Lots of people released surprise songs for Christmas

It wasn't just The Beatles who had a Christmas surprise up their sleeves. All your favourite artists (and Green Day) sent out free gifts over the festive break. Here they are, for anyone who wasn't using Twitter to avoid their relatives...

LCD Soundsystem - Christmas Will Break Your Heart
James Murphy says: "'Christmas Will Break Your Heart," is another one of those songs which had about 75 lines of lyrics, though we've knocked down to 8 to keep the suicide rate in check."




Tove Lo - Influence
Tove says: "2015 started off in silence with my vocal chord operation and slowly gaining back my voice. I wanna thank you for being so supportive and giving me so much love during this time... by giving you a little taste of what’s coming. Enjoy my new song "INFLUENCE" [she means Influence]. First song I wrote this year after the surgery. Let’s get ready for 2016 together."






Radiohead - Spectre
Thom Yorke says:

Last year we were asked to write a tune for Bond movie Spectre. Yes we were ...........

— Thom Yorke (@thomyorke) December 25, 2015

... It didn't work out ... but became something of our own which we love very much ....

— Thom Yorke (@thomyorke) December 25, 2015

.. As the year closes we thought you might like to hear it. Merry Christmas. May the force be with you ... https://t.co/BXN8MQKJyQ

— Thom Yorke (@thomyorke) December 25, 2015

The Weeknd + Future - Low Life
The Weeknd says: "Merry Xmas"





Miley Cyrus - My Sad Christmas Song
Miley says: "Out nowwwwww on SoundCloud!!!"




Timbaland - King Stays King mixtape
Timbo says: "Aaliyah.. This is for you baby." [NB: This features an actually fantastic, unreleased Aaliyah song called Shakin']




Grimes - Fifteen Minutes To
Grimes says: "We have found this song long time ago but we had decided to keep it hidden till now, cuz someone else found it and kindly share it to us."

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Discopop Directory: Top 10 singles of 2015

Usually, my Top 10 is a breeze to compile. I look at the songs I listened to most then write them down in order. This year, there were dozens all clustered around the same score - either evidence of a very good year or a totally banal one.

I will say this, though - the Top Five completely took me by surprise. I'd been preparing to write about Kanye's All Day, The Weeknd's Can't Feel My Face and Missy Elliot's WTF (Where They From?) in this list. In the end, they fell just short of the countdown - which proves something, although I'm at a loss to explain what it might be.

10) Demi Lovato - Cool For The Summer
The year's best Katy Perry song in a year where Katy Perry released no songs. Rip-roaring vocals and a terrific guitar riff from the "Sexy! No No No" schools of rock. Could have done without the gratuitous - and grammatically awkward - swear word in verse two.




9) Alessia Cara - Here
An "anti-party anthem"; a "loner anthem"; an "anthem for introverts". The critics' were united - this wasn't just a song about socially awkward teenagers, it was a rallying cry for like-minded souls. Never mind that Alessia Cara is the least introverted pop star this side of Lady Gaga. She just didn't like this one party. Still, with lyrics and melody this good, who's scoring points?




8) Lianne La Havas - What You Don't Do
A simple, sublime love song. "Those three little words are overused," she sings, before smiling: "You don't need to show it - I already know it." Gorgeous.




7) Major Lazer ft MØ - Lean On
It's great to see that a left-field, obtuse pop song like this can still have a global impact - even after it's turned down by Rihanna. Lean On needed a few listens to "bed in", but once I'd fallen under the spell of the lilting rhythm and MØ's unflinchingly positive lyrics (essentially a hipster re-write of the Neighbours theme tune) there was no turning back.




6) Disclosure ft Lorde - Magnets
This slinky story of boyfriend theft is the absolute highlight of Disclosure's ho-hum second album - and here's why. "Lorde was involved with every aspect of the song as opposed to just doing the lyrics and melodies and then leaving the rest to us," Guy Lawrence told Spin. "It was like someone challenging us, someone saying, 'We can get that extra ten percent.'”




5) Janet Jackson - No Sleeep
Janet's six year hiatus gave her a clean slate with the prudish US public, and it didn't hurt that her comeback single was an understated masterpiece. Jam and Lewis's silky-smooth groove recalled That's The Way Love Goes while the lyric - about ruffling the bedsheets with her beau - proved Janet could still sing about sex without using words like "moist".




4) Carly Rae Jepsen - I Really Like You
A 21st Century update of I Should Be So Lucky, with added glitter cannons (courtesy of former Cardigans writer Peter Svennson). The video starred Tom Hanks, for some reason.




3) Little Mix - Black Magic
HEY!

Little Mix's venture into "proper" girlband territory (80s pastiche, Motown pastiche, Jason Derulo duet) hasn't been a resounding success - but this song gets everything right. Predictable yet surprising, it transcends the appropriation of Cyndi Lauper's Girls Just Wanna Have Fun to become the most likeable single of the year. Then the "falling in love" coda kicks in and you think to yourself, "why am I grinning?"




2) Kendrick Lamar - King Kunta
I was disappointed that The Weeknd's Michael Jackson rip-off tribute Can't Feel My Face didn't make the Top 10 - but at least this contains an allusion to Smooth Criminal. It is neither as incisive nor as powerful as Kendrick's other big hit of 2015 (Alright was adopted as the rallying cry of the Black Lives Matter movement) but King Kunta sounds much better at parties.




1) Carly Rae Jepsen - Your Type
Move over Sam so-called Smith, this is the saddest pop song of the year. I might be married with two children, but it transports me straight back to 1995 and being infatuated with someone who didn't know I existed. There's something in Carly's delivery - resigned, but hoping her pleas will make a difference - that breaks your heart in two, and then into smaller and smaller fragments with every chorus. It's not the most original or complex song on this list but I found myself singing it at top volume, by myself, in the car at midnight. And that, pop fans, is the ultimate seal of approval.

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New Music: Rachel Platten - Better Place

Fight Song was a very good pop single, wasn't it? I mean, I didn't buy it or stream it or in any way consciously seek it out, but I was always pleased when it came on the radio. I could even sing the chorus right now, but that would violate all sorts of human rights conventions.

But Rachel Platten's new one isn't anything like Fight Song. Better Place (for that is it's name) is a soppy old love ballad that's probably being considered for the new Bridget Jones film, preferably in a scene where two people share a lingering kiss in the rain.

It's all very optimistic and lovely in a sort of "toothless Adele record" kind of way. It'll help sell Rachel's album by the bucketload when it comes out next month.

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The Powers that be

Popjustice just posted this "official visual" for Loved By You, the new single from New York / LA pop duo Powers. And now I'm posting it too. #content


Powers are Mike Del Rio and Crista Ru - who previously worked on Kylie's underrated single Into The Blue. They say they're "obsessed with aliens" and wrote a lot of their material at a camping retreat at Lake Arrowhead. Which makes the the Bon Iver of fizzy synthpop.

If you think you've heard the name before, it might be because their previous single, Beat of my Drum, racked up 10m plays on Spotify.

Like the new song, it is very good. In fact, Powers are shaping up to be very good overall. We can safely expect more of this very goodness on their forthcoming EP, the Legendary EP, which is an EP. (The clue is in the name.)

In short: Very Good.

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New discovery: Audrey Air - Strawberry Syrup Sixteens

Singer-songwriter Audrey Air is so new that she still lists her personal Gmail account on her Soundcloud page. That's not going to last long.

Her latest / first upload, Strawberry Syrup Sixteens combines the brooding sarcasm of Lorde with the supple production of (early) Lana Del Rey. An accompanying post on her Tumblr suggests it was written in the aftermath of an epic party (she's a first-year university student in NYC, fact fans).

"It's the morning after and I'm still feeling it," writes the 18-year-old. "I'm hungover but in the most dreamy way possible; to the point where my limbs feel full and my eyelids feel heavy and my mind wont shut off certain scenes from the night. Even if I did forget most of the hours, I feel like I learned something from that."

Listen below, then drop her an email saying: "You're fantastic. Now get to the library and do some work. Lots of love, Your Dad."

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Purity Ring have all of the lights

In a bid to outdo Jean Michel-Jarre, Canadian dream-pop duo Purity Ring have used 2,500 LED lights as the backdrop for their new video. That's enough to illuminate 50 Christmas Trees, or one of Madonna's vanity mirrors.

The clip finds singer Megan James falling through a black void, until she lands in a surreal, sci-fi showroom - filled with hanging lightbulbs, glowing screens and dancing men in squid pyjamas.

James said the following words about it, in a not entirely coherent press release:

The video consists of the many elements we have created and chosen to express in a live context, but has an added sightline of being in another world, keeping the past in arms with the present and holding a bit of magic in the dark.

I don't know what that means, but it all looks very pretty.

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