20: THE DRUMS
‘DOWN BY THE WATER’
(MOSHI MOSHI)

Washed Out, Excepter, Best Coast, Ducktails – 2009 was the year that American musicians returned to the beach for inspiration. Most of these wave-catching stoners favoured a kind of inscrutably fuzzy psychedelia, but The Drums went for the doo-wopping pop jugular, and stole our hearts with ‘Down By The Water’.

19: BURIAL & FOUR TET
‘MOTH’
(TEXT)

This collaborative single between two of electronic music’s poster boys was released in the early part of this year, and predictably sold out in days. ‘Moth’ was the better side of the 12″, with Burial riding that biting point between UK garage’s danceable rhythms and melancholy underbelly while Hebden contextualizes it in subtle chimes and keys. The track closes on Burial’s trademark vocals ringing through ‘Moth”s dusty mist; rarely are track names more appropriate.

18: FUZZY LOGIK feat. EGYPT
‘IN THE MORNING’
(VIRGIN)

A white label smash eventually snapped up by the Virgin bigwigs, we heard ‘In the Morning’ pumped out of more cars in North East London this year than any other track mainstream or underground – in case you hadn’t realized, that equals a big tune in our eyes.

17: GRIZZLY BEAR
‘TWO WEEKS’
(WARP)

‘Two Weeks’ – the gliding, glittering highlight of Grizzly Bear’s widely acclaimed Veckatimest – is profoundly classic pop, universal in its reach. Beautifully arranged and sung, hopskotching effortlessly from mirth to melancholy in the well-timed twist of a chord, its lyrics speak ambiguously of yearning and expectation, two experiences common to us all in this and every year.

16: LEVON VINCENT
‘SIX FIGURES’
(NOVEL SOUND)

US house producer Levon Vincent has been pretty much unanimously acclaimed for his recent work, and listening to ‘Six Figures’ it’s easy to see why. It’s not complicated, it doesn’t change a great deal, it just bangs, and bangs hard. Low-slung but full-fat, warehouse-savvy beats provide the setting for an endlessly repeating, undulating string vamp that became one of the year’s most notorious and unavoidable incitements to rave. Brutal and beautiful, like all good dance music should be.

15: MICACHU
‘TURN ME WELL’
(ROUGH TRADE)

Originally released in 2008 as the B-side to London DIY golden girl Micachu’s breakthrough single ‘Golden Phone’, Rough Trade saw fit to release ‘Turn me Well’ as its own single this year.

The closing track on early versions of Mica’s debut album, Jewellery, it featured the touch of producer Matthew Herbert – it’s based around a sampled vacuum cleaner, and has an off-beat chime that’s timed so well it’s stupid – but as is frequently the case with Micachu, she’s the real star here, sounding relieved, vulnerable, naked and mature at various points across this ode to long-term relationships.

14: TEMPA T
‘NEXT HYPE’
(NO HATS NO HOODS)

Tempa T’s ‘Next Hype’ has been rinsed. And we mean rinsed - there are now so many versions of this grime anthem that it’s hard to remember how the original sounds. To hand, there’s official remixes by Brackles, Plastician and DVA, plus mashups with DJ Oddz (‘Strung Up Hype’), Jan Driver (‘Hype Alert’), Untold (‘Nextaconda’), Apple, Lil Silva, Joker and countless others.

Unimaginative, sure, but ‘Next Hype’ becoming grime’s biggest slut er, ever, is simply testament to Tempa T’s vocal performance. It doesn’t matter what the backing is, his performance here – an unstoppable sequel to his past ‘Battle Riddim’ and the best solo grime vocal since Wiley’s crushing ‘Nightbus Dubplate’ – never, never gets old. Featuring about seven of the best couplets of the year, Temps sounds like he could go on all day here, and the track’s only disappointment is when it finishes. Won’t get none of your CDs back.

13: FLORENCE & THE MACHINE
‘YOU GOT THE LOVE’ (THE XX REMIX)
(UNIVERSAL)

Florence became a star in 2009, thanks largely to sheer hard work and force of will on the part of her, her management and record company. But let’s not underestimate the girl’s natural talent: she has an abundance of the stuff, and it shone through on her stirring, incredibly well-judged cover of Candi Staton’s ‘You Got The Love’. It was the remix by The xx, though, with its re-sung vocals and a syncopated, gamelan-gone-UKF style rhythm built by prodigious producer-mastermind Jamie, that became a blog sensation and the smart party DJ’s secret weapon.

12: BIG BOI feat. GUCCI MANE
‘SHINE BLOCKAS’
(LAFACE)

Tracks like this only come around once a year, and sometimes not even that. Big Boi – you know, the one from Outkast who still raps – here teams up with fellow Atlanta resident Gucci Mane to go all out over one of the year’s most swelling, inspiring productions, courtesy of Cutmaster Swift flipping Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes’ ‘I Miss You’. So full of classic moments, from the “all the ho’s say…” intro, to Gucci catching his first bar like it’s the most natural thing in the world, to the enunciation on ‘rest-wront”. The hip-hop track of the year, and the best Outkast-related song since 2006′s legendary ‘Int’l Player’s Anthem’.

11: DISCOVERY
‘OSAKA LOOP LINE’
(from LP, XL)

A lot of people seem to think we’re mad for loving Discovery’s self-titled LP so much. We don’t really understand the issue. Sure, it’s a bit twee at times, but what, Grizzly Bear isn’t? The album opened with ‘Osaka Loop Line’, a jigsaw of minimal, crunked-out drums, twinkling synth arpeggios and woozily romantic vocals, somehow simultaneously blissed out and urgent; jittery. It’s how we always wanted pop music to sound.

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