Top 10 singles of 2017

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

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Video: Sigrid - Plot Twist

Is anyone enjoying the business of becoming a pop star more than Sigrid is right now? If they are, I can't think of them...

Sigrid's glee at performing permeates her live shows (check out her Glastonbury appearance for proof) and that exuberance bursts out of the new video for Plot Twist, too.

"Plot Twist is about finally getting over someone," says the Norwegian teen star, via press release, "but we decided we wanted the focus [of the video] to be on me having a good time with my best friends.

"We filmed it in Bergen where I've lived for two years now, and it was the best day!"

A big round of applause to filmmakers Sigurd Fossen and William Glandberger, then. Capturing a natural performance in a pop video is notoriously difficult but they've managed to convey every Kilojoule of her kooky energy.


PS: Bonus points for putting the title of her song on her scarf.

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The National are top of my #NewMusicFriday playlist

Here it is, then. My (almost) weekly trawl through the release schedule, in which gems are uncovered and turds are buried.

1) The National - The System Only Dreams In Total Darkness
Standing head and shoulders above everything else this week, The National's new single is a swirling vortex of indie curlicues, which builds to a brassy climax, where Matt Beringer declaims: "I can't explain it any other, any other way".

He's described it as "an abstract portrait of a weird time we’re in". I'm just calling it beautiful.




2) Miley Cyrus - Malibu
In which Miley says, "forget the tongue-wagging, boob-baring, perma-twerking controversy magnet, I am in fact an delicate and innocent country-pop crossover artist."

And, to be fair, it works.




3) Calvin Harris - Rollin' (ft Future and Khalid)
"Bubbling summery discofunk" seems to be the theme for Calvin's recently-announced fourth album Funk Wav Bounces Vol 1 (awful title). This latest single would sound great at any poolside party, which shows how far Calvin has come since he emerged as a pasty-skinned teenager from Dumfries.




4) Imagine Dragons - Whatever It Takes
There's something of the Ed Sheeran about the way Dan Reynolds rap-sings the verses of this song, but it rises above that comparison with a truly fist-pumping chorus.

The middle 8 contains a lot of lyrics about punctuation, for some reason.




5) Felix Jaehn - Hot2Touch (ft Hight, Alex Aiono)
A bit of disco fluff that merits inclusion for the lyric "my heart's like a broken cassette".




6) Harry Styles - From The Dining Table
Harry Styles debut album is out today - and I wrote about it at length on the BBC this morning. In brief, it's a stodgy 1970s rock album with a few moments of real beauty. The closing track is one of my favourites, featuring one of Styles' most delicate and heartbroken lyrics; and a beautiful string interlude in the middle.




7) DNCE ft Nicki Minaj - Kissing Strangers
This has been out for a while, but gets an entertaining new video today, so in it goes...




8) Sub Focus ft Alma - Don't You Feel It
A solid, if somewhat unremarkable, summer jam.




9) Now, Now - SGL
US radio station NPR described this as "a heart-throbbing pop song with a karaoke-bar blast radius", and who am I to argue?




10) Sigrid - Don't Kill My Vibe (Live on Later)
This is a bit of a cheat, because Sigrid's EP came out last week. But this Jools Holland performance is one of those "oh, I get it now" moments, where the singer's charisma bursts through the screen and brings the song vividly to life.

Which, it turns out, is exactly why she sparked a record label bidding war last year - and there's a fascinating account of how Island beat the competition to get her signature over on Music Business Worldwide.

And that's your lot. Not a vintage week, by all accounts. But don't forget the Paramore album is out today, which kind of makes up for everything else.

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The best and the rest of #NewMusicFriday

It's a fairly quiet week overall, but here are some songs that were released today (or maybe two days ago, depending on the stature of the artist and their willingness to adhere to record industry convention).

1) LCD Soundsystem - Call The Police
It's like NWA never happened.




2) Loote - High Without Your Love
Hailing from New York, Loote are Emma Lov and Jackson Foote (so you can see how they got that name). Their new single is reminiscent of The Chainsmokers, with all traces of douche removed. A lovely little pop song.




3) J Hus - Common Sense
Love, love, love this.




4) Niall Horan - Slow Hand
The Pointer Sisters' prayers have been answered.




5) Sigrid - Fake Friends
Norway's Sigrid Raabe only started writing songs four years ago, when her brother (also a musician) told her he needed a new track for a gig that was taking place 24 hours later. She's a quick learner, though. This caustic call out to two-faced friends is a hugely arresting piece of Scandipop.

FYI: Sigrid's debut EP is out today and you should buy it.




6) Emily Warren - Hurt By You
Emily Warren is The Chainsmokers' secret weapon - the voice behind some of their best hooks, and the writer behind several more. Her debut single is nothing like that, though - a slinky, soulful affair with a cunning twist in the chorus.




7) Hoops - Sun's Out
This is a song that appears to be a lost cassette demo by Echo and the Bunnymen, circa 1985 - but which turns out to be one of several shimmering indie gems on the debut EP by Indiana-based band Hoops. How queer.




8) Haim - Want You Back
Getting better with every listen...




9) TLC - Haters
Declaration of interest: I put £10 towards TLC's new album on Kickstarter, giving me a 0.003% stake in this song. Sounds a bit like Charli XCX at 33rpm, which is neither praise nor a criticism.




10) Halsey - Eyes Closed
Halsey manages to sound both menacing and drowsy at the same time on this track, a sort of "emos with synths" pop dirge. It came as no surprise to learn that The Weeknd was involved in some capacity.

And that's your lot. The Blondie album is out today, as well, and deserves a quick spin even if you have no recollection of Debbie Harry & co in their 1970s heyday.

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