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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Video: Hailee Steinfeld - Starving

It's been hanging around the lower reaches of the chart all summer but Starving, Hailee Steinfeld's collaboration with Zedd, has finally been granted a video.

The clip sees the actress-turned-singer twirling around a warehouse while being caressed by a quartet of oiled-up, shirtless men. Or, as I like to call it, Wednesday night in.

Fans of Justin Bieber's Love Yourself will find plenty to like about the song's arpeggiated verses; but Zedd makes his presence felt with a huge blast of synths in the chorus, while Steinfeld sings: "I didn't know that I was starving till I tasted you".

Which is quite an image, I think you'll agree.

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Skott's new single Amelia is the best song of the week

It starts off as a folk song and ends up sounding like The Joker blowing up Kanye West's mansion. Amelia, the new single by Scandinavian singer Skott, is immediate, thrilling and, dare I say, essential.

The key to her idiosyncratic style can be found in an official biography, which reads: "Skott grew up in a remote small town forest commune run by outcast folk musicians. The small supportive community exposed her to music while she grew up in this unorthodox childhood, however Skott didn’t actually hear any contemporary music until she went to the city for the first time in her mid-teens."

Amelia, she says, is about reaching a crisis point in a relationship. "Is it worth continuing or is this the end?" she says.

"The song's about not giving up, fighting to keep that special someone next to you despite the hardest of times.

"'Amelia' reminds me of my first love as a young teenager when I'd dream up crazy plans for the future. They weren't always realistic but they were honest and dramatic."



Skott's over in the UK next week, supporting Canadian girl-rock band Muna - who are equally excellent. If you want to see some of 2017's break-out stars before they become too big for their boots, then head down to Notting Hill's Art Club next Wednesday. I'll see you there.

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A dirty protest from Dirty Projectors

The poo emoji finally gets the recognition it deserves in the new video from those premium purveyors of glitch-pop, Dirty Projectors.

Keep Your Name is a haunting ballad that appears to be a diss of a former bandmate: "What I want from art is truth / What you want is fame," sings David Longstreth. "I guess it's shit that Gene Simmons said / Our band is a brand and it looks that our vision is dissonance."

The video is stark and surreal, with Longstreth playing piano, smashing up guitars and showing off his ambidexterity - doodling complex pictures (and cartoon faeces) with both hands simultaneously.

It's really quite beautiful.

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Are Daft Punk laughing at The Weeknd?

By now, you may have heard that Daft Punk have teamed up with The Weeknd for his new single Starboy. Sadly, it isn't the genre-bending, world-changing song that suggests. In fact, it sounds like a typical Weeknd song with some vocoder on the top.

(Specifically, that vocoder segment features Daft Punk going "ha ha ha ha", which is presumably the noise they made as they took Abel Tesfaye's cheque and deposited it in their bank.)

Still, Starboy is a great launch to The Weeknd's new album, due in November. It's a lithesome, late-night groove with the Canadian star crooning about how absolutely brilliant he is ("out of your league," apparently). Coincidentally, he references Brad Pitt in the final verse: "Let a nigga Brad Pitt," he sings. "Legend of the fall took the year like a bandit."

Listen to an excerpt on the various streaming services below.

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New discovery: Rag 'n' Bone Man

It's a while since a performance on Jools Holland stopped me in my tracks - but that's what Rag 'N' Bone Man did last night.

He was there to perform Human, his first single on Columbia Records, released back in July. It's a swampy, broken ballad, co-written by Jamie Hartman, whose previous credits include Westlife and Emma Bunton. Don't hold it against him, though, this is a singularly moving piece of music.

The reason? That voice. As smooth as peanut butter and just as indulgent. In fact, the acoustic version of Human performed on Jools last night is vastly superior to the sturm und drast of the original.

Interestingly, the song is already "big in Europe", residing at number six in the German top 40, and climbing up the Spotify charts in Austria, Denmark and The Netherlands.

Catch up on what our neighbours already know by clicking the big "play" button below.


PS If you think you've heard of Rag 'N' Bone Man before, you're right. The singer, who was born Rory Graham had a previous life as a drum & bass MC, performing under the name Rag 'n' Bonez.

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