In the words of Europe, it’s the final countdown.
10 Mystery Jets – Two Doors Down Now it’s no longer summer, it’s easy to forget how this breezy paeon of young love, one of a host of delights, proved that reinventing yourselves as a slick teenpop doowop outfit, rather than a quirky indie group, can do wonders for your songwriting
9 Guillemots – Falling Out Of Reach For their equally ambitious second album, the perenially underrated Gills went R&B and it just about worked – a great record. But the best track by far was this; the best slice of chilled out soul you’ll hear in a long time – by the final coda, ou should be swooning
8 Black Kids – Hurricane Jane Having a genius like Bernard Butler produce your album is a very good thing, yet he nearly ruined this, the band’s best, leaving the original Wizard of Aaahs demo as one of the year’s slinkiest, most sincere tunes, with the best of basslines. Mind you, as usual, the Twelves remix reinvented the song brilliantly
7 Johnny Flynn & The Sussex Wit – Brown Trout Blues Taking a break from the beat, this rambling, contemplative, rootsy ballad knocked the spots off other anti-folk competitors to win charming young Johnny a place in everyone’s hearts and pants
6 Hercules and Love Affair – Blind OK, for linguistic purists, you really shouldn’t use such hideous intonation for ‘brighter’, but that’s kinda missing the point. That point being that to successfully bring back disco, you need a giant transsexual with the voice of a nightingale to front the grooviest song of the year
5 MIA – Paper Planes A relic of 2007 really, but also the best thing to come out of Sri Lanka via London since Ceylon tea, with less imperialist exploitation involved. Its success also owes a lot to The Smiths, No, really; it’s that trick of repeating each line twice over to get it in your head that helps make a truly great pop song
4 Florence and the Machine – Dog Days Are Over With its dogs and horses, it’s like Kate Bush. With its bellows, it’s like Joan Armatrading. With its ukulele, it’s like Patrick Wolf. See why it’s eqsy to love this euphoric anthem of new love and hope?
3 MGMT – Indie Rokkers I’m honestly not being perverse by choosing this over ‘Kids’ or ‘Time To Pretend’. It was either this or ‘Destrokk’. These B-sides are conventional, a bit too much like The Strokes, but also utterly absorbing and gutwrenching tunes with gloriously pretty melodies
2 British Sea Power – Open The Door A return to standard guitar songwriting for the top two, sorry. This isn’t cool, or danceable, or even a single – I can’t find an album version on youtube. But it is magicam magical magical and ace songwriting
1 The Last Shadow Puppets – Meeting Place The strings that swoop and dive around this melody are bewitching enough, evoking Victorian carousels and that. The drumming is a masterclass in how to move a song along. The refrain ‘I’m sorry I met you darling’ is tearsome. But best of all is simply the tune; timeless and superior, and easily the best sing Alex Turner has ever (co-) written
And that’s a wrap…
