SONGS OF 2007

Welcome to The Mail On Sunday’s seventh annual selection of the songs of the year. This is my top 20, not in order of merit – they’re all excellent – but in the order you might want to hear them, starting raucous and getting more reflective, with some interesting detours along the way.

The Hives: Tick Tick Boom. While several British guitar bands went into reverse, a Swedish one raced ahead. This single, punky but polished, is a blast from the present.

Arcade Fire: Keep The Car Running. The year’s most stirring song. The Bo Diddley beat has never been put to such emotional use.

Arctic Monkeys: Fluorescent Adolescent. Britain’s sharpest young songwriter, Alex Turner, draws on a long storytelling tradition, but leaves his own stamp: ‘You used to get it in your fishnets, now you only get it in your nightdress’.

The White Stripes: You Don’t Know What Love Is (You Just Do What You’re Told). Their album Icky Thump started superbly with the scorching title track, the moody 300mph Torrential Outpour Blues, and this scathingly catchy kiss-off. After that, there were too many bagpipes, but nobody’s perfect.

MIA: Bamboo Banga. A London-born Tamil, brought up to make her own clothes, MIA’s middle name is DIY. This song turns Jonathan Richman’s Roadrunner into a piece of scrapyard hip-hop whose clanging vitality makes Kate Nash feel tame.

Bjork: Earth Intruders. Timbaland was everywhere this year, but nobody used his rhythmic gifts better than Bjork. A masterclass in organised chaos.

Kanye West: Stronger. His third album was patchy, but this single hit the spot by bringing some swaggering drama out of a Daft Punk sample.

Natasha Bedingfield: I Wanna Have Your Babies. As the Spice Girls made a limp new single, some wondered where girl power had gone. The answer was here. As catchy as the next chart act, and far grittier.

Holly Palmer: Leaving In Love. A strong tune, smart lyrics, a great voice, and backing from Beck’s band: the best song you didn’t hear on the radio all year.

Laura Veirs: Don’t Lose Yourself. A skittering drum machine, a compelling piano hook. One to download, along with the stirring title track of its parent album, Saltbreakers.

Bryan Ferry: Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues. Ferry does Dylan better than Dylan himself has for years, adding musicality rather than taking it away. And Dylan gives Ferry livelier lyrics than he has written since the Seventies.

Kylie: Love Is The Drug. Kylie’s playful charm went missing on the album X, but the BBC located it for the Christmas Dr Who and this crisp, camp cover for the unexpectedly satisfying album Radio 1 Established 1967. Download it along with The Gossip’s high-speed Careless Whisper and Mika’s clubbed-up Can’t Stand Losing You.

Feist: 1234. Leslie Feist’s breakthrough was the left-field pop song of the year – an irresistible singalong with a big heart and a lovable video.

Rufus Wainwright: Slideshow. He’s often over-rated, not least by himself, but with this engaging melodrama, Rufus began to live up to his press.

Nick Lowe: Love’s Got A Lot To Answer For. Wit, truth and a great horn part: the perfect country ballad.

Tom McRae: Keep Your Picture Clear. In a withering whisper, an underrated songwriter lays into new Labour with menacing dexterity.

Paul McCartney: You Tell Me. Macca-bashing remains a national sport, but he gave three great gigs and delivered a fine album in Memory Almost Full, which mixed hurt with boyish defiance. This ballad, fluent, rugged and raw, could have come from Abbey Road.

Eagles: Waiting In The Weeds. The melody of the year, woven into a seven-minute memoir. Don Henley called it his best song since The Boys Of Summer in 1984.

Radiohead: Nude. Their pay-what-you-like download album wasn’t just the business coup of the year, it was one of the best records, and the highlight was this exquisitely painful falsetto ballad. If you’re not OK about computers, In Rainbows reaches the shops tomorrow (XL, *****).

Rihanna feat. Jay Z: Umbrella. At first, it was just another R’n’B slow dance, albeit one sung by a Barbadian bombshell. Once it had been number one for ten soggy weeks, it had become the song by which we would remember 2007.


SONGS OF 2006

Thanks to the downloading revolution, we increasingly buy songs one by one. Actually it’s more of a counter-revolution, because our great-grandparents bought individual songs too, in the form of sheet music. So here, celebrating the true currency of pop, is my sixth annual selection of the top 20 songs of the year.

Gnarls Barkley: Crazy.
Pop is often said to be fragmenting, and the evidence mounted this year as two of its main outlets, Top Of The Pops and Smash Hits, were shut down by short-sighted executives. But occasionally a song comes along which recreates the old consensus. Crazy, written and performed by Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse, was irresistibly catchy and massively popular, but also subtle and thought-provoking. To confirm its status as an instant classic, it was sung live by artists as diverse as Sandi Thom, the Twilight Singers and Paolo Nutini.

Scissor Sisters: I Don’t Feel Like Dancing.
A falsetto floor-filler which seemed a little too derivative, but soon became so much part of the fabric of the year that resistance was futile. Not the most original band in the world, but possibly the most entertaining.

Nelly Furtado: Maneater.
Magic: Timbaland lays down a sizzling rhythm, and a straight-laced songbird turns into a sexpot.

Pink: Stupid Girls.
The year’s most effective protest song, deploying the kind of music pre-teenage girls prefer – jittery R’n’B – to rail at the way they are encouraged to idolise nonentities. It should have made the people responsible for Paris Hilton’s album hang their heads.

John Cale: Outta The Bag.
Another falsetto, and a perfect dance-pop track from an art-rocker who came storming out of the history books in 2006.

The Raconteurs: Steady As She Goes.
Jack White’s pop-rock quartet were only half as interesting as his blues-rock duo, but they hit the spot with this song, a crunchy chugger with a glorious chorus.

The Killers: When You Were Young.
A stirring rock anthem which helped make their Brixton show one of the events of the year. Chris Martin of Coldplay sang it at a benefit gig the same night.

Bruce Springsteen: Erie Canal.
The Boss had two new roles this year: unlikely inspiration to the Killers, and leader of a folk troupe, bringing big-band oomph to some dusty old tunes. Life-affirming stuff.

Loudon Wainwright III: Good Ship Venus.
The bawdiest moment from the producer Hal Willner’s star-studded set of sea shanties, Rogue’s Gallery (Epitaph). It’s filthy, and it’s gorgeous.

Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins: You Are What You Love.
From a radiant album (Rabbit Fur Coat, on Team Love Records) comes a swinging shuffle with an elegant lyric: ‘I’m in love with illusions / So saw me in half’.

Cat Power: Lived In Bars.
A fitful performer finds her feet with a delicious slow dance that revolves around an immaculate piano part.

Candi Staton: His Hands.
Not so much a song, more a miniature memoir. Staton told Will Oldham (Bonnie Prince Billy) about her experiences at the hands of an abusive husband, and he ghost-wrote a southern-soul ballad, dealing with God as well as men, which she sang with heart-wrenching intensity.

Amy Winehouse: Rehab.
The music was like Ray Charles, the voice was pure Motown, the words were those of a 21st-century girl from Camden, and the effect was dynamite.

Fiona Apple: Extraordinary Machine.
Slinky Forties pop from the sparkling album of the same name (Epic). One to seek out in the sales.

Morrissey: Dear God, Please Help Me.
An old ham takes a close look at himself and comes out with the rhyme of the year: ‘there are explosive kegs / between my legs’.

Pet Shop Boys: The Sodom & Gomorrah Show.
Melody, wit, social comment, biblical references, lashings of camp, and Trevor Horn throwing the kitchen sink into the mix: it could only be the Tennant & Lowe show.

Paul Simon: Wartime Prayers.
Iraq songs were all the rage in 2006, a case of better late than never. This was the most memorable, a gospel epic that reminded you who wrote Bridge Over Troubled Water. Simon and his new producer, Brian Eno, are shaping as the Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse of the Saga generation.

Flaming Lips: Free Radicals.
The best track on a patchy album: skewed, succint rock in the great tradition of David Bowie, with a riff worthy of Mick Ronson. We could do with more of it; perhaps Bowie himself, who turns 60 next week, will oblige.

Last Town Chorus: Modern Love.
Meanwhile here’s something that doesn’t happen very often: a clever cover of a Bowie song. Megan Hickey, a singer and lap-steel player from Pennsylvania, recasts a hyperactive stomper as a pensive ballad.

Roddy Frame: Rock God.
His acoustic show at Shepherds Bush was a joy, and this strummed pop song was a handsome tribute to the boyhood idols – Bowie and Marc Bolan – who first entranced him on Top Of The Pops. This is why we need a prime-time pop show. When University Challenge was killed off prematurely by ITV, the BBC shrewdly picked it up. Couldn’t something similar happen to TOTP?

SONGS OF 2005

The Mail on Sunday's Christmas choice of songs of the year used to be somewhat hypothetical. You couldn’t expect anyone to spend hundreds of pounds on albums, then devote half a day to copying each song onto a C90. But thanks to the downloading revolution, what was once pie in the sky has become a piece of cake.

Readers who use ITunes can put these 24 songs on a CD in about 15 minutes for less than £20. Subscribers to Napster wouldn’t even have to pay that. And you don't even have to bother with the CD. The songs are in the order you might play them to friends – a blast of energy first, then a chance to chill, followed by a rowdy singalong.

If you haven’t yet reached planet download, I recommend Now 62 (EMI). It’s perhaps the best Now ever. But it’s not as good as this …

Franz Ferdinand: Do You Want To
Yes. Next!

Arctic Monkeys: I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor
If not quite as compelling as the band’s rise from nowhere to number one, the song was still strong – sparky, spiky and distinctly Northern. And as a memento of 2005, it sure beats You’re Beautiful.

Clor: Love & Pain
Clever floor-filler from a band with more flair than fame.

El Presidente: 100 mph
With Scissor Sisters busy making their second album, there was a vacancy for a flamboyantly catchy disco-glam act. This Glasgow quintet filled it with stompy aplomb.

Goldfrapp: Ooh La La
A steamy spin on Norman Greenbaum: it should have been called Spirit In The Sack.

Kanye West featuring Jamie Foxx: Gold Digger
The crown prince of rap salutes the grandfather of soul, Ray Charles.

Gorillaz: Dirty Harry
Demon Days was solidly brilliant, but this stood out. Funky, tuneful and lovable.

Arcade Fire: Neighborhood No 1
Surging emotion from the world’s best new band.

Richard Hawley: Coles Corner
Stylish homage to Sinatra with a twist of Sheffield wistfulness.

The Go-Betweens: Finding You
Just when the world seemed to have run out of perfect pop tunes, Grant Maclennan came up with this. Give it to someone you love.

Paul McCartney: This Never Happened Before
His collaboration with U2 on Sgt Pepper topped the download chart, but this was more durable: an intimate ballad with a dreamy melody.

Antony and the Johnsons: You Are My Sister
The most emotional four minutes of the year. Hear it and melt.

Bruce Springsteen: Devils & Dust
Current-affairs song of the year, tackling Iraq with stately empathy.

Willy Mason: Oxygen
Protest song of the year: a 20-year-old American aims an elegant dart at his fellow countrymen.

Bono and Alicia Keys: Don’t Give Up (Africa) (iTunes exclusive)
U2’s re-recording of their own classic One, with Mary J Blige, fell flat. But this remake of Peter Gabriel’s great duet with Kate Bush is spot-on: fresh and stirring.

Brian Eno: Under
Sublime skewed pop from the godfather of ambient.

Kate Bush: Somewhere In Between
The long-awaited Aerial, patchy at first, turns out to be a grower. No other recent album so effectively captures the great outdoors, or the great indoors – the world of childcare and housework, which by rock standards is almost exotic. This track is a gorgeous shimmer of ruminative femininity.

Tori Amos featuring Damien Rice: The Power Of Orange Knickers
It could have been pants, but this discussion of underwear and secrets was a treat – a beguiling piano chugger with the two voices mixing like oil and vinegar.

Magic Numbers: Which Way To Happy
Sparkling warmth from Britain’s cuddliest new act.

Cantamus Girls Choir: Fix You
Coldplay’s X&Y was mostly chicken soup, this song included, but in the hands of 43 Notts teenagers, it became irresistible.

Kate and Anna McGarrigle: O Little Town Of Bethlehem
An old chestnut with all the saccharine stripped out, leaving a thing of great beauty.

The White Stripes: I’m Lonely (But I Ain’t That Lonely Yet)
Classic country-gospel from America’s sharpest act.

Rolling Stones: She Saw Me Coming
The album A Bigger Bang was a damp squib, but this was a raucous gem, fit to ring out around the new Wembley next summer.

Rachid Taha: Rock El Casbah
Delirious cover that made The Clash look sedate. Worth buying just for the way Rrrachid rolls his Rs.