Lopez Blogs

Where would my annual chart be without the songs that just missed out? 15 of them to be precise.

Good Vs Bad - Tingsek: this would probably have made my chart if I'd become aware of its existence earlier. More evidence of Magnus from Malmo's musical excellence.

Supernova - Mr Hudson featuring Kanye West: probably one of the very few auto-tuned records which I didn't hate with a passion this year. I've got high hopes for Mr Hudson, so why does he have to spoil it all by making a record with N-Dubz, possibly one of the most useless acts around?

Bite The Bullet - BWO: Yes it's more of the same formula, but when the formula's as good as this, then it doesn't matter.

Lala Song - Bob Sinclar featuring the Sugarhill Gang: inspired pairing of one of France's best DJs with the pioneers of rap. Why wasn't this a massive summer hit? I love this track.

Hotel Room Service - Pitbull: will always remind me of Turkey. Oh and by the way, this is the original version in my list and not that rubbishy one with Nicole Scherzinger on it.

Youngblood - E.M.D.: there's nothing really original about this, but it's actually quite refreshing to hear boyband-pop in a time when boybands appear to be frowned upon.

Untouched - The Veronicas: the Aussie duo had a very big hit with this song and I rather liked it. By the way, isn't there some very good music coming out of Australia these days!

Click - Little Boots: she may not have lived up to the hype but I quite enjoyed her album although got tired of it pretty quickly. I've gone for this album track rather than any of her singles, it's quite nice and atmospheric.

We Made You - Eminem: not really a classic return to form, but it was good singalong fun and reminded me of my holiday in Dusseldorf.

Gloria - Mando Diao: still on the subject of Germany, this was played quite a lot when I was there and has enjoyed a new lease of life in its native Sweden thanks to a rather cool dance remix.

Tricky - Velvet Inc: this was probably my favourite Norsk Melodi Grand Prix song (although I never heard many of them) and I was well impressed by their ability to sing and dance around in those extremely high heels...!

Left My Heart In Tokyo - Mini Viva: much has been written about Xenomania's new stable of artists; I'm looking forward to hearing them. It was mixed fortunes for their acts in 2009: Vagabond haven't made it (I quite liked their song though) but Mini Viva seem to be doing quite well. This was a good fun pop record with the usual Xenomania 4-songs-in-one recipe.

Love Etc - Pet Shop Boys: long overdue and deserved recipients of a Brit award for Outstanding Contribution to Music (and wasn't their end of show medley brilliant!). This isn't their best work by any means, but well worth inclusion in a year-end list.

Sexy B***h/Chick - David Guetta featuring Akon: surely some mistake, a favourite songs list with Akon in it???? Yep. 2009 belonged to David Guetta and this was another one of my holiday songs, which not even the presence of auto-tuned Akon could spoil.

Battlefield - Jordin Sparks: one of those songs I started off hating, probably due to its Tedder-conveyor-belt similarity to "Halo", but I ended up liking it quite a lot.

So that's it for 2009. I won't be doing a "2009 list" this year of new acts which impressed me, as quite frankly these were so thin on the ground I don't have enough to make up a list.

Ironically, for a year which was so poor for British music, it was an incredible year for European (OK, mainly Swedish) releases, and this year was all about my favourite acts releasing new material. The one notable absentee was Vincent Pontare - I hope he makes a comeback next year, if he can tear himself away from Agnes, that is ;)

As for my 2008 list, most of the acts on it have disappeared (wherefore art thou Bryn Christopher, Sam Beeton and Jack McManus??? we need you back!) or working on new material (yes that's you, Gabriella Cilmi) or commercially flopped despite the hype (VV Brown) so I won't curse any acts by predicting great things for them :)))