Well, that's pretty much the end of 2011 then. Not really a great year for music if you ask me. I'll tell you why I think that. This post was going to be called "Top 10 Songs of 2011" but when I had a think about it I couldn't even come up with 10 songs that really blew me away this year. That's terrible isn't it? On a more positive note though, the songs that did impress me were really so good and some unlike anything I had heard before.
The power of Youtube, Facebook and Twitter as music discovery tools was proved to me this year by the fact that I heard three of my top five songs online months before I heard them anywhere else. So here they are................
5. "Someone Like You" - Adele
Hard to have avoided this song in 2011. Her performance at the 2011 BRIT Awards showed what a good song is all about. Here was this girl, backed only by a piano, singing about her heartbreak over an ex-boyfriend whilst that heartbreak was being played out live in front of our very eyes as we watched her deliver a perfect performance on the verge of breaking down. Afterwards she explained why she had cried at the end of the performance saying, "I was really emotional by the end because I'm quite overwhelmed by everything anyway, and then I had a vision of my ex, of him watching me at home and he's going to be laughing at me because he knows I'm crying because of him, with him thinking, 'Yep, she's still wrapped around my finger'. Then everyone stood up, so I was overwhelmed."
4. "A Real Hero" - College (ft. Electric Youth)
I'm technically cheating with this song because it was actually released in 2009 but I only discovered it this year as I'm sure 99% of the other people who heard it. The reason we all heard the song this year was because of the film "Drive". It soundtracks the final five minutes of the film but stands on it own as a brilliant electro-pop anthem.
3. "She Loves Me" - Willy Moon
I wrote a bit about Willy Moon earlier in the year and I'm a big fan of his already. The Guardian have his debut song "I Wanna Be Your Man" at No.26 in their top songs of 2011 but it's his follow-up song that I can't get out of my head.
2. "Video Games" - Lana Del Rey
Young Lizzy Grant has split the music-loving Internet down the middle with opinions over her music, her history and her lips flooding every social media avenue in the past four months. However, despite what anyone says, it's hard to deny that this is a genuinely class song. Almost 13 million views since the video was posted on Youtube in August has made Lana Del Rey somewhat of a household name for those with an Internet connection.
1. "212" - Azealia Banks (ft. Lazy-Jay)
I heard them play this song last week out the back of the Amersham Arms in New Cross to a packed dance floor and the place went berserk. Credit has to be given to this Lazy-Jay fella for laying the foundations for Miss Banks's potty-mouthed tour de force. I'm going to put my neck on the line here and say that she's going to be a one-hit-wonder. But what a hit.
Stay tuned for Johnny Bottles' "Summary of 2011 in 12 Sentences"
