“Beatles!” Junior exclaimed, as I introduced her to the sleeve. “I like Beatles.” She may have meant “beetles”, but managed some booty-swinging to the last verse, a small nod of appreciation for the rock’n’roll version. She spent the rest of the time squeezing between the sofas to fetch the baby doll, complaining about getting stuck. The band themselves were in a bit of a fix, although this sunny record has its head firmly in the sand.
 
The ditty itself - a tale of John Lennon and Yoko Ono hopping around the continent acting the halfwit - is a solipsistic frippery, but I’m soft on it. My warm feelings extend from its timing: April 1969, and The Beatles are limping to a conclusion, hamstrung by legal divisions and poisonous in-fighting. Yet, amid all this, the two most obviously at loggerheads are working hard together – Paul McCartney indulging Lennon, Lennon enlisting his help with the writing, and the pair of them playing every note of the song, nary another Beatle in sight. It feels like the last true collaboration, two against the world.

This endearing little skip through the adolescence of – it’s rumoured - Keira Knightley was never a noisy contender for single of 2007, but it stays with you. I’m helplessly reminded of Boo Radleys’ ‘Barney & Me’ and one or two of The Cure’s lighter distractions, and it pops into my head at the most haphazard times like a shy indie jolt on a train of thought. Not only that, but it makes a little girl shake a leg too. Hand claps and pauses before verses will do that.
 
 
Right, wakey wakey. I think tapes/lists still exist for 1986, 1994 and 2004, but we could do something else entirely – maybe a ‘60s one that I could start from scratch. Such vaulting ambition.
 
Suggestions/votes, please, if you’re there. I’ll close the ballot box on a whim.

Preaching to the converted here, with Junior - her mum has drummed this into her head like radio, TV and pretty much bloody everywhere else has with the rest of us. Does that make ‘Foundations’ one of 2007’s great singles? Well, yes, I think it does. That, and the undeniable fact it has an earworm of a tune and a lyric you could write out verbatim in your sleep. Altogether now: “You said I must eat so many lemons…”
 
But, by Christ, it irritates you, right? I don’t know: she’s just so loveable with her mockney show tunes and deft way with an audience. An effortless star who appears to crib all her lines off the back of a school exercise book.
 
And, yes, Junior’s there already. She bustles about in her highchair, nodding her head to and fro in exaggerated appreciation of the bouncing keys and frantic rhythm. Maybe Nash has found her true niche with the hyper toddlers – but that just means she has one long career ahead of her.

It’s a wonder this lot aren’t bigger than they are. They’ve produced some of the most gorgeous, crystalline pop of the last five years, with just a clutch of minor hits to show for it. Check out ‘Long Time Coming’, ‘Nearer Than Heaven’, ‘Wanderlust’ and ‘Valentine’, and wallow in the lush sonics and pure-bred melody.

Then there’s this. Actually, I can see part of the problem here – ‘Love Made Visible’, a brash, rash, heart-on-sleeve pearl, was released as a fans-only limited edition in the autumn. Is that any way to treat the curtain raiser for your first album (third overall) for a new label? I don’t think so. The Sun, of all rags, has tipped this spring’s album to finally push the band into the big time. Looks like a make-or-break to me.

And the omens aren’t great: Junior ejected the CD halfway through. She seemed to be enjoying it, then her patience snapped. Fingers crossed the public at large will give Delays just a little more leeway.

This month, or for as long as I can muster the will, we’ll be reappraising the records that didn’t make the 2007 Top 20 either because a) I didn’t deem them up to scratch at the time, b) I forgot about them, c) I hadn’t actually heard them or d) I was plain wrong. Messing up the categories straight away, Lightspeed Champion gets the first shout because I didn’t listen to this properly until mid-December.
 
Dev Hynes, pictured above in new multimedia Jukebox Junior stylee, comes hot from Test Icicles – the charmingly named nu-rave, shouty-punk, whatever-label-you-can-rustle-up outfit who never quite made it big. He’s taken a long, hard look at himself, declared himself happy with the outlandish hair and threads but changed tack completely for the music. Ticking personal boxes for me, he now sounds as if he’s transmitting direct from Postcard records in the early ‘80s, with some first-album Prefab Sprout chucked in for winning measure. It’s fiddly, beguiling, inventive, sensitive pop… about drinking gin and throwing up.
 
Now Junior thought this was pretty special and waltzed around with the smallest of the many toy babies filling up our living room. I could tell from her beam that she was delighted Dad had finally seen sense and given Dev his props; she promised to take a more integral role on Jukebox Junior’s steering committee in future, to avoid similar mishaps. As for Lightspeed Champion’s future, he’s our hot tip for 2008. Watch him plummet.

The single of the millennium – sorry, Scissor Sisters, you had a good innings – is a fantastic achievement from a man at the very peak of his game. I’ve already mentioned this year’s Sound Of Silver, which snaffles the album rosette, but this is the dizzy high point of the set. A sensitive appraisal of a life in motion, ‘All My Friends’ is unsentimental but touching and universal.
 
It’s difficult to pinpoint. To these ears it’s a glorious amalgam of New Order’s ‘Love Vigilantes’ and ‘Run’, Talking Heads’ ‘Once in A Lifetime’ and David Bowie’s ‘Young Americans’ – and as wonderful as that suggests, but it’s no copy. It’s a stunning original, a would-be seminal track if it was possible to follow it.
 
To unending layers of piano, bass, guitar and bags of atmosphere, James Murphy sings of running with the pack, but always coming back to what counts – your friends. Aww. But, as I say, it’s not sentimental. It’s resigned, but happy. Wistful and celebratory.
 
You’d think loving this track was the sole preserve of the thirtysomething, but Junior has adored it all year. As ever, she mimes along with the woodpecker piano of the intro, more frenzied as it works itself up, and sings the last word of each line like one of those people who always finish your sentences. Only she does it in a cute way. That’s a deft move.

It actually breaks my heart not to put this at No.1, but when you’re dealing with the single of the century, what can you do? I’m going to plagiarise myself here – I reviewed this single for a venerable website in June, and nailed my own thoughts:
 
“This Cardiff septet (a Cardiff septet! How long have we waited?) throw everything at the wall and see what paints it all the colours of the rainbow and gives it a kiss for luck. ‘You! Me! Dancing!’, with every exclamation mark a necessity, is a joyful romp through influences as diverse as New Order, Arcade Fire, The Strokes, the Boo Radleys and The Mighty Wah! with all the poignancy, passion and pop they suggest. A boyish vocal shyly mumbles “if there’s one thing I can never confess, it’s that I can’t dance a single step”, but if he wigs out to the glockenspiel and thrashing guitars and drums like the rest of us, he hasn’t got a problem.”
 
A few weeks later, we saw the seven of them at Glastonbury and found that a whole 45 minutes of glockenspiel-bashing was a lot to swallow, but they’ve wisely taken their time over a debut album, which’ll come out in February – perhaps it will offer some light and shade. The good news is ‘You! Me Dancing!’ doesn’t diminish one iota with countless plays, so brimming is it with fantastic ideas. Single of the Year in any other year.
 
In the latest example of what will doubtless be decades of pulling the rug out from underneath my feet, Junior didn’t pay it too much mind. She promised she was listening to it, but it’s tree decoration day and, frankly, what do you think is more appealing to a two-year-old? Los Campesinos! aren’t quite the angel at the top – there’s more than one tier of genius.