Editor Vs Editor: Singles of the year (20-11)

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

20. CRYSTAL CASTLES – CELESTICA (UNIVERSAL)

Considering the Avril Lavigne level of petulance Ontario imp Alice Glass had previously displayed, this comparably light and warm wash of Eurotrance synths and Tetris bleeps was a luminous volte-face. Celestica managed to extend Crystal Castles’ 15 minutes of fame.

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19. MELISSA AUF DER MAUR - OUT OF OUR MINDS (ROADRUNNER)

Commencing with primal Scandinavian war cry akin to Led Zeppelin’s The Immigrant Song, this visceral production from Melissa Auf der Maur was her most potent rock release to date. Valhalla, I am coming!

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18. ROBYN - DANCING ON MY OWN (UMA)

If you loved Robyn’s last incarnation as the hard-arsed pop pouter equally at home kicking arse and breaking hearts, Dancing On My Own was a reassuring return.

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17. ARCADE FIRE - THE SUBURBS (EMI)

In retrospect a clever red herring from Arcade Fire, The Suburbs was a back to basics creation pre-empting its parent album of the same name. Suburbs’ saloon bar piano and guitar stomp initially proved underwhelming, but this act of subterfuge made perfect sense when placed in the context of their epic third album.


Arcade Fire // The Suburbs
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16. LADY GAGA – ALEJANDRO (UMA)

The third single from the storming The Fame Monster traded in Gaga’s regular art-sex trip in favour of a magic pop tune that spliced the DNA of Madonna and ABBA for a spirited tune about love lost.


Lady Gaga - Alejandro
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15. MARK RONSON - BANG BANG BANG (SONY)

Plucking fabulous.

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14. LAURA MARLING - DEVIL’S SPOKE (EMI)

Laura Marling’s proof that Generation Y aren’t all dicking about and wasting their days away on Facebook and Wii. Marling’s tenacious vocals entwined with the production like a doomed man trapped in a wicker effigy. Pagan poetry.


Laura Marling - Devil's Spoke
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13. KANYE WEST – POWER (UMA)

West’s comeback single was a smart mix of great beats and a lyrical tussle with his engorged self-esteem. With a suicidal coda that hypothetically finds Kanye killing his ego, this snap proved he really did have the power.


Kanye West - POWER
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12. REGINA SPEKTOR - NO SURPRISES (WARNER/SIRE)

Regina Spektor’s talents not only lie in penning wondrous originals, but also in her ability to twist the works of other musicians into breathtaking new forms. Her deep inhalations as she shifted Thom Yorke’s original vocal melody felt like the NY artiste musically reaching out a reassuring hand to Radiohead’s melancholy frontman.

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11. WOLF GANG - THE KING AND ALL OF HIS MEN (WARNER)

The layered pop vehicle of Scottish musician Max McElligott, The King And All Of His Men’s XTC highs marked out this shy intellectual as this generation’s Andy Partridge. It’s the sort of extravagant mix of individual swirls and commercial hooks that Talk Talk never quite balanced.

30-21

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Jimmy Bollard - Online Editor

20. THE BLACK KEYS - TIGHTEN UP (SHOCK)

This song is so unassuming it’s almost too easy to let it slip by unnoticed. But when that reverb-soaked breakdown hits you know you’re listening to something special. Tighten Up captures The Black Keys at the very top of their game.

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19. MAXIMUM BALLOON - GROOVE ME (DGC/UMA)

For whatever reason, the tastemaking gods have not smiled on Dave Sitek in 2010 after producing some of his finest work. With its funk guitars, whirring synths and Theophilus London’s clever rapping, Groove Me is the biggest non-hit of the year.


Maximum Balloon - Groove Me
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18. VAMPIRE WEEKEND - GIVING UP THE GUN (XL/REMOTE CONTROL)

Vampire Weekend made their names on thrusting massive hooks and short, snappy pop tunes in the faces of their hapless followers but Giving Up The Gun proves there’s a deftness for nuance in there as well. In the end it’s the little things that make this song great: the microscopic guitar fills, the flashy synth line, the choral outro. And not even the most hardened of critics could dismiss Vampire Weekend as over-privileged college kids after hearing this track.

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17. THE NAKED AND FAMOUS - PUNCHING IN A DREAM (SOMEWHAT DAMAGED/UMA)

The Naked And Famous in 2010 picked up exactly where MGMT left off in 2008. Punching In A Dream recapitulates the New York duo’s electronic psychedlia in a wash of hazy synth fuzz, gutsy ‘woo hoos’ and a hook that just won’t quit. If this was track one on Congratulations, it would have been the biggest hit of the year.

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16. BEACH HOUSE - SILVER SOUL (MISTLETONE/INERTIA)

Combining Magnetic Fields nostalgia with Cocteau Twins shoegaze, Silver Soul is Beach House’s magnum opus. Every fibre of your being just wants to leap into the stereo and nurse Victoria Legrand back to some state of mental wellbeing when she wails ‘It is happening again’ in the chorus. Deeply affecting and powerfully emotive, Silver Soul is the soundtrack for every break-up/death/loss that will ever afflict you.

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15. KLAXONS – ECHOES (MODULAR/UMA)

Klaxons got it dead right on Echoes. It moved far enough away from the new ravery of Myths Of The Near Future to appease the critics but lost none of their earth shattering zeal. It was the perfect follow-up single after a long hiatus. While Surfing The Void seemed a bit out of place in 2010, Echoes had its time and its place, however short-lived that may have been.


Klaxons - Echoes
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14. DARWIN DEEZ - RADAR DETECTOR (POD/INERTIA)

Darwin Deez was on everyone’s radar at the start of 2010 and it was pop gems like this that put him there. Radar Detector is the naivety of 15-year-old schoolgirl attending her first rock show with the college boy from next door. It’s so unpretentious and fun you almost feel childish for liking it. Almost.

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13. ADRIAN LUX - TEENAGE CRIME (MINSTRY OF SOUND)

There were lots of dancefloor hits in 2010 but none quite matched the intense cerebral engagement of this tightly coiled package of ambient techno courtesy of Sweden’s Adrian Lux. Like a summer spent at your best friend’s beach house, Teenage Crime just oozes fond memories and tenderness.  It sucks you in with its alluring vocal hook and then taunts you with its ‘Don’t go away’ outro.

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12. M.I.A. - BORN FREE (N.E.E.T./REMOTE CONTROL)

M.I.A. was a lot of things in 2010: activist, terrorist, mouthpiece, label head, the subject of much criticism, the object of much criticism. And somewhere in their she managed to squeeze out an album too. And for a second there it looked like it could have been her best. Sampling Suicide’s Ghost Rider on first single Born Free, M.I.A. proved once again her knack for taking half-cocked old songs and turning them into contemporary classics. Born Free is brutal in almost every way, from M.I.A.’s venomous vitriol to the sonic racket going on around her to the banned music video that came with it. A few more songs like this and /\/\ /\ Y /\ would have been her best album.


M.I.A. Born Free
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11. CLOUD CONTROL - THERE’S NOTHING IN THE WATER WE CAN’T FIGHT (IVY LEAGUE)

12 months ago Cloud Control were supporting Leader Cheetah on a small-scale east coast tour. They end 2010 high atop the perch of Australian music with the world at their feet. And it’s only because of tracks like this mutated spawn of freak folk that they got there. There’s more punch in this track than Matthew Newton on a bender and unlike the troubled actor, you could take Cloud Control home to meet the parents without having to wear a lot of concealer on your left eye.

<<30-21                                                                                                10-1>>

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