Noname
Song 31

Not the snappiest artist/song combo, granted. It might as well be called That Musical Noise by What’s-Her-Face. But anyone who heard Noname’s debut LP last year, Room 25, will be delighted to hear this picks up right where that left off. Which is to say: loquacious, rapid-fire raps draped like caramel goo across silky, breathy neo-jazz. Then Phoelix sashays in to squawk a chorus so delightfully wonky even he sounds surprised by the oops-there-goes-my-Pot-Noodle chord change. Huh. Maybe 2019 is going to be fine, guys?

Bring Me the Horizon
Medicine

Were things really better in the olden days? Old people seem to think so. Long-time BMTH fans do, too. You can see them sitting there, peering over their Daily Express, pining for bygone days when Britain meant the soft thwonk of cricket, cream teas, fatal syphilis and Bring Me the Horizon being a screamcore band your parents genuinely despised. Because now they make this sort of edgeless Radio 1-frotting Logic Pro emo-pop. And while it’s fine in the same way the taste of carrot is, it’s also a bit, well, toilet.

Lizzo
Juice

If you’re in the cold embrace of Dry Jan and are worrying you’ll cave, you might want to give this one a miss. Basically a Chic-funky paean to going out, having a laugh, dancing, drinking and feeling great about yourself, you’ll be reaching for the Pernod before it’s even finished. Go on. Just have one tiny tipple. Lizzo says it’s fine.

Paul McCartney
Get Enough

Paul, come here mate. Sit down. It’s OK, you’re not in trouble. Now listen: Auto-Tune’s like cumin, or that once-a-year “anniversary” lube that makes your nethers tingle like a freshly slapped arse, in that it’s something that needs to be introduced with the utmost restraint. And that’s not what you’ve done here, is it Paul? You’ve wanged it all over the place, haven’t you? And it’s an awful noise, Paul. Like yodelling with bath farts. Don’t cry. It’s just … you don’t always have to do what boys like Kanye tell you, all right? If he’s really your friend, he’ll think you’re cool no matter what, see? Now go outside and play, you little scamp. Awh.

Ian Brown
From Chaos to Harmony

With the possible exceptions of “I don’t do PC, I just tell it like it is” and “Here is your host … Stephen Mulhern!”, is there any phrase more certain to send you blasting for the closest hillocks than “Ian Brown on wah-wah guitar”? From the sound of this he plays it like a novice angler wildly beating a koi carp to death with a shoe. Ian produced this song himself. You can tell. It’s very bad indeed.