Here at The Music Magazine we like to do things a little differently. Some call it awkwardness- we call it individuality. Anyway, rather than take the traditional retrospective of the calendar year like most publications, our countdown starts at last November up until this November. Why you ask? Well, it encompasses the second year in existence of TMM. See, we’re not just being fussy.

Having taken on the task of top tenning, I realise I’ve opened myself to a lot of criticism, but there you go, it should cause some interesting debate. So without further ado, here are the 10 best tracks of the last 12 months. Let the backlash commence…

10/ Vampire Weekend - Oxford Comma
Vampire Weekend were a breath of fresh air in 2008, with their preppy-afro rock something completely different to pretty much anything else on the indie scene. Oxford Comma typified this. A song about a linguistic abnormality taking on a deeper significance, with a half-arsed yet brilliant guitar solo and that almightily catchy hook meant this signalled the arrival of a very important act. “Who gives a fuck about an Oxford comma?” Ezra Koenig asks again and again - the answer is anyone who gives a fuck about music.

9/ Jack White and Alicia Keys - Another Way To Die
After a couple of duds in recent years (Madonna and Chris Cornell- seriously?), the Bond theme was back in business with the first ever duet to take on the task of giving cinema’s most famous opening sequence a soundtrack. ‘Another Way To Die’ was a cataclysmic orgy of strings, drums and a desperate duet chorus, a bubbling cauldron of sexual chemistry, with Jack White displaying he still is capable of moments of genius. It was a thunderous rock’n'roll bitch of a theme tune and one worthy of the name of 007.

8/ Katy Perry - I Kissed A Girl
Worthy of inclusion for its sheer ubiquity during summer. No matter if you loved or hated this song, barring space travel there was no escape from this song, as it held to number 1 for a mammoth five weeks. And it deserved its place too, in all its bubblegum pop glory. Perry’s “don’t give a fuck” attitude, be it artificial or not, was something different, and it transcended to a stomping club-beat of a verse before the chorus’ cry of “I kissed a girl and I liked it” making pubescent boys go weak at the knees, whilst infuriating Daily Mail readers and religious types alike. Any track which evokes two such reactions is worthy of a mention- the fact that it was a slice of pop-rock exuberance was a bonus.

7/ Keane - Spiralling
This wasn’t just progression, this was reinvention. For a band famed for piano-pop ballads, this 80s-influenced electro track well and truly represented a brave new step into the relative unknown. And it paid off, with ‘Spiralling’ one of the best things that Tom Chaplin’s lot have ever produced. The eighties revival was in full flow, the track an amalgamation of synth, guitar and Chaplin’s haunting rasp of a voice. Even the uber-cheesy spoken word interlude “did you wanna be president?” couldn’t take anything away from this solid-gold track, which well and truly signalled Keane’s return to form.

6/ The Last Shadow Puppets - Standing Next To Me
Miles Kane and Alex Turner swapped their skinny-jeans for polo necks and sunglasses under the moniker of The Last Shadow Puppets. ‘Standing Next To Me’ was the highlight of the project, a Scott Walker influenced doo-wop pop track. Layered in strings, Kane takes the lead vocal, before a soaring duet chorus of “and your love, is standing next to me”. It’s not hard to see why they close with this at live shows - two and a half minutes of crooning pop, before a crescendo of strings, and finally a sudden, crashing stop - simply mesmeric.

5/ MGMT - Time To Pretend
Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser may both have hilarious names, but in 2008 they produced the teen anthem of the year. The bleary-eyed stoner vocal cooing over the catchiest intro ever (if you don’t know/can’t hum it, you’re out of touch) was elevated to legendary status among those crazy kids when it was used in the series finale of Skins. After an showing at pretty much every big festival over summer it became one of the anthems of the season, every word of every performance screeched back with ferocity. It was a simply massive track.

4/ Hot Chip - Ready For The Floor
“Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, do it now / say it, say it, say it, say it, say it, say it, say it now” Alexis Taylor warbled like the bespectacled nerd-rock Christ. With the lead single of their ‘Made in the Dark’ album, Hot Chip managed to find a medium that appealed both to art-school serious types and the lager lout crowd. Whilst not quite reaching the standard they set with the incredible ‘Over And Over’, they’re not that far off. ‘Ready For The Floor’ unleashed a torrent of a chorus, with the clunky-yet-funky synth overlay forming the outline of the techno hit of 2008. Hot Chip proved themselves to be “number-one guys”.

3/ Bloc Party - Flux
Ha! Having the countdown go back to November was worth it! Bloc Party gave the first hint of their new dance direction with ‘Flux’ - a crunching, biting electro flux, with lovelorn lyrics, so sincere that it seems out of place - “we were hoping for some romance, all we found was more despair” - but somehow it worked - it was a monumental effects-laden behemoth of a chorus. The rising bridge of “state of flux, state of flux…”, leads to Kele Okereke’s simply massive vocal as he cried “we need to talk” over a mish mash of keys. It provided Bloc Party with a link into the mainstream and a simply legendary live moment, with the laser show for the track forming a highlight of their triumphant headline slot at Connect Festival. It was the best thing they’d done since ‘Helicopter’ boosted their music to stratospheric levels leaving the rest of their indie peers for dead on Planet Dull.

2/ Glasvegas - Daddy’s Gone
Glasvegas pretty much single-handedly rescued British guitar music from the abyss in 2008, with their doom and gloom infiltrating the charts, and the ears, of the masses. But to every song there was an unequivocal and beautiful meaning. ‘Daddy’s Gone’ is the epitome of that. So rarely is the bond between a departed father and his son touched in any form of art, yet alone rock music, that this was just completely different to anything else. James Allan’s thick Glaswegian accent punctuated every syllable over a slow-burning drum beat, and a Spector-esque wall of sound. But the lyrics set this song apart from pretty much everything else, with the heartbreaking reminiscing of “times when you’d put us on your shoulders, how I wished it was forever you would hold us”, all building up to the brutal, beautiful, spellbinding closing cries of “he’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone, oh-oh-oh-ooh”. This was a song that proved music to be indiscriminate with the ability to touch anyone and everyone. And whilst it may sound hyperbolic, it bordered on perfection. Complete excellence.

1/ Elbow - One Day Like This
Pretty much any other year, ‘Daddy’s Gone’ would be the song of the year by a long way. But in 2008, Elbow not only released the song of the year, but one of the best songs of the last 10 years - “One Day Like This” is nothing short of a masterpiece. From the first moments of the beautiful strings intro, the song soared elevating itself over every other indie song the British Isles has produced in a long time. Then Guy Garvey’s vocal kicked in, a thick Bury accent that was enveloped by the violins to beautiful effect, with sumptuous lyrics such as “what made me behave that way, using words I never say?” transcending time, trend and genre - it’s just complete magnificence. After a constant build up, the song climaxed with the ensemble chorus, a gorgeously worded refrain of “throw those curtains wide, one day like this a year would see me right” - it’s truly life affirming stuff, a terrace anthem for lovers and poets. It was sweeping, orchestral, magnificence - and in an industry where the key themes are either gloom, or radio-friendly-pop this was something different - just sheer unadulterated joy, a true classic of an indie song, and the best song of the last 12 months and beyond.

Disagree with us? Is there anything we’ve missed out? What would make your top 10 songs of the past year (remember, remember, November to November)?