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here to listen to and download an iMix of the Sunday Times critics' pick of
the best songs of 2007
FOLK, ROOTS AND BALLADS
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss Please Read the Letter The standout
track from our Album of the Year. Plant says this was the song that turned
himself, Krauss and the session musicians into a real band – thrillingly,
you can actually hear that magic happening.
Amerie Crush Talk about bare bones: this sensational piece of pop used
the simplest piano motif throughout, with Amerie keening above it. It wasn’t
a hit because it was never a single: bafflingly, the singer and her label
parted company with a release date pencilled in.
Phil Campbell Maps One of the year’s best love songs. Witty,
self-deprecating, tongue-tied and charming – “She could live in a
wonderland, but still she hangs around with me” – you’ll hear it more next
year, now Campbell’s been picked up by a major label.
Marissa Nadler Diamond Heart Very occasionally, a singer concocts a
melody so serpentine, so undulating, you feel transported to a place quite
unlike the one most music sends you to. This haunting finger-picked ballad
from the American artist was one such.
King Creosote You’ve No Clue, Do You We knew the King was one of
the best new folk singers around; this year, we learnt he could write songs
that would have made perfect mid1970s hits for Fleetwood Mac.
Chungking Maybe It’s Over Jessie Banks sidled up to the
microphone on this standout ballad from Chungking’s third album and, in just
a couple of breathy, tear-jerking phrases, blasted away the
best-British-female competition. Do we cherish her? Do we hell.
AdeleHometown Glory Garlanded (or lumbered?) with a preannounced Brit
award as “the one most likely to in 2008”, this London soul singer whetted
appetites with a track built over a haunting, mournful piano figure and a
lyric celebrating the city. The tension between these moods lifted the song
to greatness.
Keren Ann Lay Your Head Down An electric guitar, four handclaps, a
verse from the Velvets and a chorus from heaven.
Ruarri Joseph Patience The distinctive rhythm comes courtesy of
Joseph’s infatuation with Tom Waits. The brilliant lyric – about a man
crawling his way to his destiny – is an indication of this emerging singer’s
talent.
Loney, Dear Sinister in a State of Hope The Swedish singer-songwriter
Emil Svanangen is a fixture in our Songs of the Year lists. A voice that
breaks your heart before you can work out what he’s singing helps.
The Envy Corps Rooftop This American band won many fans with a great
debut EP. This heartbreaking acoustic lament was a stunner, and a track that
will surely, one day, provoke a mass outpouring of tears over the end of a
weepie film.
Iron and Wine The Devil Never Sleeps This might be the least
substantial song Sam Beam has ever recorded, but it’s also the most fun.
Infectious old-school boogie, artfully interwoven backing vocals and the
timeless lament “There’s nothing on the radio”.
Au Revoir Simone Violent Yet Flammable World A rhythm that’s half Phil
Spector and half Autechre, some cheesy 1980s synths, three glacially cool
voices – if it hasn’t yet appeared on the sound-track to a landmark US TV
series, it soon will.
POP
Feist1234 Sorry, but how good is Feist? Her album, The Reminder,
broadened her fan base (hooray), and this iPod Nano-ad stomp gave her a
long-deserved hit.
Just Jack Starz in Their Eyes One of the more talented of the “can’t
really sing, can’t really rap, but we’ll get through this somehow” artists
rips into celebrity culture.
Ghosts Stay the Night Another entry in the should-have-been-a-hit Brit
guitar-pop section, this beauty from the Guildford band wasn’t so much a
song as an extended swoon, one to which record-buyers remained bewilderingly
impervious.
Gruff Rhys Candylion It’s the melody, stupid. The front man of Super
Furry Animals unleashes yet another beautiful one from his seemingly
inexhaustible supply.
Glasvegas Flowers and Football Tops Welding shoegazing to the Wall of
Sound, this B-side from the jaw-droppingly good Glasgow band set the tale of
a mum mourning her murdered son to a giant slab of echo-laden 1960s pop.
Next year should belong to them.
Sarabeth Tucek Nobody Cares Tucek’s simple, stripped-down Something
for You first brought her to our attention, but we’ll plump for this
perfectly phrased, Revolver-referencing slice of powerpop.
Hello Saferide I Was Definitely Made for These Times Sometimes it
takes a Swede to teach us a lesson about pop, which is exactly what Annika
Norlin did on this outrageously catchy, hurtling, name-dropping Motown romp.
Heaven.
Steven Lindsay Monkey Gone to Heaven Only a fool would cover Pixies’
greatest song. Only a fool, or someone who knows they can turn it into a
piano-driven baroque pop masterpiece without losing an ounce of the
original’s intensity.
Miracle Mile Lights of Home Trevor Jones finds the poetry in real
life; Marcus Cliffe anchors it in the sweetest pop. Gorgeous as ever. You
may cry.
Apartment Fall into Place These east Londoners released one of the
best British guitar-pop singles of the year in June – and in a better world
they would have had a smash summer hit. It was not to be.
Ida Maria Oh My God Here’s your latest barking but brilliant Scando
singer alert. “Oh my God,” sang this Norwegian newcomer, over a
drop-dead-gorgeous pellmell guitar thrash, asking: “You think I’m in
control?” Not on this evidence, we don’t.
ROCK AND ALT-ROCK
Wilco Hate It Here Wilco turned mellow this year, but this song, which
starts like the Stones, then takes a diversion into Abbey Road territory,
retains their old edge.
St Vincent Your Lips Are Red From Dallas, Annie Clark made our
acquaintance with a debut album that announced a huge new talent, nowhere
more so than on this alternately ferocious and placid Bowie-meets-Zappa
collision.
Neil Young Ordinary People Heading unconcerned towards the 20-minute
mark, and fuelled by a typically overdriven guitar, we can file this
barnstorming brilliance alongside Like a Hurricane.
Tacks, the Boy Disaster Forget-Me-Not Just when you’re despairing even
of alt-rock to do anything new or interesting with the familiar old
materials, along come this band from Austin, Texas, with a cry from the
heart, a piano line that reminds you it’s a percussion instrument, and
harmonies you’d be happy to both kill and die for. That’s the way to do it.
Vampire Weekend Mansard Roof These New York hot tips completely stole
the hearts of those who heard their debut single’s beguiling blend of show
tunes, Afrobeat and Arcade Fire-like propulsion.
More, please.
The AliensThe Happy Song The band who just might fulfil the potential
that the Beta Band never quite did indulge in a little wishful thinking.
Comes complete with psychedelic whistling.
DANCE, R&B AND TECHNO
LCD Soundsystem Someone Great No other song in 2007 came close to this
for making your heart miss a beat through the sheer shock of hearing a piece
of music that cut right to the core of human emotion – in this case, the
death of a loved one – then had the crazy genius to set it to a dance beat.
James Murphy, we bow down before you.
Rihanna Umbrella If proof were needed that, in 2007, American R&B
production finally accepted that what it was making was pop, so it had
better be prime pop, Umbrella provided it. A catchy-as-hell chorus delivered
the sales; the sinister, undermining synths beneath it sent a chill up the
spine. Unavoidable, for sure, but unimpeachable, too.
Dizzee Rascal U Cant Tell Me Nuffin’ The Maths+English track
that most connected with Dizzee’s earliest work, this was dark, dirty,
defiant and doom-laden. Few in Britain come close to making music this
unsettling, raw and thrilling.
Sugababes About You Now Eject one Sugababe. Slot another one in.
Doesn’t seem to make any difference. Yet another immaculately structured
single from this bewilderingly consistent trio.
Robyn With Every Heartbeat The peroxide Swedish pixie hammered home
her heartache here on a No 1 hit so relentless, so emotionally naked, that
listening to it left you feeling you were the one who had just been ditched.
All that and a Samuel Barber-like string breakout in the middle eight.
Sensational.
Paul Hartnoll Aggro The former Orbital man mixed together vocals from
Joseph Arthur, a vicious beat and the year’s nastiest synth sound.
Bloc Party Flux Kele Okereke and co produced one of the year’s best
albums in February, and pointed to an intriguing new sound with this
extraordinary, Moroder-like howl of rage some 10 months later.
Santogold Creator vs FreQNasty and Switch Wow! This brutal, twisted,
disorientating, dubbed-up dancefloor slayer heralded a 2008 that will surely
see the Brooklyn-based Santi White (who also appeared on Mark Ronson’s
covers album) strike, well, gold.
Beverley Knight Black Butta Admittedly, it’s a bit of a steal from
Nutbush City Limits, but let’s just call it a homage, and a funky one at
that.
Justice D.A.N.C.E. You don’t need to be in a room full of all-ages
dancers going nuts to this Chic-meets-Gallic-pop scorcher from the French
duo to appreciate its infectious brilliance – but it’s an experience you
need to have, soon.
