Jukebox Junior: Playing records to a girl called Junior
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Singles Of The Year 2006
[1] Peter, Bjorn & John, 'Young Folks'
Just pipping Loose Fur’s ‘The Ruling Class’ as the Best Track Of 2006 To Feature Whistling, ‘Young Folks’ brings some typically concise Scandinavian sunshine into our lives. It exactly stays its welcome and leaves us swooning in its skipping afterglow. As the lyrics charmingly promise, we’d take it warts and all. If it had any warts to begin with.
A duet between Peter (or Bjorn. Or John) and Victoria Bergsman of The Concretes, it comes rocketing in on a peppy beat, sounding for all the world like a record on Ready, Steady, Go! featuring mop-haired youngsters shaking their heads in that odd, stilted fashion. Bergsman had obviously recognised the lack of verve in The Concretes’ second album and went where the action was. To be a face! On the scene! This track bops around a dansette.
The whistling suggests a melancholy that isn’t clear otherwise. Just in its blood. How Scandinavian. Jaunty on the surface, the whistle is solitary and alienating at the beginning. By the end, we’re all joining in joyously, and the guitar flourishes have escaped from the chorus to accompany us.
Junior goes bananas for the opening rolls, then sits down and claps. We should have built a campfire. The rush of the huge pop choruses fuelled by killer hooks had her back on her feet, twirling out the year.
We’ll give the album prize to the Guillemots, commendations to Junior Boys, Scritti Politti (natch) and TV On The Radio, and lamentations to Belle & Sebastian for not stopping after ‘Act Of The Apostle II’. I’ve forgotten loads.
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[2] Justin Timberlake, 'SexyBack'
Hefty vocal chord trauma almost caused Justers to lose his voice forever. Thankfully for the rest of us, he was left with a rasping husk and a whopping great chunk of space age superproduction from Timbaland (yep, that man again) that could hide any flaws in the Trousersnake tones.
‘SexyBack’ perplexed me a bit on first listen, maybe second too- I thought it too clunky and lacking the hip-swaying looseness of his debut stuff- but by and by I found that every time I heard it, by halfway through, I was nodding my head like a madman. It has an anxiety, a too-lateness that makes it edgy, a thumping groove and a build-up of ‘ooo’s. That is great pop.
Junior tapped toes and twirled curls. Then she pottered off to play with the Christmas cards. A grower for me, a shrinker for her.
*gasp* That must leave just ONE MORE RECORD. I’m off to the pub.
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[3] Scritti Politti, 'The Boom Boom Bap'
The story so far: Welsh-German pop aesthete Green Gartside has been coaxed out of commercial suicide retirement by Rough Trade supremo Geoff Travis; plans are hatched for the fifth Scritti Politti album in 27 years, and first live dates in almost as long. Tentative steps into the limelight are taken as Double G & The Traitorous 3 (Plus 2), and word spreads amongst the cognoscenti and nostalgic hacks. ‘White Bread Black Beer’ is nominated for the Mercury Music Prize and ‘The Boom Boom Bap’ is No. 1 for 17 weeks.
Well, almost. Green has lost none of his honeyed soul chops- ‘The Boom Boom Bap’ is a gorgeous tribute to hip hop, a pop feather that could drift away if you don’t hold on tight. Unusually for the philosopher-soulster, it’s straightforward- eschewing trickery until the last verse namechecks the tracklist of Run DMC’s debut- but still precision-tooled.
It’s a song of hesitant tempo, but Junior manages to rip up the floor and cut rug on a disco tip. Green’s lush key changes meet with spins and claps. She would’ve cured his gig nerves far earlier, I’m sure.
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[4] Camera Obscura, 'Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken'
We’ve reviewed this already, a first for Jukebox Junior. Maybe the end is nigh.
Still, seeing as last time I couldn’t remember how it went and now I’m putting it at No. 4 for the year, some solid reappraisal’s obviously gone on. Fact is, it’s been a zesty mainstay of my walkman these last few months and it’s not started to pall yet.
It’s breezy yet melancholy, beautiful yet desperate, totally irresistible and totally irresistible. Junior throws herself into the song like it was a pool of dizzy pop. She has panda in one hand and camel in the other, and together they dance a mad jig of giggling joy. I usually ignore Camera Obscura, so maybe now’s the time to give them a chance.
Three records left. Even I’M excited.
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[5] Nelly Furtado featuring Timbaland, 'Promiscuous'
Who’d have thought that the year’s best Cameo single would be made by Nelly Furtado? Who’d have thought that we needed a year’s best Cameo single in 2006? Anyway, I think ‘Promiscuous’ sounds like them. They even recorded an entirely different song by the same name. All we needed was Nelly and Timbaland donning pink codpieces, and the circle would’ve been complete. Anyone seen the video?
As addictive as losing jobs, this song worms its way around your brain with its snaking, nagging melody line and N and T’s coyly saucy exchanges. I get the feeling they don’t really know what the word promiscuous means. Either that or Nelly’s a slapper and proud. You go, girlfriend.
For Junior, it’s hip hop-tastic, requiring hands on knees and b-boy bouncing. The twirls are chucked in as an afterthought, to show she still knows the moves and appreciates Furtado’s grand efforts this year. The awkward makeover has come with sparkling pop nuggets.
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[6] Guillemots, 'Made-Up Lovesong #43'
Junior’s mum made me drop Guillemots’ ‘Trains From Brazil’ from the Top 20 because it was originally released last year. To be honest, I was thankful for the room; the last six records in this chart are good enough without more quality pop complicating the issue. So, here we are at last. Jukebox Junior’s Top Six Singles of 2006. Hope no one’s died from over-anticipation.
Guillemots- the band, not the avian lads who keep getting caught in oil slicks- divide the punters. There are those who find them a touch zany and self-conscious, and there are those who are right. Their album is a thing of real heart-on-sleeve beauty, combining the controlled restraint of The Blue Nile with the unfettered passion of Dexy’s Midnight Runners at their peak, and ‘Made-Up Lovesong #43’ (nothing self-conscious about that title), shows it at its best. Yeah, singer Fyfe Dangerfield can overdo the tortured, mad artiste schtick in their performances, but most of the music really does make you want to fling yourself about and pull faces. In a good way.
Junior picked up a load of new dance moves from her Granny on holiday, and I suspect they’ll be cropping up in most reviews this week. There’s the twirl, the sway, the toe-point, the knee-bend and the march- all already in her repertoire, but now honed to searing precision. This morning there was an airing for all these steps, as well as an ecstatic hand-in-hand gallop with her dad. It’s an ecstatic record.
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[7] The Kooks, 'She Moves In Her Own Way'
I know bugger all about The Kooks, so I’ve been checking Wikipedia for a bit of ‘colour’. If I hadn’t bothered, I’d only be able to say the fellow has a funny accent but the band seem to have a happy knack of beating The La’s at a game they abandoned long ago. Now I can say the singer has a funny accent for a Brightonite and he used to go out with Katie Melua. Doesn’t research make this place so much richer?
Junior’s mum plays this in the car every time she picks up J from nursery- so Junior tells me. It’s familiar, then. Very familiar, in fact. Junior sings along with the uh-ohs and boogies in all the right places. She starts crying halfway through, but that’s only because her mean old dad won’t let her ruin all the Christmas cards. She likes the song and so do I: it doesn’t kick down any barriers, but it’s sweet, catchy and has a tune I can listen to every day. Hurrah.
It’s all hotting up now.
The Top Six starts in 12 days’ time.
Toodle pip, pop primpers.
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