“Noswaith dda! Dwi’n Duo, y tylluanod Cymreig! Roeddwn i’n siomedig iawn am fod Kat yn rhoi’r gorau i wneud Duolingo y llynedd. Gwn ei bod hi’n brysur iawn, ond mae fy planed yn marw, ac mae angen Quosh arnom. Pam ydych chi wedi ein gadael pan fydd angen help arnom fwyaf? Nid yw Google Translate yn ddigon… mae’r cywion, maen nhw’n crio am eu mam … beth ddylwn i ei ddweud wrthynt, Kat?”
Diolch, Duo! That’s all the Welsh I can remember I’m afraid. I’m sure your message is as encouraging and cheery as ever though! On to the next batch of results:
30. Andrew W.K. – “Music Is Worth Living For”
Philanthropic feel-good agony aunt, brainwashed victim of an illuminati conspiracy, cynical marketing avatar, random dude who wandered on stage by mistake – Andrew W.K. is all things to all people. I unfollowed him on Twitter a while back, so to me his image has recently dwindled to the ‘before’ image on a Persil advert.
29. Pistol Annies – “Got My Name Changed Back”
Divorce has never been so sparkly! Miranda and co cheerfully tackle some life admin with the aid of a massive cake and some Dom Perignon.
28. Riton & Kah-Lo – “Ginger”
Absolute banger, would do well on Spice Week on Bake Off.
27. Tracey Thorn – “Queen”
I don’t think people appreciate how hard it is to play the guitar while wearing a seatbelt! Props to Tracey and her reflective synthpop sadbanger for pushing the safety first agenda – if you squint you can see her cab going past Fishcoteque in Waterloo.
26. The 1975 – “Love It If We Made It”
Ah, the rolling trashfire that was 2018 current events. I muted a large amount of words on Twitter this year, not because I don’t care about the world going to shit, or because I don’t want to be informed, but because there is nothing useful to be gained by reading small snippets of how angry everybody is every 10 minutes. I’m angry too, but if filtering my online diet down to short clips of Japanese mascots falling over is what it takes to preserve my mental health and maintain my ability to effect change in the world, then I think that’s the right path. Use what strength you have: support investigative journalism, support democracy and transparency, pay your taxes, join the union, give to charity if you can, make people’s lives better if you can, look after yourself if you can, watch videos of mascots falling over if you can’t. It all helps. (NB this video carries a flashing images warning.)
25. Ella Mai – “Boo’d Up”
New to me! Lovestruck R’n’B with a tinge of regret. Pretty good!
24. Cassie – “Don’t Play It Safe”
Cassie’s image has always puzzled me a bit: the sincerity and warmth in her voice often jars against her aloof, steel-eyed glare in her videos. Saying that, she’s obviously a superior being to us mortals, so I guess treating us with contempt is fair enough? In this video it’s all gone a bit 28 Days Later as Cassie wakes up to find everyone has buggered off and there’s only zoo animals and product placement left to keep her company. She takes this opportunity to dress up as 00s-era Jennifer Lopez and sing a song about fucking. It’s not our place to argue.
23. MNEK – “Tongue”
It seems mad that MNEK is only just releasing his first album, but I guess he’s been too busy doing guest spots, writing stuff for other folks and sharpening up his culinary skills for this eventful episode of Come Dine With Me. Also I realised that I’ve been saying ’em-neck’ instead of ’em-en-ee-kay’ all this time, sorry dude.
22. Let’s Eat Grandma – “Falling Into Me”
In general, I approve of what LEG are aiming for, but this one goes on about 2 minutes too long for me.
21. King Princess – “1950”
“Did you mean it when you said I was pretty / That you didn’t want to live in the city / Where people are shitty?” On the 2018 ‘year’ song rankings I rate this much better than “2002” and “1999”.
#20-#11 to be posted next week…