40 From 40 Plus 10: 2018

So, for now, we reach the end of the decade compilations in retrospect, given 2018 hasn't actually ended yet and we'll then be compiling the playlist in the moment. Plenty happened in 2018, but not a lot outside the rise of K-Pop was progressive - Bohemian Rhapsody, A Star Is Born, The Greatest Showman, the already distant shadow of its former shelf print NME closing, Kanye's self-absorption... still haven't had that promised new Abba song and virtual tour either...



IDLES - Colossus
Drahla - Twelve Divisions Of The Day
Chemtrails - Wishbone
Chorusgirl - No Goodbye
The Beths - Happy Unhappy
The Spook School - Keep in Touch
H. Grimace - In The Body
Big Joanie - Fall Asleep
Tigercats - Stay Out Of Limehouse
Gwenno - Tir Ha Mor
Beak> - Brean Down
Beach House - Dark Spring
Tirzah - Gladly
Nilüfer Yanya - Thanks 4 Nothing
Sudan Archives - Nont For Sale
Czarface & MF DOOM feat. Open Mike Eagle & Kendra Morris - Phantoms
Christine & the Queens - Doesn't matter
Robyn - Missing U
Haiku Salut - The More And Moreness
Vive la Void - Death Money
Mothers - BLAME KIT
Ex:Re - Romance
Modern Studies - Get Back Down
David Byrne - Everybody's Coming To My House
Shopping - Wild Child
Baxter Dury, Étienne de Crécy & Delilah Holliday - White Coats
TVAM - Psychic Data
The Lovely Eggs - Wiggy Giggy
Seazoo - Dig
Courtney Barnett - City Looks Pretty
illuminati hotties - Paying Off The Happiness
Soccer Mommy - Your Dog
Caroline Says - Sweet Home Alabama
Mitski - A Pearl
boygenius - Bite The Hand
Neko Case - Curse of the I-5 Corridor
Cat Power - You Get
Adrianne Lenker - cradle
Stella Donnelly - Mechanical Bull
Aidan Moffat & RM Hubbert feat. Siobhan Wilson - Cockcrow

PREVIOUSLY: 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017

40 From 40 Plus 10: 2017

Eight down, two to go (and for one of those we'll have to wait until the end of the year) 2017 was the year when statistically we were told "rap overtakes rock", something it had actually done a long time previously and would continue to do as Stormzy took all before him, Post Malone became a major star and occasional dabbler/definitely not rock Ed Sheeran's ÷ not only became the fastest selling album by a male solo artist ever but caused a change in the singles chart rules as he absolutely flooded the place. Meanwhile One Love Manchester showed what pop could do when struck at its heart and Fyre Festival was a bonfire of the vanities that just provided more content rather than bring (m)any down. This is the one year of the decade that we had the most trouble slimming down to forty tracks, but we eventually managed it...



Protomartyr - A Private Understanding
Wolf Alice - Yuk Foo
Algiers - The Underside Of Power
Weaves - #53
Ghostpoet - Immigrant Boogie
Run The Jewels - Don't Get Captured
Stormzy - Big For Your Boots
Dave - Question Time
Superorganism - Something For Your M.I.N.D.
Gorillaz feat. DRAM - Andromeda
St. Vincent - Pills
HOLY - all these worlds are yours
Jane Weaver - Did You See Butterflies?
Gallops - Darkjewel
W. H. Lung - Inspiration!
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - French Press
H. Grimace - Land/Body
Barry Adamson - I Got Clothes (ACR: MCR Rework)
Field Music - Count It Up
Sparks - Hippopotamus
Torres - Skim
Johnny Marr feat. Maxine Peake - The Priest
ANOHNI - Paradise
Baxter Dury - Miami
Boy Azooga - Face Behind Her Cigarette
H. Hawkline - Last Thing On Your Mind
Lorde - The Louvre
Beach House - Chariot
The National - Empire Line
Grizzly Bear - Four Cypresses
Perfume Genius - Wreath
Lana Del Rey - Love
Hurray For The Riff Raff - Living In The City
Big Thief - Watering
Laura Marling - Wild Fire
The Mountain Goats - Andrew Eldritch Is Moving Back to Leeds
Los Campesinos! - 5 Flucloxacillin
Nadine Shah - Holiday Destination
Fleet Foxes - Cassius, -
Public Service Broadcasting feat. Haiku Salut - They Gave Me a Lamp

PREVIOUSLY: 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016

40 From 40 Plus 10: 2016

The round-up of the decade about to close reaches that most dread of years, 2016. You know, when Bowie, Prince, George Michael, Leonard Cohen, George Martin etc all died we were told by some in the press that as our heroes aged this would be happening every year. As we type, the enormous world stars to have died in 2019 are Doris Day... um... Albert Finney? Keith Flint, yeah, but is the mark even he left the equal of those above? 2016 was also the year of the crash that claimed Viola Beach, their cobbled together album making number one on the back of a singular wave of emotion. Beyonce redefined everything again with the HBO special and album Lemonade, standing tall long after people have stopped trying to decode "Becky with the good hair". Drake's One Dance was number one for fifteen weeks without making any impact on the wider cultural sphere - in fact you could easily argue it's not even his most famous track. The Stone Roses returned with All For One, a song that was forgotten about within a fortnight. Here's some other stuff that mostly would dream of such exposure.



Field Music - The Noisy Days Are Over
Boxed In - Jist
Oliver Coates - Innocent Love
Solange - Cranes in the Sky
She Drew The Gun - Poem
BADBADNOTGOOD feat. Samuel T. Herring - Time Moves Slow
David Bowie - Lazarus
Let's Eat Grandma - Deep Six Textbook
Bon Iver - 33 “GOD”
Sylvan Esso - Radio
Anna of the North - Us
Cate le Bon - Wonderful
Weaves - Candy
The Julie Ruin - I Decide
Milo's Planes - Routines
This Becomes Us feat. Black Francis - Painter Man Is Coming
Future Of The Left - If AT&T Drank Tea What Would BP Do?
Johnny Foreigner - If You Can't Be Honest, Be Awesome
TRAAMS - A House on Fire
The Lucid Dream - Bad Texan
PJ Harvey - The Wheel
Amber Arcades - Fading Lines
Angel Olsen - Shut Up Kiss Me
Grandaddy - Way We Won't
Los Campesinos! - I Broke Up In Amarante
Dream Wife feat. Fever Dream - FUU
Rose Elinor Dougall - Stellular
Man of Moon - Sign
Radiohead - Ful Stop
Minor Victories - Give Up The Ghost
Julia Jacklin - Pool Party
Case/lang/Veirs - Atomic Number
Mitski - Your Best American Girl
Meilyr Jones - Featured Artist
A Tribe Called Quest - The Space Program
David Thomas Broughton - Words of Art
RM Hubbert feat. Martha Ffion - The Unravelling
Meursault - Simple Is Good
Hilary Woods - Bathing
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Jesus Alone

PREVIOUSLY: 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015

40 From 40 Plus 10: 2015

What sort of year was 2015? Well, its biggest selling track was 2014's Uptown Funk, which gives some indication of how stagnant the middle of the decade was. There was of course a major populist upheaval at the end as Adele's 25 became Britain's fastest million-seller in history, and the horrific low of the Bataclan attack. Apple Music and Tidal were launched, the Beatles joined Spotify in response, Madonna was dragged down the stage at the Brits and Kanye stood under some lights at Glastonbury. Out here...



Public Service Broadcasting - Go!
Shopping - Straight Lines
David Bowie - Blackstar (came out as a single in November)
Panda Bear - Mr Noah
Death & Vanilla - Necessary Distortions
Colder - Turn Your Back
Jamie xx feat. Romy - Loud Places
Grandbrothers - Arctica
Haiku Salut - Bleak And Beautiful (All Things)
Animal Collective - FloriDada
Novella - Land Gone
Protomartyr - The Devil in His Youth
Savages - T.I.W.Y.G.
Martha - Chekhov's Hangnail
The Spook School - Binary
Chorusgirl - No Moon
Courtney Barnett - Pedestrian At Best
Peaness - Fortune Favours The Bold
Sleater-Kinney - No Cities To Love
Trust Fund - Football
Gwenno - Y Dydd Olaf
Beach House - Majorette
Christine and the Queens - Tilted
Kendrick Lamar - Alright
ANOHNI - 4 Degrees
John Grant - Guess How I Know
TVAM - Porsche Majeure
Other Lives - Reconfiguration
Algiers - Blood
Grawl!x - Atlas Bear
Low - No Comprende
Julia Holter - Silhouette
The Mountain Goats - Heel Turn 2
Sufjan Stevens - Should Have Known Better
Laura Marling - Warrior
Blur - Go Out
Robert Forster - Learn To Burn
DRINKS - Hermits On Holiday
Meilyr Jones - How To Recognise A Work Of Art
FFS - Piss Off

PREVIOUSLY: 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

40 From 40 Plus 10: 2014

"That rock'n'roll, eh?" Our documentation of how we see the years of this decade in retrospect continues into 2014, the year Alex Turner made a stand for... something at the Brits. We were somehow unsurprised to find Radio X were still calling it "incredible" and "legendary" last year, and yet even in the wake of that resulting NME cover you'd have been surprised at how quickly the pop world seemed to flee in the opposite direction. That streaming was included into the singles chart from July would be the catalyst for rebuilding that glass ceiling at a much lower level. Strange old year, 2014. Ed Sheeran cemented himself as an A-lister with x, but U2 decided to flex their muscle and arguably ended up spectacularly undermining themselves with the enforced iTunes delivery of Songs of Innocence (Bono three years later: "I had this beautiful idea and we got carried away with ourselves") The rest of the headlines belonged to Taylor Swift in the year of 1989 (if you see what I mean), mockingly referencing "some indie record that's much cooler than mine" at a time when there were none. Kate Bush made her slight live return while Future Islands briefly proved the old adage that nothing makes you into a true superstar like a good TV appearance. Also, all this.



Perfume Genius - Queen
Wild Beasts - Wanderlust
JUCE - Braindead
LoneLady - Groove It Out
Caribou - Can't Do Without You
Run The Jewels - Blockbuster Night Pt. 1
Flying Lotus feat. Kendrick Lamar - Never Catch Me
FKA twigs - Numbers
Skepta feat. Jme - That's Not Me
Liars - Mess On A Mission
St. Vincent - Birth In Reverse
Trash Kit - Medicine
Cloud Nothings - I'm Not Part Of Me
White Lung - Drown With The Monster
Adebisi Shank - World In Harmony
Sylvan Esso - Coffee
Tune-Yards - Water Fountain
The Drink - Microsleep
Johnny Foreigner - Riff Glitchard
T.O.Y.S - X-Static
September Girls - Black Oil
Nadine Shah - Stealing Cars
Firestations - Never Closer
Martin Carr - The Santa Fe Skyway
The Wind-Up Birds - Two Ambulance Day
Martha - Present, Tense
Spoon - Rent I Pay
Stanley Brinks and The Wave Pictures - Orange Juice
H. Hawkline - Moons In My Mirror
Allo Darlin' - We Come from the Same Place
First Aid Kit - Stay Gold
Sharon Van Etten - Every Time the Sun Comes Up
Slow Club - Tears Of Joy
SOAK - B a noBody
Weyes Blood - Some Winters
David Thomas Broughton feat. Juice Vocal Ensemble - In Service
Bastard Mountain - Meadow Ghosts
Gruff Rhys - American Interior
Owen Pallett - In Conflict
Summer Camp - Beyond Clueless


PREVIOUSLY: 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013

40 From 40 Plus 10: 2013

Onwards in our survey of our favourite stuff that tells the story, or at least a hyper-specific version of it, of each year of the decade just finishing. 2013, then. It doesn't feel like it, either now or reading the contemporary view, but it was Pharrell's year, right? Happy, Get Lucky *and* Blurred Lines! You'd be glad to have a scintilla of a song that colonised the world in the way any of those three did. And yet Williams doesn't feel a very "2013 artist". Not in the year of Miley showing her tongue (and much more), of the multimedia self-consumption of Artpop, of Yeezus and the self-titled Beyonce 'visual album', of the arrival of The 1975 and the stealth return of Bowie. In a year of showiness through straining to stand out - something, of course, that applied to Daft Punk and Robin Thicke's video director too - actually putting your name and vocals to actual indelible hits wasn't enough. Sam Bailey won The X Factor that year and is almost certainly the last X Factor winner you can name. That might not be a coincidence.



Julia Holter - Horns Surrounding Me
Ghostpoet - Them Waters
Benin City - My Love
Youth Lagoon - Dropla
Vampire Weekend - Step
Lorde - Royals
Georgia Ruth - Week Of Pines
Beaty Heart - Lekka Freakout
Public Service Broadcasting - Theme From PSB
Islet - Carlos
Shopping - In Other Words
Hooded Fang - Ode To Subterrania
The Wytches - Beehive Queen
Savages - City’s Full
Telegram - Follow
Joanna Gruesome - Sugarcrush
Fuck Buttons - Brainfreeze
Boards Of Canada - New Seeds
Run The Jewels - Run The Jewels
And So I Watch You From Afar - Big Thinks Do Remarkable
Courtney Barnett - Avant Gardener
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Sacrilege
Los Campesinos! - Avocado, Baby
Arcade Fire - Reflektor
Summer Camp - Two Chords
Daft Punk feat. Panda Bear - Doin' it Right
Kiran Leonard - Dear Lincoln
Future Of The Left - Bread, Cheese, Bow And Arrow
Mowbird - Happy Active Horse Organ
Sky Larkin - Motto
Sweet Baboo - If I Died...
Nadine Shah - To Be a Young Man
Marika Hackman - Bath Is Black
Cate Le Bon feat. Perfume Genius - I Think I Knew
David Bowie - Where Are We Now?
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Jubilee Street
Widowspeak - Ballad of the Golden Hour
Daughter - Youth
Bill Callahan - Small Plane
Haiku Salut - Los Elefantes


PREVIOUSLY: 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012

40 From 40 Plus 10: 2012

2012 was a bit of a weird year. It was the most difficult of these to compile, if that's any judge (not helped by Words And Music By Saint Etienne's absence from Spotify) The London Olympics seemed to be treated as some as an unnecessary distraction from the Spice Girls at the closing ceremony, and then that came and went leaving little trace. We thought Somebody That I Used to Know was going to be the sound of the years ahead; instead it turned out to be Titanium. Ah, we'll always have Call Me Maybe and, well, Gangnam Style, a portent of both virality and Korean overlords ahead. Red made Taylor Swift the centre of everything. Whitney, Donna Summer, Davy Jones and MCA died. So did EMI, after a fashion. Blue Ivy was born and became a brand immediately. LMFAO were a thing for a bit. Frank Ocean came out and Channel Orange became everything. MIA flipped off the Superbowl and as a side consequence set the tone for all of actual performers Madonna's co-opting of cultural change this decade, passing by or being overshadowed. Eurodance evolved into EDM, which became bigger than us all. Adele took over the world. Meanwhile...



Everything Everything - Cough Cough
Breton - Interference
Lone Wolf - The Swan Of Meander
Hooded Fang - ESP
Melody's Echo Chamber - Some Time Alone, Alone
Grizzly Bear - Sleeping Ute
Minotaur Shock - Janet
Public Service Broadcasting - Spitfire
Cheatahs - The Swan
Japandroids - The House That Heaven Built
Internet Forever - Cover The Walls
PINS - LUVU4LYF
Future Of The Left - Beneath The Waves An Ocean
Mission Of Burma - Dust Devil
Ace Bushy Striptease - Long-Term Relationship In Durham...
TOY - Kopter
Savages - Husbands
Tall Ships - Gallop
Solange - Losing You
The Invisible - Protection
Niki & The Dove - The Fox
WHY? - Sod in the Seed
Cat Power - Ruin
David Byrne & St Vincent - Who
Shearwater - Breaking The Yearlings
Bat For Lashes - All Your Gold
Sharon Van Etten - Serpents
First Aid Kit - Emmylou
This Many Boyfriends - Number One
Cats On Fire - My Sense Of Pride
Tigercats - The Vapours
Beth Jeans Houghton - Atlas
Dexys - Nowhere Is Home
Fear of Men - Green Sea
Beach House - Myth
Gulp - Game Love
Perfume Genius - Hood
Daughter - Smother
Tessera Skies - Soliloquy of An Astronaut
Allo Darlin' - Tallulah

PREVIOUSLY: 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011

40 From 40 Plus 10: 2011

Onwards with our overview of the decade just passing, and today we alight on the year we were confidently repeatedly told that Jessie J was inevitably going to be an enormous international star. She did have a Billboard top ten album in 2014, but when you release an album four years later that fails to chart anywhere, homeland included... In fairness she can't have known that 21 and + (and One Direction's debut) were to come out later in the year and thoroughly change the parameters for international success. Where were you when you found out Amy Winehouse had died? We were at Truck festival, the year that they made it a three day event and lost so much money they had to sell it off to help it become the "Kendal Calling if wet" it is today, and being the early days of the smartphone experience we didn't find out until past midnight that Saturday. 2011! Born This Way, We Found Love and Moves Like Jagger, Beyonce at Glastonbury, Brother hype and Rizzle Kicks everywhere, REM splitting and LCD Soundsystem playing the hits - hey, one of them kept to their promise - and...



The Lovely Eggs - Don't Look at Me (I Don't Like It)
Comet Gain - Working Circle Explosive!
Johnny Foreigner - You vs Everything
Dananananaykroyd - Muscle Memory
WILD FLAG - Romance
TOY - Left Myself Behind
Help Stamp Out Loneliness - Record Shop
Girls Names - Séance On A Wet Afternoon
Fashoda Crisis - The Berry-Brown Face of Robert Kilroy Silk
Three Trapped Tigers - Noise Trade
Maybeshewill - Red Paper Lanterns
Mogwai - Mexican Grand Prix
TV On The Radio - No Future Shock
Clock Opera - Belongings
Chad Valley - Now That I'm Real (How Does It Feel?)
Lykke Li - I Follow Rivers
I Break Horses - Winter Beats
Fujiya & Miyagi - Taiwanese Boots
Marques Toliver - Charter Magic
Tune-Yards - Es-so
The Weeknd - House Of Balloons/Glass Table Girls
Slow Club - Two Cousins
St. Vincent - Cheerleader
Lana Del Rey - Video Games
Low - Try To Sleep
Other Lives - For 12
Woodkid - Iron
Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
Bill Callahan - America!
David Thomas Broughton - Nature
Wild Beasts - Bed Of Nails
Golden Fable - The Chill, Pt. 2
Bibio - K Is For Kelson
PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
Fixers - Crystals
GIVERS - Up Up Up
Nicola Roberts - Beat Of My Drum
Los Campesinos! - Hello Sadness
Standard Fare - Suitcase
Race Horses - Benidorm

PREVIOUSLY: 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010

40 From 40 Plus 10: 2010

Hi there. Two years ago we ran 40 From 40, in which we made forty track Spotify playlists for every year from 1970 to 2009. Some people liked them. Here, have a look/listen:

1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009

So now we're coming towards the end of the following decade, it's time to bring it all up to date chronologically over ten more lists. Obviously for these years we have a lot more of a secure paper trail for what we thought was great - you're reading it - but it does no harm to have another look back at what was going on and put it into fresh context if possible. Such is the passing of time, of course, but looking at a list of 2010 events there are some things that happened - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (which peaked at 16 in Britain), Gaga's meat dress, Robbie rejoining Take That, Plan B's The Defamation Of Strickland Banks, a Biffy Clyro cover being the X Factor winner's Christmas number one, California Gurls, Fuck/Forget You - which feel like they belong to the previous decade, so much has happened since. As for the music - which, as always, is ordered not in qualitative but playlist flow order - well...



These New Puritans - We Want War
Napoleon IIIrd - The Unknown Unknown
Archie Bronson Outfit - Magnetic Warrior
Islet - Jasmine
Liars - Scarecrows On A Killer Slant
No Age - Fever Dreaming
The Walkmen - Angela Surf City
Grinderman - Heathen Child
Japandroids - Heavenward Grand Prix
The National - Bloodbuzz Ohio
Twin Shadow - Castles in the Snow
Katy B - Katy On a Mission
Janelle Monáe feat. Saul Williams - Dance Or Die
Robyn - Dancing On My Own
Yeasayer - O.N.E.
Everything Everything - Schoolin’
The Chap - We Work in Bars
Meursault - Crank Resolutions
Laura Marling - Devil's Spoke
Tindersticks - Harmony Around My Table
Los Campesinos! - The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future
Perfume Genius - Lookout, Lookout
The Indelicates - We Love You, Tania
Summer Camp - Ghost Train
Best Coast - Boyfriend
Gruff Rhys - Shark Ridden Waters
Allo Darlin' - Dreaming
Frankie & The Heartstrings - Hunger
Field Music - Them That Do Nothing
Dog Is Dead - Glockenspiel Song
Standard Fare - Love Doesn't Just Stop
Cults - Go Outside
MGMT - Brian Eno
Vampire Weekend - Cousins
Rolo Tomassi - Party Wounds
Rose Elinor Dougall - Find Me Out
Let's Buy Happiness - Six Wolves
Warpaint - Undertow
Edwyn Collins - Losing Sleep
Spoon - Written In Reverse

STN's "other" tracks and Mixtapes of 2018

This is the other part of our annual bonfire of the vanities - "other" tracks means those from albums that didn't quite make the top 50 of the year and those from artists that didn't put out an album this year at all. Last year, you may recall, we offered a 200-strong list. That was ridiculous even by our overwrought standards, so just a trim, unordered sixty this year. Fine? Fine.




A Certain Ratio feat. Barry Adamson - Dirty Boy
Adam Stafford - Zero Disruption
Amaya Laucirica - Could This Be
Amber Arcades - Alpine Town
Annexe The Moon - Full Stop
Baxter Dury, Étienne de Crécy & Delilah Holliday - White Coats
Big Joanie - Fall Asleep
Black Belt Eagle Scout - Soft Stud
Body Type - Arrow
boygenius - Bite The Hand
Boys - Rabbits
Brix & The Extricated - Heavy Crown
Caroline Says - Sweet Home Alabama
Christine and the Queens - Doesn't Matter
CHROMA - Girls Talk
CZARFACE & MF DOOM feat. Open Mike Eagle & Kendra Morris - Phantoms
David Byrne - Everybody's Coming To My House
Deerful - N1c
Drahla - Twelve Divisions of the Day
DRINKS - Real Outside
Eels - The Deconstruction
Evelyn Drach - Leopard in the Sun
FEWS - Business Man
flirting. - Peppermint
Gwenifer Raymond - The Three Deaths of Red Spectre
H. Grimace - In The Body
Historian - I've Been Here
Hop Along - Prior Things
itoldyouiwouldeatyou - Get Terrified
John Grant - Love Is Magic
Julia Jacklin - Body
Kermes - I Wanna Be Yr Sometimes
Lala Lala - Destroyer
The Lay Llamas - Silver Sun
The Longcut - Deathmask
The Lovely Eggs - Wiggy Giggy
Low - Dancing And Fire
Lucinda Chua - Whatever It Takes
Mastersystem - Notes on a Life Not Quite Lived
Mitski - A Pearl
The Mountain Movers - Freeway
Mutual Benefit - Written in Lightning
Nilüfer Yanya - Thanks 4 Nothing
The Ocean Party - Rain On Tin
Oliver Coates - Charlev
Pip Blom - Come Home
Pram - Footprints Towards Zero
Protomartyr feat. Kelley Deal - Wheel Of Fortune
Rebecka Reinhard - Nonsense in Your Sleep
Red Telephone - Kookly Rose
Robyn - Missing U
Rose Elinor Dougall - Make It With You
Run The Jewels - Let's Go (The Royal We)
Stella Donnelly - Mechanical Bull
Store Front - Go for Broke
Sudan Archives - Nont For Sale
Tigercats - Stay Out Of Limehouse
Tiny Ruins - Olympic Girls
Vive la Void - Death Money
Wooing - Could Have Been



What's that? Text isn't interesting to you any more? The pivot to other forms of media is complete? Alright, we don't have video but here's five Mixcloud-based 2018 Mixtapes, taking stuff from both the albums and tracks lists plus a handful of other really good songs that seemed to fit, and because we like a pointless concept they'd all fit on a standard CDR. Enjoy?

STN's top 50 albums of the year 2018

Interesting and odd year in this regard as well as all the others, 2018. A lot of established names sat it out, others released surprise albums that got instant four-star reviews and then utterly disappeared from the wider conversation, and a good few previous STN favourites heavily underwhelmed. This is what did make an impression on us, the scientifically proven best half-century of full-lengths released this year. Despite the Spotify playlist covering 49 of them at the end, don't stream them. Buy them. Make the artists some actual money (Bandcamps and direct stores are linked where available) Buy them all. It'd cost at least £500, yes. Doesn't matter. BUY THEM ALL. (Just an idea.)

50 Boy Azooga - 1, 2, Kung Fu!
49 Spiritualized - And Nothing Hurt
48 Olden Yolk - Olden Yolk
47 Gruff Rhys - Babelsberg
46 Lord Huron - Vide Noir
45 Wolf Girl - Every Now & Then
44 The Beths - Future Me Hates Me
43 Calexico - The Thread That Keeps Us
42 Cavern Of Anti-Matter - Hormone Lemonade
41 The Low Anthem - The Salt Doll Went To Measure The Depth Of The Sea
40 Cat Power - Wanderer
39 Camera - Emotional Detox
38 Melody's Echo Chamber - Bon Voyage
37 Chorusgirl - Shimmer And Spin
36 Jessica Risker - I See You Among The Stars
35 Virginia Wing - Ecstatic Arrow
34 No Age – Snares Like A Haircut
33 Still Corners - Slow Air
32 Seazoo - Trunks
31 Go March - II
30 Trust Fund - Bringing the backline
29 The Wave Pictures - Look Inside Your Heart
28 Hilary Woods - Colt
27 Fightmilk - Not With That Attitude
26 Chemtrails - Calf Of The Sacred Cow
25 LUMP - LUMP
24 Roxy Rawson - Quenching The Kill
23 Tirzah - Devotion
22 illuminati hotties - Kiss Yr Frenemies
21 Shopping – The Official Body
20 Adrianne Lenker - abysskiss
19 Aidan Moffat & RM Hubbert - Here Lies The Body
18 Fröst - Matters
17 IDLES - Joy As An Act Of Resistance
16 Field Music – Open Here
15 Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - Hope Downs
14 Soccer Mommy - Clean
13 Mothers - Render Another Ugly Method
12 Gulp - All Good Wishes
11 Courtney Barnett - Tell Me How You Really Feel
10 The Spook School - Could It Be Different?
9 christian fitness - nuance - the musical
8 Modern Studies - Welcome Strangers
7 Ex:Re - Ex:Re
6 BEAK> - >>>
5 Neko Case - Hell-On
4 Gwenno - Le Kov
3 Beach House - 7
2 TVAM - Psychic Data
1 Haiku Salut - There Is No Elsewhere

Television personalities: the best holiday period telly and radio

It's STN's fourth grandest annual tradition - the music-related programming between this Saturday and the first Friday of space year 2019. And this year we're not going to just list every last Sky Arts repeat and chat show performance, this is just what we reckon is the cream...

SATURDAY 15th DECEMBER

9am Mastertapes: Access All Areas (BBC Radio 4 Extra) (repeated 7pm)
This is the Radio 4 series in which an artist talks over two parts about one of their most interesting albums, plays songs from it live and then takes questions from an audience - in fact it continues throughout this period, with The Good The Bad And The Queen on the 17th and Don McLean on the 24th, both at 11pm with the secondary set at 3.30pm the next day. This is a best of so far, Paul McCartney, Tom Jones and Robbie Williams among those featured.

9pm Quadrophenia: Can You See The Real Me? (Yesterday)
Made for the 2013 fortieth anniversary, Pete Townshend goes through his archive to recall the tensions and trips around the album.

9.10pm Cabaret (Talking Pictures TV)
Bit overarcing for shoestring operation and home of the forgotten British black and white romp Talking Pictures to have got this modern cinema musical classic, we thought, then we remembered its 1979 terrestrial TV premiere was on BBC2 at 10.45pm.

10.45pm Johnny Cash: Song By Song (Sky Arts)
12.15am Johnny Cash's Christmas Special 1976 (Sky Arts)
1.15am Johnny Cash's Christmas Special 1977 (Sky Arts)
2.15am Johnny Cash's Christmas Special 1978 (Sky Arts)
3.15am Johnny Cash's Christmas Special 1979 (Sky Arts)
There's a theme here. After a triple bill, one song each, of examinations into The Man's work, then a series of sentimental specials for CBS that don't really rub well against Cash's posthumous rebellious image. 1976 has Tony Orlando and Billy Graham, 1977 Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison and Carl Perkins together in a tribute to Sun Studios and Elvis, 1978 Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge and Steve Martin, 1979's best known guest (June aside) from the modern perspective is of all people Andy Kaufman.

SUNDAY 16th DECEMBER

7pm What A Crazy World (London Live)
Joe Brown, a hoodlum youth, and Susan Maughan are on/off partners in, obviously, a very East London kind of early pop musical. Marty Wilde, Freddie and the Dreamers and Harry H Corbett are in it. Written by Alan Klein, whose sole album Well At Least It's British was claimed by Damon Albarn as a big influence on Parklife at the time. This. THIS is the kind of content we live for.

9pm Carpool Karaoke: When Corden Met McCartney: Live From Liverpool (Sky One)
There's a few Carpool Karaokes on over the season but let's not drag ourselves down. This extended version of the feature sees them drive around Fab Wacky Macca Thumbs Aloft's childhood home and haunts before playing a surprise gig at the Philharmonic Dining Rooms.

MONDAY 17th DECEMBER

7pm Marc Riley (BBC Radio 6 Music)
The first of Not!Lard's best of the year shows that run until Thursday. Oh Sees and BC Camplight as far as the eye can see.

8pm Passions (Sky Arts)
Part of its ongoing occasional strand, Marc Almond traces the last days of Judy Garland.

9pm Radio 2 Rock Show Led Zeppelin Special (BBC Radio 2)
Marking fifty years since they were signed, with homages from Roger Daltrey, Brian May, Joe Elliott and Billy Gibbons.

TUESDAY 18th DECEMBER

9pm The Rolling Stones In Blue (BBC Radio 2)
Examining their debt to the blues in the company of utility expert Cerys Matthews.

WEDNESDAY 19th DECEMBER

9am Soul Music (BBC Radio 4) (repeated 9.30pm)
The series of first person anecdotes on the emotional impact of pieces of music returns with Joni Mitchell's not really a Christmas song River. Next week in the same slot it covers Shine On You Crazy Diamond.

8pm Christmas With Mariah Carey (Channel 5)
9pm Mariah: The Diva, The Demons, The Drama (Channel 5)
Can't work out if these are bought in or in-house, the suspicion is the latter given we can't find international distribution details. The latter is about her 2000-2001 and the film that brought about that lost in translation hashtag campaign; the first isn't Mariah Carey's A Christmas Melody, her self-directed TV film which doesn't include her one famous Christmas song, because that's on at 5.20pm on the 22nd.

9pm Gary Barlow - We Write The Songs (Radio 2, 9pm)
Allegedly the start, possibly just the pilot but even so of a series that chooses not to highlight that his guest is Macca. They're not writing songs together either.

THURSDAY 20th DECEMBER

7pm Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison (Sky Arts)
The cheers during the titular song were dubbed on afterwards, you know.

7.30pm Top Of The Pops 1986 (BBC4)
It does seem pleasingly odd that this repeat run has now been going since April 2011 with, as you'll see soon, no sign of letting up just yet in any way other than the continued absence of shows hosted by Mike Smith, who withdrew permission for the Beeb to show anything he was in before he died. That means today and tomorrow are the last of the year before the Christmas special, which is unfortunate as he hosted two of the three regular December 1986 shows. This obviously isn't one of those, featuring post-dumper Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Nick Kamen and, oh mercy, Roger Whittaker & Des O'Connor.

8pm Capital FM's Jingle Bell Ball (Sky One)
The millennial Smash Hits Poll Winners Party, but without the awards, magazine link, occasional eclecticism, absurdity or fun. Little Mix, David Guetta, Rita Ora, Jason Derulo, Clean Bandit, Ellie Goulding, Jess Glynne, Liam Payne, Zara Larsson, Anne-Marie, Olly Murs, Years & Years, you get the picture. More on Friday at the same time.

9pm Gideon Coe (Radio 6 Music, 9pm)
The annual Christmas special features the annual Gideon Coe play of the John Peel 1970 Carol Concert featuring Rod Stewart and the Faces, Marc Bolan, Robert Wyatt, Ivor Cutler and Sonja Kristina at a curious intersection in everyone's careers.

FRIDAY 21st DECEMBER

7.30pm Top Of The Pops 1986 (BBC4)
From 11th December the Housemartins and Jackie Wilson both on their way to number one, and ill-advised rock chick era Alison Moyet.

8pm Fleetwood Mac: A Musical History (BBC4)
This new Musical History series seems a cheap way of getting band-specific content onto the channel, garnering comment from whichever musicians and journalists were around for other projects to talk about an artist and their songs with fair use clippage.

9pm Music Legends We Lost In 2018 (Sky Arts)
Sure these annual tributes used to be two hours long, and it's not like 2018 has let up that much between Aretha, Avicii, Mark E, Dolores O'Riordan, Chas Hodges and, unless the final edit wasn't completed in time, Pete Shelley.

SATURDAY 22nd DECEMBER

5.20pm Celebrity Mastermind (BBC1)
Thirty years ago Toyah Wilcox played Boudica in a children's TV adaptation, now she's answering questions on her in a quiz show against Newsround's Ricky Boleto taking as specialist subject 1990s number ones.

6.10pm Pointless Celebrities (BBC1)
The Christmas special this year is for festive number one hitmakers, so that's teams of Dave 'There's Got To Be False Hair Sewn Into That Hat By Now' Hill and Mud's Rob Davis, Keren and Sara from Bananarama representing Band Aid, Sonia and Jamelia representing 2 and 20, and wildcard team Roger McGough (Scaffold) and Sally Lindsay (St Winifred's).

9pm Freddie Mercury: The Great Pretender (Sky Arts)
There's a hell of a lot of Queen programming being repeated over the period, because there isn't that much footage of PT Barnum and they have to strike while the iron is hot on something. This one is worth your while as it's one of comedian, archive producer and superfan Rhys Thomas' documentaries and he got to go through Mercury's personal archive and find hitherto unknown material.

10pm 20 Years Of The Black Eyed Peas (ITV)
A celebration of Behind The Front, the then trio's 1998 debut album heavy on breakdancing culture and the kind of positivist old-school approach that Jurassic 5 did to much greater commercial success but still remains a throwback curio, is a brave thing to put on prime time ITV, but... ah, Joanna Lumley, Tom Jones and Nicole Scherzinger are involved. Maybe they'll quietly skip past that.

11.05pm Aretha Franklin: Respect (BBC4)
The quick turnaround tribute programme BBC1 put out in prime-time in August.

11.35pm Dreaming Of A Jewish Christmas (BBC4)
Not unsurprisingly American made because they're far more bothered about this kind of thing than us, an "irreverent" documentary about how so many Jewish songwriters from European immigrant backgrounds, including Irving Berlin and Mel Tormé, ended up writing American dream songs for the Christian festival.

SUNDAY 23rd DECEMBER

7.20am Rock You Sinners (Talking Pictures TV)
4.55pm Ring-A-Ding Rhythm (Talking Pictures TV)
See, only the most important shows make it into our round-up. Big Narstie is on a bunch of cultural prime-time shows, but here in the early hours of the gloriously lowbrow movie channel are these early British attempts to harness this passing rock'n'roll fad. First from 1957, where Jackie Collins is the only recognisable name in the cast including the musicians, then one you may know better as It's Trad, Dad!, directed by a pre-Beatles Richard Lester and featuring Helen Shapiro and Craig Douglas as the central couple hiring John Leyton, Chubby Checker, Del Shannon, Gary U.S. Bonds, Gene Vincent, Chris Barber, Acker Bilk, Kenny Ball, The Temperance Seven, David Jacobs, Pete Murray, Alan Freeman, pre-Grease Arthur Mullard and a sadly washboardless Deryck Guyler.

4pm Amy Lame (BBC Radio 6 Music)
Useless as night tsar or whatever she is but fine as a broadcaster, and here with the first part of an extensive chat with Tony Visconti which continues the next Sunday.

7pm TOTP2: Christmas 2012 (BBC4)
No new show this year, maybe due to Mark Radcliffe's cancer treatment but it's also possible they couldn't be arsed regardless. Here's one with everything you could want from such a compilation, and also Lily The Pink, Francoise Hardy, Stiff Records oddity The Snowmen, Mikey Dread's Reggae Reggae Christmas and Merry Gentle Pops by the Barron Knights.

9.30pm The Secret Story Of The BBC Christmas Tapes (BBC4)
He's A Sports PA or GTFO.

10pm Bros: After The Screaming Stops (BBC4)
Here's fun. Remember how Matt and Luke announced seven arena reunion shows in 2017 and then cancelled all but two for "logistical reasons", because those empty rooms do echo a bit? Oddly reduced even further to a single big show according to this documentary film, it turns out the Gosses don't actually get on and are prone to confessional Tufnell-cum-Partridgeisms. All the fun that implies.

CHRISTMAS EVE

8am Ten Hour Takeover (BBC Radio 1)
After last year's Radio 1 Vintage went down so well the station realised there might be something in this whole "not current music" thing and started a Radio 1's Greatest Hits show on Saturday mornings - within reason of course, we can count three songs not from the last twenty years in the last two shows' playlists. Will that feed into the latest of these listener request shows, which back when they started went all over the shop? Or is it just going to be George Ezra as far as the eye can see?

1pm Don Letts' Culture Clash Christmas (BBC Radio 6 Music)
4pm Wise Women: Zawe Ashton (BBC Radio 6 Music)
The zelig of punk documentaries gets three hours in the daylight, followed by the first of this year's Three Wise Women choosing three hours of music followed by programming involving Young Fathers, Bjork and Patti Smith.

5pm Mark Goodier's Christmas Number Twos (BBC Radio 2)
It's Chris Evans' last show on the station at 7am, and just for that 1996 feel Goodybags is on drivetime with the kind of thematic show Tony Blackburn always usually does.

9pm Elvis: The Final Hours (Sky Arts)
10pm Elvis Presley: A Legend In Concert (Sky Arts)
11pm Elvis '56 Special (Sky Arts)
Oh yeah, we just passed fifty years of the Comeback Special too, didn't we. The first is a retelling of his last days by the Memphis Mafia, the second not a concert at all but a set of TV performances, and the third isn't a special either but an examination of his breakthrough year.

11pm Late Junction (BBC Radio 3)
Let's face it, Stewart Lee was never going to become guest editor of Radio 1's Chillest Show. He's in charge for the next three days at this time with guests Richard Dawson, Tim Key and Laura Cannell.

CHRISTMAS DAY

9am Junior Choice (BBC Radio 2)
Anneka Rice fronts this now - and live too - after Stewpot passed on a couple of years ago. We're reassured to find that last year's playlist contained songs that can only have been requested by late fiftysomethings pretending to have passed their taste down to their kids without fightback - Captain Beaky, Hole In The Ground, Windmill In Old Amsterdam and the Bohemian Rhapsody of novelty, Sparky's Magic Piano.

12.30pm Top Of The Pops Christmas (BBC1)
The show has been gone for twelve years now but its spirit remains in these biannual dual shows. Fearne Cotton, doing her fifteenth festive shift, and Clara Amfo link Anne-Marie, Clean Bandit, Freya Ridings, the managing director of George From Asda, Jax Jones & Ina Wroldson, Jess Glynne, Jonas Blue with Liam Payne & Lennon Stella, Rita Ora, Rudimental with Jess Glynne & Dan Caplen, Sigrid, Tom Walker and Zara Larsson. You know, them.

2pm Talking Take That (BBC Radio 2)
Mainly included here because it's two hours long and so wraps around the Queen's Speech.

4pm Wise Women: Diane Morgan (BBC Radio 6 Music)
After a special featuring Noel Gallagher, which doesn't feel tremendously 6 Music, the actual Cunk takes over for the second day bringing with her features on Michael Kiwanuka, David Lynch and Ian Dury.

6.35pm Britain's Favourite Christmas Songs (Channel 5)
A little late in the day, especially as this first went out in 2011, but we'll just about accept it. It's actually the Official Charts Company doing the sums on the best selling festive hits, which in the age of streaming will now be completely wrong. Also There's No-One Quite Like Grandma is included but no other non-festive Christmas number one is.

10.10pm TOTP2 Christmas Special 2015 (BBC4)
The usual set again, but when did you last hear Just Jack's Starz In Their Eyes? Eleven years old now.

BOXING DAY

1pm Shaun Keaveny (BBC Radio 6 Music)
The annual Brians special, with Cox, Eno and "a special mystery Brian". Ooh.

4pm Wise Women: Courtney Barnett (BBC Radio 6 Music)
Blood Orange, Janelle Monae and Poly Styrene docs is the pleasingly varied selection for the third of this year's crop. Plus it's Courtney Barnett, so there may be loads of ace Milk! Records output and the possibility of a Katie Harkin cameo.

11pm Vinyl Revival (Absolute Radio)
There's a few documentaries on Absolute around here, most by the by, but this might be something, and never mind that Pete Paphides and Stephanie Hirst have already hosted BBC shows under the same neatly hip-rhyme title. Claire Sturgess interrogates her own collection to ask why these things are still around.

11.20pm Carole King and Friends At Christmas (BBC4)
This is seven years old so it's a bit late to be annoyed that this wasn't called Carole's From King. Anyway, Richard Hawley, Gregory Porter and the dearly lost Mummers guest.

THURSDAY 27th DECEMBER

7pm Top Of The Pops 1986 (BBC4)
Ending another year of repeat fun with the Christmas show, complete with late audio-only edit when it turned out Caravan Of Love wouldn't be the day's number one at all. It's also fun to watch for the Pet Shop Boys playing swapsies with their future images, Neil in aviators and puffa jacket, Chris in bowler hat and suit.

8pm Quincy Jones' 85th Birthday Concert (BBC Radio 2)
A repeat from June in which Jones performs his hits with a full symphony orchestra plus Paul Weller, Mick Hucknall, Mark Ronson, Jess Glynne, the ever reliable Beverley Knight and more.

12pm Top Of The Pops Christmas 1978 (BBC4)
And from a few years earlier a programme affected by a strike, meaning it all had to be linked by Noel Edmonds from an office. Spend your night with Brian & Michael, Father Abraham & the Smurfs and the Brighouse & Rastrick Brass Band!

FRIDAY 28th DECEMBER

1pm The Official Chart Of The Year (BBC Radio 1)
Calvin Harris or Drake? Or will Ariana come up on the outside? Exciting, isn't it?

2.35pm Sunshine On Leith (Channel 4)
The Proclaimers jukebox musical movie, but not as poor as that sounds.

7pm Take That: We've Come A Long Way (BBC1)
There's a hell of a lot of the Thats this season, isn't there? We know they've just brought out a mutant greatest hits but even so. It's being trailed as their thirtieth anniversary, which is wrong whether you count it from when the members were brought together (1990) or when Gary Barlow met Nigel Martin-Smith (1989). Messages from fans, families, Robbie, the expected drill.

9pm Paul Weller: May Love Travel With You (Sky Arts)
10pm The Story Of The Jam: About The Young Idea (Sky Arts)
Weller recorded live at Royal Albert Hall in October acoustic with an orchestra, mostly to promote current album True Meanings plus surprisingly deep cuts from across his career, followed by a biography of his first band with new interviews and archive.

10pm First Impressions (Absolute Radio)
One hit wonders are well tred ground, so much so most of them are more famous than artists who had steady careers. This find out what it's like and what happened next, though please note the listing includes Chumbawamba whose follow-up single Amnesia reached number ten. At least it's not Right Said Fred. Or Hanson. Or, as we saw on one recent list, Simple Minds.

SATURDAY 29th DECEMBER

5.10pm Top Of The Pops New Year (BBC1)
It clearly isn't new year yet, but never mind. Anne-Marie, Clean Bandit, George Ezra, Jess Glynne and Jonas Blue pull double duty from the Christmas show, joined by B Young, Lewis Capaldi, Mabel, Tom Grennan, Tom Odell & Rae Morris, Years & Years and Christine and the Queens, who was a huge hit to a mostly new audience on the Christmas Day show in 2016 so it's unfortunate that she and they aren't going to get to re-enact that.

6.15pm Kylie Minogue: Reel Stories (BBC2)
This has apparently been on iPlayer since August, so someone should have said something. It's a very simple but effective format too - Kylie, in the company of Dermot O'Leary whose production company made it, is shown some of the BBC archive about and featuring her - Wogan! Going Live! That track about a font with the bloke from Deee-Lite! - and comments on it. NB. there's also a clip of Eliot Fletcher for no apparent reason. Presumably Dermot wanted to see it.

9pm Donovan and the Beatles In India (Sky Arts)
As you can tell by the order of the names, this is Donovan retracing his steps from the communal visit to the Maharishi with some of those that accompanied them (and Brix Smith-Start for some reason)

10pm Adam Walton (BBC Radio Wales)
One of our favourite DJs gets to his best of the year show, following two specials to celebrate his 25 years in radio on the 15th and 22nd.

SUNDAY 30th DECEMBER

1pm Gideon Coe (BBC Radio 6 Music)
The annual obituary show, three hours of music by those who passed on this year.

10.45pm Michael Jackson: Searching For Neverland (Lifetime)
Small beer on TV today - Sky Arts has Coldplay and Mumford & Sons gigs, and then there's this, "two of Michael Jackson's trusted bodyguards reveal the singer's devotion to his children and the hidden drama that took place during the last two years of his life."

NEW YEAR'S EVE

5pm Tony Blackburn's New Year's Eve 60s (BBC Radio 2)
7pm Mark Goodier's New Year's Eve 70s (BBC Radio 2)
9pm Gary Davies' New Year's Eve 80s (BBC Radio 2)
11pm Ana Matronic's New Year's Eve 90s (BBC Radio 2)
1am Dave Pearce Dance Anthems (BBC Radio 2)
Spot a common theme through the evening, then prepare to 'ave a large one in your middle age.

7pm Soulwax New Year's Eve House Party (BBC Radio 6 Music)
10pm Erol Alkan (BBC Radio 6 Music)
The usual.

9pm & 11.55pm Jane McDonald And Friends NYE Special (Channel 5)
Highlighting this first of all not just because it delays the inevitable but also the booking must have been achieved with the aid of some darts and a blindfold - Billy Ocean, Odyssey, Alexandra Burke, Collabro and, round of applause please, Gilbert O'Sullivan.

11.15pm Jools' Annual Hootenanny (BBC2)
HOOTEno. The last known hideout of Rowland Rivron welcomes Michael Buble, Chic, George Ezra, Jess Glynne, Rudimental, Junior Giscombe, the Hot 8 Brass Band power blues outfit The Record Company, country-soul singer Yola Carter, Jools' Rhythm And Blues Orches-Tra! regulars Marc Almond and Ruby Turner, and the usual pipe band at midnight.

11.35pm Madness Rock Big Ben Live (BBC1)
Meanwhile the beloved entertainers are playing a greatest hits set at Central Hall Westminster right through to 1am, with a small gap about 25 minutes in for something to go off next door.

1.30am Best Of Glastonbury 2017 (BBC2)
3.40am Reading Festival: The Best Bits (BBC2)
BBC2 do this every turn of the year and they aren't going to let the minor detail of there being no Glastonbury in 2018 stop them.

NEW YEAR'S DAY

9.00pm The Beatles: Eight Days A Week - The Touring Years (More4)
11.15pm John and Yoko: Above Us Only Sky (More4)
Documentaries all the way on this restful day - More4 re-run the Ron Howard live Beatlemania film documentary and the story of the album Imagine...

10pm Supersonic (BBC4)
11.55pm Britpop At The BBC (BBC4)
...while the Beeb dig out the tell-all Oasis (up to Knebworth) story and the companion compilation highlighted by a tremendously off-key Echobelly TOTP performance.

WEDNESDAY 2nd JANUARY

9pm Exploring Life On Mars? (Radio 2)
The 1973 single from the 1971 album a week before Bowie's birth and death anniversary. OK. This was actually first broadcast in 2017 to mark what would have been the Dame's 70th birthday, Martin Kemp joined by producer Ken Scott, pianist Rick Wakeman, live keyboardist Mike Garson, video director Mick Rock, and Marc Almond just because.

THURSDAY 3rd JANUARY

9pm Gideon Coe (BBC Radio 6 Music)
Coe's festive week themed shows are always fun, and today he does something we tried to put together years ago with three hours of tunes that reference other artists.

FRIDAY 4th JANUARY

11.30am Carole King: Tapestry Live From Hyde Park (Sky Arts)
12.45pm Paul Simon Live At Hyde Park (Sky Arts)
2pm The Rolling Stones Return To Hyde Park: Sweet Summer Sun (Sky Arts)
3.15pm BST Hyde Park Highlights (Sky Arts)
We spot a theme.

9pm Top Of The Pops: The Story Of 1987 (BBC4)
10pm Top Of The Pops 1987: Big Hits (BBC4)
And onwards we go into a year of SAW, hip-hop emergence, faceless house acts having number ones and Rick Astley all the way. We're very glad to see the compilation features Eric B & Rakim's sullen treatment of the Coldcut remix of Paid In Full, which they'd never heard before arriving in the country that morning and had no idea TOTP was known nationally.

11pm The Kate Bush Story: Running Up That Hill (BBC4)
12pm Kate Bush At The BBC (BBC4)
And to close, the very worthwhile 2014 examination of a career less lived and her willingness to mime on any arts outlet or Pops itself. From this point on the new year stretches out before us, try to enjoy it.

What you may have missed: November

Last one of these for the year as by the end of December we'll be busy with end of year list season (oh, and some religious doowotsit), so here come 25 tracks we love that passed under the general radar this eleventh month:

Angelic Milk - Celebrate
Let's start in Saint Petersburg, of all places, where once the Black Sabbath first album intro (or "the Trevor Steeles music" if you share our frame of reference) is done shoegaze ethereality is the order of things, Sarah Persephona's vocals making it sound like a hazy Crutchfield (either one). PNKSLM are putting out their album in the second week of the new year.

Camera - Patrouille
Phantom Of Liberty was one of our favourite lesser-known albums of 2016 and Emotional Detox is just as accomplished, the Berlin now-quartet folding their shapeshifting Neu! beat around warping, worn synths and washes. This track unfolds into full bloom over twelve minutes, as good modern Krautrock should.

Campfire Social - Oh Atrophy
Llangollen's own make a break for the border on their indie-folk promise, the harmonies lifting a big chorus that belies both a Ben Gibbard influence and its bittersweet, depression examining tone.

Chemtrails - Vultures
You again. The second track from the Cuckoo Spit EP, out on the 7th, compacts a crunchy, fuzzy garage-pop charge and a deck of hooks below which something wicked lurks.

CHROMA - Girls Talk
Popty-Ping's colourful array of 7"s have thus far always turned up interesting and genre-shifting things, in this case a forcefully danceable Pontypridd trio who sound like if Dream Wife had emerged in mid-00s Portland, cowbell and all.

Darren Hayman - Ousby
In time for the centenary of WWI's armistice Hayman brought out the third and final volume of his Thankful Villages project. According to the blog his visit and recording was made on the day Jo Cox was murdered which affects the lyrics, deliberately undermining the quite jaunty folk arrangement of Hayman's own passing on of community and timelocked stories.

Eerie Wanda - Moon
The Amsterdam-based trio use minimal ingredients - Marina Tadic's haunted, countrified vocal, a cyclical guitar part, drum machine pulse, organ to shade in - to produce something that both seems warm and frosty at the same time, swaying and richly lonesome. Second album Pet Town is released on 25th January.

FEELS - Car
Fronted by the tremendously named Laena Geronimo and by Shannon Lay, who brought out a strong album of haunted folk last year, FEELS have connections to Oh Sees and Ty Segall, and Wichita are going to put out their second album. The first track is stompy, glammy garage with a sweetly melodic heart and augurs well.

Frog - American
Another from the oddball offcuts collective at Audio Antihero, taken from mini-album Whatever We Probably Already Had It, the Queens duo's broken Americana and immediacy of delivery add to the tone of bitter irony.

Gwenifer Raymond - The Three Deaths Of Red Spectre
The Cardiff-born Brightonian's Appalachian acoustic instrumental workouts attracted a good amount of attention with her debut album earlier in the year; the nearly seven minute follow-up track stamps her own dramatic, impossibly interlocked stamp on the genre.

Holysun - Don't Care
Madrid's Holysun, which appears to be a solo project for the little we can tell, describe themselves as "pop noir", which does our job for us - widescreen minor dramatics, chiming riffs and ticking over percussion, unfurling and building upon itself towards the horizon.

Jeremy Tuplin - Bad Lover
Articulate and chiming, Tuplin's crooning baritone and self-questioning lyrics bring a weight to the bouncy guitar-pop behind that promises interesting things ahead with a second album due soon.

Lucinda Chua - Whatever It Takes
Chua, more recently in FKA twigs' live band, used to front Felix, whose misty chamber-unsettlement found a home in our end of year albums list twice. Chua's second solo outing takes that sound into an even more intimate and foreboding place, minimal and tactile for further shivers.

Milk Crimes - Anna
We've got this far without any DIY indiepop, so let's have some. The Leeds outfit's main points - slightly yelpy vocals, insistent riff, generally empathetic and lyrically astute - unavoidably resemble Martha but that's far from a bad thing.

Moving Panoramas - Baby Blues
A little late in the year for sunkissed dreampop, but no matter. From the Austin band's second album In Two, due in February, it's all about forward motion that surfs with heavenly harmonies and underpinning keyboard gradually pulling everything towards a kaleidoscopic centre.

The Ocean Party - Rain On Tin
The Melbourne band's songwriter and drummer Zac Denton died suddenly in October. The opener from album The Oddfellows' Hall is one of his songs, revealing a storytelling ease of touch and emotionally descriptive resonance that would keep up with the country's storied finest.

Queen Zee - Hunger Pains
Building a growing reputation for their riotous live show, some of that comes across in the capture-release punk energy of this new version of an early lo-fi single ahead of February's debut album, screaming guitar solos and lead vocals alike.

Rose Elinor Dougall - Make It With You
For all the greatness of her dalliances with dancepop and psych-indie, Dougall is at her most affecting when her rich tones are presented at their most slo-mo and exact. Produced and co-written by Andrew Sarlo, who did the Big Thief album, the so far standalone track is lush, honeyed and anxious in love.

Roxy Rawson - The Good Shepherd
Seven and a half years after first featuring on STN - most of that time was spent badly ill with Lyme disease - Rawson's debut album Quenching The Kill was supposed to be out today but beyond a stream we can't find anything about it being available yet. Ah well. (UPDATE: it's now on Bandcamp) At least we have this to share, a martial beat behind her familiar conservatoire violin, leaping vocal range and dramatic hidden depths.

Rumour Cubes - A Flicker Of Empty Flags
The second of the rejuvenated post-rock collective's politicised singles ("we wanted to respond to the hollow nationalism that has infected our politics and allowed far-right narratives to become normalised"), their cresting dramatics lie on lachrymose violin solos, urgent drums and ebbing Hollywood overture strings.

Silverbacks - Just In The Band
Feels like there's quite a bit of this sonically squally art-pop coming out of Ireland of late, and just to drive that impression home this awkward, tense noise-pop nugget with a pounding climax like an unwound Parquet Courts fronted by Julian Casablancas is produced by a member of Girl Band.

Sir Babygirl - Haunted House
One of those bedroom shots at forging a singular voice in a homogenous pop landscape that sounds like it was inspired by most if not everything at once, Kelsie Hogue's project reaches the latest of several earpricking bubbly, theatrical pop tracks where the beats take off hyperactively and the vocal range reaches its outer limits as if out of existential panic.

Skinny Girl Diet - Shed Your Skin
The sisterly grunge-pop now-duo return with a second album, Ideal Woman, of aggressive riffola, malevolent delivery and the desire to rub their dirtiest guitar sounds right in your theoretical face.

Yr Poetry - five guys but there's only two of us
From a split EP with Falls and SUMMERMAN, yet more falling over themselves while charging at the existential black hole.