In Part One, I shared songs from my most-loved albums of last year. Part Two features highlights from my favourite singles and EPs released in 2017. Enjoy! 

Okay, so it's nearly March, which probably makes this the world's most untimely 'Best of 2017' list! First I'll get to the music, but there's a personal note at the bottom of this post explaining why I'm sometimes much later with posts than I'd like, and why I think they're still worth doing anyway.

Wow, I was really blown away by the musical offerings from last year! There's some truly spectacular music being made by incredibly creative artists who are dedicated to their craft. and to making brilliant music for the sake of it. Though it's easier than ever to find music from all over the world to suit your particular tastes, I'm pretty convinced there's also just more and more amazing music being produced. This playlist features a song from each of my favourite 2017 albums. It's pretty long, with fifty-five tracks, coming in at around three hours and forty minutes of listening. I heard so much great stuff, this was as much as I could narrow it down! And you'll notice this is only Part One.... 

One of the absolute best albums of the year is Rose Elinor Dougall's Stelullar. Released January this year, the long-awaited follow-up to her excellent 2010 solo debut, Without Why, has exceeded even my rather high expectations.

This is a contemporary take on pop that is just exquisitely executed. Influences across many decades and styles are expertly synthesised and distilled into something earnest, fresh, modern and personal. You can hear The Smiths and other indie eighties, classic sixties songwriting, punk and its artier cousins, eighties synth pop, Britpop, as well as more recent influences from the world of today's avant-pop. I know music reviews can often be an annoying shopping list of improbable references, but I genuinely do hear all those! It's to Dougall's credit that these don't compete or sound unnaturally glued together, and that they aren't there for the sake of showing off what's in her record collection. The different pieces blend beautifully and always serve the songwriting and the essence of the song. The tracks are complex enough to offer up new delights on repeated listens, but not overly worked at the expense of what makes a good pop song so appealing: memorable melodies, addictive hooks and emotional immediacy.

Who needs the same old sappy Christmas tunes when there's a whole world of weird and wonderful festive music to explore? I love digging into the many fascinating, original takes on holiday music that countless artists have recorded over the years. And sometimes, the more bizarre, the better. My first Christmas mix this year is a collection of some of the most enjoyably unconventional seasonal tunes that I've come across. Some are simply delightfully eccentric, while others get genuinely weird... and even a little creepy. If you need an antidote to the cliches and suffocating sentimentality that can be hard to escape at this time of year, hopefully you'll enjoy this mix of freakish festive goodness!

It's my first post of the new year and, though late to the game, I wanted to share my favourite music from last year. 2016 was a notoriously terrible year (not that this year is exactly peachy so far!), but thankfully the same can't be said of the music that came out last year. It was, to quote Lisa Simpson's insensitive future fiancé, like a flower that grew out of a pot of dirt. I feel spoiled by the amount and variety of quality music I've been enjoying from last year's offerings. There are the gorgeous vintage European pop sounds of The Yearning and Lia Pamina, the visionary retrofuturism of Adrian Younge, the moving, classic songwriting of Big Smoke, the raw garage rock of The Mystery Lights, some fresh takes on dream pop, and many outings in psychedelic-influenced, experimental pop. Some of these albums have quickly become all-time favourites, not just favourites of the year. Below is a playlist of songs from my most-loved releases of 2016, including albums, singles and EPs, in no particular order. A list of my top eleven albums (I could not narrow it down to ten!) of the year – again, in no specific order – follows it.

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If you prefer Spotify, listen here. Update: By request, now also on Deezer (but missing the Samara Lubelski song).

Tracklist:

Image credit: NME

The third album from Cat's Eyes, Treasure House, was recently released and does not disappoint, continuing their streak of inventive pop noir. Some are calling this their second album, but I see no reason to discount their stunning soundtrack to The Duke Of Burgundy as an album proper, as it was not only released under the band's name, but as The Quietus points out, "its influence [is] tangibly present on this new work".

One thing I really enjoy about this album is that it incorporates, and seamlessly blends, elements of all their releases since their self-titled album debuted in 2011, including Rachel Zeffira's solo album The Deserters. There is the soothing, serene beauty of that release, the girl group and garage rock influences from Cat's Eyes, and some of the more lush, complex and haunting sounds of The Duke Of Burgundy. They have the ability to make these potentially disparate styles work well together across the album or, even more deftly, in the same song. On the album's second single, 'Drag', all these elements converge beautifully.

The album also evolves their sound by adding more colours to their palette, or by rearranging those previously used to create new shades. The Duke Of Burgundy begins, after a short instrumental, with Rachel Zeffira singing its soft, pastoral title theme. On Treasure House, the opening title track starts things in a similar mood, but here it is Faris Badwan's voice, usually heard on their heavier and more ominous songs, that lulls us gently, but with a subtle foreboding, into darker waters.

Spiked Candy kicked off with a France Gall video and a Quebecoise France Gall cover, so for old times' sake, I thought I'd start again the same way:

This is a clip from an episode of a music show called Au risque de vous plaire which originally aired on the 10th of January, 1969. The episode, directed by Jean-Christophe Averty, is creative and colourful, making the most of the relatively new colour format. They've gone a bit nuts with the technique of using graphics to frame the footage, with fun results like those seen here. (The video may take a few moments to load).

Claire Lepage - Le Premier Chagrin d'amour

I love Canadian girl Claire Lepage's take on France Gall's 1964 single, 'Le Premier Chagrin d'amour', which has lyrics by France's father, Robert Gall, and music by Claude Henri-Vic. In her slowed-down, more grown-up-sounding version, the 'first heartbreak' of the title sounds like it's about something that had more at stake than France Gall's lost teen love. Claire's version comes two year later, in 1966, which is a little unusual as international covers tended to appear soon after the original.

I've also made a playlist* of France Gall covers - 30 of them!