Editor Vs Editor: Singles of the year (30-21)

It's a tastemaking clash of the titans as Rip It Up's magazine editor Scott McLennan takes on online editor Jimmy Bollard in an epic singles of the year countdown. This is one bitch fight you don't want to miss!

Scott Mclennan - Rip It Up Editor

30. SURFER BLOOD - SWIM (EMI)

A perfect mix of More Than A Feeling and Dream Police, Swim made you want to jump in a convertible with Don Henley and drive down the esplanade with your Wayfarers on.

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29. CHERYL COLE - 3 WORDS (UMA)

Superficially nothing more complex than a Black Eyed Peas cast-off, 3 Words was a real grower. The simple Will.I.Am production proving naggingly inescapable, even if it was little more than a new dolly giving Kylie Minogue’s Can’t Get You Out Of My Head melody a fresh spit and shine.

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28. GOLDFRAPP - ROCKET (EMI)

Returning to the scene after writing sessions with Christina Aguilera, Rocket sounded like Alison Goldfrapp stealing the dance moves and charms of Laura Branigan’s 1982 hit Gloria. Another tasty Goldfrappuccino.


Goldfrapp - Rocket
Uploaded by EMI_Music. - Watch more music videos, in HD!

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27. YEAH YEAH YEAHS - SKELETONS (UMA)

With a haunting cemetery video clip perfectly augmenting the ghostly glide of Skeletons, Yeah Yeah Yeahs proved powerful when they showed their bones, unstoppable when they showed their heart.

 

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26. LADY GAGA - DANCE IN THE DARK (UMA)

Gaga’s not just a free bitch, baby, she’s a smart one. Dance In The Dark featured the best ‘80s pop alchemy on the charts, distilling the best of George Michael’s Careless Whisper and Madonna’s Vogue into an ode to fornicating in the pitch black. The penetrative gasps and digital ghosts that hide in Dance In The Dark’s layers of production ensured this staggering ninth single from The Fame Monster was another smash.

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25. AMAYA LAUCIRICA - CLIMB UP HIGH/THIS WORLD CAN MAKE YOU HAPPY (DEPARTED SOUNDS)

Amaya Laucirica creates music that is both timeless and effortlessly sublime, while avoiding being corrupted by her influences. Like an astounding lost recording from The Cardigans’ Long Gone Before Daylight, Amaya’s double A-side was the most engrossing Aussie double A-side of the year.

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24. HOW TO DESTROY ANGELS - A DROWNING (NULL)

Having retired Nine Inch Nails from live touring last year, Trent Reznor’s How To Destroy Angels project was his most anticipated since the doomed Tapeworm album with Maynard Keenan. Bequeathing vocal duties to his bride, Mariqueen Maandig, her soft resignation on A Drowning was an impressive, understated return at odds with most of the Reznor canon. Happiness in bravery.

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23. THE BIG PINK - TONIGHT (ALEX DROMGOOLE MIX) (REMOTE CONTROL)

With a Happy Mondays lope and a nod to The Clash’s Train In Vain, the A Brief History Of Love version of Tonight was slightly tweaked by Alex Dromgoole with a few of the industrial tassles removed. It was like there was an orgy in my ears and they were giving my cochlea a reach-around.

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22. PHILADELPHIA GRAND JURY - SAVE OUR TOWN (SHOCK)

Save Our Town’s dinky drumbeat, Berkfinger’s Doogie Howser vocals and a subtle Tom Cruise reference all made a sad tune about regional demise even more special.

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21. YEASAYER - AMBLING ALP (THE VERY BEST OVERDUB) (EMI)

While Brooklyn cool kids Yeasayer were foraging through Williamsburg hipster lair Beacon’s Closet for vintage jackets last year they came across something even more exciting: some great melodies. The Very Best added global rhythms to the spritely tune and ended up with something akin to Stevie Wonder jammin’ Master Blaster with a spirited selection of African WOMAD acts.

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30. WASHINGTON - RICH KIDS (UMA)

One of the few moments on I Believe You, Liar where Megan Washington channels her inner bitch and eschews the nice girl image someone seems to be framing her as. An ode to leaving town and not looking back.

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29. FOUR TET - ANGEL ECHOES (DOMINO/EMI)

Kieran Hebden proves once again his mastery of the electronic soundscape. His rippling electronica on Angel Echoes imbues some strange artificial emotion that is neither familiar nor foreign. It would be just appropriate  on a film soundtrack as it would remixed into a dancefloor banger.

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28. OTOUTO - W. HILLIER (TWO BRIGHT LAKES)

A musical experiment into spatial realignment. A nonsensical biography of a man we’ll never know. Indie claptrap. Take your pick.

OTOUTO - W.HILLIER (Dir. Alice Glenn) from two bright lakes on Vimeo.

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27. DELOREAN - REAL LOVE (MUSHROOM PILLOW/REMOTE CONTROL)

Delorean’s transformation from punk kids to electronic statesmen had its end point marked in Real Love. This was the moment when all the petulance and anger of the past was finally allowed to melt away like an ice cube in the summer sun.


DELOREAN - Real love
Uploaded by mushroom_pillow. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

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26. MGMT - CONGRATULATIONS (SONY)

Congratulations was an album that surprised many but a listen to the Neil Young-inspired title track at the end of the album seemed to put it all into context. MGMT were always reluctant pop stars. They were never in it for the fame and the money. All they need’s a great big congratulations.

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25. SLEIGH BELLS - INFINITY GUITARS (N.E.E.T./LIBERATOR)

Loud: Volume II

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24. FOALS - THIS ORIENT (WARNER)

It’s amazing what Foals were able to accomplish when they turned down the drums in the mix and focused on things like melody and structure. All the while, they never lost their ability to build a great hook. This Orient somehow gets the best of both worlds, a mix of Foals incarnations new and old.

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23. DUM DUM GIRLS - BHANG BHANG, I'M A BURNOUT (SUB POP/STOMP)

Siouxsie Sioux, Ari Up, Klaudia Schiff, Gina Birch – you can hear them all in Kristin Gundred’s living tribute to chick punk. Dum Dum Girls won’t reconfigure the planetary alignment but they will pen juicy nuggets of pop punk brilliance like Bhang Bhang, I'm A Burnout.

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22. DAN BLACK - SYMPHONIES (feat. KID CUDI) (LIBERATOR)

When Dan Black needed someone to jazz up his 2009 single Symphonies, he employed the go-to man of modern-day hipsterdom: Kid Cudi. All of a sudden his ripped-off Rihanna beat and tear-jerking choruses didn’t seem so naked in the mix. Dan Black may have been over-hyped, but for a second there you just thought this song might have proved all the nay-sayers wrong.

 

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21. MIAMI HORROR - HOLIDAYS (EMI)

Benjamin Plant is, first and foremost, a producer. In the past he was limited to piecing together songs on a laptop like a digital jigsaw puzzle. But with the fullness of a band and unfamiliar clarity of Alan Palomo’s vocals, he is capable of producing the perfect pop song. Holidays isn’t the perfect pop song, but it comes pretty damn close.

20-11>>

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