Stop... bandwagon time.

 

Anywho, I made a playlist of my 40 favourite singles of 2011 this afternoon and thought I'd share it with the world. A couple of rules:

 

1. This has been restricted to stuff which was released this year in the modern fashion of putting an entire album up for download, so there's some fantastic songs (hello "All Of The Lights"!) missing here because although they were put out as singles in 2011, their parent album comes from 2010.

 

2. Likewise anything which was released as a single in 2010 but had its parent album released in 2011 misses out, mainly because it disqualifies "I Just Had Sex" which would be a really obvious winner.

 

Before I kick off with my top 40, I'll do a quick rundown of my favourite album tracks of the year. I would do a list of my favourite albums of 2011 as well but I realised the other day that my two favourite 2010 albums (Kanye and Arcade Fire, if you're interested) I only bought this year so any list for 2011 that I do now might be a bit misleading. Ask me again when I've been to the HMV sales.

 

 

 

 

 

09 White Lies - Is Love

 

 

07 Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - (I Wanna Live In A Dream In My) Record Machine

 

06 Hollywood Undead - Levitate

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SAY MY NAAAAAAME!

 

First five:

 

40 ALL TIME LOW I FEEL LIKE DANCIN'

 

 

They say "you've got the right to remain on the dancefloor"

 

Having started to give up trying to be anything resembling a punk band with the excellent "Nothing Personal", All Time Low abandoned all pretence with this year's super-streamlined "Dirty Work". Unfortunately, they also forgot the tunes. Besides "Do You Want Me (Dead?)" and "Forget About It", nothing on the album would have even made it onto the last one. Except this, the first single, which is gloriously throwaway and shows they haven't lost their knack for a fun video.

 

 

39 EVANESCENCE WHAT YOU WANT

 

 

Hello, hello. It's only me infecting everything you love

 

This could again be seen as something of a disappointing comeback since it comes from the band who gave us "Bring Me To Life" but to be honest I didn't expect a great deal from Evanescence after the very meh "The Open Door" and a five year break. Refreshingly, "What You Want" isn't a retread of former glories and instead goes for jugular with massive drums and fluttery keyboards everywhere. Possibly the first Evanescence song where the verses are more interesting than the chorus and a very good gig opener.

 

 

38 INCUBUS PROMISES, PROMISES

 

 

I'm on the road of least resistance

 

A band everyone else seems to have forgotten about (although they did very well to get another top 20 album this year given they never fully crossed over in the first place), neither this nor first single "Adolescents" are a patch on the fantastic "Anna Molly" and "Love Hurts" off their last album but it's still the kind of the thing that makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside.

 

 

37 LAGY GAGA YOÜ AND I

 

Sit back down where you belong in the corner of the bar with your high heels on

 

 

Much-maligned over here for seemingly killing the era singles-wise, "Yoü and I" probably wasn't the best choice for 4th single but such is the standard of "Born This Way" (Well, "Judas" and "Electric Chapel" aside) that it makes my top 40 of the year anyway. Its laid-back country feel sounds infinitely stranger (and better) in the context of the album where it's surrounded by mid-tempo dance numbers.

 

 

36 THE LONELY ISLAND feat. NICKI MINAJ & JOHN WATERS THE CREEP

 

 

When the judge is a hottie and you can't control your body, do the creep!

 

I'm a sucker for anything these guys release really, this is as outrageously silly as most of the output but the slinky, minimalist beat helps it stand out and the dance instructions are hilarious. That and it's Nicki Minaj's best feature since Kanye's titanic "Monster".

35 LIMP BIZKIT SHOTGUN

 

 

Everybody jumps from the sound of the shotgun, and in my neighbourhood everybody got one

 

I can't really explain why I like Limp Bizkit. Aside from the fact that they're incredibly puerile, their brand of nu-metal has seen pretty much no evolution since their inception and Fred Durst comes across on a record as a complete knob, I was only 7 years old when they were at their pomp and by the time I was getting into music they'd disappeared. Yet miraculously I was actually looking forward to their comeback and, while the much-delayed "Gold Cobra" was a sea of Bizkit clichés, the first single has worked its way into my affections. I think I need medical help.

 

 

34 NERO PROMISES

 

 

They still all feel so wasted on myself

 

One of my favourite UK #1s of the year (there's two more still to come), predictably with a terrible chart run. Oh well. Seeing them in the Students Union in October was superb and this was easily one of the highlights which saw a reaction of adulation from the crowd - admittedly it's a venue full of drunk students who I've seen give Fazer from N-Dubz and Loick Essien a reception worthy of a superstar, but still.

 

 

33 NOEL GALLAGHER'S HIGH FLYING BIRDS THE DEATH OF YOU AND ME

 

 

I can feel the storm clouds sucking up my soul

 

No, it doesn't reinvent the wheel. This is Noel Gallagher remember, a man known to, when writing maybe the most important single of his career, steal the chord progression from ONE OF HIS OWN SONGS that had been a huge hit less than two years before. Still, if critics were eating their hats and declaring "Liam 1, Noel 0" when Beady Eye released a decent album in March, they had to eat them again when Noel flattened the competition in October with an extremely well-crafted album of Noel-Rock. Yes, he's so good he spawned his own genre. This, "The Importance of Being Idle: The Director's Cut", was where it started going so right for him.

 

 

32 KASABIAN DAYS ARE FORGOTTEN

 

Call me a cliché, how right you are!

 

 

You know that rock music is in the doldrums when a band largely acknowledged to be the popular standard-bearers of 'real music', off the back of the biggest single and the most acclaimed album of their career, can release a new song that oozes charisma and sports a gigantic chorus and still can't sell more in a week than "Someone Like You" on its 4,326th week on the chart. Still, hardly Kasabian's fault.

 

 

31 ED SHEERAN YOU NEED ME, I DON'T NEED YOU

 

 

They say I'm up and coming like I'm f***ing in an elevator

 

My review of "The A Team" when it was one of the tracks in the mixtape I was sent in the Buzzjack CD Swap earlier in the year:

 

Track 6 – low-key acoustic guitar intro. Male vocal, this seems to be one of those nicey-nicey acoustic tracks that occasionally do well in the charts. Massive contrast from the last couple of tracks, maybe the compiler thought of this is the start of a second ‘act’? Maybe I’m just reading too much into it. I like, would rather it had a bit of Frank Turner-ey bite though. 7/10

 

Quite accurate, eh? Boy with guitar peddling above-average acoustic ballads isn't my thing really, but said boy peddling whiplash-fast rhymes and beatboxing sounds far more exciting. Predictably, the Great British Public disagreed.

Ooh, some good songs here, as I'd expect. LOVE Days Are Forgotten, much more than I was expecting to, almost become my favourite Kasabian song. I haven't heard too much from the album that's AS good as it, it's just so rousing. But then, I only recently got the album, will be making an effort to do that.

 

And You Need Me. Really love the way it goes so fast all the way through, didn't expect it to be here though. Although, like you say, if it was any Ed Sheeran, it would be that one.

 

Grown to love Lonely Island recently too, The Creep made my sides split the first time I watched the video. It's not a bad song either.

Ooh, some good songs here, as I'd expect. LOVE Days Are Forgotten, much more than I was expecting to, almost become my favourite Kasabian song. I haven't heard too much from the album that's AS good as it, it's just so rousing. But then, I only recently got the album, will be making an effort to do that.

 

And You Need Me. Really love the way it goes so fast all the way through, didn't expect it to be here though. Although, like you say, if it was any Ed Sheeran, it would be that one.

 

Grown to love Lonely Island recently too, The Creep made my sides split the first time I watched the video. It's not a bad song either.

 

Cheers Isaac, I actually wasn't sold on "The Creep" when I first heard it (maybe because "I Just Had Sex" raised my expectations unreasonably high) but I've grown to really like it.

 

30 KASABIAN RE-WIRED

 

 

Hit me! Harder!

 

At which point Kasabian stopped writing Bond themes and odes to dinosaurs, and instead chose to condense their entire career - druggy soundscapes, addictive beats and mass singalongs - into a handy four minute package for the most casual of listeners. And STILL they can't get a hit off this album.

 

 

29 LADY GAGA MARRY THE NIGHT

 

 

New York is not just a tan that you never lose

 

The perfect introduction to the leviathan that is "Born This Way" really, in fact single form doesn't truly do it justice until you hear what follows. It is of course made by the barmy robotic breakdown at the end that sounds like an electronica mix of the outro to Paramore's "Brick By Boring Brick" (always a good thing), and the TV edit of the video is her best this era by a country mile.

 

 

28 THE VACCINES IF YOU WANNA

 

 

That's what all the friends I don't like as much as you say

 

Lean, stripped back British indie rock to jump up and down to. Simples.

 

 

27 FOSTER THE PEOPLE PUMPED UP KICKS

 

Then say, "Your hair's on fire, you must have lost your wits, yeah?"

 

 

This took a while to click with me but it soon became ubiqutous, particularly in the US where it stands out like a sore thumb in the list of 2011's best sellers. A charmingly simple melody combined with an irresistible drum beat make a welcome change in a sea of electro hop and piano ballads.

 

 

26 THE LONELY ISLAND feat. MICHAEL BOLTON JACK SPARROW

 

 

DAVY JONES! GIANT SQUID!

 

If only to first see Michael Bolton dressed as Julia Roberts, and then to hear him declaring he snorts "mountains of cocaine".

25 BRUNO MARS GRENADE

 

 

Tell the devil I said "hey" when you get back to where you're from

 

I was far from a fan of "Just The Way You Are" by the end of 2010, I thought it was soppy mush engineered for teenage girls to coo over. So you can imagine my surprise when I heard Bruno's follow-up - effectively the dark flipside of his last single, it's easily one of the classiest pop songs of the year.

 

 

24 THE VACCINES NØRGAARD

 

 

She's only seventeen so she's probably not ready

 

The reason that British "landfill" indie failed (and consequently the only thing stopping The Vaccines from being superstars) was that it was all dull boys singing monotonous songs about nothing. And a 98 second ode to a horny underage Danish model is a great way of kicking the genre up the arse and giving decent bands hope of doing well again in the near future.

 

 

23 LADY GAGA THE EDGE OF GLORY

 

 

I'm on the edge of something final we call life tonight

 

GaGa promised us at the start of "Born This Way" that she was going to marry the night, and an hour later she'd fully completed that objective. She hadn't quite delivered the album of the century as she had claimed, but her failing makes this the perfect finale to her vision. It's clear she's on the edge of something - glory in terms of artistic quality, and disaster in terms of her commercial fortunes. It's everything she does well really, except for the inexplicable video which I wouldn't have shown if it wasn't for the appearance of the late, great Clarence Clemons.

 

 

22 THE LONELY ISLAND feat. JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE MOTHERLOVER

 

 

It would be my honour to be your new stepfather

 

Timberlake had already shown his comic prowess with the Island on the brilliant "Dick In A Box", but the 'sequel' - where he and group leader Andy Samberg hatch a convenient plan to cover for their lack of Mother's Day gifts - takes it up a notch. Like all great comedy songs, there's a multitude of quotable lines (although "while I'm in your mother, I'll never use a rubber" might take the proverbial biscuit) and the two teamed up again later in the year (along with a certain Ms. Germanotta) for the slightly less amusing "3-Way".

 

 

21 COLDPLAY EVERY TEARDROP IS A WATERFALL

 

 

I shut the world outside until the lights come on

 

When you think about it, reinventing the Temper Trap's "Sweet Disposition" as Technicolour power-pop ode to music in the vein of Boston's "More Than A Feeling" is such a good idea that it's a wonder it took anyone this long to come up with it really.

20 PARAMORE IN THE MOURNING

 

 

You escape like a runaway train

 

This shouldn't have really been necessary. Had Paramore been sensible they'd have put this on "brand new eyes" in place of "The Only Exception" and watched the money roll in. But they didn't, and the gorgeous acoustic ballad "In The Mourning" surfaced this month as the final part of their Singles Club release. Of the three songs to come off the project it's this one that seems built to last and go down as a future Paramore classic.

 

 

19 MAROON 5 feat. CHRISTINA AGUILERA MOVES LIKE JAGGER

 

 

My ego is big, I don't give a shit

 

What can be said about this leviathan that hasn't already been said? Of the acts to go all dancey on us in 2011, it was those who took their cues from disco that were treated most harshly by the British charts. Lady GaGa can blame her lack of a #1 on a silly release strategy, but following a comeback that no one saw coming Maroon 5 had seemingly done everything right - except make #1. Shame really, this is with the exception of "She Will Be Loved" my favourite thing they've done.

Gallagher, Foster The People, Kasabian, Gaga and particularly The Vaccines are all great tracks.

Gallagher, Foster The People, Kasabian, Gaga and particularly The Vaccines are all great tracks.

 

You might appreciate this then :D

 

18 NOEL GALLAGHER'S HIGH FLYING BIRDS IF I HAD A GUN

 

 

Excuse me if I spoke too soon, my eyes have always followed you around the room

 

Possibly my favourite lyric of the year belongs to Noel. I was always more interested to hear his solo output than Liam's, and so it was that he was the one who crafted the far stronger album with this as the jewel in its crown. Sat squarely in the middle of an astonishingly accomplished first half, it says very little that he hasn't said before but it says it in a way that sounds better than any of his output for the best part of a decade. Bangin'

 

 

17 FLORENCE + THE MACHINE SHAKE IT OUT

 

 

It's hard to dance with the devil on your back

 

I always maintained that if Florence picked the right single to lead her second album, she could be the only one to hold a candle to Adele's sales. I turned out to be wrong, because "Ceremonials" is limping towards half a million (still no mean feat, remember Duffy's second album?) despite her picking the best possible single to lead it with. Unashamedly epic (most of the album is), it sounds vast yet underperformed horrifically. No, I don't know why either. It's no "Rabbit Heart" but it's not far off. Now release "Spectrum", Florence. Now.

16 NERO ME AND YOU

 

 

I feel it too

 

Dubstep's biggest new stars (which isn't as much of a compliment as it should be given the genre wasn't as successful in 2011 as some predicted) with their breakout single - it's simple and devastatingly effective, and makes a fantastic gig closer.

 

 

15 KE$HA WE R WHO WE R

 

 

Tonight we're going hard just like the world is ours

 

Yes, I'm surprised as well. I'm not entirely sure how I managed to fall for this so much, given her previous output has been nothing more than fun yet indispensable to me. Maybe because "We R Who We R" is exactly the same, just that little bit more. She's given up trying to ignore the fact that all her best songs sound like "TiK ToK", and she's written the pop song she always wanted to write. My favourite British #1 of the year.

14 FOO FIGHTERS ARLANDRIA

 

 

And when you said I couldn't give you enough I started giving you up

 

There were times in 2011 when I thought that this was the highlight of the immensely strong "Wasting Light". Now probably not, maybe the lyrics don't have the same meaning to me as they did earlier in the year but it's still an immense song. Had it not been released it would go on the ever-growing list of amazing mid-tempo Foos album tracks (alongside "Hey, Johnny Park!", "M.I.A." and "Come Back") but that honour now goes to the equally fantastic "Dear Rosemary".

 

 

13 WIZ KHALIFA BLACK & YELLOW

 

 

So many rocks up in my watch I can't tell what the time is

 

Another one that seems completely atypical to my usual taste. However, I love trashy pop hooks when they're on rock songs and enjoy an increasing amount of US hip-hop so throw the two together and BAM, you get this. Astoundingly successful in the US, it didn't quite manage to do a full B.o.B and be massive over here as well (maybe the lack of a famous feature on the chorus?) which is a shame since it's so bloody infectious.

12 WHITE LIES BIGGER THAN US

 

 

You're cold, nothing has changed

 

This has now probably overtaken "Death" as my favourite song by these guys, it's now customary that every other year I'm stirred out of my January musical lull by a fantastic new single (and a decent album to follow) by them. "Bigger Than Us" lives up to its name with a gigantic half-time chorus (I'm always a sucker for a tempo change) and really should have done far better than it did chart-wise.

 

 

11 PARAMORE RENEGADE

 

 

And when I get there, it won't be far enough

 

When I said that of the three Singles Club releases it was "In The Mourning" that sounded like it would stand the test of time the best, that didn't mean it was my favourite. "Renegade" trumps it for being everything Paramore does well - it doesn't have the cascading hooks of "Ignorance" or the joyous onslaught of "Misery Business", but it's addictive as hell and wouldn't have been a bad lead single for their upcoming album. Key to its appeal is the monumental breakdown before the last chorus, which elevates the song to a new level and is a timely reminder how good a frontwoman Hayley Williams really is.

15 KE$HA WE R WHO WE R

 

 

Tonight we're going hard just like the world is ours

 

Yes, I'm surprised as well. I'm not entirely sure how I managed to fall for this so much, given her previous output has been nothing more than fun yet indispensable to me. Maybe because "We R Who We R" is exactly the same, just that little bit more. She's given up trying to ignore the fact that all her best songs sound like "TiK ToK", and she's written the pop song she always wanted to write. My favourite British #1 of the year. OMG! :o

 

15 KE$HA WE R WHO WE R

Tonight we're going hard just like the world is ours

 

Yes, I'm surprised as well. I'm not entirely sure how I managed to fall for this so much, given her previous output has been nothing more than fun yet indispensable to me. Maybe because "We R Who We R" is exactly the same, just that little bit more. She's given up trying to ignore the fact that all her best songs sound like "TiK ToK", and she's written the pop song she always wanted to write. My favourite British #1 of the year. OMG! :o

 

Surprised? :P it's not by a huge amount given we've already seen two other #1s in my top 40.

 

Top 10 either later or tomorrow.

I like most of the songs in this countdown, didn't think we had quite such similar taste actually :o

 

You & I, Grenade and We R Who We R are especially great!

10 LADY GAGA BORN THIS WAY

 

 

Don't be a drag, just be a queen

 

I'd forgotten how wacky that video is. It's now a year since GaGa tweeted a picture of her arse and set in place a four-and-a-half month furore which culminated in the release of her second full album, one of the most anticipated LPs in a lifetime. With everything that's happened in the last year, early February seems like a lifetime away and when the title track to the album surfaced amid fairly clear waters,upon hearing it for the first time the world (myself included) breathed a collective "meh". Was this it? It seemed remarkably conventional, perhaps a reminder that if there's one field where the woman is relatively conservative it's her music.

 

Alas, when the album was released everything slotted into place quite conveniently. The thumping disco groove shows that GaGa is pushing forwards, albeit steadily, with her creative output but the biggest departure was in the lyrics. "The Fame Monster" showed her eye for a concept but the songs were very much still inspired by generic romance fodder and it was the consistency of the songs' quality that made the EP such a great listen. "Born This Way" sees the birth of GaGa 2.0, an Artist with a capital A who's been given complete creative licence to do whatever the hell she wants. Sometimes that's not such a great thing (hello "Judas"!) but here she really delivered. And without RedOne as well!

09 EVANESCENCE MY HEART IS BROKEN

 

 

And I will wander until the end of time, torn away from you

 

As an album "Evanescence" breaks no new ground whatsoever. Centrepiece ballad "Lost In Paradise" is sadly predictable and there's something of an inevitability about every crunch of guitar on the heavier tracks. Aside from lead single "What You Want" there's only one real highlight, but what a highlight it is. By the time the first chorus comes around "My Heart Is Broken" has already elevated itself above the majority of the band's output with a brooding intro giving way to a twitchy drum pattern and flutterings of piano. So far, so typically Evanescence. What sets the song apart is the electrifying way that Amy Lee wails "MY HEART IS BROO-OH-OH-OH-OKEN" in the chorus, giving the hook a spine-tingling quality which makes you realise that the band have just delivered their best song in eight long years.

08 BLINK 182 UP ALL NIGHT

 

 

Everyone falls and spins and gets up again with a friend who does the same

 

Having made their name as immature punk-poppers, few expected Blink to come back with something quite so gently paced as this to lead their first album in eight years. However, what "Up All Night" lacks in speed it more than makes up for in furious technicality. As a showcase for all three band members it was the perfect comeback single, and its chorus line manages to gnaw its way into your brain after a few listens.

07 CHRISTINA PERRI JAR OF HEARTS

 

 

I have grown too strong to ever fall back into your arms

 

Someone please explain to me where exactly the justice is in Adele's "Someone Like You" blazing its way well past one million sales when this has yet to trouble the top 3. Piano ballads, by their nature, are so simplistic that they rise and fall on the strength of their lyrics. On that basis "Someone Like You" stumbles under closer inspection whereas "Jar of Hearts" appears stronger and stronger on repeated listens, its bitter kiss-off encapsulated perfectly by Perri, whose delivery makes the whole thing even more of a treat.

 

Rant over.

06 THE THRONE NIGGAS IN PARIS

 

 

No one knows what it means, but it's provocative!

 

Over the course of an entire album, Jay-Z and Kanye West's grand ideas can become a little repetitive. While more consistent than Jay's "The Blueprint 3" and more concise (and therefore less fatiguing) than Kanye's epic "Dark Twisted Fantasy", the pair's braggadocio can be tiresome when the tunes aren't there. Thankfully, the production delivers consistently and no moreso than here. The initial electronic backing sounds almost tinny but provides a perfect base for the pair's rhymes, while the second half is characterised by an astonishing, earth-shaking bass. However, it's really made by the dialogue sample from comedy "Blades of Glory", which completely wrongfoots you on first listen but beomes more and more gratifying each time you hear it.