling a wordless sound, with the reverb set to "double cathedral".
Dua Lipa has studied the book cover to cover, so she's made sure to include such a moment at the beginning of her new single, Blow Your Mind (Mwah). She has also included parentheses (+ 10 points) and a chorus the size of a pregnant hippo (+50 points).
The video, which came out today, has no expense spared. They even have placards, one of which proclaims "Dua for president." It doesn't specify which presidency she's running for, but I'm assuming it's the EU Farming Commission.
THERE'S SOME NEW MUSIC. AND IT'S FRIDAY. IT MUST BE NEW MUSIC FRIDAY.
Here are a few brand new "jams" to spread on your musical toast.
1) Justin Timberlake - Can't Stop The Feeling
Perfectly acceptable stop-gap between "proper" albums. Not his finest work.
Also, anyone who's ever sat awkwardly in a room while an artist cues up their new material will know how unrealistic the video is.
2) Dua Lipa - Hotter Than Hell
This is a song about "a really horrible relationship - one that went off the rails," Dua told me earlier this year. Don't worry, though, this isn't a gruelling trudge through her emotional wreckage. No, it's a total banger.
Note the "unusual choice for the YouTube "hero image".
3) Jake Bugg - Love, Hope and Misery
This is really good. Like a Paolo Nutini ballad, only more nasal.
4) James Blake - Radio Silence
After appearing on Beyonce's Lemonade, James Blake has Beyonced his own album, and this is my favourite track (initially, at least).
Meanwhile, there's a big interview with James over on The Guardian today, which features one of the most name-dropping paragraphs in pop history.
It reads: "Madonna called his music 'the kind of thing that makes me jealous', and told him so over the phone while he was in the studio with Kanye West, who has publicly called him 'Kanye’s favourite artist'. Joni Mitchell, one of his heroes, gave him career advice after a show. He has been covered by Lorde and sampled by Drake. Listen to artists including Jack Garratt, Låpsley and FKA twigs, or the melancholy, nocturnal end of hip-hop, and you hear echoes of Blake everywhere."
James's response to all of this? "That's nice."
5) Gallant - Bourbon
"I love in cold blood," is a fantastic lyric. The whole song is fantastic, to be honest.
6) Ariana Grande - Into You
Ariana's new album is shaping up to be very good indeed.
7) Charli XCX - Explode
This is taken from the Angry Birds movie, but don't hold that against it. Charli's best work often comes on movie soundtracks - Boom Clap, Kingdom, etc, etc.
8) Red Hot Chili Peppers - Dark Necessities
This has a really dramatic slow building intro, then Flea jumps in with a trademark slap-thonk bassline and it's business as usual.
Anthony Kiedis' most ridiculous lyric this time round: "You're like ice cream for an astronaut".
9) Skepta - Man
"Upset because your wife is a fan / She done with the little boy / Now she wants to be with a man."
Skepta is on show-stopping form right across his new album, Konnichiwa. Not for the faint-hearted.
Well, mostly I was in bed fighting off an horrific viral infection. Then it was the Brits (Adele won a few, you may have heard) and now I finally have some time to write my poor old neglected blog.
To make up for lost time, here's a mega "songs you may have missed" post, with six word synopses for every song. Buckle up and get ready.
The BBC's Sound of 2016 countdown kicks off today - with two acts tied for the number five position (here are my interviews with Mura Masa and WSTRN, if you're interested).
The winning artist will be revealed on Friday - but ahead of that, BBC Music is putting sessions with the 15 shortlisted acts on their YouTube channel. My favourite so far is raven-haired pop innovator Dua Lipa - so here she is, performing Be The One live from her own personal Times Square.
Songs You May Have Missed is a semi-regular depository of music I've omitted to write about. This week kicks off with one of the world's biggest bands going heavy on the cowbell. The results are surprisingly good.
1) Coldplay - Adventure of a Lifetime
The colourful, upbeat Adventure of a Lifetime was stealth released on Friday morning, with the simultaneous announcement that Coldplay's new album A Head Full of Dreams was due in four weeks.
Even their biggest detractors surely have to admit that, seven records into their career, Coldplay are going to have an amazing greatest hits collection. This does nothing to detract from that.
2) Pia Mia - Touch
19-year-old singer-songwriter and model Pia Mia ditches Chris Brown for the follow-up to the worldwide smash Do It Again. A seductive serving of R&B, this features a pan pipe solo for some reason.
3) Lissie - Hero
The first taster of Lissie's third album, My Wild West, Hero is a languorous country-rock daydream. Not her strongest song... but the mariachi trumpets are a nice touch.
4) Adele - Hello (live)
A sneak peak at Adele's BBC One special, with footage of the first live performance of Hello. Apparently she'll do a full 45 minutes of material in the primetime show, which is due to broadcast on 20 December.
5) SNBRN - Beat The Sunrise (ft Andrew Watt)
LA-based house producer Kevin Chapman, aka SNBRN, has remixed everything from Sexual Healing to Need You (100%) but this original track is a sign of bigger ambitions. A sunset house groove with an excitable bassline, it'll make you nostalgic for August.
6) Dua Lipa - Be The One
London's Dua Lipa stands out from her contemporaries thanks to a smoky voice that's a world away from the thin and auto-tuned sound of most radio-bound pop. Whether that's a help or hindrance only time will tell - but I suspect we'll be hearing a lot from this 19-year-old once the new year rolls around.
7) Fleur East - Sax
A perfect reminder of what happened in the 1980s when British artists tried to copy the Minneapolis funk sound: It's overly fussy production makes it a pale imitation of the Prince's pared-down arrangements, but Fleur has just enough sass to stop it being embarrassing.
8) Rudimental - Lay It All On Me (Ft Ed Sheeran)
A grainy, experimental clip accompanies this uplifting Lean On Me-alike from Rudimental and an unknown newcomer called Ed Sheeran.
According to the press release, the video portrays some of the things the Rudimental boys experience on their path to fame - "freedom, peace, struggle, frustration, brotherhood, family, love and life."
And ballet.
9) Shura - Touch
I'm always nervous when artists I love make their TV debut on Later... With Jools. Can they cut it live in a room full of their peers - or are they studio creatures, totally devoid of charisma or charm?
Shura falls somewhere between the two extremes. She spends most of the performance hiding behind her fringe, but the music is captivating enough that you can forgive her... I think.
10) Sia - Alive
Sia's first video in a long time not to feature Maddie Ziegler is still pretty powerful - with a young martial artist matching the song's bombastic "I survived against the odds" narrative beat for beat.
11) Sia - Bird Set Free
As you may know, Alive was co-wrotten by with Adele and Tobias Jesso Jr. during sessions for Adele's 25. Earlier this week, Sia released another off-cut from those sessions, the stirringly dramatic Bird Set Free.
Despite rejecting (at least) two of Sia's songs, Adele has been effusive about working with the Australian singer-songwriter, telling Rolling Stone: "I actually enjoy the dynamic of us both being in there and just fucking being bossy. And it's all these male producers, and they're all fucking shitting themselves 'cause we're in there."
12) Blueyes - Ain't Gonna Love You
Blueyes is the brainchild of Belfast native Bronagh Monaghan, who's been messaging me about her music for a year or so, now. Her new track, Ain't Gonna Love You is the sort of flickering, late-night seduction jam you could imagine Jessie Ware finds herself singing when she sleepwalks. One to watch.
A semi-regular round-up of songs I wanted to blog about until life got in the way.
This week's superstars include.
1) Tinashe - Player (ft Chris Brown)
Her early EPs were a major influence on the dark, brooding lasciviousness of Beyonce's Beyonce album. Now Tinashe is going for Queen B's crown with a straight-up, chrome-plated pop classic.
The first single from her forthcoming second album, Joyride, it suggests a major push for mainstream success. But one thing is niggling at me: The lyric websites all say she's singing "you got me all fucked up" in the chorus - but surely I'm not the only one who hears "you got me up the duff"?
2) Ellie Goulding - Something In The Way You Move
Simmering electropop from pop's huskiest songstress. Another indication that Delirious will be an album full of solid gold bangers.
3) Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson - Say Say Say (2015 remix)
A souped-up version of the 1983 duet, this swaps around Macca and Jacko's vocals, and is generally a funkier, more upbeat take on the original. Part of a reissue of McCartney's Pipes of Peace album, it has even been blessed with a new video.
Sadly, the single's b-side, Ode to a Koala Bear, has been left untouched.
4) KDA - Turn The Music Louder (ft Tinie Tempah & Katy B)
The backing track feels a little "my first sequencer" but Tinie and Katy lift this track way above the average. Fantastic video, too.
5) Eliza and the Bear - Lion's Heart
A spoonful of Mumford, a sprinkle of Coldplay, and a pinch of The Libertines. Mix it all together, throw in a trumpet and you have Eliza and the Bear's anthemic new single.
Just to reiterate every article that's ever been written about them: Eliza and the Bear are all boys, and none of them is called Eliza.
6) Foxes - Better Love
Windswept, widescreen pop. But even Rihanna would think twice about a music video where the star sits on a toilet (even if she's just painting her toenails).
7) Dua Lipa - New Love
Jessie Ware's silky melodies crossed with the percussive dissonance of Bjork - New Love is an epic introduction to 19-year-old Londoner Dua Lipa. It was produced by Emile Haynie (Lana Del Rey, FKA Twigs), and Andrew Wyatt (Miike Snow), in case that sort of thing matters to you.
8) Frances - Let It Out
Quiet, intense, fragile, beautiful. Frances is a shoo-in for next year's "ones to watch" lists.
9) Jones - Indulge
I missed this song when it came out in April, but it's become a firm favourite after London-born R&B singer Jones performed it on Jools Holland earlier this week. A dramatic, luxurious song about surrendering to love - I present both acoustic and studio versions, because I can't decide which I love most.
10) Bloc Party - The Love Within
Back from their second "hiatus" with a renewed energy, this song is a perfect balance between the shouty whirligig of Bloc Party's indie thrash and the throbbing electronica of Kele Okereke's solo material.
Petite Miller - Barbaric
This lolita-ish French singer is being talked about in all the right places - but I'm just not getting it. Can anyone enlighten me?
11) Olly Murs - Kiss Me
An interesting diversion into "not hateful" territory from pop's perennial hat-botherer and X Factor acolyte.
12) Janet Jackson - BurnItUp! (Ft Missy Elliot)
A lyric video, shot by the cast and crew of Janet's Unbreakable World Tour, this makes life on the road look like an absolute blast.
