2012 in Music

January
"Tidal" - Imogen Heap (x)
I listened to this on a beach on New Year's Eve last year, and the year before somewhere else, holding onto a Thai lantern full of wishes and letting it go as midnight struck. This song fills you with a kind of unexplainable intrinsic motivation, the rhythm to run and skip and make big decisions. Imogen Heap has stated it's about being on a beach and trying to get someone to have meaningless sex with you. It's also about spontaneity and what it is to be carefree, a beautiful arrangement of acoustic guitar, of flute and a keytar solo right in the middle.

February
"The One You Say Goodnight To" - Kina Grannis (x)
I saw Kina play in Manchester Academy, one of my old favourite venues, this month. "The One You Say Goodnight To" is, nothing original, a pop song about love, but like all of her music completely acoustic and stripped back.

March
"Give It All Back" - Noah and the Whale (x)
In March, my two best friends and I went to Manchester to see this band play. We couldn't get a train home until 5am so ended up all telling our parents we were at each other's houses, staying out in the city killing time for the whole night. It was fucking freezing and we stood outside until 2 waiting to meet the band because we had nothing else to do. When Charlie Fink, Tom Hobden, Michael Petulla, Fred Abbott and Urby came outside, all I had for them to sign was a copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise which I had with me on the train, and it sits happily today on my bookshelf. That night was perfect, walking around the streets of Manchester in the cold, a taste of freedom, a little danger and a lot of dancing. This band really brought my friends and I together for a time and this song will always be one of those that did it the most, kooky keyboard patterns and electric guitars blended with lyrics that talk of lost youth, innocence and mistakes. I think I like Noah and the Whale so much because their music is completely authentic, but they don't deny cheesy outfits and gimmicks occasionally. They manage to mix meaningless fun and soul, something I think is very hit and miss.

April
"The Woods" - Bon Iver (x)
Bon Iver is incredible, the way Justin Vernon writes music is a complete recreation and reinvention of sound. "The Woods" is from their EP Blood Bank, and is an adventure, one line sung over and over again in the most melancholy way, playing with the roots of the melody and the harmonies around it each time. This record came to Ishgul with me, where I went with my family in the spring. The forest, the snow and the wooden lodges are the perfect backdrop to listen to Bon Iver.

May
"Rivers and Roads" - The Head and the Heart (x)
A band from Seattle, the Head and the Heart make music that is true and uncomplicated, the kind of gorgeous folk music that reflects family and community. They just bring it all back to home, acoustic guitars and perfect harmonies. I listened to it lots in the last few weeks of high school, but also I sang this song playing in a bar over the summer, splitting the audience into halves and asking them to sing in harmony, assigning each a part. It was one of those things that would have been really awkward if it messed up but just went perfectly, and I couldn't stop smiling.

June
"Fighting Arizona" - Bo Bruce (x)
Bo was a contestant on The Voice this year, a show I watched one night when I was babysitting because I didn't have another choice and ended up completley captivated by her voice, going against all of my 'reality-TV-is-stupid' moals. I bought her EP Search The Night at the start of June, and had this weekend in Hamburg literally a few hours after I got it, listened to it as I spent a lot of time cycling alone. I love every song on this album but this song was there one night in the early summer when everything was going wrong. I sat by the railway line at three o clock with a packet of cigarettes and this playing, just listening to the words because nothing else could be made sense of. "If you'll be my lost my found, reject the dark, reject your crown, I swear, you'll never go back down." Bo wrote "Fighting Arizona" about a friend she met in rehab, struggling against the contagious cycle of addiction and crime. I like the video of this song, too, because it is an honest representation, it just looks real, the cast in it aren't glossy-haired, shiny-toothed actors and actresses, no falsified beauty or glamourisation of the fact.

July
"Samson" - Regina Spektor (x)
I went to see Regina Spektor play in the most impromtu of situation, finding tickets on eBay literally a few hours before and hopping on a train to Manchester as quick as I could. She's amazing, every song of hers playful and magical, drifting between languages, between instrument  between topics of lyrics. But I love "Samson" because it's simple and peaceful and also there is so much to find in its words, a story based on the bible with the most beautiful of imagery.

August
"Charlie Brown" - Coldplay/Bo Bruce's cover (x)
I feel like including somebody's cover is cheating, but I love both versions of this song, admittedly not knowing it until when Bo Bruce sang it on Saturday night TV, the most magical moment. August was my first trip to London on my own, and this show changed my life. Through this artist I have made friends and been on adventures, and I will go on more, I know that, it's also the reason I started going out busking this summer, something else that changed my life. Her album is due for release next year, which I'm really excited about.
As for Coldplay, I've noticed this stigma around liking them (interestingly only with British people, French or American I've talked to don't seem to mind) and I think that, similarly to Ed Sheeran, they get a lot of credit for a genre that isn't exclusively there's. Having said that, "Mylo Xyloto" is a really special album and I think they've written some gorgeous songs, this being one of my favourites.

September
"You Won't Feel A Thing" - The Script (x)
Their third album "#3" came out this month, which I wrote about here at the time. There's a lot of good and bad about  The Script, but they were one of the first bands I got to like by myself, in 2008, aged twelve, and I got to rediscover them this year after Danny O'Donoghue's appearance on The Voice and discovered Science and Faith is such a smart, heartfilled and genuine pop-rock record. This is the first song on the album, about overcoming pain and trust.

October
"Wires" - Athlete (x)
I saw Athlete play this month literally ten minutes from my house, and heard "Wires" a couple of weeks before. It came at the perfect time, it related to something that was happening in my family. It still is, I still listen to it nearly every day. It absolutely breaks my heart and the music that was 2012 for me can't be talked about without mentioning the woman that sat next to me at the show that night and gave me the most comforting of smiles as I cried, make-up streaming down my face Joker-style. Joel Pott is an incredible songwriter, and this band so underrated.

November
"The Bed Song" - Amanda Palmer (x)
This is probably cheating because it was at the end of October I went to see Amanda Palmer play, but it doesn't matter, things don't always fit. This song is the saddest of stories, in 3/4, a series of snapshots of two people at different points in their lives as they drift away from each other.

December
"Lover of the Light" - Mumford and Sons (x)
I wrote about this really recently, but after a long wait I finally went to see Mumford and Sons play towards the end of this year. "Babel", their second album, was released this September, and it's everything it promised. This song is one of my favourites, that banjo line just gets me every time.

I had so much trouble choosing a song for each month this year, and forced myself to cut it down and not use more than one. So much music old and new has woven its way into my life this year, some that fits nicely with timings and events and other songs that are just always around. Ben Howard's "Promise" deserves a mention, "Cosmic Love" by Florence and the Machine, "The Boxer" by Simon and Garfunkel and "Good Ol' Days" by The Script, which has sort of become the song that gets played when I'm with my friends and we're drinking, as has, regrettably, Taylor Swift's "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together." I discovered Kate Bush this year and therefore have to include "Running Up That Hill", and also "And The Boys" by Angus and Julia Stone which I listened to on long drives across France with my exchange family over the summer. There will be others I've forgotten and want to kick myself when I realise.


I know these aren't all from this year, obviously. They were just in it a lot for me.

I'm going to finish with the song (below) from the night that changed my life this year, back in the summer, in London. Not going to lie, you can totally spot me dancing with tear-filled eyes in this video if you concentrate.

I am going away for a while and will be back January. Thanks for sticking around, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year xxxx


Bo Bruce - "Charlie Brown" - Live at The Garage, Islington



"We run riot -
We'll be glowing in the dark"