Discopop Directory: Top 10 albums of 2016

Better late than never, here are my top 10 albums of the year just passed. As always, the rankings are based on my iTunes play counts - so these are the records I actually listened to, not the ones I appreciated on an intellectual level (nb: I don't have an intellectual level).

So, without further ado...

10) Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool

Depending on your point of view, Radiohead either rediscovered the joy of melody on this, their ninth album, or simply released half a dozen forgotten songs from "when they were good". Who cares, though, when the results were this magical? Boosted by Jonny Greenwood's cinematic string arrangements, the album feels epic and intimate at the same time, from the low flying panic attack of Burn The Witch to the grieving melancholy of True Love Waits - a track written as a love letter almost 20 years ago, only to be released as Thom Yorke's relationship fell apart.



9) Tove Lo - Lady Wood

Tove Lo is the pop equivalent of Just 17's sex column. "Look at this smut," she says, patting herself firmly on the back. "Isn't it outrageous?"

That attitude is writ large throughout Lady Wood, from the title (fun fact: it's a euphemism for a clitoral erection) to the vagina in the logo. Meanwhile, Tove effs and jeffs her way through the album like a teenager trying to shock her parents, but her heart is in the right place. The confessional tales of lust, loss and desperation are relatable and cathartic - and she anchors everything in a dark, minimalist house production.

She may call herself a True Disaster, but this is a blemished pop gem.



8) Clare Maguire - Stranger Things Have Happened

Clare Maguire has been through the wringer and no mistake. Dropped by her label, she was drinking litres of vodka every day until a doctor gave her two weeks to live. Miraculously (and with a lot of hard work) she turned her life around and produced this spell-binding album of classic, piano-led pop.

She's at her best when she peers into the abyss - Channelling Nina Simone on the autobiographical opening track, Faded; and delivering the best lonely hearts advert of all time on Whenever You Want It: "I just wanna have someone who laughs at my shit jokes."

Don't we all, Clare? Don't we all?



7) Michael Kiwanuka - Love and Hate

Resolutely old-school, Michael Kiwanuka's second album riffs on Marvin, Isaac and Curtis but never descends into pastiche. It finds him world-weary and melancholy, after a crisis of confidence almost persuaded him to abandon music altogether. "But when you have all or nothing to lose, you just become fearless," he told Nothing But Hope And Passion.

The result is breath-taking: A psych-soul opus backed by opulent strings and a full choir. The opening track unfolds over 10 minutes, while the bluesy Black Man In A White starts like a plantation song before picking up a funky shuffle that never quite settles into a groove - a musical metaphor for Kiwanuka's sense of unease. It took a lot of people by surprise, in the best possible way.



6) Christine & The Queens - Chaleur Humaine

I came to this far too late but that was my own stupid fault. Chaleur Humaine is classy, delicate synthpop that embraces mystery and androgyny like nothing else on this list. Lots of mainstream artists get labelled "outsider pop" but Héloïse Letissier is the real deal.


Of course, I wasn't the only person to overlook it: In her native France, Héloïse released the album in 2014, winning a cupboard full of awards and receiving endorsements from Madonna and Elton John. That it took her to re-record some of the lyrics in English merely illustrates, in the year of Brexit, how closeted and unadventurous the UK can be, even in the resolutely liberal world of pop.



5) Nao - For All We Know

In a year we lost Prince, Nao made the best Prince album this side of Musicology. For All We Know is a lurching, off-kilter, pop-funk extravaganza, where the South Londoner autopsies love (requited and otherwise) in her gorgeous, high-pitched voice. A thoroughly impressive debut.



4) Shura - Nothing's Real

Imagine if Madonna ever experienced doubt or insecurity. That's Shura's debut album. Named in honour of a panic attack that altered her perception of reality, it follows an introverted wallflower as she navigates her way through crushes, infatuations and break-ups ("thought we'd get married and have kids and stuff," she sings of one particularly devastating break-up).

Where she doesn't lack confidence, though, is in the music. What's It Gonna Be, all staccato guitars and shimmering synths, it sounds like the theme to a 1980s teen film without succumbing to pastiche. Even better is the extended, bravura coda of White Light - the disco equivalent of 2001: A Space Odyssey's Star Gate sequence.



3) Regina Spektor - Remember Us To Life

Back after a baby-having hiatus, Regina Spektor is on fine form. Her character studies and lyrical insights are sharper than ever ("All the lies on your resumé have become the truth by now," she sings on Older and Taller), while the sombre tone smooths out her quirkier tics. Not coincidentally, this is the first time she's written a record from scratch).

The stand-outs are many: The Grand Hotel is a baroque ballad that reimagines Wes Anderson's Grand Budapest as a portal to hell; while The Trapper and The Furrier is a scathing polemic about the greed of bankers and pharmaceutical companies that starts a capella and ends with an unrestrained scream. Best of all is Sellers of Flowers - a deep blue ink blot, lamenting the fragility of memory.

An absolute treat.


2) Solange - A Seat At The Table

On which Beyonce's little sister comes into her own. Recorded in New Iberia, Louisiana, where her grandparents were fire-bombed out of their house fifty years ago, it is informed by the dehumanising acts, large and small, black people face on a daily basis. That doesn't mean it's an angry album, although anger certainly rears it's head. Rather, Solange presents a poised, nuanced portrait of the pains and joys of black womanhood.

Musically, she's found her footing, too. Gone is the lightweight R&B of her debut album, in favour of deep, dreamy R&B grooves. You'll recognise the spirits of Minnie Riperton, Marvin Gaye, Aaliyah, Janet Jackson, Herbie Hancock and Isaac Hayes dropping by to pay their respects - but this is Solange's album, through and through.



1) Beyoncé - Lemonade

Remember when everyone thought Lemonade was a record about Jay-Z cheating on Beyoncé? Turns out "Becky with the good hair" is the biggest Trojan horse since, well, that horse in Troy.

Beyoncé's tale of betrayal masked a much bigger discourse on male privilege, white privilege, police violence, female empowerment, rejection, forgiveness, anger, scorn, pain, redemption... The list goes on.

The signs were there when she turned up at the Super Bowl dressed as a Black Panther and made a video in which she sat on top of a police car as it sank into post-Katrina floodwaters. Those are pretty bold statements, especially for an artist of Beyoncé's stature. Can you imagine Elvis or Michael Jackson putting their necks on the line so boldly. No, you cannot.

But here's the thing - the message goes nowhere without fantastic tunes. Luckily, Beyoncé delivered them by the truckful. Hold Up, Sorry, All Night, Freedom, Formation - Beyoncé could have sung, "Yes my name is Iggle Piggle" over those tracks and they'd still be classics. (Note to Beyoncé: Please release this record in 2017).

So there you go... I'm gutted there wasn't space for Chance The Rapper or Childish Gambino, both of whom signposted a way out of rap's current cul-de-sac, or for A Tribe Called Quest's comeback, which did the same thing by sounding exactly like a Tribe Called Quest album from 20 years ago. I thought Ariana Grande might get a look-in, but the album squandered it's promise with a bunch of cookie cutter dance bops that had the filthy hands of major label A&R all over them.

Bat For Lashes' excellent The Bride (about a bride whose fiancé is killed on the way to their wedding) would have had a place if it wasn't so depressing to listen to, in a good way. And Frank Ocean's Blonde loses out for that godawful Facebook interlude. What a crock.

Anyway, let's not end on a sour note. Here's a playlist of the best tracks from those Top 10 albums. If you find something you like, why not buy it and single-handedly save the music industry?

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Discopop Directory: Top 10 singles of 2016

Hello strangers!

I'm emerging from blog hibernation to post my annual Top 10 list. Hopefully this will prompt a bit more posting in the new year... Fingers crossed.

As usual, my Top 10 is compiled using the play counts in my iTunes library, keeping me honest about the songs I actually listened to, rather than the ones that sound cool. So here they are, in reverse order...

10) Muna - I Know A Place
Brand new girlband Muna put on one of the best shows I saw this year, deep underground in London's Notting Hill - and this was the highlight: A great big exuberant hug for the LGBTQ community (lead singer Katie Gavin wrote a moving essay about the lyrics in Time Magazine, which is well worth a read).

Played live, it's one of those coming together moments, where the whole club - from the cloakroom to the drum riser - jumps up and down in unison. The recorded version loses some of that energy, but emerges as a terrific singalong, nonetheless.




9) Zara Larsson - Lush Life
When I first heard Lush Life, I thought it was Rihanna. But apparently she only does life-affirming pop songs for Calvin Harris these days, leaving an open goal of Zara Larsson to score one of the year's biggest breakthrough hits. Looking forward to the album next year...




8) Shura - What's It Gonna Be?
This would have made it into the Top 10 for the John Hughes-inspired video alone. But luckily What's It Going To Be is also a perfect happysad pop banger in its own right, so everybody wins.




7) Ariana Grande - Into You
I wished Ariana Grande's Dangerous Woman album had been a little bit more... well, dangerous. Imagine if she'd fully committed to the promise of the title track, recording a dozen dusky showtunes, draped over a piano like Michelle Pfieffer in The Fabulous Baker Brothers. It could have been a classic. But then we'd never have gotten this - a sexy, synthy prelude to an historic romp under the sheets.

For once, old cat ears sounded like she just might start purring.




6) Selena Gomez - Hands To Myself
"I mean I could, but why would I want to." It's the sort of line Lauren Bacall would have said to Humphrey Bogart in the 1940s, but in a pop song. Amazing.




5) Drake ft Kyla and WizKid - One Dance
Confession time: I can't stand Drake. His drowsy, monotonous voice is my own personal chloroform. And yet... and yet... One Dance is just so deliciously moreish.

Maybe it's Kyla's coy, come-hither hook; maybe it's that outer space piano; or maybe it's the sinewy, arabesque guitar line. But it gets me every time.



4) Grimes - Kill v Maim
According to Grimes, "Kill v Maim is written from the perspective of Al Pacino in The Godfather Pt II. Except he’s a vampire who can switch gender and travel through space."

Amazingly, it comes close to matching that description; while the visuals look like a Manga cartoon and a sweet shop threw up over Michael Jackson's Bad video. A signpost for the future of pop. In 2187.



3) Christine & The Queens - Tilted
A dance track about being so awkward, your feet won't do what you tell them. A work of genius in both the English and original French versions.




2) Justin Timberlake - Can't Stop The Feeling
Total fluff. A flimsy song for a flimsy film. But put Justin Timberlake in the same room as Max Martin and you're guaranteed some pop magic. Listen to the playful way JT elongates the word "aaaaaaand" in the chorus; Or the casual way they throw in a gargantuan sing-along hook in the last 20 seconds, forcing you to rewind and start again, just to get more of that exquisite sugar rush.




1) Solange - Cranes In The Sky
My favourite single of 2016 was, in fact, written in a hotel room in 2008. An essay on depression and escapism, it was kept in a drawer for eight years, until Solange dusted it off and used it as a template for A Seat At The Table. Like the rest of the album, it's an elegant, dignified response to harrowing experiences, and a truly exceptional song.

I couldn't resist it - and nor could my kids (which might explain the higher-than-expected placing in this countdown, to be fair).

It was a good year for singles. So, if you're interested, the next 10 would have been:

11) Beyoncé - Hold Up
12) Radiohead - Burn The Witch
13) Ariana Grande - Dangerous Woman
14) The Chainsmokers ft Halsey - Closer
15) Rag N Bone Man - Human
16) Lady Gaga - Million Reasons
17) The Weeknd ft Daft Punk - Starboy
18) All Saints - One Strike
19) Lissie - Don't You Give Up On Me
20) Glass Animals - Life Itself

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Ten more Songs You May Have Missed

Half-term is over and I've survived more episodes of Thomas The Tank Engine than any is permissible under the human rights act. But there was music - there's always music - to soothe away the sound of the steam engines.

Here are some of the tracks I've been listening to. Maybe you'll find a new favourite.

1) Selena Gomez - Kill Em With Kindness
In which the director's treatment simply read: "Selena Gomez has a pretty face. Let's point the camera at her pretty face. She's so pretty." It turned out well.




2) Shura - What's It Gonna Be?
A tribute to the films of John Hughes, this is an absolute delight. The song is also excellent.




3) Rationale - Palms
Futuristic funk from London's very own Tinashé Fazakerly. Taken from his debut album, Rationale, which is due in September.



4) Matidla - Ghost
Norways' Matilda joins the swelling ranks of really rather good Scandipop singers with this shimmering, Ellie Goulding-style pop banger.




5) The Avalanches - Frankie Sinatra
Memorable, in the worst way.




6) Ariana Grande - Into You
There's a lot of implied snogging in this video but, if you look closely, the camera consistently cuts away just before Ariana's mouth reaches that of her generic video boyfriend. Those lips are just for donuts, ok?




7) Jurassic 5 - Customer Service
The rap collective release their first new song in a decade, and it's a scorcher. Based on a classic funk loop (The Spirit of Doo... Do by Edwin Birdsong), the track sees the MCs trading lines with familiar funky freshness.




8) Beck - Wow
Remember when Beck's Morning Phase won a Grammy and perennial sore loser Kanye West protested he'd never heard of him? Well it seems Beck is going out of his way to rectify that, with the surreal bedroom trap-funk of his new single. Not so much a change in direction as a complete artistic shedding of the skin.




9) Wild Beasts - Get My Bang
No, Wild Beasts, you go and get your own bang. I'm not your mum.




10) Bat For Lashes - Sunday Love
Bat For Lashes' new album, The Bride, is easily the highlight of her career. A concept album about a woman left at the altar, the record is dramatic, haunting and thought-provoking. Few musicians are brave enough to explore grief but on this evidence, more should.

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New music from Nao and Shura

The two debut albums I'm most looking forward to this year come from "I look best in profile" singer-songwriters Nao (deliciously wonky funk) and Shura (gorgeous, dreamy pop). Thankfully, after a frustratingly long wait, their records are almost here. Not just around the corner, but walking up your street and getting ready to press the doorbell.

To celebrate, they both released new material this week. Nao got in first, with the slinky, seductive Girlfriend - a cosmic riff on Prince's If I Was Your Girlfriend - which premiered on Annie Mac's show two days ago.

"This song just came out of nowhere," she said. "Hopefully people will like it and sing along to it with me as well."

The studio version is below, followed by Nao's first UK TV performance, on last night's Jools Holland ("a dream come true," she says).




Shura, meanwhile, has just delivered the 80s-tinged dance thriller Nothing's Real - also on Annie Mac's show - calling it "the first piece of truly new music from me in a while.

"This record is about fancying someone... then realizing that it’s probably not gonna happen," she said.

She also likened the arrival of her album to being "seven months pregnant".

"I've been told that I'm glowing, I'm kind of a bit bored of glowing now, can I just deliver the child? I'm just really, really excited about giving birth."

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Songs you may have missed: Surprise Coldplay edition

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.

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Must listen: Mura Masa - Love For That (ft Shura)

It's not often that a penny whistle solo is followed by the exhortation: "London, let me see your lighters" - but it's that sort of quirky detail that makes Mura Masa and Shura's first collaboration such a gem.

A luscious ballad, brushed with strings and a pitter-patter of percussion, it was written "in a few hours" while "watching Winnie The Pooh videos and eating curry," the duo told Annie Mac, who premiered the song last night.

If that's true, imagine what they could have achieved if they'd really been concentrating.

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Ellie Goulding gains the power of telekinesis and 12 other songs you may have missed

Songs You May Have Missed is a semi-regular round-up of songs I didn't manage to post about in a timely manner. It includes new discoveries, songs that took a while to appreciate and videos I simply missed.

This week's selection is particularly strong, for some reason. Enjoy below.

1) Major Lazer - Powerful (ft Ellie Goulding and Taurus Riley)
Ellie Goulding recently sparked speculation she was recording the new James Bond theme with the following tweet.

Live and let die

— Ellie Goulding (@elliegoulding) July 9, 2015

Of course, she could just have been marking her appreciation for the best Geri Halliwell b-side of all time. But while we wait for confirmation on the Bond thing, here she is bending forks like a sexy Uri Geller in the new Major Lazer video.




2) Disclosure - Omen (ft Sam Smith)
"It just would have felt wrong to not have him on the record," Howard Lawrence said of Sam Smith. "We speak to Sam everyday. He's our best mate. And he's the best singer in the world. Why would we not put him on the record?"

One answer would be "because it will inevitably suffer in comparison to Latch". But this track just about escapes that fate. Although it could do with being about 30bpm faster.






3) Tove Styrke - ...Baby One More Time
"Britney Spears - she's fierce," sings Tove Styrke on her current single, Number One.

As if to prove it, she's covered the pop star's debut single, smattering it with ice cold synths and building up to a Bjork-ish conclusion.





4) George Ezra - Barcelona
The sixth (sixth!) single from George Ezra's million-selling Wanted On Voyage album, is accompanied by a video shot deep in the rainforest. By which I mean Cornwall's Eden Project, which is why George has to wear that fetching mustard-colour jacket.





5) Gatlantis - Peanut Butter Jelly
The feel-good hit of the summer now has a feel-good video to go with it. It's about as infectious as you'd expect from Christian Karlsson and Linus Eklöw - whose credits include Britney's Toxic and Icona Pop's I Love It.





6) Shura - White Light (extended version)
A disturbing video for Shura's shimmering, space disco epic - which is released today.

The Manchester singer is currently in the studio putting the finishing touches to her debut EP for later this year.





7) George The Poet - Sorry Love, It's You Not Me (ft Lucy Rose)
Just added to the 6 Music playlist, this is a great piece of narrative rap, detailing the end of a relationship - with a devastating hook: "It's just you're forgettable. I think that's the issue".

Things to love: George's languorous delivery, and that infectious bassline.





8) Carly Rae Jepsen - Run Away With Me
The first track from Carly's new album, Emotion, comes with a fly-on-the-wall video, following the singer around a promotional trip to Japan, New York and Paris.

"I didn't even know we were making a music video until about halfway through it," Jepsen said in a statement. "David [Kalani Larkins - director] always has a camera in his hand and he has a way about him that makes you forget that it's there. I can remember watching over his shoulder as he uploaded the footage, recounting memories of the trip that I had almost already forgotten."






9) Izzy Bizu - Give Me Love
Seeing the name Izzy Bizu, readers of a certain age will inevitably be reminded of Sooty and Sweep.

For everyone else, here's a rollicking, drum-powered pop stomper from Barnes, in South-west London.





10) Lianne La Havas - Green and Gold
Described as "kind of an autobiography," Green & Gold sees Lianne La Havas narrate her life story, from a six-year-old "trying to watch cartoons through the static" to a "star in the city", feted by Prince and Stevie Wonder.

This is the third taster from her "sophomore" (second) album, which is shaping up to be one of the best soul records of the year.




11) Sarah Harding - Threads
"It's quite rocky - but it's also got pop and dubstep influences as well," says Sarah 'Girls Aloud' Harding. "There's a real mish-mash of different styles."

Mish-mash is probably the politest way to describe this, to be honest. *sad face emoticon*




12) Kira Puru - All Dulled Out
The debut single from Melbourne doom-pop singer Kira Puru is a little rough around the edges, but the balance between vulnerability and raw emotion is subtly captivating.





13) Cyril Hahn - Inferno ft Say Lou Lou
An aching, wistful summer jam that feels ripped from the soundtrack of a John Hughes movie.

"You know I'd hurt and suffer just to be with you," sing Say Lou Lou over Cyril Hahn's twinkling synths. "Pull me underground, never let me down, my inferno".

And that's the lot. Loads more musical goodies to come on the blog this week. If you're new, say hello on @mrdiscopop or in the comments field below.

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Songs you may have missed megapost

Oh man, it's been ages since I did one a "songs you may have missed" post, and the backlog is ridiculous...

For the uninitiated, this is a dumping ground treasure trove of songs I've liked, but failed to write about on the blog. That failure is a personal one, not a comment on their quality.

So saddle up. There are 12 songs to get through here and I've kept the write-ups short because, frankly, who reads this crap anyway?

1) Foals - What Went Down
Heavy like cadmium. Best thing they've done since Inhaler.




2) Miguel - Coffee (ft WALE)
Coffee is a metaphor for sex, you know.



3) Selena Gomez - Good For You (ft A$AP Rocky)
Recorded in 45 minutes. Will remain in your in your head for 45 days.




4) Nero - Two Minds
In which Nero finally realise that dubstep is a musical dead end.




5) Carly Rae Jepsen - E·MO·TION
Carly Rae Jepsen's new album is shaping up to be a masterpiece. Who;d have thought?




6) Mark Ronson - I Can't Lose (ft Keyone Starr)
All the melody of Snoop Dogg's Ain't No Fun (If the Homies Can' Have None) with none of the misogyny. Result.





7) Years & Years - Foundation
In 2020, we're all going to look back on Years & Years' time in the spotlight and wonder "what was going on there?"




8) Fassine - Sunshine
Doomsday disco, darker than a House of Cards box set.




9) Shura - White Light
The video edit isn't as good as the full 7-minute masterpiece.




10) Rudimental - Rumour Mill (ft Anne-Marie & Will Heard)
Slinky and subtle. Sorely needed proof that Rudimental can make good songs without shoehorning in a drum-and-bass drop.




11) Gabrielle Aplin - Light Up The Dark
Recently added to the Radio 1 playlist, and a world away from her mawkish John Lewis advert. Like KT Tunstall and Sheryl Crow got together and cancelled out each other's most boring tendencies.




12) Meghan Trainor - Like I'm Going To Lose You (ft John Legend)
Gimmick-free balladry that suggests a longevity most of us never suspected Meghan Trainor had in her.

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Shura returns with 7-minute disco epic

Shura caught my attention earlier this year with 2 Shy, a soft explosion of synth-pop that brought to mind Janet Jackson at her most seductive.

The singer, whose real name is Alexandra Denton, was a runner-up in the BBC's Sound of 2015 after teaching herself how to use music production software on YouTube.

Her new single White Light shows just how proficient she's become. A seven-minute space disco epic, it's the Cerrone tribute Goldfrapp always threatened to make. Supple guitar licks and intergalactic synths abound, as Denton's feathery vocals glide towards the milky way.

Strap on your space boots and get ready for blast off.

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Songs you may have missed: A double Madonna edition

I took a mini-break from the blog last week to help the kids survive the school holidays. OK, to help my wife survive the school holidays.

But plenty of great music found its way into the world in my absence. Here is a 15-track summary of that music.

1) Madonna - Ghosttown
The best video Madonna's made in over a decade, for her best single since Sorry.

Co-starring Terence Howard (Iron Man, Empire), it depicts the Queen of Pop one of the last survivors of a nuclear apocalypse. Which finally explains why she has the face of a 30-year-old Drew Barrymore.





2) Florence + The Machine - Ship To Wreck
More mellifluous than the previous releases from Florence's upcoming third album, this still finds the singer wracked with doubt. "Did I drink too much? Am I losing touch? Did I build this ship to wreck?" she hollers over the deceptively upbeat, glockenspielly backing.

The video, directed Vincent Haycock, follows the narratively-driven clips for St. Jude and What Kind of Man, and was filmed at Florence's house.





3) Brandon Flowers - Still Want You
It seems like Brandon's having a lot of fun with his new solo album.

I mean, A LOT of fun.

The second single from The Desired Effect is a wonky rock/gospel hybrid that hammers home its chorus with a bejangled mallet; while the video finds Brandon in a playful, flirty mood - looking eerily similar to Bryan Ferry doing David Bowie on Stars In Their Eyes.






4) Shura - 2 Shy
I championed this Janet Jackson sound-alike a couple of weeks ago, and now it has a moody and windswept (and largely unnecessary) video to accompany it.





5) Michael Calfan - Treasured Soul
This has been bubbling around on specialist dance shows since the start of the year, but it's getting a proper release in time for the summer. A soulful, uplifting dance anthem, it's powered by steel drum hook that owes a huge debt to Duke Dumont's I Got U. Which is no bad thing.





6) Chloe Black - Cruel Intentions
I wasn't a big fan of Chloe Black's last single, 27 Club, in which she revealed an ambition to die young, at the same age as Kurt Cobain and Janis Joplin. It was a terrible, attention-seeking lyric with a casual disregard for those tragically curtailed lives.

Her new single seeks to make amends ("I won't try to defend all of my crazy") and suggests the London-based singer-songwriter could be this year's Lana Del Rey. Distinctive and dramatic.






7) Clean Bandit ft Marina and the Diamonds - Disconnect
Premiered live at Coachella, this is apparently from Clean Bandit's "eagerly anticipated" second album, which is coming out later this year.

As Marina later noted on Twitter, her stage outfit made her look like Ali G.





8) Ty Dolla $ign - Drop That Kitty (ft Charli XCX)
Aggressively mediocre.





9) Kiesza - Sound of a Woman
It's ballad time in Kiesza world, which means less dancing, and more emoting. Bah.




10) Mark Ronson ft Mystikal - Feel Right
Live on the Ellen Show, this is a peach of a performance.




11) Snoop Dogg - So Many Pros
Produced by Pharrell, this creamy-smooth jam finds Snoop drawl-singing an ode to the "pretty people". Progressive it isn't, but the funkadelic chorus (featuring vocals from The Gap Band's Charlie Wilson) is delicious.






12) MO - Preach
Like SWV combined with Little Mix, while never reaching the peaks of either. Now on the Radio 1 playlist, where it's a refreshing change from James bloody Bay.





13) Lykke Li, Kanye West and Lil Wayne - Never Gonna Love Again
Eminem's producer has mashed up Lykke Li's Never Gonna Love Again with Lil Wayne and Kanye' Lollipop remix, for no reason other than he could.

It works surprisingly well.







14) Charles Hamilton - New York Raining (ft Rita Ora)
Here's a stunning, Selma-esque video to accompany New York Raining, Charles Hamilton's collaboration with Oscar nominee Rita Ora.

Set in a monochromatic 1960s New York, we see Charles amongst a group of civil rights protestors, joining arms as they square off with police. Rita stays clear of the politics, preferring to gaze wistfully through a rainy window.





15) Madonna - Bitch, I'm Madonna
We finish back where we started - with Madonna back on form, despite the creative disarray of her Rebel Heart album.

This is how you do a chat show performance in the YouTube age - playful and self-deprecating while cramming in tons of "content" and some killer dance moves. It's just a shame the song is so cringeworthy.

So there you go. Seems like I was the only one who had a quiet Easter. So spare a moment to remember the PR people who had to manage the YouTube uploads and email out the links. Let's hope they had tons of chocolate to compensate.

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Big song: Shura - 2 Shy

Despite my reputation as a finger-on-the-pulse pop scavenger, occasionally a song will slip through the cracks. Which is why it's so useful to have a sister watching my back.

"I heard this today and it made me think of you," she emails, "because it sounds like Janet (I think so anyway)".

She's right, too. London newcomer Shura has a breathy, delicate delivery that sounds just like Janet as she quivers through the emotional turmoil of Again (rather than the angrier, funkier "Ms Jackson if you're nasty" of 1986).

Her song, 2 Shy is dedicated to all the wallflowers who sit on the sidelines at parties, secretly crushing on an unsuspecting friend.

"Let’s go find a corner we can sit in
And talk about that film instead of us
Even though throughout it, I was thinking
I was gonna say I love you afterwards."

It's rather lovely.



If you're interested in Shura, there's a nice piece on the BBC's Sound of 2015 website (she was longlisted, but didn't make the top five).

Amongst the revelations on that page are the fact that she was "born in Moscow to a Russian actress" and honed her sound by "walking pumas round The Amazon".

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Eleven songs you may have missed (and one you definitely haven't)

This is the first "songs you may have missed" post since Christmas so in all likelihood these are songs you may not have missed. But there's always time for a good music megapost so let's begin, with...

1) Rihanna - FourFiveSeconds
About bloody time, pop's most elusive pop star is back, collaborating with Kanye West and Sir Fab Macca Wacky Thumbs Aloft on a surprisingly attitude-free, stripped back acoustic pop "number".

It's good. So good, in fact, that it's going to appear on both Kanye and Rihanna's new album. Which is going to cause havoc with my iTunes library. HAVOC.




2) Sia - Salted Wound
The 50 Shades of Grey soundtrack is shaping up to be superb, even if the film looks like a turkey. We've already heard Ellie Goulding's saucy Love Me Like You Do and The Weeknd's even saucier Earned It, now it's the turn of Sia - who takes a different tack altogether.

Her harp-assisted ballad Salted Wound is full of remorse and doubt. "Give your heart, and say come take it," sings Sia, "and she will see you're a good man." It should be a fitting accompaniment to Christian Grey's more introspective scenes.






3) Kelly Clarkson - Heartbeat Song
Is it me, or does this sound like Shania Twain?





4) Shura - Indecision
Feather-light synth pop from London's hotly tipped Aleksandra Denton. This would make a perfect Track 7, Side B on an "I like you" mixtape.






5) Prince & 3rdEyeGirl - Marz
Prince apparently thinks this throwaway rock track is dynamite. He's following up an SNL performance of the song with this YouTube video - which appeared days after he deleted his YouTube account. Strange chap.





6) Alex Winston - We Got Nothing
Alex Winston's wonky pop curio Sister Wife is one of my all-time favourite under-rated tracks. Catchy as all heck, with a killer lyric about polygamy and jealousy, I have played it to death over the last four years.

She's been in limbo for a while, but this sumptuous new single - on the influential Neon Gold label - hints at a slightly more mainstream, but no less hook-laden direction.







7) Jessie Ware - Jealous (Labrinth cover)
Stick around for the bit where she chucks in the chorus to Chaka Khan's Through The Fire. Beautiful.





8) Bearson - Pink Medicine
Bearson is a Norwegian producer who works in the "tropical house" genre (no, me neither). This hypnotic little song is a little too glitchy to be chill-out and a little too chilled out to be danceable. But I like it, for some reason. There's a free download available here if you like it, too.







9) Lana Del Rey - Brooklyn Baby (Yuksek remix)
WARNING: If you or your family are sensitive to the effects of synthesized saxophones, please seek advice before streaming this song.





10) U2 - Every Breaking Wave (single remix)
I wonder if anyone actually listened to Songs of Innocence when it gatecrashed our phones last year? I certainly couldn't be bothered... but it turns out that at least one of the songs is worth four minutes of your time.

Ranking it as the third best song of 2014 (!!) Rolling Stone called Every Breaking Wave the "emotional centrepiece" of U2's 13th album, saying it's "stark, shimmering" melody recalled With Or Without You.

To be honest, Joey Tribiani's not going to be staring out a fake window to this one any time soon... But this stripped-back radio remix of the song is surprisingly affecting.






11) Tobias Jesso Jr - How Could You Babe?
Officially endorsed by Adele, this is about as old-school as pop gets in 2015. Tailor made for Radio 2 and fans of sweaters, it recalls Elton John back in the Yellow Brick Road days.





12) Rae Morris - Love Again
As previously noted on these pages, Rae Morris is rather brilliant - with a husky voice like Ellie Goulding and a percussive thump worthy of Florence and the Machine. I interviewed her last week and, pleasingly, she let slip that her first ever gig was S Club 7.

If that's not enough to recommend her, try out this song: Love Again, one of the standout tracks from her debut album, Unguarded, which came out on Monday.

And that's a wrap. What an oddly diverse bunch of songs, eh?

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