It's 2014, dear reader - Happy New Year!
As we slowly recover from last night's annual melée that is the Dolores Delargo Towers NYE party, it is time, methinks, to recall some of the musical highlights of the year that was...
We had many great musical nights out during 2013 - A Chorus Line, The Tailor-Made Man, Mile High - the Musical, The Supreme Fabulettes supporting Leslie Jordan, Marianne Faithfull, Merrily We Roll Along, Brian Ferry at Proms in the Park, Eve Ferret and Hazel O'Connor, and Top Hat among them.
However, the year in music really belonged to one man. Surprising the world (as he inevitably does), our icon Mr David Bowie returned to the limelight in January after a decade away, with a new single Where Are We Now? - a prelude to his absolutely brilliant album The Next Day:
As excellent as that comeback trip was, it was the title track of the album that I think really did it for me (as featured here in May)...
...and (needless to say), I will remember the stunning tribute exhibition David Bowie is... for the rest of my life!
Speaking if surprising musical resurrections, our beloved Pet Clark really astounded the critics with her Cut Copy Me single and marvellous album Lost in You (featured here back in March) - and one of the best events of the year was seeing her live in October. Here's the single:
But what of the rest? It wasn't such a bad year for newer music, either...
I first highlighted the superb single I Could Be The One by Avicii vs Nicky Romero way back in January, and lo and behold the benighted music-buying yoof agreed - this was one of the biggest dance songs of the year:
Speaking of mega-hits of the year, it was in February that I first picked up on the fab'n'shouty I Love It by Icona Pop featuring Charlie XCX, and the rest is history, as it dominated early summer in the UK:
Mention "shouty", and of course we have to mention our beloved Luciana! In June 2013, she teamed up with the gayest-of-in-yer-face-gays Cazwell to knock the spots off the opposition:
A completely contrasting singer who I really adored during 2013 is the marvellously camp Miss Caro Emerald. Featured here in August, here's her anthem for my life, it's Liquid Lunch:
We also welcomed back an old favourite in August, the singer formerly of the mega-kitsch Bear Force One, now calling himself Circuit21, and his version of gay 80s standard Love In The Shadows:
Our very own superstars the Pet Shop Boys had a rather good renaissance in 2013 with the fab album Electric, and a clutch of great singles from it. Here, from June, is my fave - Axis:
It was quite a year for our favourite sexy houseboys Kazaky, too! They featured here not once, not twice, but three times - in August it was their exhortation to Touch Me (yes, please!) and in October It Doesn't Matter; but it was their protest song against the creeping repression of gays in Russia and their native Ukraine (from April), Crazy Law that really was the business!
Princess Kylie, on the other hand, had a less memorable year. In 2013 she not only signed to Jay-Z's management firm Roc-Nation (gawd help us! - the home of bloody Rihanna, MIA and Rita Ora) and split with her gorgeous boyfriend Andrés Velencoso, but her official single Skirt was in my opinion so unbearable it didn't even merit being featured here. Two side-projects with other artists, however, did - the very strange Whistle (with Icelandic experimental combo Múm, as featured here in March), and this rather lovely collaboration with Laura Pausini (from October), Limpido:
There were many contenders in 2013 for the title "catchiest song of the year", but Le Grind's I Was There (Where Were You?) from June was certainly one of them!
Many, too, are the contenders for "song of 2013". However, for me - and I make no apologies for featuring it here for a third time (first time was in October) - given the unhappy situation in Russia, and with the Sochi Winter Olympics almost upon us, it simply has to be the magnificent Xelle and Red Flag!
Let us look forward to another good year in music - roll on, 2014!
