If you’re one of those people who goes around saying “Pop music just doesn’t matter any more”, our Songs of the Year should jerk you out of your cynical state. Every moment of these 20 songs matters. This has been an extraordinary year in music, crammed full of both exciting debuts by fresh young bands and stunning returns to form from old stagers, a fact that is reflected in the range of artists on our list: at one extreme, the Arctic Monkeys, whose rise has been propelled by the internet; at the other, John Cale, whose recording career began back in the days when stereo was a relatively new technology.
Our list also reflects the breadth of great music being made, ranging as it does from the pure radio-friendly pop of the Sugababes to the art-rock of Franz Ferdinand, from the intense rap of Saul Williams to the delicate folk of King Creosote; from household names such as Kanye West to below-the-radar artists such as Crooked Fingers; from critically acclaimed songwriters such as Damien Jurado to unexpected contenders such as Billy Idol.
Most unexpected of all — for us, anyway — was our choice as the Song of the Year. All the 20 tracks listed here are strong contenders (and, by the way, the list excludes any tracks from our Albums of the Year). But we eventually narrowed down a shortlist that included Cale’s Perfect, Maxïmo Park’s Apply Some Pressure, Amerie’s 1 Thing and the Stereophonics’ Dakota.
What unites these four tracks is their energy — a defining characteristic of so much good music this year. Cale may be in his sixties, but he spits out his wry, guitar-fuelled tale of settling for what’s available (“You’re not perfect, but you’re perfect for me right now”) with the drive of the punks he helped to birth. Maxïmo Park’s Apply Some Pressure is an extraordinarily structured song — full of musical and lyrical twists and turns — but the kinetic power of the band drives you through. Amerie’s 1 Thing is the kind of track you can’t just hear once. The berserk adrenaline of the music and the sweaty joy of the vocal demand to be on “repeat”.
There’s an uneasy relationship between music journalists and the Stereophonics. We think they fall all too easily into stodgy dad rock. They don’t like us at all and have even written a song to explain the depth of their dislike. (It’s called Mr Writer, and a sample lyric is: “I’d like to shoot you all.”) So, when we realised that we were edging towards deciding that the Stereophonics’ Kelly Jones had written the best song of the year, we were a little surprised — but you just can’t argue with Dakota. Every moment of it works: the stuttering synth that brings it to life, the Motorik beat that pushes it along, the few perfectly chosen guitar notes that herald the verse, Jones’s best-ever vocal performance, the tightness of the chorus, the exquisite fade-out. Presumably, Jones doesn’t care what we think, but anyway, we think it’s the best.
AMERIE 1
Thing (from the album Touch)
The year’s most effective use of a sample, this phenomenal splice-up of New Orleans funksters the Meters and Amerie’s erotically charged allusion to the “one thing” her lover does for her came courtesy of Rich Harrison, who co-wrote 2003’s Crazy in Love.
ARCTIC MONKEYS
Fake Tales from San Francisco (single)
The Sheffield newcomers delivered a mighty slap to poseurs everywhere on their delightfully shambolic punk-ska debut. One word-of-internet chart-topper later, those same poseurs are now flocking to the Monkeys, who may spend most of 2006 trying to escape their embrace.
JOHN CALE
Perfect (from Black Acetate)
If one of this year’s hot new guitar bands had released a song as witty, sharp, powerful and hook-packed, we would be impressed. For a man more than 40 years into his career still to be sparking like this is something else again.
CROOKED FINGERS
Call to Love (from Dignity and Shame)
Catchy, guitar-driven power-pop. The Crooked Fingers’ front man, Eric Bachman, is trying to win back his woman, but she — in the guise of the cool, detached guest singer Lara Meyerratken — is having none of it.
EDITORS
Munich (from The Back Room)
If you must plunder, then do it in style. This Birmingham band put only the choicest items in their swag bag, emerging with an absolute belter owing debts to U2, Joy Division and REM, while sounding thrillingly new.
BRIAN ENO
Just Another Day (from Another Day on Earth)
More than two decades after his last song-based solo album, Brian Eno reminded us all that as well as the sonic experimentation for which he is most famous, he is rather good at old-fashioned melodies.
FRANZ FERDINAND
Walk Away (from You Could Have It So Much Better)
Franz’s supposed froideur was shown to be nothing of the sort on this achingly beautiful break-up song, a highlight from a superb second album and proof that, as a songwriter, Alex Kapranos is as much diarist as dramatist.
GIRLS ALOUD
Biology (from Chemistry)
Not so much a song as a succession of increasingly screw-turning bridges and choruses, grafted together to produce the Girls and their Xenomania songwriters’ finest 3 minutes.
BILLY IDOL
Cherie (from Devil’s Playground)
Songs of the year? Billy Idol? Oh, yes. A mile away from his cartoon punk image, Idol nails a perfect pastiche of the kind of hits Neil Diamond used to write for the Monkees.
DAMIEN JURADO
Big Decision (from On My Way to Absence)
Damien Jurado has a glass-half-empty viewpoint, but wrests gorgeous, haunting alt-folk music from life’s darker moments. He is regularly compared to Raymond Carver, and this is his shortest, most enigmatic story yet.
KING CREOSOTE
My Favorite Girl (from KC Rules OK)
Backed by the Earlies, Kenny Anderson sings the most yearningly beautiful vocal of the year. Why he has to ask a friend to “promise you’ll tell her that she’s my favourite girl”, rather than tell her himself, is a mystery.
BEN LEE
Catch My Disease (from Awake is the New Sleep)
From this year’s most life-affirming album, the Australian singer leads an extraordinary sing-along chorus, including Jason Falkner, Har Mar Superstar and Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis, in an ode to joy.
LOW
California (from The Great Destroyer)
The Minnesota trio quickened their trademark narcoleptic pace to, ooh, at least midtempo to create the best song Neil Young never wrote.
MAXIMO PARK
Apply Some Pressure (from A Certain Trigger)
A breakneck guitar-pop song that introduced this Newcastle five-piece as a new band to be reckoned with. How many hooks can you cram into three minutes? Maxïmo Park have the answer: infinity and beyond.
ROBERT POST
Got None (from Robert Post)
Impervious to current trends, this Norwegian mined his own chamber-pop seam, fashioning a finely wrought debut album (with nods to solo McCartney, Todd Rundgren and Brian Wilson), from which this beauty was the standout.
STARS
Your Ex-Lover Is Dead (from Set Yourself on Fire)
This stunner from the Canadians’ third album vied with the Magic Numbers’ I See You, You See Me for the award for greatest vocal entry by a female in 2005.
STEREOPHONICS
Dakota (from Language. Sex. Violence. Other?)
The lyric “Wake-up, cold coffee and juice” sums up Dakota perfectly. This song hits the ground running, with a bouncing synth arpeggio and a driving Motorik beat, and just builds and builds through slamming guitars, artful production tricks and a seemingly endless supply of choruses. Stunning.
SUGABABES
Push the Button (from Taller in More Ways)
Dallas Austin continued to spin sonic gold in 2005, most irresistibly on this outrageously minimalist come-on, which disobeyed the entire rule book of song construction, and included one of the sexiest lyrics of the year — “I’ve been waiting patiently for him to come and get it”.
KANYE WEST
Heard ’Em Say (from Late Registration)
The echoing rhythm meshes beautifully with the tinkling piano, the bass is inspired, the guest vocalist, Adam Levine of Maroon 5, has been paying careful attention to his Stevie Wonder records, and the fade-out was the most intriguing 30 seconds of music released in 2005.
SAUL WILLIAMS
List of Demands (from Saul Williams)
The toughest beats in town and a chorus of wailing kids back up the poet-rapper-singer Williams as he delivers his list of demands. Inspiring.
