2020 may just be the worst year in living memory, but if there's one consolation in all of the chaos it is, as always, music. Although true concerts have been sorely missed in the madness of this year and many projects have faced significant delays while wide-scale lockdowns sweep the globe, that hasn't stopped certain artists from creating and releasing some masterpieces. Whether they're reflecting the mood of dread, isolation and fear prevalent in society or providing us an escape from the horrors of 2020, these ten songs have been the soundtrack of our year on PHF - and what a year it's been.

10. Little Mix - Holiday

Submitted By: @Skinny Legend

Despite their undeniable vocal prowess and incredible chemistry, Little Mix has always been a little underwhelming in my books when it comes to song choice. Their back catalogue is sprinkled with a couple of fun tracks ('Power' and 'No More Sad Songs' are both bangers), and the occasional brilliant ballad ('Secret Love Song' and their 'Falling' cover are incredible), but their singles are often cheapened by derivative production or boring rent-a-rappers. All that changed with 'Holiday', the second single from their last album as a four-piece Confetti. Leaning hard into the groups pop origins, the song served up a slice of fun, effortless, summery bubblegum pop that was just what the public needed to hear in 2020, filling a gap in the market that's been gaping open since the onslaught of R&B and indie artists in recent years. Little Mix might not look the same in a post-2020 world, but 'Holiday' will still go down as one of their best, most anthemic singles to date and a game-changer for the group. It's just a shame it didn't get as much attention as it deserved on the charts.

9. ionnalee - MACHINEE

Submitted By: @coolaideonfire

ionnalee had planned to tour North America in 2020 celebrating 10 years of iamamiwhoami (her audiovisual project launched in December 2009), but after these plans were postponed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic things changed course.

In quarantine she announced the KRONOLOGI playlist, a series of previously unreleased songs and alternate versions to be shared weekly as a soundtrack to our isolation, and true to her iamamiwhoami roots she also played two online concerts in the summer months. One was a lowkey affair filmed in the beautiful surroundings of her garden at home for Sweden's National Day celebrations and the other a highly produced event filmed on a remote Swedish island bearing similarities to IN CONCERT (an ambitious online concert streamed by iamamiwhoami in 2010). KONSERT featured guests such as Imogen Heap, TR/ST and Zola Jesus and culminated in the live premiere of ionnalee's latest single 'MACHINEE' - a brooding electronic number with industrial vibes and my highlight of the year.

8. Pale Waves - She's My Religion

Submitted By: @blonde-rebellion

Avril Lavigne has been my all-time favorite artist practically since birth. The early 2000s were filled with artists trying to emulate her signature pop-rock sound and punk attitude. Listening to the mainstream radio now, it may seem like that style is gone, but look no further than what the new indie girls are doing for some quality Avril-inspired bops. Artists like Snail Mail and Soccer Mommy have been outspoken about the influence Avril has had on their music, but one of the biggest Avril-influenced artists right now is British indie-pop band, Pale Waves. The second single off their upcoming sophomore album, (Who Am I?, due out in February), 'She’s My Religion' sounds like the best of Under My Skin-era Avril. The gothic pop/rock guitar-driven instrumental fits perfectly with Pale Waves’ signature confessional lyrics. The track is an authentic queer love song (made by actual LGBT artists!) with an insanely catchy chorus that features lyrics - “she’s cold, she’s dark, she’s cynical. She’s forever angry at the world” - that will make you say, "Ugh, she’s literally me". 'She’s My Religion' by Pale Waves is everything a pop-rock fan could want in the year 2020.

7. Given - Winter Story

Submitted By: @Vixen Eyes

I listened to this since October before watching the anime Given and after reading it's manga predecessor (same story events). I loved everything at first listen and not only that but the anime is my fave animation and fave series ever. The EP has five songs and three instrumental tracks (of the five previous songs). The part where the vocalist in the anime sings 'Winter Story' I C R I E D. No — I fucking S O B B E D. The lyrics are about the vocalist's ex boyfriend's suicide after they had a fight and his last words to his ex were, "Are you willing to die for me then?". Let THAT sink in. 

6. Charli XCX - Party 4 U

Submitted By: @jesuswasaloser

Charli XCX announced on April 6 that she would be creating and conceiving an entire album during quarantine using only the resources she had in her LA home and the help of her fans to choose things such as artworks and lyrics. Six weeks later she released how i'm feeling now, one of her best pieces of work to date. The album was created specially for the time we all spent in quarantine and it has some amazing songs where the singer talks about her moments of love and loneliness, but one song in particular is just something else, and that song is 'party 4 u'. 

This song was already a fan favourite, since it had been played many times before by A. G. Cook in many of his sets, and fans would always ask Charli to release it officially - but as she said in an interview for Apple Music, "it had never felt right before now".

It's a simple song, lyrically, that speaks about how Charli only throws a party for one special person, and she hopes that the person "comes through", and hopes that the person will stick by her side through the hard times too. It's a simplistic premise, but during lockdown, where we all had no other choice but to party by ourselves, the song took a whole new meaning. With simple lyrics and production, this song really was like a present for her fans. 

I know that when I look back at the time all spent locked inside, this album, and especially this song, will be the first thing I remember. And that's why I consider it one of the best songs, if not the best, from 2020.

5. Melanie C - Who I Am

Submitted By: @Whoknowsmehere

I loved this song from the first time I heard it. I tend to gravitate towards songs where the message is one that hits me right in the feels. And this song is no exception to that. The message of her no longer worrying about what others think about what she has to say - or, who she is - that is exactly how I feel about myself.  She is telling people - this is who I am. Accept me or don't, I don't care. I am going to be me regardless of what others say. 

I love the music that goes along with the song as well. Excellent arrangement. Very easy to listen to, and still be able to pay attention to the message behind the lyrics. Melanie C came back with an amazing overall album in my opinion. 

4. BLACKPINK - Lovesick Girls

Submitted By: @Capsule

On October 2, 2020, BLACKPINK released the third single from their then-upcoming debut full-length album after four years as a group. The track is the first in the group's history to be co-written by members Jennie and Jisoo, as well as being co-produced by Jennie. The song, although being an overall pop banger, has obvious influences from country, folk and EDM. The song details the feelings of pain and heartbreak after a break up, feeling like you're "born to be alone," but also "still looking for love". It's a subject that can relate to a lot of people - we have all experienced some sort of heartbreak and felt like we would be alone forever. The topic has been done to death, yet the group somehow managed to bring a fresh perspective to the table...that is TALENT.

The song was well-received worldwide, and also helped the group to break various records through their album promotion. The single won 6 music show awards during its promotion, including three consecutive wins on Inkigayo, which lead to them receiving the Triple Crown award on that show. With help from this single, the group's album became the highest-charting album by an all-female group in the United States since 2008's Welcome to the Dollhouse by Danity Kane. BLACKPINK have proven this year that that they are still a force to be reckoned with in the K-Pop industry and that they don't plan on stopping their domination any time soon.

3. Dua Lipa - Break My Heart

Submitted By: @365MM

‘Sophomore slump’? Not a chance!

Back in the oh-so-innocent, pre-pandemic era, Dua Lipa was finally releasing her second album, Future Nostalgia. Great new singles had been dropping over the last few months. Sounded promising. Maybe pick it up when it comes out, I thought.

Old news now, but then everything was turned on its head. Crazy times.

Seemed like there was only constant; “Break My Heart” was the bop everyone was loving at the same time! It really is an amazing combination of a killer dance beat (acknowledged as similar to INXS’ "Need You Tonight"), sublime vocals, and unbelievably catchy lyrics. Great production too, but personally the writing here edges out. It might be a pop song, but the story here is a very mature. An exploration of vulnerability with heartbreak and strength of wisdom out of unsuccessful relationships while still needing to risk it all again in the pursuit of love. I think we’ve all been there. I just wish we could own it as well as Dua.

Arguably the best track on an album that proves to be both ridiculously consistent and infinitely playable. No wonder it broke into the tops of so many charts (including entered at number 6 on the UK Singles and peaking at 13 on the US Billboard Hot 100). Perfect dance-pop! And the video? The colors, the set movement, THAT DANCE? In this year with virtually no live concerts, “Break My Heart” was the performance we needed and deserved. Easily top 20 of 2020.

2. Lady Gaga & Ariana Grande - Rain On Me

Submitted By: @Skinny Legend

Released at the height of COVID-19 lockdowns across the world in May of 2020, 'Rain On Me' was the forerunner quarantine anthem of the year from the moment of its release, even if it was penned months in advance. The self-empowerment lyrics gained new meaning after the struggles that many faced in 2020, with the concept of embracing darkness and pain harkening back to Gaga's 'Marry the Night' days in a beautiful reminder of how to make it through hard times. It further helps that the song is one of Gaga's most rambunctious and high energy in recent years, making it perfect for many late-night lonesome shower disco's that took place over the year. 'Rain On Me' is an important reminder than not only does everyone go through similar struggles, but that these struggles are a lot harder to face when you can celebrate them as the important life-defining moments they are.

1. Kylie Minogue - Say Something

Submitted By: @Cypher

Released during the middle of the year and well into the global lockdown, Kylie Minogue dazzled the world with a shimmering, anthemic disco pop track. The song took on a life of its own during the pandemic with the line, "Can we all be as one again?". It would mark the beginning of her Disco era, propelling her to the #1 position in the UK, beating out Little Mix's Confetti (who she also voiced support for). With the album having 55 000 chart sales (the biggest opening week of the year), Minogue became the first female artist to score a #1 on the UK Official Albums Chart in five consecutive decades. Minogue has undeniable talent, name recognition, and a vocal prowess to appeal to multiple generations. If you love catchy bass lines and callbacks from the '70s, the song and album are definitely going to be contenders for your own year-end list!

Did your favourite track of 2020 make the list? Sound off in the comments below! And from everyone at PHF, Happy New Years - fingers crossed things can only get better from here on out.

The Spice Girls' Forever turns twenty years old this month, and two decades after its release there appears to be more nostalgia and appreciation of the albums musical content than ever before. Released in November 2000 after a short break from their whirlwind of success, Forever marked the first (and last, and only) album recorded by the girls as a four-piece following the surprise departure of Ginger Spice Geri Halliwell. With one member down, the four remaining members worked harder than ever to craft an album that would keep them in the spotlight and maintain relevancy with their now maturing fanbase, who had morphed from pre-teen girls into teenage rebels. It was a journey that led to an American producer, a brand new leather-clad image, and an album that shocked, alienated and even disappointed many of their fans. This is the story of Forever.

Work on the Spice Girls third album began almost immediately following the completion of Spice World in 1997; and although little time had passed since their last recording sessions, the girls had bountiful inspiration for their new songs. In just twelve months they had filmed and released a feature film, also titled Spice World; fired their manager Simon Fuller (credited by many members of the media as the key to their success) and begun to manage themselves as a five piece; and launched their first world tour, Spiceworld Tour in Europe. Early conceptions of the album were blurry; one road found the girls recording masters for a projected live album including all the songs they were performing live every night, while another found them recording and registering covers that would feature alongside original songs on a brand new album produced by frequent collaborators Richard "Biff" Stannard and Matt Rowe. These covers included The Supreme's 'Where Did Our Love Go', a solo for Emma; Eurythmics and Aretha Franklin's 'Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves', a duet between the two Mel's; and Sister Sledge's 'We Are Family', Kool and the Gang's 'Celebration' and Madonna's 'Holiday', all of which would feature the girls singing once again as a five-piece. The girls wanted to prove that they could hold their own as solo artists, and the fusion of solo songs with collaborative works was meant to introduce the public to the notion that they could come and go from the group every several years while still blending well as a five-piece. 'Goodbye', their future post-Ginger single, was also possibly in consideration for this version of the album; although the song is ostensibly about Geri's well-publicised departure from the group, an early version of the track was actually written by her and Emma while she was still a Spice Girl, and it's possible that the song in it's original incarnation was planned to announce the group's future musical hiatus to the public while the girls worked on solo material.

Of course, Geri's shock departure from the group, 54 dates into their 97-date world tour, threw a huge spanner in the works for the third album. Both the live album and the Biff-produced original and cover songs were scrapped, and the girls instead travelled to Nashville in July 1998 in the middle of the American leg of the tour to record a reworked version of 'Goodbye' as a homage to Geri's departure, alongside 'My Strongest Suit', a song for the soundtrack of Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida musical. While rumours swirled that the album would not be released until the year 2000, Mel B dismissed this by reassuring fans that a second single would be recorded as soon as she and Victoria had given birth to their first children in early 1999.

Ultimately, sessions for the album did not begin in earnest until August of that year, when the girls reunited once again with Biff alongside frequent producer Elliot Kennedy to find a musical direction for the album. With Biff, they recorded 'Treasure', 'Go, Go, Go', 'Too Hot' and fan favourite 'W.O.M.A.N.', which would be performed live on their 1999 Christmas in Spiceworld Tour but which has to do this day not seen an official release. Meanwwhile, sessions with Kennedy a few weeks later produced 'A Day In Your Life', 'Give You What You Want', 'Pain Proof' and 'Right Back At Ya'. Of these, only the latter made it onto the final tracklisting of Forever, and only in remixed form to fit in with the R&B-heavy tracks on its parent album; although all of these Kennedy-produced tracks have since leaked online.

While these demos vary in terms of genre, each find the girls experimenting with new sounds while keeping one foot firmly planted in the pop world. 'W.O.M.A.N.' is a brilliant disco throwback that wouldn't sound out of place on a Village People tribute album; 'A Day In Your Life' is a summery, light counterpart to 'Viva Forever' with it's islandy flamenco guitars; 'Give You What You Want' is pure 90s pop that sounds like a female counterpart to any Backstreet Boys song of the era; 'Pain Proof' picks up where 'Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves' left off with it's kiss-off lyrics directed to the media; and the original version of 'Right Back At Ya' is a funky take on R&B not dissimilar to some of the songs on their first album.

It wasn't until later that month though, when the girls hooked up with American hitmaker Darkchild in their London studios, that work on the album seemed to really take off. Darkchild had previously crafted smash hits for the likes of J. Lo, Destiny's Child and Whitney Houston, and the girls felt that his particular brand of icy, polished R&B was just the thing to propel their sound into the new millennium. Alongside Darkchild, the girls penned several songs - future single 'Holler', criminally underrated 'If You Wanna Have Some Fun' and smooth ballad 'Oxygen' - before going their seperate ways for several months to work on solo material.

Following the success of that year's Christmas in Spiceworld Tour, which featured a soft introduction to the girl's new sound - and possibly the best performances of their career to date - the girls performed 'Holler' live at the Brit Awards in March 2000, although the performance went unaired due to "technical issues". By this point it had been fifteen months since their last single, and with a public (and record label) hungering for new music, the girls were feeling the pressure to finish the album - but scheduling was an issue. With all the girls in the midst of working on and promoting their solo projects internationally, and Darkchild being the in demand producer of the moment, getting everyone in the same room was a struggle. Ultimately, three fourths of the group travelled to Miami in April of 2000 to bunker down on the album, while Melanie C skipped writing sessions to focus on her own burgeoning solo career and added her vocals to 'Tell Me Why', 'Get Down With Me' and 'Time Goes By' at a later date. Two months later, the girls returned to London to wrap up sessions on the album with Darkchild's brother Fred Jerkins on album highlight 'Wasting My Time' (a song that Victoria was unavailable to write on and Melanie B was unavailable to record), as well as to remix Kennedy's 'Right Back At Ya'.

All four girls made time to record music videos for 'Holler' and 'Let Love Lead The Way', released as a double A-side in October of 2000, both of which hit #1 in several countries and which were generally regarded as a successful comeback by the media. But with the girls so focused on their own solo careers, little time was left to promote the album, released as Forever a month later. 'Holler' was performed live on a handful of TV shows, but it wasn't long after that the girls split up to tackle different markets, with Melanie C putting in double time promoting her own solo music and Forever throughout Europe, and Melanie B promoting her debut solo single and the Spice Girls album in Asia. Meanwhile, Victoria and Emma seemed the only ones dedicated to just the Spice Girls project, travelling to the US in a half-hearted attempt to push 'Holler' overseas.

This splintered off version of the group, first hinted at in the division of recording sessions and later cemented with segmented promotion, is perhaps symbolic of the main problem in Forever. Darkchild's production is, as per usual, near-perfect; and the girls vocals and harmonies were at their peak on this album. But there's a peculiar coldness to their vocals - perhaps because of the fact that they were recorded at different times, or perhaps simply because their hearts weren't really in the Spice Girls as a group anymore - that mars some of the finished product. Gone were the days of crowding into a recording booth to record 'Spice Up Your Life' during hurried breaks in filming for Spice World, or giggling maniacally after a twelve hour work day and two hours of sleep on English late night shows. For a group whose image had been so defined by their friendships, any crack in the veneer of solidarity was detrimental to their image - and the Forever album brought more than a couple of cracks.

Although commonly regarded as a flop by fans and the media alike, Forever performed relatively well given how little promotion it received. Pitted against Westlife's Coast To Coast in a well-publicised media battle, the album managed a peak of only #2 on the UK charts, but still mustered worldwide sales of four million and three number one singles in many territories (previous single 'Goodbye' had been tacked on to the end of the album by record label executives as a surefire selling point to fans). With further singles and a tour, the album might even have come a little closer to the 13 million copies sold by predecessor Spice World. But plans for a 2001 worldwide tour were scrapped after the girls chose to focus on their solo careers, and single releases for 'If You Wanna Have Some Fun', 'Tell Me Why' and 'Weekend Love' were cancelled after the perceived flop of the album. It seemed that by the end of the millenium, the message of "friendship never ends" had all but withered away while the girls drifted naturally apart.

That's not to say that the Spice Girls didn't give us some great moments during the Forever era. Alongside 'Holler', 'If You Wanna Have Some Fun' and 'Wasting My Time' stand out as fun, slickly produced pop-R&B tracks that all should have been hit singles at some point in time. 'Tell Me Why', a Geri Haliwell diss track, is probably the darkest thing the group has ever released, and hints at some of the anger that was manifesting in the girls during the time. And the ballads, 'Goodbye', 'Time Goes By' and 'Oxygen' - while incredibly cheesy - are sweet in their late 90s vision of love. The 'Holler' music video is debatably even the band's best, bolstered by slick choreography they never could have pulled off in 1996 and some CGI that's actually held up even in 2020. Forever may not have been the album that fans wanted from the girls, and it was certainly marred by a lack of direction and togetherness that most likely never would have happened had one-time bandleader Geri remained in the group. But taken on it's own, notwithstanding the behind-the-scenes conflict and insanely high media expectations, it remains a well-crafted, solid slice of pop from a group of girls that should have had many, many more albums to come.

Spice Girls - Forever is now out on vinyl for the first time, available on Amazon.

2009 was only a decade ago, but it seems like the world back then was a very different place. The powers that be were still reeling after a surprise candidate beat out Hillary Clinton, kids would rush back home after school to catch the latest episode of Jersey Shore (yeah, Netflix wasn't a thing) and I was still recovering from a Christmas that left me ten pounds heavier and $500 more in debt. (Okay, so maybe things haven't changed so much after all.)

But one thing that's definitely changed since then is the music we listen to. 2009 was the transitory space between the pop-rock that defined a lot of the early 2000s and the dance-pop that would blow up later on, and it led to some pretty interesting results. Spoiler alert: a good 70% of this list is totally unlistenable, and/or insanely annoying, but there are some real gems in there too. Are you excited yet?

10. Jason Derulo - Whatcha Say

There may never have been a time in the history of civilisation where people actually wanted to listen to a Jason Derulo song, but in 2009 it seems as though people needed to if just to rid their head of this ridiculously catchy earworm. 'Whatcha Say' started out low on the charts, debuting at #54 in August of 2009, but it permeated people's brains to the extent that it managed to hit #1 three months later. It just goes to show that you don't need a song to be likeable for it to be a hit: all it needs to have is a killer chorus.

9. Jay Sean - Down (Feat. Lil Wayne)

Continuing the trend of irritating douche-faces with passable bodies was the United Kingdom's answer to Jason Derulo, Jay Sean. His breakthrough hit 'Down' is basically the definition of manipulative, featuring the kinds of lyrics that only a needy teenage girl can fall in love with; and the music video, with it's endless lip licking and frat boy head nods, isn't much better. Still, the masses of 2009 must have enjoyed it, because it hit #1 on the 17th of October of that year.

8. Kelly Clarkson - My Life Would Suck Without You

Kelly Clarkson is the queen of kiss-off anthems ('Since U Been Gone' and Ben & Jerry's are singularly responsible for getting me through my last breakup), and she proved that again in 2009 with the sassy 'My Life Would Suck Without You'. The song would never fly now - those beats are something straight off of Katy Perry's debut album and the music video features a relationship a little too tempestuous to be healthy - but at the time it was an instant hit. The track even broke the record for the biggest jump ever on the US charts when it bounced from #97 to #1 in the space of one week. #TeamKelly

7. Flo Rida - Right Round (Feat. Ke$ha)

Like pretty much every Flo Rida song ever, 'Right Round' was the kind of guilty pleasure that you tapped your foot two even while shaking your head in dismay. Even Kesha (known back then by the very, very 2009 stage name Ke$ha) seemed to be a little embarrassed by the song - she refused to appear in the music video, being stood in for by a random black girl, and has never performed it live since it's release. Still, the song was likeable enough to hit #1 on the charts for six weeks straight, and even broke the record for first week sales when it sold 636 000 copies in January of 2009.

6. Kings of Leon - Use Somebody

'Use Somebody' wasn't quite big enough to hit #1, only managing to peak at #4 on the charts - but it sold enough copies to hit #14 on the end of year charts. A weird flash in the pan of a song, the track has a total classic rock vibe that would have equally suited a 1999 release, which means it's actually aged pretty well over the past ten years. That's more than can be said for Kings of Leon themselves, who have basically faded into complete obscurity at this point.

5. Britney Spears - Womanizer

2008 was a bad year for Britney Spears - think shaved head, umbrella bashing and crying in an English accent on the sidewalk - but she made the ultimate comeback in 2009 with 'Womanizer'. The track makes full use of Spears' - how should we say this? - distinctive voice and fun vocal stylings, and the music video is one of her best ever even if it is pretty much just a remake of 'Toxic'. The track paid off well for Spears commercially, too, becoming her first #1 on the charts since debut single '...Baby One More Time'.

4. Miley Cyrus - Party in the U.S.A

She'd been building up to it for a while, but 'Party in the U.S.A.' was Miley Cyrus's first real "You're not even my real dad!" moment - and at the time it caused quite a stir. Hannah Montana was declared dead on arrival when Miley performed the song at the Teen Choice Awards by dancing around a pole in Daisy Dukes that were short enough for Disney to release an official statement, and Miley received her fair share of flack. Still, the song was popular enough to hit #2 on the charts in 2009, before climbing up the charts again in 2011 following the death of Osama Bin Laden. The reason? Murica!

3. Jay-Z - Empire State of Mind (Feat. Alicia Keys)

It may be a total cheese-fest and a major misrepresentation of New York City's true gutter grime, but there's something so nostalgic and emotive about Jay and Alicia's 'Empire State of Mind' that you can't help but love it anyway. The song was a hit when it was first released too, becoming Jay-Z's first #1 on the charts over his thirteen year career and going on to win two Grammy's. I'm pretty sure this song and Gossip Girl were entirely responsible for giving every millennial ever the belief that they could make it in the city that never sleeps.

2. Lady Gaga - Poker Face

If you're anywhere between the age of 18 and 25, you'll definitely remember that solid month back in 2009 where 'Poker Face' was literally the only thing being played on the radio (remember that thing you used to play in the car?). The song's popularity wasn't completely unfounded - it's still a little bit of a banger, if super dated at this stage - but it was definitely overplayed during it's ascension to the top ten, where it remained for 18 weeks with a week at #1.

1. The Black Eyed Peas - I Gotta Feeling

'I Gotta Feeling' was by far the most overplayed song of 2009, and yet somehow people still wanted more. The track hit #1 in over 20 charts worldwide - including the US where it topped the charts for 14 weeks - and was the highest-selling song of the century until 2014 when Pharrell's 'Happy' robbed it of the title. Even though we can never imagine this kind of song working in a post-Trump era, it's nice to listen back to and remember when things were simpler.

What's your favourite song from 2008? Let us know in the comments down below!

If 2018's list of the best songs of the year shows us anything, it's that the ability to define pop music in the 21st century is becoming increasingly more difficult. Gone are the days when record label executives and radio DJ's defined the sound of the summer in highly organised meetings; nowadays, listeners are willing and able to seek out their own finds, creating intimate emotional bonds with their favourite discoveries that last long after their songs end. Our list of 2018's greatest albums reinforces that idea, bouncing between rock, hip-hop, R&B and dance effortlessly.

What's somewhat more inexplicable is the list's focus on comebacks from female artists who haven't had hits in years. In 2018, each of these women managed to reinvent themselves for a generation that's impossible to pin down, and prove that life doesn't end for a singer once they leave the Forbes Hottest 30 Under 30 list or vanish from the cover of US Weekly. It just goes to show that while there's more choice and diversity than ever in pop music, a familiar face is sometimes all an audience wants to see in their Spotify library.

Enjoy our picks for 2018's best albums down below, and for a walk down memory lane don't forget to check out our lists from 2017, 2016 and 2015!

Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper - A Star Is Born

A Star Is Born was the cinematic event of 2018, and with it's Academy Award hype and meme-worthy publicity stunting it's also been the unexpected project that made one-time sensation Lady Gaga cool again. The film's soundtrack had a lot to do with that, hitting the refresh button on Gaga's career while making a would-be star out of Bradley Cooper: for as difficult as it is to believe, there was still some uncultured people who were unaware of Gaga's talent, and who needed her singing over some rock instrumentals to believe it. Let's leave that in 2018, shall we?

The soundtrack's success is ironic given the fact that it's probably Gaga's least impressive project overall thanks to a collection of factors. Even when you take out the dialogue tracks, the album is an impressive nineteen tracks long, but sadly it feels as though around half of the songs were just thrown onto the album as gifts for her fans who had waited so long rather than for the impeccable quality we've come to expect from Gaga. 'Heal Me', 'Before I Cry' and 'Music To My Eyes' have some of the worst lyricism we've heard all year, while the electronic duo of 'Hair Body Face' and 'Why Did You Do That' - while bops in a semi-ironic fashion - only make sense in the context of the film and seem incredibly awkward on the country-tinged album. Despite that, there's enough truly great songs on here for an EP of classics, particularly Cooper's touching 'Maybe It's Time', the rock duets 'Shallow', 'Diggin' My Grave' and 'I Don't Know What Love Is' and the holy trinity of Gaga power ballads 'Always Remember Us This Way', 'Is That Alright' and 'I'll Never Love Again'. It may not entirely work on it's own, but in tandem with it's accompanying film the A Star Is Born soundtrack hits all the marks you'd want it to.

Nicki Minaj - Queen

Nicki Minaj had a false start - or three - in 2017 with her trio of singles 'Changed It', 'No Frauds' and 'Regret In Your Tears', but in 2018 she proved that she was ready for her official comeback. Queen plays out exactly like Nicki's three past albums have - with a section for hard-hitting hip-hop rhymes like 'Barbie Dreams' and 'Good Form', a section for potential crossover hits like 'Bed' with Ariana Grande and 'Thought I Knew You' with The Weeknd, a section for vulnerable slow-jams with 'Ganja Burn' and 'Run & Hide', and a whole lot of random filler thrown in for good measure.

And even if her schizophrenic style of putting together albums may be losing it's charm, that's not to say that there aren't any masterpieces to be found among the rubble. Both 'Chun-Li' and 'Good Form' have a frenetic energy pulsing through their beats that's physically hard not to dance to, while the Labrinth and Eminem assisted 'Majesty' and 'LLC' are both aided by the kind of rapping we wish Nicki could bring us all the time. Like all of Minaj's albums, Queen has it's ups and downs, but that doesn't stop it from highlighting her unique talents. All she needs to do now is learn to direct those talents into a cohesive project for once.

Christina Aguilera - Liberation

Following the commercial failure of Bionic and the generic blandness of Lotus, Christina Aguilera fans would be forgiven for thinking that the 90s queen would never release another great album again. Thankfully, she managed to prove them wrong with this year's Liberation, which successfully propelled XTincta into the mainstream even while not quite matching the brilliance of some of her past reinventions.

He may have had his ups and downs in recent years, but Kanye West has to at least be given some credit for his production roles in the album's two best songs: the fiesty, kinetic lead single 'Accelerate' and the album's true opener 'Maria'. A further shoutout has to go to Demi Lovato who lends her vocals to second single 'Fall In Line'; although XTina seems perfectly capable of holding her own on classic power ballad 'Twice'. The rest of the album seems to be built around these four pillars, with high-octane danceable tracks blending with softcore R&B and retro flashbacks in a fashion that's distinctively XTina. This is the album's biggest drawback: it's four standouts are outweighed by some very interchangeable filler, when it could really use one or more two surefire hits (why is no one calling Bonnie McKee nowadays?). Even so, Liberation makes for a great listen for any XTina fan and a promising return to form for her career.

Rita Ora - Phoenix

Rita Ora's second album Phoenix may have been a long time in the making, but she's never been one to disappoint. Following the release of her impressive debut ORA back in 2012, Rita embarked on a Homeric odyssey for her second album, with the project undergoing at least three different variations before it's ultimate release. One version was recorded with 'I Will Never Let You Down' as the lead single under the guidance of her boyfriend Calvin Harris, but scrapped when they broke up; another was recorded with 'Poison' as the lead single, but scrapped when she left Roc Nation; and the third was recorded throughout one month in 2017 and released in November to little hype.

The songs themselves reflect that odyssey, transversing Rita's current EDM bops like the song of 2016 'Anywhere' and the annoyingly catchy 'Let You Love Me', as well as collaborations with the late Avicii on 'Lonely Together', Liam Payne on Fifty Shades Freed soundtrack cut 'For You' and Rudimental on surefire hit 'Summer Love'. Like her first album, Phoenix also has a few outliers: lead single 'Your Song' is a little more poppy, controversial track 'Girls' is pure bubblegum and 'First Time High' was a misstep that should have been kept on someone's external hard drive. But even with these outliers, Phoenix has enough excellent tracks to appeal to any pop music lover, backed up by Ora's commendable vocals and winning personality. Ora has all the elements of a superstar: all she needs is for the world outside of Europe to realise it.

Mariah Carey - Caution

It's safe to say that Caution was one of the world's least hyped albums in 2018. Following her disastrous New Year's Eve performance back in 2016, an ill-advised reality show and the false start that was 'I Don't', even Mariah's most diehard fans were wary to see what she had up her sleeve for her fifteenth studio album. Luckily, Mariah seemed quick to snap to her senses and managed to release an album that made the world fall in love with her again.

From start to finish, Caution manages to simultaneously encapsulate the 90s image of Mariah that is well known and well loved, while still sounding fresh and current. Take our first taste of the album 'GTFO', which by all accounts should have been a tryhard mess that wouldn't be astray on Me. I Am Mariah...The Elusive Chanteuse. But don't let the title fool you; 'GTFO' is a down-tempo, moody heartbreak song, which is only slightly offset by it's alternatively angsty or comedic chorus. 'GTFO' wasn't a hit for Mariah, but it did reach meme status, which is a step up for her in 2018; and we wouldn't be surprised if future hit 'A No No' managed to to the same. Even if she doesn't quite achieve that, Mariah has still gifted her fans with a handful of her famed heartbreak ballads to enjoy: from stirring lead single 'With You' to the intensely vulnerable 'Portrait'. Caution may not have been a smash album, but if nothing else it did what might have once been considered impossible: it changed the public's perception of one of the most misunderstood singers in music history, and set her up for future wins. Let's hope it doesn't take another four years for Mariah to bask in them.

What was your favourite album of 2018? Let us know in the comments down below!

Every year around this time, the #PopHatesFlops community comes together to celebrate the year in pop music and to compile our annual list of our favourite songs of the year. While previous years lists have been microcosms of the genres that populated them - last year focused heavily on country-pop, while 2016 was big on slinky synthpop and 2015 was loving the tropical pop trend - this year's list is remarkable for it's lack of trendiness, showing that in 2018 there's no longer any such thing as an era in pop music. It's a testament to how fractured the industry is in the age of streaming apps and the dwindling importance of radio that our members have chosen such wide ranging songs as piano ballads, acoustic guitar work and 90s-styled R&B, and that all of them sound current and fresh.

For the first time ever, we've included a Spotify playlist of this year's entries so you can listen along to the songs while you read our thoughts. Whether you're out partying it up at your local New Year's celebrations or spending a quiet day nursing your hangover at home, we hope that this list will bring you joy as you celebrate the coming of another year. And once again, we have to say a big thank you to the amazing members who make not only this list, but also this forum possible. We love you all and we wish you only the best in 2019!

18. Clean Bandit - Baby (Feat. Marina & Luis Fonsi)

Submitted By: @Skinny Legend

Little had been heard of the artist previously known as Marina and the Diamonds since 2015's experimental Froot album, which is why it was all the more surprising that she decided to make her long-awaited comeback with dance-pop sensations Clean Bandit and generic Hispanic stereotype Luis Fonsi. 'Baby' is just as generic as it's composers would imply, but that doesn't stop it from being one of the best-produced and straight up fun songs of the year. Marina handles the change from squeaky sex kitten in the verse to acoustic guitar balladeer in the pre-chorus to triumphant Selena impersonator in the chorus with style, and even the typically irritating Fonsi manages to impress with his brand of Latin flair. Hopefully 'Baby' is a sign that Marina's ready to give up her pretentions of making alternative music in favour of a more laidback, carefree style.

17. Avril Lavigne - Head Above Water

Submitted By: @kallumlavigne

Avril Lavigne's powerful comeback after a long hiatus 'Head Above Water' - apart from the obvious green screen and body double in the video - is stunning. The song itself is quiet: a powerful, slow ballad that finds redemption towards it's last chorus, and it's a very different sound from the in your face guitar-based pop-punk tunes she's known for. But the piano delivers well, the instrumental is a euphoric experience and Avril's semi-soft vocals take the crown this year for me. Also, its low, but it's on Billboard's list of the best songs of 2018.

16. Kim Petras - Tell Me It's a Nightmare

Submitted By: @Turn Ya Head

Kim Petras, perhaps the most promising upcoming singer from the past three years, has released numerous buzz singles between 2017 and 2018; but in my opinion, her best work so far is one of the tracks from her Halloween-themed EP Turn Off The Light, Vol. 1.

'Tell Me It's a Nightmare' is a dark dance-oriented track which follows a remarkable instrumental song on the EP, creating an ethereal flow that some albums seem to lack these days. The ambiguous, yet intriguing lyrics, manage to convey a sense of horror and desperation that slightly contrasts with the rest of the EP. 

"Tell me it's a nightmare/And you ain't going nowhere/Try to save ya, warn ya, keep you alive/Try to stop ya, but you paid the price", sings Petras in a pleading manner. Who is she trying to save? What is she trying to save them from? Only her and the person who this song is dedicated to will ever know. Maybe she's trying to save them from herself. Maybe she's trying to save them from a potentially abusive relationship. The mystery allows the listener to apply the lyrics to their own personal life and therefore makes them relatable to almost anyone. 

The high-pitched vocals showcase Petras's singing ability and charisma. The production allows her crystal clear voice to shine and complement the haunting bass that's so prominent in the instrumental.  The song ends with a haunting segment, in which she repeatedly sings non-lexical vocals in a catchy tune.

What else could a pop fan ask from a song? Good lyrics, stellar production, a carefully engineered instrumental and outstanding vocals. 'Tell Me It's a Nightmare' might not be a mainstream hit or a chart topper, but it surely is a masterpiece.

15. Kacey Musgraves - Happy & Sad

Submitted By: @nanapop99

I used to hate country music and I probably still do, but the good sis Kacey really did that with her latest album Golden Hour. In my opinion the album deserves to win Album of the Year at the Grammy's, but that's another subject. Anyways, country music is a genre I don't really listen to but these past few years we've seen pop divas like Gaga, Miley, Kesha and Kylie bringing their yeehaw out of nowhere, so you could say that I've gotten used to that type of music.

I first heard of Kacey in a meme comparing Carly Rae Jepsen's E•MO•TION to Golden Hour and I was really wondering what was so special about that country girl. A few months after that, I heard a snippet of 'High Horse' and it was a bop at first listen so I decided to download the album while preparing for my trip to Vietnam and South Korea. I listened to the first half of the album on the plane and it really was so good! I was shook and my wig definitely flew to Texas or Tennessee or whatever yeehaw place you can think of.

But the track that really stood out for me was 'Happy & Sad'. I don't think that there's anything special sonically about the track but the vibe, the lyrics, and the E•MO•TION of it that meant I couldn't stop my tears from falling while listening to the track for the first time. Unfortunately, my moment had to be cut short because the plane was about to land and I had to pretend that I was crying because of the loud noises.

I was lowkey a mess back in July because I've just graduated high school and I didn't really know where I'd end up in September, study-wise. And while I was happy to travel with my family, I was kinda sad at the same time within my personal life so you could say that I was "lost.mp3". But this song and the album in general were like a warm hug for me. Golden Hour is the soundtrack to my summer 2018 and 'Happy & Sad' is definitely my song of the year! Who knew I had to become a space cowboy in order to survive this year?

14. Little Mix - Wasabi

Submitted By: @Ari

2018 saw the release of LM5 from legendary iconic girl group Little Mix. After the massive success of their previous album Glory Days, they had big boots to fill but they did not disappoint!

Many songs on this album are very different to their previous sound which has received some mixed reactions, but one song we can all hopefully agree on is the iconic bop that is 'Wasabi'. Penned by none other than legendary group member and LGBTQ icon Jade Thirlwall, as well as written and produced by the iconic MNEK, 'Wasabi' is the hoe anthem that we all need in our lives.

From the catchy lyrics to the boppy beat and bass to even the harmonising "oh oh"'s, Little Mix show us that they will never be limited to one sound as a girl group and that each album they give us will be unique and fresh and work with all four members no matter the style of song. And that is why 'Wasabi' is one of the best songs of 2018.

13. Mariah Carey - GTFO

Submitted By: @Skinny Legend

Mariah Carey was never entirely gone from the music scene, with releases like the festive 'The Star' and the messy 'I Don't' holding fans over since her last album, 2014's Me. I Am Mariah... The Elusive Chanteuse. Even so, our first offering from this year's Caution plays out just like a comeback single should, harking back to the classics that made gave Mariah her 18 #1's while propelling her unique form of balladry into the modern age. Don't let the title fool you; 'GTFO' is a down-tempo, moody heartbreak song, which is only slightly offset by it's angsty and comedic chorus of "How 'bout you get the fuck out?". While 'GTFO' was far from a hit, it did reach meme status pretty quickly and it's sound is probably the closest thing to a smash song that Mariah could get to in 2018. Fingers crossed that the next release from Caution will do a little better.

12. Ariana Grande - No Tears Left To Cry

Submitted By: @Fetish

My favorite song of this year has to be the gorgeous introduction to Ariana Grande's fourth album Sweetener. 'No Tears Left To Cry' almost instantly became a hit due to its beautiful production and even dreamier music video. The track defied expectations for Ariana, as she took inspiration from the Manchester tragedy to curate both a meaningful hard-hitting track and a seemingly lighthearted dance track. The upbeat nature of the production secures the song as a beautiful track filled with the celebration of all things, as Ariana twists the idea of no longer being able to cry into a transition towards happiness. With a catchy instrumental and even catchier lyrics by Max Martin, the song has easily established itself as one of the best songs of 2018 in my books.

11. Tinashe - Ooh La La

Submitted By: @Glamleska

Tinashe Jorgensen Kachingwe is the slept on R&B up-and-comer that's been championed as an unbeatable contender for seven years running, and this year she takes the stage with my favourite song 'Ooh La La'. Though this year has been considered a difficult one for Tinashe – from being dropped by RCA to going home earlier than deserved on Dancing With The Stars to the unjustly scrapped EP project NASHE – she still delivered one of my favorite R&B tracks of this decade.

Track number five, 'Ooh La La', off her sophomore album Joyride has remained at the top of my rotation since its release. Though the album was heavily criticized, I found this track to be an incredible standout. I didn’t mind the album either, with the exception of there being way too many features. Between the nostalgic squeaking sound effect reminiscent of Trillville’s 'Some Cut', the heavy pulsating 808s, and her smooth harmonies over the chorus, 'Ooh La La' was everything I needed from an R&B track in 2018. It’s a shame it wasn’t released as a single over some other questionable choices - *cough* 'Me So Bad' - but I digress. Here’s to 2019 and another year of hoping my Aquarian sister finds some success independently! STOP SLEEPING ON TINASHE 2K19. #BuyJoyrideOniTunes

10. Lady Gaga - I'll Never Love Again

Submitted By: @Skinny Legend

Although she's best known for her dance/pop tracks, Lady Gaga has always been an incredible balladeer, as she's shown countless times in fan favourite songs like 'Brown Eyes', 'Speechlees' and 'Angel Down'. But while she's explored rooting tooting rock ballads and unsettling acoustic work, Gaga had never lent her vocals to a straight up power ballad before the release of this year's A Star Is Born soundtrack. 'I'll Never Love Again' is the final track on that album, although it appears as the penultimate song on the tracklisting as well with a slightly different ending, and after the high energy rock and roll attitude of the soundtrack and the movie it's the perfect song to listen to as the audience reflects back on the events of the story. Although the lyrics can be slightly over-sentimental and cheesy, the beautiful orchestral work can't be faulted and Gaga's voice sounds the best it ever has, even without any hint of Autotune or post-production work. Put simply, 'I'll Never Love Again' is a masterpiece on par with Whitney's 'I Will Always Love You', Mariah's 'Without You' and Celine's 'All By Myself', and the only shame about the song is that the charts didn't revere it as such.

9. Cher - The Winner Takes It All

Submitted By: @Ruthless Love

Yes, the song itself is not from 2018, however Cher's rendition is and it is magically perfect. Following her role in Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again, the legendary Cher announced she'd be releasing an album full of ABBA covers, and the result was Dancing Queen. The album itself is flawlessly perfect from beginning to end, and the standout song for me is the second-to-last, 'The Winner Takes it All'. Originally released by ABBA in 1980 from their Super Trouper album, the song is magical in its lyrical content, and under the direction of Cher and music producer Mark Taylor, it's truly uplifting and easy-listening at its best. It's still ABBA, but with a special twist of Cher-riffic talent and gold. This song is not-to-be-missed.

8. Hailee Steinfeld & BloodPop® - Capital Letters

Submitted By: @Cypher

There were a lot of songs this year that were good in glimpses, but one that stood out is 'Capital Letters' by Hailee Steinfeld and BloodPop®. Coming down from his production on the Justin Bieber collaboration 'Friends', BloodPop® was able to capture the cinematics and emotions of a new romance. With Ellie Goulding thrown into the mix as a co-writer, the song comes together with some of the highest highs of 2018. 'Capital Letters' is a feel-good song about falling into the whirlwind that comes with any new relationship. After what seemed to be a melodramatic 2017 full of anticipation, this song kicked off 2018 with new goals, bright rays of light, and hope for a better tomorrow. Though the single did not become a smash hit in any region, it thrives as an underrated piece of pop perfection with a timeless sound.

7. Au/Ra - Emoji

Submitted By: @Cock Destroyer

'Emoji' is underrated and one of my most played songs this year. I thought 'Panic Room' would be Au/Ra's best song but then she released this masterpiece. I love the production, the melodies, everything. It's quite different from today's pop but still a pop song. I feel like if t.A.t.U released a song today, it would sound like this. 

6. Demi Lovato - Sober

Submitted By: @Whoknowsmehere

I have listened to a lot of my favorite songs from 2018 (and there are a quite a few of them) over the last couple of days to determine my fave; but this one particular song just kept coming back to me over and over. 

The fact that this song hit so close to home for me is my primary reason for choosing it. That, and I actually enjoyed listening to it very much over and over again. I have probably listened to it at least a hundred times since it came out. I will not get into a long drawn out explanation, other than to say I know what exactly Demi is talking about in this song.

I know this song did not get a lot of air time. Nor much, if any, acclaim. But for me that is not what makes a great song. The message is what did it for me. 

5. Rina Sawayama - Cherry

Submitted By: @Skinny Legend

Rina Sawayama might still be a relative unknown in the pop music scene, but in the burgeoning realm of underground queer pop artists which includes Charli XCX and Kim Petras she's a frontrunner of the genre. Like these two artists she's fully capable of self-referential and ironic hyper-pop bops, as she proved last year with 'Cyber Stockholm Syndrome'; but with 'Cherry', the Japanese-English Sawayama proves that she has more up her sleeve than just that. 'Cherry' is not only a slice of alternative pop heaven in it's production, but a vulnerable admission of sexual curiosity that's rarely heard in pop music. "Down the subway, you looked my way/With your girl gaze, with your girl gaze/That was the day everything changed/Couldn't stay the same" introduces the song, and for the most part it's the perfect introduction of Sawayama herself - soft yet strong, insecure yet confident, and enigmatic yet honest. If Rina has more "cherries" like this on the way, then we get the feeling the sky's the limit for how far she'll go.

4. Mark Ronson - Nothing Breaks Like a Heart (Feat. Miley Cyrus)

Submitted By: @Tweener

After taking a social media hiatus, the legendary Miley Cyrus teamed up with the amazing producer Mark Ronson (known mostly for his work with Lady Gaga) and created the song of the millennium! Miley did what other girls wished to do and what they should've done a long time ago. The song and the powerful music video convey a very important message of contemporary society mindlessly following the news about the Kardashians, and other celebrities not paying enough attention to real problems like police brutality, racism, kids running around with guns, greed in stores, and clerks' hypocrisy. The video is comprised of many LGBTQ references as well, which doesn't come as a surprise considering Miley is an LGBTQ icon who, unlike many other pop girls nowadays, fight for our rights not for publicity but because she truly believes in our cause. This is a new gay anthem which charts high all around the world. It's undeniably one of the best songs of 2018 if not of all time.

3. Robyn - Honey

Submitted By: @BlackoutZone

Crowned the second best song of 2018 by Pitchfork for a reason, the title track of Robyn's recent album is a joyful journey of the senses. After two years of teasing, expectations for the track reached high heavens yet Robyn effortlessly exceeded them all and delivered the masterpiece we all wished for. The song itself is so juicy and so flourishing as it builds that you can almost taste it. The sound becomes the flavour of golden honey waves that your mind surfs on while listening. Though Mariah and Katy B already showed us how seductive honey can be, it's never been done with such delicacy, and Robyn totally elevated the concept of it being a pure sexual pleasure.

Quote

And the waves come in and they're golden/
But down in the deep the honey is sweeter

2. Kim Petras - Heart To Break

Submitted By: @Skinny Legend

Kim Petras first hit my radar with her insanely catchy ode to consumerism 'I Don't Want It At All', but it was with 'Heart To Break' that she truly claimed her position as one to watch. 'Heart To Break' went on to become my most listened song of 2018, but it's more than just an earworm. In describing the fairytale of a girl who gives her heart away even while knowing it will soon be broken, Petras ascends to the level of lyrical mastery shown by artists such as Robyn and Utada Hikaru, both of whom pen bittersweet pop songs with danceable beats made even more brilliant by their heartbreaking lyrics. 'Heart To Break' is impressive on it's own, but when you consider it in the context of Kim's strong voice, brilliant lyricism and unique image it makes you question why she isn't already #1 on every chart.

1. Christina Aguilera - Accelerate (Feat. Ty Dolla $ign & 2 Chainz)

Submitted By: @liberation

Six years after the not so well received album Lotus, Christina Aguilera released 'Accelerate', the first taste of her sixth album (or eighth if you count Mi Reflejo and My Kind of Christmas). When it was revealed that the song was produced by Kanye West and featured Ty Dolla $ign and 2 Chainz, everyone knew that Urbantina was making her comeback, but I guess that we were all very surprised after our first listen, because the song is so...weird? The intro is very strange with hypnotic Ty vocals and heavy drums, and when Xtina starts with her verses there's a lot of ad libs by him. The song is pretty much a duet between two of them until the beat changes drastically and 2 Chainz joins with an iconic bridge.

When the song ended I was shocked because it was the messiest thing I've ever heard, but that's the reason why I loved it. I'm pretty sure that the reason why XTina is my favorite artist is because she's not afraid of taking risks. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. When it comes to 'Accelerate', I think it's the best song off Liberation and also her best song in a very long time, so I guess it worked for me. The video is very simple and sometimes it even looks a bit low budget, but I don't mind; I think it's sexy and fits the song very well, and it shows that she still owns her sexuality and doesn't give two fucks about what people think of her. At the end of the day, 'Accelerate' is a 10/10 song that is not predictable at all and I believe that it will age very well, and that’s why it is my song of the year.

What songs did we forget about in our hunt for 2018's best track? Let us know in the comments down below!

“I don’t know her.”

It was the throwaway sentence - delivered with seeming sincerity, a simpering smile and an innocent nod of the head that was either sarcastic or supportive depending on interpretation - that went on to become one of the Internet’s first real memes. Mariah Carey’s simple proclamation, in response to an interviewer's question about Jennifer Lopez, is one of the finest textbook definitions of shade that anyone could ever ask for.

And yet, behind those four words is a world of pain, heartbreak and jealousy that most people know nothing about. It’s a world that reads like something straight out of a telenovela, populated by characters like a long-suffering wife, a controlling patriarch, and a young ingenue who tears them apart. This is the real story behind the infamous Mariah Carey and Jennifer Lopez feud.

Our story starts with an 18 year old Mariah Carey, who with her classically trained operatic voice and long tousled curls had big dreams of being a superstar. In 1988, Carey found her way into a record label executive's gala, where she handed her Ben Margulies-produced demo tape over to the head of Sony Records Tommy Mottola. Carey and Margulies would later go on to have a meeting with Mottola, who, believing that Margulies was Carey’s boyfriend, made it his mission to push him out of the picture as he signed her to a $350 000 recording deal for ten albums.

Mottola quickly took a large hand in Carey’s career, to the extent that it was said that the two were barely ever seen without each other. Later in life, Mottola would admit that he was “obsessive” when it came to Carey, but with the caveat that “that was the reason for her success”. Rumours of a romance began to fly about the 39 year old married man and his 18 year old muse, and it wasn’t long before they were proven to be true; Mottola proposed Carey in 1992, two years after her first album release and only shortly after the dissolution of his nineteen year marriage.

Carey and Mottola at their $500 000 wedding ceremony in 2003

Sadly, the marriage was not to be a happy one. Carey suffered from non-stop reports of favouritism, with more than one reporter suggesting that she had married Mottola only for his connections. Even more troubling was the fact that Carey, who had never been in a serious relationship prior to Mottola, was facing emotional abuse almost daily by her husband that left her "miserable, crying, and alone" and dreaming that someone would "kidnap" her. Carey would later recount that she was forced to remain "sequestered" from the outside world by Mottola, and that she had to "get permission to leave" the house. “He didn't even know why I always had my bag with me,” she would say years later. “But in my mind I thought, 'If something jumps off...I'm ready.'”

Although Carey finally managed to escape her marriage to Mottola in 1997, that wouldn’t be the end of their relationship. After all, Mottola was head of Sony Records, and still wielded great power over her career. After some conflict over the direction Carey's career would take, Butterfly was released in late 1997, introducing the sexy image and breathy vocals that would become her signature in later years. But by the time Rainbow - the last album Carey would record for Sony - was released in 1999, her relationship with the label had completely deteriorated. The label wanted a big pop song to be released as the third single to heat up the lukewarm radio play for the album, but fittingly Mariah wanted 'Can't Take That Away (Mariah's Theme)' - a ballad about finding your inner strength based on her seperation from Mottola - to be released instead. She told her fans about the dispute and instructed they request the song on radio to force Sony into an official release, which they eventually did only half heartedly and with a limited promotional budget.

Carey would soon sign a record-breaking $100 million contract with EMI, but money couldn’t buy her happiness. By 2001, Carey had begun work on a semi-autobiographical film called Glitter, and the film and it’s accompanying soundtrack had created a workload that she couldn’t sustain. After breaking up with her boyfriend of three years Luis Miguel, Carey began posting disturbing voice messages on her official website announcing that she would quit music. An erratic appearance on Total Request Live in which Carey handed out ice cream and performed a striptease for Carson Daly did nothing to help her public image. And meanwhile, Mottola back at Sony was doing everything he could to destroy her.

Mottola had first discovered Jennifer Lopez in 1997, when she was fresh off the heels of her star turn in Selena and sending Spanish-language demos to various record labels. By this point, Mottola had recently separated from Carey, and it seemed his self-proclaimed “obsession” with her had been transferred to Lopez. Mottola sent J. Lo to the top of the charts with On the 6 and the international smash hit 'Waiting for Tonight', but he wasn’t done yet.

Lopez’s sophomore album J. Lo was released in 2001, and it featured a song entitled ‘I’m Real’. The song sampled Yellow Magic Orchestra’s ‘Firecracker’ - a song which strangely hadn’t been requested for sample at all up until three weeks before it's recording, when Mariah Carey had requested to use it for her song ‘Loverboy’.

This was a deliberate ploy by Tommy Mottola to sabotage Carey’s ‘Loverboy’ release, which was already scheduled to be the first single from the Glitter soundtrack and an instrumental part of the film itself. Unable to reshoot the scenes containing 'Loverboy', Mariah scrambled to find a new sample to base it on, settling on Cameo’s ‘Candy’. However, she would go on to release a single remix of 'Loverboy' with Da Brat which utilised ‘Firecracker’ in the melody, with Da Brat rapping, “Hate on me much as you want to/You can't do what the fuck I do/Bitches be emulating me daily.”

This wasn’t the only way in which Mottola undercut Mariah’s Glitter campaign. Mariah had recorded a track called ‘If We’ for the project with Ja Rule, which was his first foray into R&B. Irv Gotti would later recall that shortly after the record was finished, he was contacted by Mottola “obscenely early” in the morning and instructed to make a collaboration for Jennifer and Ja Rule "in the same style" of 'If We'.

“He calls me because he found out that me and [Ja] Rule cut a record with Mariah Carey,” Gotti would later say. “And at the time he hated Mariah Carey. So he was pumping Jennifer Lopez to compete.” Mottola even loaned Gotti the company jet to ensure that Ja Rule, who was on tour at the time, would be able to film scenes for the music video for this collaboration. Gotti worked with Ashanti and Ja Rule to craft ‘I’m Real (Murder Remix)’, which was released shortly after to huge success and which sounded more than a little similar to ‘If We’.

While J. Lo topped charts, Mariah began a downward spiral which started with the lukewarm reception to ‘Loverboy’ and only continued when the Glitter soundtrack was released on September 11th, 2001 (yes, that September 11). Matters only got worse when her father, who she had had little contact with since childhood, died of cancer, and she was bought out of her contract with EMI for $50 million.

Despite this, Carey didn’t speak about the situation between her, Mottola and Lopez publicly until some time later. Speaking to MTV about the ‘Firecracker’ fiasco in 2002, Carey stated “Let's just say they did me a favor. And they know who they are. And thank you, sweetie. And your friend who did it with you!" The infamous “I don’t know her” remark wasn’t uttered until an interview on the shoot of 'Bringin' on the Heartbreak' in 2003, when Carey had clearly moved from sadness onto pettiness; and since then it’s been reiterated many times in many different ways.

Which leaves us wondering: will this story ever have a happy ending for Carey and Lopez? Carey’s annoyance towards her manipulative ex-husband’s new plaything was understandable at the time, but this many years on it seems obvious that Lopez was only a pawn in Mottola’s game, and that he was the only one to blame for her career downfall. Lopez, who for her part has alternated between supportive and shady when asked about Mariah, is still on top years later, and we’re sure that Mariah could use some girl power to help her image recover from that New Year’s Eve fiasco. Here’s hoping that in the age of #MeToo and #TimesUp, the two will someday put this feud to rest and come out with an anti-Mottola duet of their own. ‘I Never Knew Him’, perhaps?

For most people - especially including fans of the late Selena and Hispanic people looking for representation - Jennifer Lopez is seen as some kind of ethereal goddess: a jack of all trades who bounces from dancing to acting to singing as successfully as she bounces up off the floor during an accidental fall in her choreography. But for others - particularly fans of J. Lo's rival Mariah Carey, who's been outspoken in her shade of the Latina diva - Jenny is a fraud who's entire success has come from ripping off other artists and dirty business tactics.

Of course, neither of these sides are accurate, and the murky truth lies somewhere between both of them. But one thing that's undeniable is that J. Lo's musical success is incredibly reliant on a group of unsung heroes who ironically often did more singing than she did. Over the course of her career - but particularly before 2007's Brave album - Jenny's had a particularly nasty habit of "borrowing" vocals from other female artists to pass off as her own. The trend started with her first ever single, and generally consisted of other females singing the choruses - and occasionally the verses and bridges - of her song in their entirety for her, without any credit as a featured artist.

Naturally, using artists vocals without credit is wrong, but that doesn't change the fact that it happens. Beyoncé is known to have stolen Kelly Rowland's vocals for her solo single 'Check On It', and Britney has long been rumoured to be using sound-a-like Myah Marie for all of her recordings since 2011. The trend was especially common in hip-hop, although in these cases it was generally obvious that the male rapping wasn't also the female on the chorus.

But what makes Jennifer's tactics notable is not only how many times she did this, but also the lack of recognition regarding it. Jenny would lip sync to these vocals in music videos and on stage, and no one would bat an eyelash, even in cases where the vocals were clearly not hers. Aside from that, it's interesting to see how many popular artists - including Ashanti, Christina Milian and Brandy - were involved in taking over vocal duties, and how many of them could have had hits if they'd have been able to sing these songs themselves.

Something we should note is that while we're only including fifteen songs on this particular list, there's many many more we're not referencing which J. Lo definitely "appropriated" some vocals for. In fact, the vast majority of the entire J. Lo album features other singers on the choruses, with Jenny only occasionally chiming in for some vocal acrobatics when necessary. We've included our personal favourites down below, but make sure to let us know in the comments if we're missing any songs you love.

1. Play

Stolen From: Christina Milian

'Play' was the second single from 2000's J. Lo, following the huge success of lead 'Love Don't Cost a Thing'. While it isn't as memorable as that bop, it did hit #18 on the US charts and make top ten in ten other countries when it was first released. However, what most people probably didn't notice when they were telling the DJ to play their favourite song is that a good half of it wasn't sung by Jennifer at all.

'Play' was co-written by Christina Milian, a talented singer in her own right who's probably most well known for her #5 hit 'Dip It Low', and who's since become a reality TV star on E. Her vocals are also all over the finished version of 'Play', most prominently in the chorus where J. Lo doesn't actually sing a single note. Given that Christina helped write the song, we'd guess that she also demoed it in the studio to shop around to artists like J. Lo, and that for some reason - perhaps time constraints, or perhaps just because they preferred Christina's vocals - the producers made the choice to keep her voice on the finished version of the song. Christina does get credited for background vocals on the track, but given that she sings the most memorable part of it you'd think she'd at least be worth a feature.

2. I'm Real

Stolen From: Shalene Thomas

'I'm Real' was so popular that it was actually released as as single twice, albeit in very different forms. It was first released as the fourth single from J. Lo, where it was a typical bubblegum pop track of the early 2000s. This version of the song sampled the song 'Firecracker' by Yellow Magic Orchestra, in what was later revealed to be a diss towards J. Lo's ongoing rival Mariah Carey. 'Firecracker' had never been sampled before 2001, when Mariah made the first attempt to license a sample of it for her song 'Loverboy'. Out of spite, Carey's former husband and reigning executive at J. Lo's label Tommy Mottola applied for the same license and beat her to the punch by releasing it on 'I'm Real' first, ruining the sample for Carey and contributing to her well-publicised mental breakdown of the time.

Once again, J. Lo apparently couldn't find time in her schedule to lay down vocals for the 'I'm Real' chorus. Instead, Shalene Thomas's vocals took their place, possibly appropriated from the demo. No wonder Mariah claims not to know her.

3. I'm Real (Murder Remix) (Feat. Ja Rule)

Stolen From: Ashanti

Later, in an attempt to appeal to a more "urban" market and give her album a boost on the charts, Jennifer's team remixed 'I'm Real' with Ja Rule, with this version being released as a single from both J. Lo and her first remix album, J to tha L–O! The Remixes. Despite being marketed as a "remix", this version of the song bears little resemblance to the original 'I'm Real' apart from a slight similarity in the chorus. The majority was rewritten by R&B star Ashanti, who would later become famous for her features on Fat Joe's 'What's Luv?' and Ja Rule's 'Always on Time'. For this version of the song, the 'Firecracker' sample was also removed and replaced with samples of 'All Night Long' by Mary Jane Girls and 'Mary Jane' by Rick James.

Possibly to suit the more urban vibe of the song, Ashanti's demo vocals were kept for the song's final mix, with the R&B singer taking over chorus duties and recording ad-libs to offset Ja Rule's verses. Weirdly though, although she received credit for her "background vocals", Ashanti never received a co-writers credit on the track. Jenny singing the lyrics another wrote for her went on to become controversial when the media picked up on her using the word "nigga" in the line, "I tell them niggas, mind they biz, but they don't hear me, though." Angry fans even protested one of her New York concerts with banners, forcing responses from both J. Lo and Ja Rule. Given that the whole premise of the track is how "real" Jenny is, we can't help but find the whole situation a little ironic.

4. Jenny From the Block

Stolen From: Natasha Ramos

'Jenny From the Block' is such a trademark J. Lo song that it's hard to think of anyone else singing it: but believe it or not, someone else actually has been the entire time. In continuing efforts to prove J. Lo's "street cred", 'Jenny from the Block' was released as the first single from This Is Me... Then in 2002, featuring rappers Jadakiss and Styles P. And yet again, the chorus was sung by someone other than herself.

This time, it was Natasha Ramos whose voice was appropriated for the song, after she demoed the track that was apparently especially written for Lopez. Ramos' voice is actually quite similiar to Jenny's, and we probably wouldn't have noticed if the demo for 'Jenny From the Block' hadn't leaked featuring some of the exact same vocals that popped up in the final song. Ramos sings the entire chorus and bridge, which makes us wonder: should we have been fooled by the rocks that she's got, after all?

5. Ryde Or Die

Stolen From: Brandy

'Ryde or Die' is an album track from Jen's fourth album Rebirth, written by 'The Boy Is Mine' singer Brandy. The song was originally intended for Brandy's album, but when that suffered from multiple delays it was passed on to Jennifer's project instead.

Once again, it seems as though Jen didn't have time to record vocals for the full song, because Brandy can still be heard in the chorus as well as in backing vocals throughout. Her original version featuring rapper Posta Boy would later go on to leak, and we have to say we like her version a lot more than Jen's officially released one.

6. Ain't It Funny

Stolen From: Shalene Thomas

Like 'I'm Real', 'Ain't It Funny' was originally written for the J. Lo album, and was released as it's third single. Although it didn't chart in America, it's Latin influence made it popular in certain countries such as Spain and Portugal and it hit #1 in Poland, #2 in the Netherlands and #3 in the UK, Sweden and Romania.

Like 'I'm Real', 'Ain't It Funny' also has "background vocals" from Shalene Thomas, which as we all know means that she sings the entire chorus. Honestly though, we're not too mad about this one: Thomas's vocals definitely do sound mixed in a "background vocals" kinda way, and J. Lo could at least be bothered throwing a few ad-libs over them throughout the song.

7. Ain't It Funny (Murder Remix) (Feat. Ja Rule and Caddillac Tah)

Stolen From: Ashanti

After the 'I'm Real' remix successfully topped the Hot 100 for several weeks, J. Lo's label decided to capitalise on her newfound urban market, and requested another hip-hop remix from Ja Rule. This time they needed a verse for an 'Ain't It Funny' "remix", which in reality had no connection to the original song other than by name, with Ashanti returning once again to write brand new lyrics over an entirely different beat. This in itself was controversial, with music critics interpreting the move as plotting to allow two completely seperate songs to chart as one and be pushed up the charts unfairly. It would eventually force Billboard to change their policy regarding remixes so that only songs which are sufficiently similar to each other can combine their sales.

It should come as no surprise given her involvement in the writing of the song that Ashanti once again sings the entire chorus, along with ad-libs, for this track. She even cameos in the music video for the song as a guest at J. Lo's party. Ashanti puts on a happy face in the video, but we can't imagine she was all too happy with the situation in reality.

8. If You Had My Love

Stolen From: Shawnyette Harrell

'If You Had My Love' is Lopez's debut single and one of her signature songs, which makes the fact that she was stealing from other singers even then particularly worrying. Released in 1999, the song peaked at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for five weeks straight and became one of the best selling singles of the year with 1.2 million units sold in the US alone.

Once again, J. Lo passed chorus duties off for this song, this time to Shawnyette Harrell. That said, we again can't be too mad about this one: Harrell's vocals definitely are mixed like background vocals, and J. Lo did find the time to record some ad-libs, so we can't call out her trickery too much in this track.

9. Feelin' So Good (Feat. Fat Joe & Big Pun)

Stolen From: Jennifer Karr

'Feelin' So Good' is Jenny's fourth single to be released, and probably the most R&B song she had recorded up until that point. Featuring Fat Joe and Big Pun, the song's music video would later be dedicated to the memory of the latter who died of a heart attack soon after the single was released.

Despite finding the time to record two other artist's vocals for the song, Jenny was unable to record it all herself. Chorus duties instead went to Jennifer Karr, who has also written songs for the likes of Paris Hilton, ATB and Paul Van Dyk, as well as co-writing 'If You Had My Love'.

10. All I Have (Feat. LL Cool J)

Stolen From: Debra Laws & Makeba Riddick

'All I Have' is the second single from This Is Me...Then, and was an even bigger hit than 'Jenny From The Block'. The song managed to go top ten in nine countries, including the US where it peaked at #1 for four weeks and became Jenny's latest #1 to date. But like most J. Lo songs of the era, 'All I Have' wasn't without controversy. Most of the chorus of 'All I Have' is based around a vocal sample of Debra Laws' 'Very Special', a 1981 single which hit #31 back when it was first released. Although Sony had received consent from the writers of the song to appropriate it's chorus, it's singer was unaware of the sample and ended up taking J. Lo's label to court over it. Somewhat unfairly in our eyes, her lawsuit was ultimately dismissed twice.

When it's not Debra Laws or LL Cool J singing on 'All I Have', the voice you hear most prominently (especially in the chorus) is that of a young Makeba Riddick, a current Roc Nation signee who's written songs such as Rihanna's 'Unfaithful', Beyoncé's 'Déjà Vu' and Eminem's 'Love the Way You Lie'. To be honest, after Laws, Coolio and Makeba all have their way with the song, Jenny ends up barely contributing enough vocals to be a featured artist on her own track.

11. Love Don't Cost a Thing

Stolen From: Georgette Franklin

'Love Don't Cost a Thing' was the first single from J. Lo, and marked Jenny's official transition into a sex symbol. Purportedly about the singer's ongoing relationship with Diddy and the gifts he incessantly bought her, the song was allegedly later a reason for their split - at least if gossip columns are to be believed. Just several months after the single's release and her breakup from Diddy, Jenny would go on to marry one of the music video's backup dancers Cris Judd, who she was allegedly having an affair with during the Diddy relationship.

Yet again, there's no background singer listed for 'Love', so it's a little hard to say whose vocals could be all over that chorus. Word on the street is that a certain Canela Cox is the one gracing the song with her tones, although the fact that she's uncredited (and possibly unpaid) for her role as background vocalist makes that hard to verify.

12. I'm Glad

Stolen From: Natasha Ramos

'I'm Glad' is the third single from 2003's This Is Me...Then, and is one of the least successful singles from the album peaking only at #32 on the US charts. Like most of the album, the song is allegedly referring to Jen's relationship with Ben Affleck, which dominated news coverage in the early 2000s as "Bennifer" became a power couple. Unsurprisingly, the music video for the song proved controversial and made Lopez once again the subject of a lawsuit. A homage to the classic musical film Flashdance, the music video for 'I'm Glad' featured Lopez striking iconic poses from the film, rocking a leotard and curly hair as she douses herself in water, strips in a skimpy red top and recreates the iconic dance audition scene from the end of the film. Paramount Pictures ultimately sued Sony for copyright infringement, a suit which was settled out of court; but Maureen Marder, the dancer whose life inspired Flashdance sued both Lopez and Sony for the same thing in 2003. In 2006, all of her claims were dismissed.

Natasha Ramos, who sang backup on almost all of the This Is Me...Then album once again contributes her vocals to the chorus this time around, although to be fair to Jenny she can be heard peaking through once or twice in the hook. 

13. I'm Gonna Be Alright (Remix) (Feat. Nas & Track Masters)

Stolen From: Lorraine Cheryl Cook

'I'm Gonna Be Alright' originally appeared on the J. Lo album before being remixed for J to tha L-O! The Remixes, being released as that album's second single. When it was first recorded for the album, the remix featured 50 Cent; but before sending it to radio, Epic Records replaced him with Nas, leading to a longstanding feud between the two rappers. "The first thing that started feeling a little off with him was the Jennifer Lopez shit," 50 would later go on to say.

There's no one listed as a background vocalist for 'I'm Gonna Be Alright', which is confusing since the vocals during the chorus definitely aren't J. Lo's. If we're honest, the vocals sound a lot like something Michael Jackson would put out, but it's a lot more likely that Lorraine Cheryl Cook, a listed writer in the song, is the voice behind the chorus.

14. Loving You

Stolen From: Natasha Ramos

Although 'Loving You' was never released as a single, it was given pride of place as track #2 on This Is Me... Then. Like many of J. Lo's songs, this one has prominent samples, which are in this case Mtume's 'Juicy Fruit' and George Benson's 'Never Give Up on a Good Thing'.

Like 'Jenny From The Block', 'Loving You' was masterminded by Cory Rooney and Troy Oliver. It seems as though Natasha Ramos is the go to demo singer for these two, because she sang extremely prominent vocals all through the chorus of 'Loving You' as well as that song.

15. Get Right

Stolen From: Rudaina Haddad

'Get Right' is my personal favourite J. Lo song, thanks in large part to the old school jazz and funk vibe it has. The lead single from her album Rebirth, the song revolutionised her sound courtesy of producer Rich Harrison, who wrote the song along with Usher. 'Get Right' was originally demoed as 'Ride' for Usher's 2004 album Confessions, but after it failed to make the cut Harrison passed it on to Lopez as an apology for giving another track, '1 Thing', to Amerie instead of her. This was all done apparently without the permission of Usher, who gave the ultimatum "I'd better get some of the publishing rights or else." In reality, though, very few of Usher's lyrics were used, with only the bridge reusing the lyrics from 'Ride'.

Once again, J. Lo isn't too prominent on the chorus of 'Get Right', with most of the vocals apparently being handled by background singer Rudaina Haddad. To be fair though, the production here is quite nicely harmonised, so it's entirely possible that J. Lo does have a line of vocals in there somewhere we're just not hearing.

Watch the video version of this article here!

Although her star has faded a little in recent years, Katy Perry remains one of the biggest and most bankable popstars of all time, having sold more than 40 million albums and 100 million records over her ten year career. With hits ranging from debut single 'I Kissed A Girl' to 'Teenage Dream' and 'Chained to the Rhythm', Perry has until recently been a fixture of the charts, with every single she releases becoming not just a hit but an entire cultural happening.

But with so many hits it seems impossible to avoid comparison with other artists, and Katy has had a handful of songs which have been noted for their striking similarities to other artist's tracks. Some of these tracks have just a passing resemblance, but others - #3, particularly - are almost note for note identical copies of other songs, and the public has definitely noticed. In this list, we'll be looking at five of the most obvious comparisons, as well as the original artist's reactions - and not all of them are pretty. Read on to find out more!

Katy Perry - California Gurls (Feat. Snoop Dogg)

Sounds Exactly Like...

Ke$ha - TiK ToK

'California Gurls' has to be the most famous of all of Katy's "familiar" songs, and it's resemblance to the artist formerly known as Ke$ha's song 'TiK ToK' was remarked upon almost as soon as it was released. In this case, though, there's a pretty clear reason for the similarities: namely, the fact that both songs have exactly the same producers. 'TiK ToK', written by Kesha but produced by Dr. Luke and Benny Blanco, was the biggest hit of 2009 and went on to be the fifth best selling single of all time, so it makes total sense that Luke and Blanco would attempt to recreate it's success in 2010 with Perry as the chosen artist and Snoop Dogg stepping into Diddy's shoes. While most of the songs on the list have just one or two similar elements to other tracks, 'California Gurls' is notable for being quite literally identical to 'Tik Tok', excluding the lyrics and the bridge. Not that that stopped it from being a hit: 'California Gurls' had no trouble at all hitting #1, a year after 'TiK ToK' did the same.

Katy Perry - Bigger Than Me

Sounds Exactly Like...

Ania Wyszkoni - Lampa i sofa

If you're just a casual fan of Katy's, you probably won't have heard 'Bigger Than Me', an album cut from last year's Witness; and similarly, if you live outside of Poland, chances are you won't have heard Ania Wyszkoni's 'Lampa i sofa', which literally translates to 'Lamp and Sofa'. Thankfully, it seems as though there's at least one Katy Cat who's also a Polish resident, because it wasn't long after 'Bigger Than Me' was heard for the first time that people pointed out it's essentially a note for note recreation of Wyzkoni's song with English lyrics added. To be fair to Katy, it's slightly far-fetched that this song really is plagiarised - even though 'Lampa i sofa' was a pretty big hit in Poland, hitting #2 on the charts there, it's unlikely that either Perry or her co-writers Sarah Hudson and the members of Purity Ring would have ever heard the track before. But those similarities in the chorus are just undeniable...

Katy Perry - Roar

Sounds Exactly Like...

Sara Bareilles - Brave

It took about two seconds after 'Roar' was released in 2013 for people to start comparing it to Sara Bareilles's 'Brave', which had been released four months prior as the lead single off her fourth album The Blessed Unrest. This time there was no getting around the similarities in melody and self-empowerment lyrics: Katy definitely knew about 'Brave', given that she'd Tweeted about it shortly after it was released to express her admiration. While their fans were duelling it out online though, Perry and Bareilles were apparently all good behind the scenes. Bareilles stated in an interview with ABC News Radio that she and Perry had been friends for a "long time", and that she had given her blessing to 'Roar' before it's release. "If I'm not mad I don't know why anybody else is upset," she mused. The two even performed 'Roar' together at a showcase, alongside Tegan and Sara and Ellie Goulding. And in the long run, the controversy was actually great publicity for Bareilles's theretofore unknown song: it prompted her record label to release 'Brave' to contemporary radio, giving it a much needed boost in promotion.

Katy Perry - Dark Horse (Feat. Juicy J)

Sounds Exactly Like...

Flame - Joyful Noise

Let's be honest: if you're anyone outside of the very exclusive "Christian hip hop" community, you won't have heard of Flame, the rapper who's released such monumental works as Our World: Fallen and Our World: Redeemed. That's why we find it a little hard to believe that Katy Perry and producer Dr. Luke stole the beat from his 2009 song 'Joyful Noise', as was alleged in a lawsuit he brought against her back in 2014. Flame's accusations were based on the idea that if you slow down 'Joyful Noise' by ten beats per minute and change the pitch an octave, the beats in each song are almost identical - although in our view, that's a lot of work to do to make the songs appear similar. He further alleged that the song's reputation was “irreparably tarnished by its association with the witchcraft, paganism, black magic and Illuminati imagery evoked by the same music in 'Dark Horse'" - a pretty big claim given the song's lack of reputation in the first place. Thankfully, the lawsuit was thrown out in 2015, but we're sure Flame will get his royalties when Jesus returns to walk the earth.

Katy Perry - E.T. (Feat. Kanye West)

Sounds Exactly Like...

t.A.T.u. - All The Things She Said

We're sure that the similarities between these songs are entirely coincidental, but it's fun to listen back to them for a little nostalgia flash anyway. Katy's 'E.T.' was released back in 2011, with the single version featuring a few verses by Kanye West, and it's weirdly familiar to anyone who turned on the radio back in 2002. Listen back to fake lesbians t.A.T.u's biggest hit 'All The Things She Said' and you'll notice that the choruses of each song have the exact same chord progression and beat. No wonder anyone born in the 90s likes 'E.T.' so much.

Which song are you most surprised to hear is "inspired" by another artist? Are there any obvious rip offs we're totally missing? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section down below!

In some ways, 2008 was pretty similiar to 2018. A shock candidate had just entered the White House, bypassing Hillary Clinton who people thought was a sure thing. The worldwide economy was still at breaking point, there were still tensions in the Middle East, and global warming was still hugely under-recognised. Betty White was still popular, and O.J. Simpson was still headed straight for priosn.

But in other ways, 2008 was a completely different time from the one we're now living in. Politically, things were much more liberal - we had Barrack Obama in office instead of Donald Trump - and musically, we were still exploring the genres of folk and rock concurrent with the R&B revival taking place. Trap wasn't even a thing, and Cardi B was swinging on a pole somewhere without a dollar to her name.

In this list, we'll be looking at fifteen of the biggest songs of ten years ago. Some of them are probably still played at whatever New Year's Eve countdown you listen to, but others will definitely be forgotten gems. Check them out below and let us know what you think in the comments!

15. Natasha Bedingfield - Pocketful of Sunshine

I'd always assumed that 'Pocketful of Sunshine' only became a hit in 2010 after it was memorably featured in Easy A; but it turns out the song actually first found it's success back in 2008, when it charted at #5 on the Billboard Hot 100. As Easy A's Olive remarks, 'Pocketful of Sunshine' really is the "worst song ever", but like most of the singer-songwriter style songs released in 2008 it's also incredibly catchy. Prepare for this to  be stuck in your head for the next week.

14. Jazon Mraz - I'm Yours

Speaking of annoying singer-songwriter songs, let's take a look back at the breakthrough single from one hit wonder Jason Mraz. Along with Colbie Caillat's 'Bubbly', 'I'm Yours' led the charge for summery, acoustic pop songs to offset the overproduced dance pop on the radio, and it found huge success among the "middle aged women who post Minion memes" crowd. Even though it only hit #6 on the Hot 100, it stayed on the charts for an insane 76 weeks, becoming the longest charting song at the time; and it now holds the honour of being the tenth best-selling digital song of all time in the US. It's easy to understand why, but that doesn't make the song any better.

13. Jordin Sparks & Chris Brown - No Air

Remember when people still admitted to listening to Chris Brown songs instead of playing them in their wireless headphones in dark alleys and dead-end streets? 2008 was definitely Brown's year, and he found success not only as a solo artist with 'Kiss Kiss', 'With You' and 'Forever' (all of which have to be strong contenders for the most annoying song ever - this is becoming a trend, 2008), but also with his duet with American Idol alum Jordin Sparks. The song is bang on trend for the year, featuring the same R&B beat which had blown up in 2007 and the icy synths that Timbaland had been pushing for the past few seasons.

12. Mariah Carey - Touch My Body

It might be unfair to refer to Mariah Carey as the female Chris Brown, but it's obvious her star has fallen quite a bit in the decade since she released 'Touch My Body'. Back then, MiMi was praised for her frank take on sexuality and her funny self-parodies - such as in the video above, where she seduces her Wi-Fi installation man - but now it seems that she's criticised for trying too hard to be sexy and taking herself way too seriously. Mariah could definitely learn something from the success she back in 2008.

11. T.I. - Whatever You Like

'Whatever You Like' is actually the name of two T.I. songs - one Nicole Scherzinger attempt he featured on which was a huge flop, and one solo effort which blew up internationally and effectively launched his career. 'Whatever You Like' was the song of the summer back in 2008, and went on to be the sixteenth most successful song of the decade. It's stood up relatively well over the years, although we have to say that our personal favourite version of the song is Anya Marina's chilled out cover.

10. P!nk - So What

Although R&B and hip-hop was huge back in 2008, the power-pop vibe mastered by stars like Kelly Clarkson and Hilary Duff was still grasping on to it's last moments in the sun. Case in point: 'So What', which was the first single from P!nk's Funhouse album, and which marked a huge return to the US charts for the singer after she failed to sell in the country during her I'm Not Dead era. It's sad given that 'So What' is actually incredibly trashy and a shameless cash grab compared to that previous album, with some of the laziest songwriting including lines like, "So what/I'm still a rockstar/I've got my rock moves/And I don't need you tonight". That said, the song is still a P!nk and Max Martin collaboration, which means that it's as super catchy and feelgood as you'd expect from the team that brought you 'U + Ur Hand'.

9. Flo Rida - Low (Feat. T-Pain)

There was a time back in 2008 when you couldn't turn on any radio station, visit any shopping mall, or tune into any episode of whatever trashy MTV reality show you were trying to watch without having to endure yet another spin of Flo Rida's 'Low'. Rida has vanished into obscurity in the last few years, but up until then he had a penchant for writing incredibly catchy songs, and 'Low' is no exception. Bolstered by a placement in Step Up 2: The Streets (yes, it was that long ago), 'Low' was such a huge hit when it was released that it went on to become the highest selling single of the 2000s decade. If only someone could explain what "apple bottom jeans" actually are.

8. Rihanna - Disturbia

Rihanna was telling us she was a "good girl gone bad" from the time 'Umbrella' was first released, but it wasn't until 'Disturbia' dropped that we actually believed her. 'Disturbia' follows in the footsteps of 'Thriller' in presenting an image of mental anguish, paranoia and anxiety which is nevertheless surprisingly fun to dance to - and in a weird coincidence, it was even penned by future ex-boyfriend Chris Brown, who clearly had is own issues with mental anguish. With one of the catchiest executions of "bum bum be dum" ever created, 'Disturbia' also happens to have one of the best music videos Rih's ever released, featuring tarantulas, wolves and S&M eyepatches. It's a total classic that still makes our Halloween playlists to this day.

7. Madonna - 4 Minutes (Feat. Justin Timberlake)

Madonna is one of the few artists who's probably had a hit no matter how many decades back you go, but back in 2008 it had been a while since she'd released a true chart topper. Everything changed with '4 Minutes', a Justin Timberlake and Timbaland collaboration which launched her back into the public's consciousness. Featuring a call and response chorus and some vague lyrics about the apocalypse perfect for the increased talk of global warming, the song was the perfect way to bring Madge into the future. We just wish she'd been able to be as successful with any of her singles since then.

6. Sara Bareilles - Love Song

Following in the trend of Bedingfield and Mraz is Sara Bareilles's 'Love Song', a laidback folky bop which made the perfect easy listening for 2008. The story behind the song is that Bareilles was becoming frustrated with her label's refusal to release her music, so she wrote an archetypal "love song" dedicated to her executives in a passive aggressive attempt to impress them. Regardless of the feud, it seems that both parties won in the end because 'Love Song' ended up spending 19 weeks in the top ten and becoming one of the biggest hits of 2008.

5. Timbaland - Apologize (Feat. OneRepublic)

'Apologize' was actually first released as the first single from OneRepublic's debut album Dreaming Out Loud, but when it failed to make waves the band hit up Timbaland for a remix (and an impressive name check) to blow up the radio. The only real thing Timbo added was a much-parodied line of "eh eh, eh eh" background vocals, but that didn't stop the public from eating the new version of the song up - it stayed in the top ten for twenty five weeks which made it the longest song to hang in there so long since 1999.

4. Alicia Keys - No One

Alicia Keys' 'No One' is probably the quintessential song of 2008, combining the Timbaland style of R&B, the OneRepublic style of acoustic rock and the Jordin Sparks brand of irritation into one fusion of a track. The fact that everyone in the world thought they could hit the high notes that Alicia masters just made matters worse. Nevertheless, 'No One' became the most listened-to song on US radio in 2008 with over three billion listeners, while also becoming one of the best-selling singles of all time.

3. Katy Perry - I Kissed A Girl

It's weird to think that just ten years ago nobody knew who Katy Perry was, and that the world's first introduction to the heretofore Christian pop star was a song all about flirting with bisexuality (something we're sure she'd be too "woke" to do now). 'I Kissed A Girl' has to be one of the most manipulative, disingenuous and trashy songs ever written, but thanks to the stylings of super producer Dr. Luke (there's another sentence that just wouldn't be written in 2018) it managed to become a hit anyway, topping the charts for seven weeks in a row. If nothing else, it launched the career of Perry (who, after all, brought us 'Teenage Dream') and it added to the conversation surrounding LGBTQ rights, so it can't be all bad.

2. Leona Lewis - Bleeding Love

If you've ever had a break up, you'll be all too intimately familiar with this song and the precise playthrough during which your tub of ice cream begins to run out. 'Bleeding Love' is the quintessential heartbreak song - heartfelt and wrenching, and with a climactic note which no one can actually hit during karaoke but which everyone tries to. There's clearly a lot of sad people in the world, too, because the song hit #1 in 35 countries. Sadly, it's a success Leona has never quite been able to match - while the follow up 'Better In Time' was moderately well received, every single since has been a flop, at least outside of her home country of the UK.

1. Coldplay - Viva La Vida

Before Coldplay was being unnecessarily bashed for their Super Bowl Half Time Show performance in 2016, they actually enjoyed a successful career which largely climaxed with the release of 2007's Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends. The titular single from the album was 'Viva La Vida', a rousing, grandiose statement of glorious intent for the rest of the album which never fails to put a smile on people's faces or a tear in their eye. With references to love, death and war, 'Viva La Vida' really has it all, and it succeeded not just as a onetime popular single but as an enduring testament to the band's legacy.

What was your favourite song of 2008? Let us know in the comments! And for a trip down memory lane, check out the ten biggest hits of 2007 here.

It's hard to believe it, but 2017 is already coming to an end - and what a year it's been. Between endless headlines of political incompetencies, tragic natural disasters and groundbreaking exposés of sexual abuse, one thing has, like always, remained our constant comfort and saviour - music. 

Pop in 2017 has been a pretty varied affair, although the running theme has been the odd fusion we predicted last year of country music, tropical beats and EDM drops. It's those undercurrents that birthed some of the most annoying, repetitious songs of the year - 'Despacito', 'Shape Of You' and 'Meant To Be', we're calling you all out - but it's the same sounds that created some of the catchiest, most powerful and most groundbreaking tracks of the year too.

In previous years we've run this list as a dictatorship, with the editors telling you our opinions on the best tracks of the year with no external advice sought. This year, we decided to branch out into a democracy by inviting some of our favourite members to submit their songs of the year, limiting our input to just the ordering of each song in a (semi-)ranked list. We hope you enjoy our collection of songs, and that you ring in the New Year's with joy, love, safety and most importantly, lots of music.

17. Lana Del Rey - Tomorrow Never Came (Feat. Sean Ono Lennon)

Submitted by @Countess

Lana Del Rey's Lust For Life was a marked departure from her debut album Born To Die not just in name, but also in intent; the album was less about Del Rey's own personal demons and more about the demons facing our society in 2017. But that's not to say that the album is impersonal, and 'Tomorrow Never Came' is a stunning example of that. The lyrics are typical Lana, lamenting a lost love through a simple metaphor - "I waited  for you in the spot you said to wait/In the city on the park bench in the middle of the pouring rain/You said to meet me out there tomorrow, but tomorrow never came" - but the production is more gentle, hopeful and soft than Lana has explored in her albums before. The song is made all the more heartbreaking due to the song's feature of Sean Ono Lennon, who - as you might have guessed - is the son of Yoko Ono, who famously frequents the memorial to her late husband John Lennon in Central Park as much as she can. The Beatles may never be able to get back together, but if this song proves anything it's that their spirit lives on.

16. Steps - Scared of the Dark

Submitted by @coolaideonfire

UK pop superstars Steps returned in 2017 to celebrate their 20th anniversary and kicked things off with comeback single 'Scared Of The Dark', their first released since 2012's poorly received holiday album Light Up The World. The single commands the listener's attention immediately with a dramatic string introduction before Faye and Claire, arguably the groups strongest singers, take on its brooding first verse. You'd be forgiven for mistaking the single as a middling ballad at first, but the chorus signals a change in direction as the song explodes into the unashamed brand of pop the band were popular for the first time they entered the charts back in the late 90s. "Scared Of The Dark" should serve as a masterclass for any nostalgic act aiming to stage a comeback so many years after their initial success. The song is clearly cut from the same cloth as the band's biggest hits, and should please any Steps fan (or any fan of 90s pop for that matter), but it doesn't sound dated at all. This is a slice of pop heaven from an equally well produced and pop-heavy album, Tears On The Dancefloor.

15. K.I.D - Elevator

Submitted by @Caolicolor

'Elevator' transcended every normcore stan Twitter gay who slept on K.I.D for the past three years into an instant stan. With it's heavy paced, dark, and atmospheric sound, it's a great getting ready to fuck song worth listening to.

14. Kelly Clarkson - Love So Soft

Submitted by @Ruthless Love

Since September 4, 2002, Kelly Clarkson has been a staple in the music industry. She became the winner of the inaugural season of the now-defunct Fox reality competition series, American Idol (which returns March 2018 on ABC), and has since become one of the most forceful performers in today's generation. Since winning, she signed an immediate deal between 19 Recordings, RCA and S Records and released her debut album, Thankful (2003). Following her debut release and still under her Idol contract (which later became solely associated with RCA), she gave us six additional albums: Breakaway (2004); My December (2007); All I Ever Wanted (2009); Stronger (2011); Wrapped in Red (2013) and Piece by Piece (2015), as well as a greatest hits compilation in 2012. In 2016, Clarkson announced the end of her partnership with RCA, citing the relationship as an "arranged marriage," and signed a deal with Warner Music's Atlantic Records. Under this deal, Clarkson promised us a "soul-influenced" album. And, in 2017, she gave us just that. Meaning of Life marks the first release from Clarkson free from her Idol deal and showcases the singer at her strongest and most secure. The album's first single, 'Love So Soft' proved a departure for Clarkson. Known for giving us angst-driven pop rock songs, 'Love So Soft' is drenched as a soulful R&B track, matched with superior vocals and a confidence that only Clarkson could maintain. It's safe to say that fifteen years after being named our American Idol that Clarkson is still the Idol of our hearts and of the music industry. She is proving to us that she is no longer accepting the idea of conforming to what society and the industry believes a modern day pop star should look, sound and maintain herself as, and is instead doing what she feels is right: being Kelly Clarkson.

13. Katy Perry - Tsunami

Submitted by @BlackoutZone

Katy's latest record may or may not be a musical masterpiece consisting of "woke" (as she likes to describe them) pop songs and original, groundbreaking, multi-genre efforts, but either way there is one significant track that stands out not only from the rest of the album, but the whole musical scene of 2017. 'Tsunami' is about Katy's magnificent sexual experience with her lover. She compares their love to swimming in open waters and his sexual power hitting her like a tsunami. The track is really well written and Katy totally nails the ocean theme with her beautiful lyrical references, such as: "Anchor in me, and get lost at sea/The world's your oyster/I am the pearl/Open waters/Sink into me slowly." The production is simply marvellous! Mike Will Made It channels typical Tame Impala synths mixed with his usual style and it works perfectly. The dreamy instrumental is building, progressing and flowing like an ocean wave which makes the track delicate yet very haunting. When Lady Gaga announced her collaboration with Kevin Parker, the leader of Tame Impala, which later gave birth to her lead single 'Perfect Illusion', this track is exactly what I expected it to be. Mike recently shared the demo instrumental to the song, and it's interesting to see how the track changed in its production states and hear all the sounds lost under Katy's voice in the final product. 'Tsunami' is undoubtedly my song of the year and Katy's best effort to date, sadly it will probably remain unnoticed by the general public and Grammy committee as I can't see it being released as a single or getting any real success...

12. Aly & AJ - I Know

Submitted by @Kim Craig

Going into 2017, who'd have known it would finally be the year best friends and sister duo, Aly & AJ, would get their shit together and release an appetiser sized EP, Ten Years, marking the rebirth of their long lost musical career since 2007's Insomniatic. The sister duo returned with a viciously infectious 80's synth pop sound which left heads around the globe bald. My song of the year, I Know, included on this EP release, talks about friendship and the commitment everyone is capable of giving to those in need. With distorted echoes and a fluttering backbeat, I Know offers the best and most valuable piece of music the duo has released since, well, ever. With a full LP due out by Summer 2018, Aly & AJ should be on everybody's radar because they're back to slay.

11. Kesha - Rainbow

Submitted by @Ari

The past three years have seen a very public and serious legal battle between Kesha Rose and her former producer and manager Dr. Luke over years of alleged sexual assault. After losing her case last year and being denied a retrial, Kesha forged onwards by releasing the massively critically acclaimed album Rainbow on the 11th of August. My favourite song of 2017 has to be the title track off that album. The song begins with a key description of tough times and feelings which are clearly straight from Kesha's heart (she wrote this song all by herself). The song then swiftly moves into an upbeat movement about the good times and how life can and will get better. The live orchestra in the studio along with the background vocals that harmonise with the chorus give it a massively joyful and warm feeling which by the end of it is sure to leave you with a strong buzzing sense inside. In a year where a lot of truths have come out in the industry thanks to the powerful #MeToo movement, I think Kesha gives us a much needed reminder in 'Rainbow' that "in every tunnel, there's always a light at the other end".

10. Miley Cyrus - Malibu

Submitted by @Whoknowsmehere

After much consideration and re-listening to many songs over the last couple of days, I have come to the conclusion that the one song that just seems to stick with me is be 'Malibu' by Miley Cyrus. It was a tough choice for me between 'Malibu', Shania Twain's 'Life's About To Get Good', Camila Cabello's 'Havana' and Rita Ora's 'Anywhere'. When I first heard 'Malibu' I was not all that thrilled about it to be honest. However, after listening to it numerous times it really grew on me. I think what did it for me was the simplicity of the song and yet how catchy it was. I do not know exactly what message she was trying to get through with the song - we each get different things from it - but what I took away from it is how much she has grown as a person and an artist, and that she may have finally figured out who or what she wants to be. I have to be honest though: if this is the new Miley, a part of me will miss the old Miley. She sure had the entertainment factor down to a science.

9. Odd Eye Circle - LOONATIC

Submitted by @nanapop99

While the majority of people don't listen to K-Pop, I've been a fan of this genre for a few years now and I don't think I've been this hooked on a girl group debut since 2NE1. LOONA has a really unique concept which consists of debuting a new member every month with a solo song: for now the label has revealed ten members out of the full twelve (for those who want to hear more, here's a solo song which I really love). The full group has yet to debut but Odd Eye Circle is the second sub-unit of LOONA and it consists of three members. 'LOONATIC' is technically not a single off their EP but it's definitely the song that got me into this group. The moment I listened to it for the first time, I knew that it would be my favourite! It has a very unique sound that I've personally never heard in any other songs and it's also very catchy. The lyrics are kinda difficult to hear and understand but the instrumental is really what's best: it has a really dreamy feel to it that I love. The track was originally released in Korean but they later released an English version as a gift for international fans which you can listen to above.

8. Rita Ora - Your Song

Submitted by @Dayfid

'Your Song' is the lead single from Rita Ora's second album which may actually get released and promoted! It's written by Ed Sheeran who provides background vocals and Steve Mac who also produced the track. The best part is that driving intro synth or whatever that thing is with those background snaps that loop throughout the song without getting boring. The song was performed and promoted literally anywhere. It's been performed live 9+ times and has become Rita's most promoted body of work besides her own actual body (along with an acoustic performance uploaded to YouTube with that random writer). Slay, Rita Oral!

7. Kesha - Learn To Let Go

Submitted by @Joe

"Your past only has as much effect on your future as you want it to." - Kesha, Huffington Post. My song of the year is the one that made me feel the most emotion upon first hearing it. On July 2nd, Kesha released 'Praying', her triumphant return to music. But it’s what she followed up with that truly took my breath away. Kesha has said that 'Learn To Let Go' played a big part in Rainbow as a whole and was one of the first songs written for the album. I vividly remember waking up to the song and music video being released. I immediately broke down crying. I felt like Kesha had written the song just for me. I related to every line. She refers to the bitterness she’s held onto and that there’s this voice that’s always telling her that she isn’t strong, that’s it’s her fault. When in fact, you choose to play the victim or to be the survivor. It’s so easy to give others advice, but to follow it yourself? Not many "practice what they preach" and I’ll admit to this. This song helped me let go of the pain and the hatred I held towards myself for far to long. Back to Kesha...The music video is a collection of home movies and shots of Kesha dancing in a forest. I took the music video as Kesha reclaiming her innocence. Reclaiming who she once was. She dropped the dollar sign and came back better and more real than ever. This song is a testament to just that: accept the shit, accept that it doesn’t define you, accept that you are yourself at the end of the day, and let yourself move on.

6. Selena Gomez - Bad Liar

Submitted by @Fetish

My song of the year is, by a long shot, 'Bad Liar' by Selena Gomez. With 'Bad Liar', Selena introduced a new image, sound and style to her music and bought an alternative twist to her mostly bubblegum-pop centred discography by sampling one of the best bands of all time, Talking Heads. The song was a huge step for Selena, showing both the general public and her diehard fans that she could explore new sounds and pull them off both brilliantly and effortlessly. The stripped back production and mid-tempo flow of the song accentuates her voice, allowing her to capitalize on her infamously restricted vocal ability; while the lyrics - handled by Julia Michaels, Justin Tranter and Selena herself - are genius, featuring bizarre lines like, "But just like the battle of Troy, there's nothing subtle here." There's also no ignoring the amazing music video which paired with the song, in which Selena plays numerous characters, crafting a fun and interesting storyline while giving the song a whole other meaning. There's no denying that this was easily the catchiest song released this year, and although it was ignored by the Grammy's...It was definitely receiving attention elsewhere, as the song is now Selena's most acclaimed piece of work.

5. Dua Lipa - New Rules

Submitted by @Countess

I can't lie: before 2017, I had no idea what the hype over Dua Lipa was about or why Kendall Jenner with voice lessons was getting so much online buzz just for looking pretty and having one decent song (her breakthrough sleeper hit 'Be The One'). But then 'New Rules' came along, and everything changed. Backed by a unique production, the song is one of the best examples of the countdown chorus previously attempted by Brooke Candy and Sia and Beyoncé, and it's structured to pop perfection. The only thing that could have made it better is the music video, which with it's instantly Instagrammable scenes of flamingos by the pool and girl power hairbrushing immediately raised the song to memeable status. This one will be hard for Lipa to beat.

4. Lana Del Rey - Love

Submitted by @Speedy

"I made my first four albums for me, but this one is for my fans and about where I hope we are all headed." That's how Lana Del Rey introduced her latest album Lust For Life, and we couldn't wait to listen to the fan-devoted record. The first introduction to what seemed a new era of Del Rey's approach to music was the lead single 'Love' (initially called 'Young & In Love'), a dreamy song about the new generation of "kids" (as Del Rey calls them in the song) that are mesmerised by the past while surrounded by the future. The only thing that ties them is that feeling of dressing up just to go nowhere because they're "young and in love" - a total shift of perspective for Lana when it comes to the feelings she invests in her songs. There's no characterisation or melodrama here: just a direct approach to a basic human feeling, and a girl with a big bright smile and flowers in her hair, singing happily on the moon, because "it's enough to be young and in love with life".

3. Lorde - Green Light

Submitted by @Countess

Lorde took a break after the release of her 2013 breakthrough album Pure Heroine, and her absence was sorely obvious to some in the pop music world. But when she returned with the resounding 'Green Light' this year, it made the four year wait completely worth it. The perfect comeback single, 'Green Light' begins with a series of bizzarely personal, vulnerable lyrics such as "I know about what you did and I wanna scream the truth/She thinks you love the beach, you're such a damn liar". The build is up gradual, but it makes that explosive moment when the chorus first drops all the more glorious. Channeling the likes of Coldplay and Florence + The Machine, 'Green Light' is a slice of euphoric pop perfection which sees Lorde dancing through the sadness of a breakup, and it's orchestrated to perfection. If you've been looking for a new workout song, I think you might have found one.

2. Kesha - Woman

Submitted by @victorxcx

The last few years have been a crazy journey for Kesha, and as fans we naturally wondered how all these events would influence the sound of her third studio album (the first without Dr. Luke’s production). 'Praying', the first single, is for sure an epic song and a triumphant return; but 'Woman' is the bop that we were all waiting for, and the song that shows that while Kesha has grown a lot she still has that sassy attitude that made us fall in love with her back in the Animal days. Given her background, I'd guess that the meaning of 'Woman' is even more powerful than we can imagine just listening to it on the radio or at the clubs. After all the ups and downs, Kesha is stronger and more independent than ever and I’m definitely here for it. The production is pretty amazing as well: I love how laid-back it is, and my favorite part is the laugh before the second chorus and how it evolves to the flawless bridge. 'Woman' was also confirmed as the second official single from Rainbow so I'm hoping it will get the success it deserves (I’ll be definitely streaming and watching the music video all year long!).

1. Rita Ora - Anywhere

Submitted by @Cypher

A gem from 2017's pop catalogue, Rita Ora sings about finding gem locations "a million miles from LA" with a cherished friend. The beauty of the track is that the subjects referred to could very well be about non-romantic friends. With the world having been through a year of turmoil and natural disasters, this song gives the hope of freedom to the listener for 3 minutes and 42 seconds. The glitched vocals in the chorus give free-range interpretation and emotional fluidity for people seeking a temporary space away from reality. Without having to take a physical vacation, this song takes the listener on a ride through a journey of "fun, a little less fun", and "crowds of empty faces." Running through the woods of Estonia, climbing to a peak in the Alps, roaming the streets of New York, or swimming with sharks off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa, this song has the potential to forever bring you back to those locations long after the trip is over. Take a listen to the song and let your mind roam free.

What was your favourite song of 2017? Let us know in the comments below! And for a trip down memory lane, check out the best songs of 2016 and 2015. 

Every year, PHF publishes it's annual list of the best albums of the year; and every year, it becomes a little harder to scrape together enough albums to fill out the list. Over the past decade, the music industry has undergone a period of intense change, thanks in large to the trend of illegal downloads blowing up more than anyone could ever have imagined. Thanks to illegal downloads, as well as streaming services like Spotify, music lovers can now pick and choose the songs they want to listen to without committing to a full album. And with an entire world of music at their fingertips that they must consume, most listeners are now less likely to listen to albums as they are watch music videos and digest tours.

Still, there's always gems if you know where to look for them, and this list has five of the best. Special mentions have to go to Charli XCX's Number #1 Angel and Pop 2, which aside from being mixtapes are just a little too messy and experimental to be included on this list; as well as Aly & AJ's Ten Years EP, which just isn't long enough to be considered an album. Without any further ado, let's go through our list!

5. Demi Lovato - Tell Me You Love Me/Miley Cyrus - Younger Now

This is the first time we've had a tie in one of our Album of the Year lists, and it speaks to the lack of visionary albums that we suffered from in 2017. This year, singles reigned supreme while most artists struggled to create enough pop anthems to form an engaging album experience. Demi Lovato and Miley Cyrus both suffered from this plague in different ways; both had clean, cohesive albums with strong visions, and yet the shtick of each sound wore out after only a few tracks, and neither had any real standouts to allow the albums to rise their albums to legendary status. That's not to say that either of them are entirely bad. In fact, these are the best complete works you'll hear from Demi and Miley, with the former finally finding a blue eyed soul sound that she can channel naturally and clearly, and the latter rejecting the shock tactics of yesteryear for a loving ode to her country roots. What they're missing is, for lack of a better word, that 'X Factor' - that air of spontaneity that can make a good album a great one. Far be it from me to suggest a jazz interlude or a dub-step drop in these traditional-leaning albums, but both could use a little pepping up by a master producer like Max Martin.

4. Kelela - Take Me Apart

Kelela is an artist who has yet to quite hit her stride in terms of public recognition, but it's basically a given at this point that within the next twelve months she'll be well and truly mainstream. It's a feat that's all the more impressive given Kelela's artist bio - the 34 year old singer, who co-wrote all the songs on her debut album Take Me Apart, slaved away for years singing jazz at small cafes before building online hype through her remixes of tracks from the predominantly EDM Fade to Mind and Night Slug labels. Jazz and dance do play a big part in her album, but the most obvious reference in the album is by and large Janet Jackson's The Velvet Rope, which is evoked through the unique fusion of experimental R&B danceable sounds and vibey, emotive vocals. Even if not a total revelation, the album is at the very least a much-needed second coming of the synthy R&B sound popularised in the 90s, and we get the feeling that Kelela will have a lot more to offer in her future endeavours.

3. Lana Del Rey - Lust For Life

Lana Del Rey's first album Born To Die was every hipster's dream for about a week after it was released - but it's follow ups (the too-short Paradise, the inconsistent Ultraviolence and the homogenous Honeymoon) had many wondering whether she would ever recapture the magic she explored on that debut. Thankfully, after years of waiting Del Rey managed to come through with Lust For Life, which borrows from all of her past projects in sound while exploring new territory courtesy of guest artists like The Weeknd, A$AP Rocky, Stevie Nicks and Sean Ono Lennon. The result is somewhat of a mixed bag, as the album jumps around in style between pretty much every track - but it also leads to a great deal of variety and keeps the listener guessing at every turn. Most interestingly, Del Rey also manages to move away from her "sad girl" persona into something somewhat more lively and optimistic, showing real growth in her character and music. We can't wait to see what her next album has in store for us.

2. Lorde - Melodrama

I have to confess that I was never the biggest fan of Lorde when she first broke onto the scene with 2013's Pure Heroine. To me, it seemed as though the public was excusing her lack of ability to craft a decent melody with her age, while simultaneously placing her on a misguided pedestal for her youth. Thankfully, Lorde seems to have grown up quite a bit since 2013, and her music has evolved too. Despite the title, Lorde keeps the overly poetic metaphors and strained vocal snarls to a minimum on Melodrama, opting instead for bizarrely vulnerable anecdotes ("She thinks you love the beach, you're such a damn liar"), anthemic, joyful bursts of confidence ('Green Light') and heavier, simplistically beautiful journal entries ('Liability'). There's still a little too much posturing for my tastes (case in point: where she damns her entire generation in 'Loveless' - "We're L-O-V-E-L-E-S-S Generation" - but Melodrama is a real step in the right direction for the 20 year old, and a long-awaited expression of the potential we've been promised by her record label for years.

1. Kesha - Rainbow

Prior to Rainbow, Kesha hadn't released an album since 2012's Warrior, thanks in large part to an all-consuming lawsuit with her producer and manager Dr. Luke. Even as a fan, I have to confess that I wasn't sure if she'd ever get an album out again at all, if anyone would care when she did, and if it would be as brilliant without the influence of hitmaker Luke. Thankfully, Kesha managed to prove me wrong on all counts - Rainbow doesn't just exist: it's Kesha's best album yet, encompassing all that we love about her poppy party girl persona while also throwing back to her Nashville country roots. Drawing on her very personal experiences with abuse, Kesha explores trauma (the anthemic 'Praying'), forgiveness ('Learn To Let Go') and a reclamation of her own power ('Woman'), with plenty of the fun good time songs she's known for ('Boots') thrown in there for good measure. It's this perfectly struck balance of honouring her past music and persona while still striking forward with a newfound outlook on life which makes Rainbow such an authentic and genuinely affecting album. Rainbow proves that Kesha can do bad all on her own, and that she was right to pursue her long-awaited dreams of making a rockabilly album all along - it just took the rest of the world a little while longer to see it.

What was your favourite album of 2017? Let us know in the comments below! And for a trip down memory lane, check out the best albums of 2016 and 2015.

When it comes to pop music, most of us have set ideas of what we want to hear. Pop music in 2017 is constantly changing, and that necessitates a song which will either hit right in the middle of whatever trend is whirlwinding through the genre at any given moment, or one that will set the zeitgeist for what we can expect for the next few months in terms of production. Pop music is designed to give the illusion of edginess and freshness, even while it not-so-secretly borrows all of it's creativity from genres long-established.

When it comes to Christmas songs, however, the rules are different. The festive season is really the one time of year when people are happy to embrace "cheese" in all it's glory - and we ain't talking about gouda. Our favourite Christmas songs are rife with references to tradition, family, an incredibly pure definition of love and overused holiday symbolism. The production, too, generally plays much safer, often choosing to throw back to retro Motown sounds, with brass sections, choirs and sleigh bells all coming out to play. Pop may play the role of the leather jacket in music's wardrobe all year round, evoking a stylish and rebellious spirit; but Christmas is that one cosy sweater you've had for years that always brings back memories of sitting by the fire and drinking hot cocoa.

In this list, we'll be compiling the ten best "hot cocoa" Christmas songs which have yet to slide into the monotony of carol status. Whether you're sitting alone watching Love, Actually on Christmas day or trying to get your boss tipsy at the work Christmas party, just one listen of these songs is bound to get you in the festive spirit and ready for the big day. Check out our choices below!

10. Sia - Candy Cane Lane

Sia may not be the immediate choice for a Christmas album, but the more you think about it the more well-suited she seems to spreading holiday goodness. Sia in 2017 seems to churn out pop hits like butter, often to the expense of meaningful lyrics or unique production; but that kind of breezy, generic pop tune is exactly what's needed at Christmastime, where people are loathe to think about anything more serious than what kind of wreath they should get. 'Candy Cane Lane' is the most vapid, silly and childish song on the whole album - but we can't even be mad when the chorus is this catchy and fun.

9. Gwen Stefani - Under The Christmas Lights

Thanks to some pretty poor promotion (we still don't have a music video for the lead single which was released in September), and a bad choice of single in the form of the Blake Shelton assisted 'You Make It Feel Like Christmas', Gwen Stefani's Christmas album has pretty much flown under the radar this year. And while I can't say I'm sad about that fact (the album is overall pretty meh), it does mean that a lot of people are missing out on 'Under The Christmas Lights', which is, as the kids would say, "a bop". Evoking the doo-wop tones of The Ronettes, Stefani puts in her purest performance in years as she sings an ode to holiday love. You can almost forget for a minute that she's singing about Shelton.

8. Leona Lewis - One More Sleep

Leona Lewis left her longtime record label Syco last year over differences of opinion in where her career should go; but if 'One More Sleep' is any indication, Lewis should definitely have stuck around if only to keep belting out Christmas hits. Not only was the track Lewis's most successful in years, charting in the UK every holiday season since it's been released; but it's also one of the most well constructed Christmas song ever, thanks to a smart little "12 Days of Christmas" countdown during the chorus. Lewis's voice is perfectly suited to this kind of song, and we can see why Simon Cowell wanted her to go Motown so badly.

7. Eartha Kitt - Santa Baby

'Santa Baby' has become a go to for any female singer releasing a Christmas album (Madonna, Kylie Minogue and The Pussycat Dolls have all contributed versions), but few can match the seductive elegance of Eartha Kitt's original version. Kitt's black sexuality was pretty radical back in it's day, but looking at it now her version is much more seductive than it is slutty, and her quiet, deliberate intonation makes the song a surprisingly easy listen considering that the whole thing is about Kitt asking her sugar daddy for a car. Moreover, it's just nice to have a Christmas song which isn't directed towards young kids and which isn't afraid to land someone on the naughty list.

6. Mariah Carey - Oh Santa!

It's definitely not the best known of Mariah's Christmas output, but 'Oh Santa!' is pretty much everything you'd ever want in a Christmas song. Released on her second album, the aptly titled Merry Christmas II You, the song was clearly meant to mimic the success of 'All I Want For Christmas Is You'; and even though it didn't quite get there, the chorus is just as catchy as that iconic track's ever was. If you haven't heard of it yet, think of the song as the festive version of 'Hey Ya' - it has the same call and response pre-chorus, as well as some doo-wopy background vocals and of course a gorgeous whistle tone straight from 80s Mariah. Just prepare to have it in your head a week later.

5. Kylie Minogue - Every Day's Like Christmas

Most of our favourite Christmas songs evoke the 60s "Wall of Sound" production made famous by Phil Spector in the 60s; but for a more modern, quasi-90s attempt, look no further than Kylie Minogue's 'Every Day's Like Christmas'. A cool electro-pop ballad, the song is more "ice queen" than "roaring fire", but it's tender enough to pull some heartstrings regardless. The song was originally worked on by the powerhouse of Coldplay's Chris Martin and Stargate; but for a more 80s take on the song, check out the Stock Aitken Waterman remix, which marks the first time Kylie has worked with the production trio in 25 years.

4. Judy Garland - Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Many have covered 'Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas', the song first written for Judy Garland's character in the charming Meet Me In St. Louis. But none can quite match the emotional strains that Garland manages to pull off in her performance of the song, which comes at a vital point in the film as her character tries to sooth her sister after news that the whole family will be moving towns in the new year. In the world of boppy, poppy Christmas music which aims to improve people's moods over the festive period, 'Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas' still stands out as a song for those of us who are lonely on the big day, whether because of heartbreak, death or distance - and no one knows more about that than Garland.

3. Kelly Clarkson - Underneath The Tree

I'm ready to call it: Kelly Clarkson's 'Underneath The Tree' is the most underrated Christmas song ever. The lead single from her Christmas album Wrapped in Red (which, incidentally, is probably the most underrated Christmas album ever), the song was at one point predicted to become just as legendary as a certain Mariah Carey classic; but it languished around the bottom of the charts before dropping out, never to be heard of again. It's a shame, because producer Jesse Shatkin nailed the Wall of Sound vibe, and Clarkson herself nailed those girl group vocals. Moreover, we have to give major kudos to any song which brings the much-missed saxophone solo back to pop music.

2. Darlene Love - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)

We've brought up the Wall of Sound numerous times during this article, but at the risk of sounding repetitive, I'll bring it up just once more - this time in reference to Darlene Love's 'Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)', which is one of the original songs to utilise it and one of the best. 'Christmas' is ostensibly about a forelorn lover wishing for their partner to come home, but Love sings it with such passion that it's hard to feel anything but joyful listening to it. Love's version is still one of the best, but for a more modern take on the classic check out Mariah Carey's R&B-infused take or Gossip Girl star Leighton Meester's surprisingly good rock-tinged version.

1. Mariah Carey - All I Want For Christmas Is You

And here we are at the #1 spot! Is anyone really surprised? Given how overplayed and well-loved it is, Mariah Carey's 'All I Want For Christmas Is You' is basically a running joke at this point - but in our opinion, the hype around the song is well deserved. From the iconic opening strains of the music box to Mariah's shameless rhyme about reindeers "clicking" to that final, glorious whistle note, the song is chock full of legendary moments that are bound to bring a smile to even the Grinch's face. It's one of the few Christmas songs that can truly be listened to year round, as well as the only one which I never get sick of hearing in every department store ever. Let's just try and forget that the Justin Bieber remix ever existed, okay?

What iconic Christmas songs are we missing from our list? Let us know in the comments down below!

This week marks ten years since the release of Britney Spear's indisputable magnum opus Blackout - and while a lot has changed in Britney's life and in pop culture since 2007, one thing that remains is the album's incredible influence and staying power. Ten years on, Blackout remains one of the most pivotal releases in pop music history, ushering in the era of dance-pop that has permeated the airwaves ever since and sounding just as current today as it ever has.

Surely some of the credit for this has to go to the album's masterful production, handled mostly by R&B producer Danja and Euro-dance connosieurs Bloodshy & Avant. Blackout struck back in the midst of the R&B revival which furrowed in Timbaland, Nelly Furtado and Justin Timberlake, and somehow it seems that most of the songs crafted during that time have remained completely ahead of the times and edgy; even if 'Break The Ice' were released today, it would still be completely different from anything else on the radio. It says a lot that quite literally all of the songs on the album can still be bopped to in 2017.

But part of Blackout's success of course has to go to Britney's public image at the time of release. Back when Britney Jean was in its formative years, Britney's team referred to it as an intended Blackout 2.0; but they missed the fact that recreating Blackout was completely impossible without forcing Britney's personal life into full on meltdown mode. Blackout was believable and impressive as an album because of its stars personal troubles, most of which stemmed from her divorce with Kevin Federline - and while we won't get too far into them here, it's fair to say that everyone remembers the image of Britney with a shaved head splashed onto the front cover of every magazine. The album was a safe haven for Britney to direct her energy into, and a window through which the public could try to understand her by even while her public image jumped from Disney star to mother to drug taker to complete disaster artist.

The versions of Britney found on Blackout were similarly variable, but the album maintained consistency thanks to its forward thinking production. Naturally, there's sex kitten Britney, who had previously appeared on songs like 'I'm A Slave 4 U'; although this time she was elevated to a new level of raunch. 'Gimme More' is the most notable example of this, but its also apparent in album tracks such as 'Freakshow', which predicted dubstep years before it hit the mainstream, and 'Get Naked (I Got A Plan)', which has to be Britney's straight up sluttiest song in existence. While Brit had always exhibited a sexy persona, it was always juxtaposed with the girl next door image that she'd cultivated in her Mickey Mouse Club days, which toned it down and put any hints of sexiness under a wedding dress strapped into a chastity belt. But with Blackout, all pretention of the good girl was gone, and naughty Britney was officially here to stay.

That's not to say that songs about love were off the table though, and in fact the slower songs on Blackout were among Britney's most vulnerable, lacking the cheesiness of 'Lucky' or 'Sometimes'. 'Heaven on Earth' is a sweetly simplistic love song made interesting thanks to it's synth-laden production; 'Outta This World', a bonus track, is a tender and soft harmonisation with co-writer Keri Hilson; and 'Why Should I Be Sad?' is a candid, and yet defiant ending to the album which holds the promise of change to come.

By far the most unique version of Britney on the album, however, has to be the one found in 'Piece of Me', the album's only real hit and the song that would go on to name Britney's ongoing residency at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas. Produced by Bloodshy & Avant, the same team who worked on 'Toxic' and 'My Prerogative', and with background vocals courtesy of the incomparable Robyn, the song is Britney's version of MJ's 'Leave Me Alone' - a kiss off to the media forces which try to bring her down and an assertion of the fact that she is in control of her image. It's a side of Brit that had never been expressed artistically before, but had been seen in her numerous run-ins with the paparazzi during which she screamed at them, pushed them or attacked them with umbrellas, and it's timing couldn't have been better. With that one smirk during the final scene of the 'Piece of Me' video, Britney had us convinced that she was not only in on the joke but was also pulling the strings herself in order to come out on top.

Of course, the Blackout reign couldn't last forever, and it only took a year for Britney to make her triumphant return with Circus, which was a pretty mixed bag of an album overall. On the one hand, the version of Britney we saw during the Circus era seemed more stable and her performances were much more predictable; but on the other hand, without the pain of her breakup and with the pressures of her conservatorship Britney's work lacked genuinity and edginess. It was only with the release of last year's Glory that that seemed to change, and Britney's personality seemed to be her own to control once again.

Even with a true successor to Blackout unobtainable, it's a blessing that the album can still be listened to its entirety without skipping a single track. Listen below, and together we'll celebrate a time in which Britney had so little to live for, and yet during which she turned out one of pop's all-time masterpieces. We love you, Britney!

Halloween is one of the most celebrated holidays in the world, even if its presence isn't marked on any calendar. Some of its appeal definitely has to do with the fact that its mostly polytheistic - although it started out as a Wiccan holiday, Halloween is essentially now atheist and up to be enjoyed by anyone. But its also one of the thematically strongest and widest, and one of the funnest, as it gets people off church pews and into their local communities and brings back the childhood joy of playing dress up.

But despite all that, there's relatively few songs that have been released especially for All Hallow's Eve. Unlike Christmas, which gets half a dozen high-profile holiday-themed albums dedicated to it every year (thanks, Mariah), Halloween has never had it's moment to shine on the pop charts, with partygoers and trick or treaters having to deal with whatever spooky remnants they can scratch out of the rest of the years hits. In this list, we'll be looking at ten of the best songs to play at this year's Halloween bash - and though few of them are specifically Halloween themed, all of them are bound to go over a treat with whatever riff-raff you'll have knocking at your door on Halloween night.

10. Ministry - Everyday Is Halloween

The most explicitly "Halloween-ish" themed song on the list, Ministry's 'Everyday Is Halloween' has been a staple of Halloween parties for decades, ever since it was released in 1984. Moreover, it has been adopted by the Gothic community as a kind of mantra to live by every day, thanks to its lyrics of disenfranchisement and isolation. It may not be the most well-known track at your party, but the new wave jam is sure to turn more than a few heads and makes some good background music for your session of "pin the bandage on the mummy".

9. Britney Spears - Toxic

It might not be the most logical song to include on a Halloween collection, but Britney's 'Toxic' is actually perfect for any spooky themed party. Not only does the song discuss a dangerous kind of love with a poisonous twist, but the music video pretty much perfectly captures the Halloween vibe with the multiple outfit changes and Britney dressing up as various versions of herself to seek revenge on an ex-lover. Otherwise, if you want more of a literal twist on the holiday, check out her under-appreciated bop 'Scary' here.

8. Rihanna - Disturbia

Rihanna's 'Disturbia' is probably one of the most overlooked bops of her career, even though it was a pretty big hit when it was first released back in, 2008, hitting #1 in the US and even being nominated for a Grammy. It's a shame, because the song's refrain of "bum bum be dum, bum bum be dum dum" is insanely catchy and sure to make everyone hit the floor. The video is also one of Rihanna's best, featuring some of her most iconic looks and some truly unsettling scenes of her being restrained and covered in spiders, or chained down in a narrow alcove. 'Disturbia' is definitely Rih's spookiest song, but if you're just here to play dress-up then don't forget about 'S&M', and if you need some filler tracks for your playlist then don't forget about 2009's Rated R album, especially it's lead single 'Russian Roulette'.

7. Sky Ferreira - Night Time, My Time

If you're sick of the poppy, dancey hits straight from the charts and just looking for a track to roll a blunt to, look no further than Sky Ferreira's 'Night Time, My Time'. The title track from her debut album, the song's title is inspired by a phrase uttered in the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, which explains a lot about it's vibe. The song drips of Lynchian influence with it's beat (consisting of just a heavy drum and strings) and the vocal style Ferreira uses to deliver it which is essentially a breathy whisper. Definitely not a club banger, but it's a nice change of pace from the more up-tempo songs.

6. The Cranberries - Zombie

'Zombie' is the perfect Halloween song just for the name alone, but it's catchy chorus only makes things better. Really, the only reason this isn't higher on the list is because of the real subject matter behind the metaphor: according to lead singer Dolores O'Riordan, 'Zombie' is actually about a series of IRA bombings in 1993 that led to the deaths of two children, which makes it a little hard to dance to willingly. Still, it's the perfect track for late in the night when the drinks have stopped flowing and everyone's getting sleepy.

5. Eminem - The Monster (Feat. Rihanna)

I wasn't the biggest fan of Eminem's 'The Monster' when it was first released, but I'll admit that after hearing dozens of spins on the radio that "ooh, ooh" post chorus really started getting to me. It might not be the easiest song to dance to, but everyone's bound to sing (or even rap) along and the psychological horror themed lyrics are perfect for any spooky celebration. For a more mellow listening experience, try out the songwriter Bebe Rexha's original demo for 'The Monster'.

4. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Heads Will Roll

Possibly the most little known song on this list, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs nevertheless have one of the catchiest Halloween themed songs with 'Heads Will Roll'. Released in 2009, the song was apparently written from the perspective of Alice in Wonderland's Queen of Hearts, which explains the chorus of 'Off, off, off with your head'. The stylish music video even makes allusions to 'Thriller', with a dancing werewolf in red shoes making his way through each member of the band as they play the tune. To get the party even more "lit", consider spinning A-Trak's remix of the song as well.

3. Sharon Needles - Call Me On The Ouija Board

Pretty much every song from Sharon Needle's discography can culminate into a Halloween playlist, but there's none quite as catchy as the stellar 'Call Me On The Ouija Board'. Released on the spooky cooky Hallowooky drag queen's first album PG-13, the song alternates between shameless pop jam and horror movie parody in a way only Needles can, but its amazing chorus puts it up there with some of the best songs from Britney or Gaga. Bonus points goes to the music video, which finds Sharon recreating the best horror films of the past fifty years.

2. Lady Gaga - Bad Romance

Its title might allude to a romance film, but 'Bad Romance' really slips much more heavily into the realm of horror thanks to its creepy lyrics, which range from endless Hitchcock references to lines like "I want your horror/I want your disease". The music video takes things to the next level, featuring a Dracula-esque harpsichord, a collection of coffins that backup dancers awake from, and razor blade sunglasses. Honorary mentions must also go to Gaga's 'Dance In The Dark', 'Monster' and 'Bloody Mary', all of which feature a twisted, dark Halloween vibe in their productions.

1. Michael Jackson - Thriller

Everyone probably saw this one coming from a mile away, but there's really no other song that deserves to take the top spot so much as the King of Pop's incredible 'Thriller'. Released at the height of his popularity in 1983, the song became an instant hit, and its creepy sound effects (think ominous thunder, booming footsteps and dogs howling) as well as its introduction courtesy of Vincent Price make it perfect for Halloween. Moreover, the song's groundbreaking music video is often thought of as the best to ever be made, and revolutionised the medium for years to come. Play the song on it's own and try your best to re-enact the iconic choreography; or, for a more complete experience, break out 'Bad', 'Scream' and 'Ghosts' and dance the night away to MJ's greatest scary hits.

I can't speak for everyone, but for me personally 2007 has always gone down in history as one of my favourite years ever in pop music. It may have something to do with the fact that I was verging on teenagehood at the time and just beginning to understand the significance of music in my life, but I'd argue that the year was also a good one overall, evidenced by the ongoing popularity of artists debuting or reinventing in 2007 like Rihanna, Justin Timberlake and Kanye West.

One of the most interesting things about music in 2007 looking back is just how varied it was. On the one hand, there was tail end of the power pop trend of the early 2000s which allowed artists like Avril Lavigne, P!nk and Kelly Clarkson to dominate the charts; but on the other, Timbaland was revolutionising the game with his unique brand of R&B, bringing companions Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado along for the ride. The year also includes some of the catchiest (and oftentimes most annoying) songs in living memory, including Sean Kingston's 'Beautiful Girls', MIMS' 'This Is Why I'm Hot' and Soulja Boy Tell'em's 'Crank That (Soulja Boy)' all sticking in our heads long after they left the charts.

Take a trip down memory lane by checking out the songs and their peak positions below, and don't forget to let us know your favourite track from 2007 in the comments section!

The Fray - How to Save a Life

Released: 26 March, 2006

Peak: #3

Hinder - Lips of an Angel

Released: 24 July, 2006

Peak: #3

Akon - Smack That (Feat. Eminem)

Released: 26 September, 2006

Peak: #2

Amy Winehouse - Rehab

Released: 23 October, 2006

Peak: #9

Beyoncé - Irreplaceable

Released: 23 October, 2006

Peak: #1

Nelly Furtado - Say It Right

Released: 31 October, 2006

Peak: #1

Gwen Stefani - The Sweet Escape (Feat. Akon)

Released: 19 December, 2006

Peak: #2

Justin Timberlake - What Goes Around... Comes Around

Released: 19 December, 2006

Peak: #1

Fergie - Glamorous (Feat. Ludacris)

Released: 23 January, 2007

Peak: #1

Mims - This Is Why I'm Hot

Released: 23 January, 2007

Peak: #1

Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend

Released: 27 February, 2007

Peak: #1

Rihanna - Umbrella (Feat. Jay-Z)

Released: 29 March, 2007

Peak: #1

Linkin Park - What I've Done

Released: 2 April, 2007

Peak: #7

Kelly Clarkson - Never Again

Released: 24 April, 2007

Peak: #8

Soulja Boy Tell'em - Crank That (Soulja Boy)

Released: 2 May, 2007

Peak: #1

Plain White T's - Hey There Delilah

Released: 9 May, 2006

Peak: #1

P!nk - Who Knew

Released: 18 May, 2006

Peak: #9

Sean Kingston - Beautiful Girls

Released: 26 May, 2007

Peak: #1

Lil Mama - Lip Gloss

Released: 19 June, 2007

Peak: #10

Timbaland - The Way I Are (Feat. D.O.E. & Keri Hilson)

Released: 9 July, 2007

Peak: #3

High School Musical Cast - What Time Is It?

Released: 17 July, 2007

Peak: #6

Kanye West - Stronger

Released: 31 July, 2007

Peak: #1

Jordin Sparks - Tattoo

Released: 27 August, 2007

Peak: #8

Alicia Keys - No One

Released: 11 September, 2007

Peak: #1

Timbaland - Apologize (Feat. OneRepublic)

Released: 17 September, 2007

Peak: #2

Britney Spears - Gimme More

Released: 20 September, 2007

Peak: #3

Flo Rida - Low (Feat. T-Pain)

Released: 9 October, 2007

Peak: #1

Leona Lewis - Bleeding Love

Released: 19 October, 2007

Peak: #1

2016 may have been marked by some as a year of loss, with notable celebrity deaths including David Bowie, Prince, George Michael, Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds tarnishing the seasons for many; but at least in pop music it was a year of great success and activity, with major releases from some of our consistently brilliant pop girls (Britney Spears, Lady Gaga and Rihanna) and some unexpectedly stellar debuts from newer artists who weren't even a blip on our radar last year (Terror Jr, Kiiara and Dua Lipa) keeping us going through the tragedies that dotted the months. With so many great singles topping the charts this year, and even more coming to our attention through the blogospheres and Spotify, it was hard to cut down our list to just ten, an action which necessitated losing several well-loved bops from our ranking (although a part of me is glad I don't have to admit how many Justin Bieber songs I genuinely enjoyed this year). But after much careful consideration and weeks of rearranging, we've finally come up with our definite list of the best singles of 2016. It might be a little too late to play these at your New Years Eve celebrations, but they should still be good to tide you over until the wave of new releases hits us in February. Don't forget to let us know your own opinions regarding the years best tracks in the comments section below!

10. Tove Lo - Cool Girl

One of pop music's biggest dark horses, Tove Lo's unexpected breakthrough with 'Habits' seems to have instilled a possibly ill-advised sense of trust into the singer from her label. With one hit under her belt, Lo has managed to not only release a received and provocative sophomore album with Lady Wood, but also a short film which includes every song from the album and a slew of hit singles; all while Lady Gaga struggles to get funding for even one decent music video. But there's little to complain about when each of Lo's songs seem to be so meticulously planned and executed, as we noted once again with this years lead single 'Cool Girl'. An advancement from the sombre, moody beats of 'Habits', 'Cool Girl' aims for a snappy, sexy techno vibe with biting lyrics of "I'm a cool girl/Ice cold, I roll my eyes at you" to match. We're not quite sure how she manages to keep breaking into the mainstream with her unique, wacky brand of personalised pop and arthouse visuals, but if Tove Lo has more tracks like 'Cool Girl' in store for us then we're definitely in for the long haul.

9. Ariana Grande - Into You

Often referred to as 2016's most perfect pop single, Ariana Grande's 'Into You' owes much to it's cast of co-writers which includes the legendary Max Martin, Savan Kotecha, Ilya, Alex Kronlund and, of course, Grande herself, who seem to have crafted the song as a composite based off the best parts of other successful tracks. Beginning with a moody thump of beats before rising into a crescendo perfectly designed to show off Grande's pitch perfect vocals, 'Into You' is somewhat let down by a chorus which doesn't quit match the expectations set by it's verses, but all is saved with a climactic bridge and some meticulous ad-libs from the singer. Riding the dance-pop train that first started with Lady Gaga's 'Just Dance' back in 2008, 'Into You' hardly adds anything new to the pop genre like some of the other tracks on Grande's Dangerous Woman release, and the lyrics are as generic as can be. But like the guilty pleasures of Carly Rae Jepsen and Alexandra Stan before it, the song accomplishes everything it sets out to do and earns its place as a near-flawless single, a title aided by its raunchy music video and several high-profile performances. We're just surprised it didn't make it higher on the charts.

8. Skylar Grey - Come Up For Air

From the outside, it seems as though Skylar Grey has always fancied herself a rebel without a cause - an image she tried and failed to cultivate with her mess of hip-hop beats and trailer trash glam lyrics back in 2013s Don't Look Down. But what we didn't know is that when she stops trying so hard, as she did in this years single 'Come Up For Air'. there was an abundance of vulnerability and beauty to her on the inside which we had never before seen. Backed only by a sparse R&B beat produced by frequent collaborator Eminem, Skylar plays the role of a long-suffering lover who waits for her partner to "come up for air" from the scary seas of their depression. And her voice, when she doesn't strain it with belts or hide it behind the tones of their collaborators, conveys a beautiful vulnerability that's rarely found in pop music. Time will tell if Skylar's ever able to blow up on the charts as a solo artist, but if she continues the winning formula of ballads she's captured with 'Come Up For Air' and 'Coming Home', she's bound to find her niche no matter what.

7. Bonnie McKee - I Want It All

The incredibly talented Bonnie McKee has been searching for a hit ever since her debut album, Trouble, failed to make any impact on the charts back in 2004. Since then, the self-proclaimed "popstar in training" has done more than her fair share of self-education, penning hits for the likes of Britney Spears, Katy Perry and Kesha; but even with the commercially-minded bangers 'American Girl' and 'Sleepwalker', she's failed to nab the elusive #1 record she so desperately seeks. Yet even with her previous bops taken into consideration, Bonnie hasn't ever come closer to an iconic song than she did with this year's 'I Want It All', the third single from 2015's Bombastic EP. From the opening stomps of the 808 to the guitar riff which sounds like something right out of Michael Jackson's Thriller, 'I Want It All' trades the bubblegum pop of McKee's major label efforts for a 80s glamrock anthem which takes more than a few liberties with her tried and true pop formula. Unheard of in a McKee song, the track takes over a minute to finally hit on a hook worth humming too; but the slow burn is more than worth the payoff when the head-banging, fist-pumping chorus finally kicks in. And the 'Billie Jean' inspired music video, in which a pink haired Bonnie struts down a dark alley in a leather jacket and crotch pumps the leader of a gang, just makes the whole thing even better. After giving her ideas away to other popstars for so long, McKee's bravely reclaimed the sound she created; let's just hope it's not too late for her to make it big.

6. The Weeknd - Starboy (Feat. Daft Punk)

The Weeknd's lead single 'Starboy' from the album of the same name promised a revolution from the opening frames of its video. Set in an archetypal Hollywood Hills mansion adorned with posters and placades of the singer himself, the clip begins with a masked figure sitting across from The Weeknd, silhouetted by his trademark chicken hair; before the man in the mask abruptly strangles him and takes off his balaclava, revealing himself as a newer, better haired version of the man himself, who then goes on to smash up the rest of the mansion with a pink neon cross. It's an obvious metaphor but an effective one: and anything that replaces his chicken hair with a buzz cut and his slow R&B beats with some heavy 80s synths courtesy of Daft Punk is fine by us. 'Starboy' trades The Weeknd's usual cooing for a dark, urgent lament of LA materalism before slowing down for a sparse, eerie refrain of "Look what you've done/I’m a motherfuckin' starboy", implicating the audience in his own success and, by association, his sadness. It might not be the feel good song of the summer, but 'Starboy' was instrumental in pushing The Weeknd's sound forward from the now popular slow-pop genre he helped to develop which has infilitrated the mainstream in the last year, and remains one of the most interesting songs of the year.

5. Fifth Harmony - Work From Home (Feat. Ty Dolla $ign)

While they first hit the big time with their breakout single 'Worth It', Fifth Harmony (or H4RMONY as they're now unnofficially referred to by fans) really only came into their own this year with 'Work From Home'. Riding the wave of construction themed songs they started with 'Sledgehammer' which was continued by Miley's 'Wrecking Ball', the girls utilise their subject matter to its full shameless potential, working in lyrically genius lines such as "I know you're always on the night shift but I can't stand these nights alone". But it's not until that ridiculously catchy chorus, in which the girls chant "You don't gotta go to work/Let me body do the work/We can work from home" that the song makes its mark as a dancefloor banger. A moderately inoffensive verse from Ty Dolla $ign and a high-dance, high-budget music video in which the girls seductively stroke hammers and pour cement are just the cherries on top of this dessert. With 'Work From Home', Fifth Harmony have finally shed the good girl image they cultivated on The X Factor, and we can't wait to see what happens next.

4. David Bowie - Lazarus

The world was shaken this January when it was announced that David Bowie, one of the most iconic popstars of all time, had been found dead in his home of liver cancer: an event made even more shocking given the fact that the notoriously private Bowie had not even disclosed news of an illness to the public. And as with all celebrity deaths, Bowie's passing forced a reevaluation of his previous works, most notably his last recorded album Blackstar (which was released two days before his death on his 69th birthday) and his New York musical Lazarus (whose opening night was the last public event Bowie would attend in his lifetime). On the one hand, the fact that Bowie's recent work was getting the recognition it deserved was a godsend given that it was some of the best of his career: but on the other, it was a shame that it took his death for the public to appreciate his latest efforts. 'Lazarus', the third song on the album and the title track of the musical, is one of his best: written in the months leading up to Bowie's passing with longtime producer Tony Visconti, the song acts as a self-epitath for the funeral he never had which foreshadowed his impending death. "By the time I got to New York/I was living like a king," he reflects, a possible reference to the days of partying which caused his terminal illness: before promising that soon "You know I'll be free/Just like that bluebird". Powerful, spiritual and enigmatic to the end, Bowie's swan song is a rare glimpse into the life of someone who is so close to death they can taste it: the final character in the singers revolving door of alter-egos.

3. Rihanna - Work (Feat. Drake)

Given the unprecedented four year wait between her last album, Unapologetic, and her current project, ANTI (Rih typically releases an album every year on the dot), expectations were high for the Bajan popstars lead single from #R8. Smartly, she avoided any hugely dramatic rollout for the single in exchange for what amounted to a surprise release, announcing the existence of 'Work' only hours before we first heard it; and the lack of spectacle extended to the songs sound as well, which avoided the huge EDM choruses of leads like 'Only Girl (In The World)' and 'We Found Love' for an altogether slower, more laidback vibe. Avoiding the temptation to continue one upping herself yet another dancefloor hit, Rih instead opted for a twist on her dancehall roots, launching off the back of her previous reggae and Drake-assisted songs like 'What's My Name' to craft a new sound for herself unlike anything else on radio. And thanks to some catchy wordplay that matches the nonsensical catchiness of her breakout 'Umbrella' and those trademark husky vocals, the song still remains quintessentially Rihanna. Despite some concern from critics, 'Work' provided the comeback that the popstar needed after her hiatus: it's just a shame that once she had us hooked with the lead single, she let us down with a B-grade video and an absolute mess of an album campaign.

2. Kiiara - Gold

From the very opening trip-hop strains of Kiiara's breakthrough single 'Gold', we knew we'd found the song we'd be obsessed with for the rest of the year. What we didn't realise was how it would light up the charts, or how long such a process would take: the single was actually first released in October 2015, but promo really only began in after all the unofficial online buzz in May, and the track peaked on the charts in October of this year. Hit or not, the songs ridiculously catchy and nonsensical hook assured its presence on hundreds of Spotify summer BBQ playlists, and introduced Kiiara's name and trademark style of breathy digitized vocal delivery to the masses. Little seperates Kiiara from her younger cousins over at Terror Jr, with the acts sharing sound, producers and fame - but where Terror Jr cultivates an ambibuous identity, Kiiara puts her trailer trash aesthetic beginnings out there for the world to see, something she's been doing a lot more of since promo for her EP officially began. Now all we're waiting to see is if she can sustain her fame with follow up singles 'Feels' and 'Hang Up Tha Phone'.

1. Terror Jr - 3 Strikes

We may still not definitively know who the elusive 'Lisa' behind Terror Jr's hits might be - is it Lisa Vitale? Kylie Jenner? Or a complete unknown? - but one things for sure: the band, comprised of an enigmatic female singer, The Cataracs' David "Campa" Singer-Vine and Felix Snow has yet to make a wrong move, an impressive feat given their association with the Kardashians and an entire EP rollout. They kicked things off with '3 Strikes', an edgy and provocative track which first rose to prominence with a placement in a Kylie Jenner lip gloss ad but which has since stuck on Snapchat stories and Spotify playlists for months. Utilising 2016's favourite vocal stutter technique and some deliciously ridiculous lyrics - "You were like 95 on the interstate/Looking for a dinnerplate" - '3 Strikes' excels at quirky, catchy pop with a difference, and it does so exceptionally well. Where other artists struggle without a label and a big budget, Terror Jr has utilised their lack of resources in a viral, interesting way - and the fact that they hit #1 on our list without an official single release or music video says a lot about the state of pop music in 2016. Regardless of what does or doesn't happen for the band in the new year, we're sure that their particular brand of promotion - where artists forsake big label opportunities to create meaningful and intimate connections with the fans who have "discovered" them - will continue for years to come.

2016 has been a great year for pop music, featuring defining releases from several bonafide legends (think Britney Spears, Beyoncé and Lady Gaga), a couple of albums from our more stable hitmakers (such as Tove Lo, Sia and Ariana Grande) and some groundbreaking debuts from total newcomers to the game (like Zayn, Aurora and Petite Meller). The sheer volume of impressive albums from our faves and flops this year has made deciding how to rank each one a difficult task; but after several weeks of consideration we've managed to whittle down our list from several dozen amazing LPs to just the absolute best of the best. Our list below features our top ten favourite albums of the year 2016, ranked from least favourite to most favourite. Check it out below and let us know who we've neglected and who we've misranked in the comments section!

When Sia announced last year that she would be releasing an album comprised entirely of demos that she had failed to sell to other artists, fan reactions were a mixture of intrigue, excitement, and disappointment. They had long wanted for Sia's versions of her co-writes on tracks such as Rihanna's 'Diamonds', Britney Spears' 'Perfume' and Beyoncé's 'Pretty Hurts'; but there was concern from some that Sia including songs she'd written for others would create a sense of disassociation and detachment from her own music. The Australian-born singer has for a long time had a certain self-loathing towards the pop songs she writes for others, and when you compare the tracks she now writes such as the Jamaican dancefloor ready 'Cheap Thrills' or the Shakira reject 'Move Your Body' to the masterpieces of her early career such as 'Breathe Me' or 'I'm In Here', you can't help but feel as though she's simply going through the motions without putting any real effort into her latest subjects. Nevertheless, This Is Acting still provides a handful of club ready hooks, some spectacularly catchy choruses and, of course, her trademark husky vocal runs. It may not quite hit the level of amazement that we know Sia's capable of, but This Is Acting still makes for a solid pop album.

Zayn Malik's departure from One Direction last year may have shocked fans, but the true shock came this year when he became the first of the boyband's members to release a solo single, the metaphor-drenched ode to sex that was 'Pillowtalk'. Lighting the charts ablaze internationally, the song was a total turning point for Zayn, who had previously complained about his inability to write his own songs, explore new sounds, talk about sex and, weirdly grow facial hair during his time in 1D. And 'Pillowtalk' was only the beginning, with Zayn going all in to release his debut album Mind of Mine several months later. Backed by a consistent slew of heavy R&B beats, a more accessible version of the trippy hazy production popularised by The Weeknd in recent years and some velvety vocals, the album manages to nail the halfway point between pop and personal, allowing an intimate look at the enigmatic singer through a collection of slinky R&B slow jams. The album does tire some during it's second half - after all, eighteen tracks is a lot to get through - but when it's at it's best, as it is with the aforementioned lead single, 'Befour', 'Like I Would' and a handful of others - Mind of Mine is the most promising debut we've had from a popstar in the past few years and a bold step forward for any former boyband member to take.

Since blowing into the pop stratosphere back in 2013 with the Hippie Sabotage remix of her debut single 'Habits' (redubbed as 'Stay High' for the single release) Tove Lo has been a pop anomaly: she rarely makes headlines for her personal life, makes pseudo-experimental music and doesn't have any social media presence to speak of but her songs still do surprisingly well and she thus has a healthy relationship with her label. Like Gaga before her, Tove restrains herself from making songs which are too edgy in content by softening the blow with a catchy hook or two and some intricate production work, this time around handled largely by The Struts and Oscar Holter. The end product of her labours is Lady Wood, a loose concept album split into two parts which centre around the highs and lows of a drug hit (and a relationship) respectively. It's not a particularly complicated concept, but it's unique enough to intrigue; and the same can be said for the songs, with the closest we come to real vulnerability coming in the form of 'Flashes', a song which details the conflict between fame and relationships. Nevertheless, there's an honesty which pervades each drug-related confession Tove makes and a lack of repetition in the songs which makes Lady Wood a transformative and enjoyable listen; and it definitely helps that 'Cool Girl' can turn any nightclub into a dancefloor with just one verse.

After a somewhat disappointing showing with Don't Look Down, Skylar Grey's 2013 debut release full of angst, trailer trash imagery, rent-a-rappers and white girl hip hop beats, expectations weren't particularly high for Natural Causes, her latest project released in September. But Grey surprised everyone with an understated, tender and vulnerable album which trades in the harsh genre changes and lyrical inconsistencies of her first for an atmospheric concept album loosely (but not strictly) based around the wonders of the natural world. From the vibey introduction track, 'Wilderness', to the cold and sombre 'Come Up For Air' (which may surpass 'Coming Home' as the most beautiful song she's ever written), to the acoustic musings of the Radiohead-esque 'Moving Mountains', Grey continues to find new and unique ways to express herself without ever sounding scattered or confused as she did on her debut. More impressively, she's been able to carve out a new lane for herself and develop a new sound far distanced from the piano ballads she wrote for others, like Rihanna ('Love the Way You Lie') and Christina Aguilera ('Castle Walls'). With Natural Causes, Grey has finally found her unique voice and sound that work for her; now all she needs is for the public to find it as well.

Kanye West's latest album went through a plethora of changes since its inception three years ago in 2013, when it still went under the working title So Help Me God. Back then, the album was intended to feature productions by Rick Rubin and Q-Tip and had a new soulful, acoustic sound showcased by the stand-alone singles 'Only One' and 'FourFiveSeconds', both of which featured Paul McCartney; but it wasn't long before SWISH was teased as a title and then WAVES, with each new project title bringing a harder, more classically hip-hop sound than the last. Even after the album was released on February 11th, updates continued to arrive in the form of altered tracklistings, updated productions and even entirely new tracks up until the albums final form in June. Listening to the final product of The Life of Pablo, it's easy to hear the multiple changes in direction that took place throughout the recording process; but rather than detracting from the project as a whole, these inconsistencies instead serve as our only doorway into one of the most creative and genius minds of our time. Whether he's spitting mean bars over the new wave instrumental on 'Feedback', harboring the combined talents of Sia, Frank Ocean and Vic Mensa on 'Wolves' or courting controversy with the Nina Simone sampling 'Famous', West makes sure to keep all the attention squarely on himself - a talent he's since extended to his personal life as well. The Life of Pablo hasn't had any new tracklist changes recently; but even without the monthly updates, the albums spirit of experimentation, recklessness and courage is bound to live on in West's future releases.

Gwen Stefani's long-awaited third LP might have had a few false starts - even though 'Baby Don't Lie' goes off, we're still recovering from the misstep that was the Pharrell-assisted 'Spark The Fire' - but when she finally came through for her fans, Gwen gave them everything they'd been waiting for and more. Inspired by her breakup with longtime husband Gavin Rossdale, Gwen threw aside the co-penned tracks that had been written for her by the likes of Charli XCX and Ryn Weaver and instead headed back into the studio to record an entire albums worth of songs over several weeks - this time with each one written by herself and the current pop dream team of Justin Tranter and Julia Michaels. Ultimately, the albums designation as a "breakup album" turned out to be a little inaccurate - Stefani spends much of the time buoying from songs about dirty text messages ('Send Me A Picture') to singing about new love ('Make Me Like You'), and even when she allows a moment to mope, it's often backed by a strong beat and some classically Gwen vocal delivery ('Used To Love You'). But the sound is consistent, effortless and fresh, and most importantly it sounds like a true Gwen album that she, not her label, has helmed. Let's just hope we don't have to wait so long for the popstar to find her voice again for the next one.

JoJo's third studio album may have taken over ten years to finally be released (although we did get several albums worth of unreleased songs to hold us over in between), but if Mad Love proved anything it was that she was definitely worth the wait. After a somewhat lukewarm reception to the three singles she released through her C-side Tringle project, JoJo retooled the album from the house-leaning project The Aftermath to the version we ended up with, a fusion of futuristic R&B, house beats and piano ballads; and while she might have originally been known for her cheesy 2000s R&B tracks and vocal-led ballads, JoJo proves here that she can hold her own with the up-tempo girls, bringing some dancefloor ready hooks on tracks like 'Vibe.' and the MNEK-produced fan favourite 'Good Thing.'. She asserts herself further with the sexy, sassy ode to independence 'High Heels.' as well as the drug-induced haze of 'Clovers.': although in truth the album's best moment is when she returns to her roots both musically and lyrically on the stunningly autobiographical opener 'Music.' Fingers crossed that the next album won't be another decade away; but even if JoJo never releases another album again, it's satisfying to know that she's released the album of her dreams, and probably the album of her career, with Mad Love.

Following the release of 2014's collaborative album with jazz legend Tony Bennett Cheek To Cheek, and a collection of well-received tributes to Carole King, Stevie Wonder, Frank Sinatra, David Bowie and The Sound of Music, Lady Gaga was primed for success with LG5, her mysterious album which was billed as a comeback from 2013's perceived critical failure ARTPOP. Promises were made of collaborations with the likes of Giorgio Moroder and Nile Rodgers, as well as an Elton John feature; the third the duo has recorded that would ultimately go unreleased. But when 'Perfect Illusion', the adrenaline-pumping disco-rock anthem first single was released to little fanfare, all hopes for a dance record were thrown out the window and fans were forced to reevaluate their hopes for the long-awaited record. Ever the shock artist, Gaga threw off Little Monsters even further with the release of promo singles 'Million Reasons' and 'A-Yo', both of which explored a new country vibe, and which would go on to reflect the albums folky atmosphere more accurately. Joanne is not without fault - the short track times and lazy (and frankly nonsensical) songwriting on lines such as "It's like that I've stopped breathing but completely aware" is a turn off, and Gaga's new acting role as a southern belle isn't always completely convincing ('Sinners Prayer''s opening line of "I came down the mountain" is slightly cringeworthy if we're being honest). But at it's greatest moments, such as the heartbreaking chords of 'Angel Down' or during the female empowerment anthem 'Hey Girl' with Florence Welch, it provides us with some of Gaga's best and most unique moments to date. Joanne successfully continues Gaga's tradition as one of music's greatest shapeshifters; now all that remains to be seen is what form she'll take for the next album.

A year in music wouldn't be complete without an album from the Princess of Pop herself, and Britney Spears came through in 2016 with one of the best albums of her career. Long gone are the days of the lifeless Autotuneney we heard in 2011's Femme Fatale and the Confuseney (or Confuseyah Marie) we had to sit through in 2013's mess of genres and sounds Britney Jean. For the first time since Blackout, Britney's vocals are at the forefront: she giggles, gasps, moans, screams and shouts all over each track, making for an album which features some of the most interesting vocal performances of the year. She evokes the cold, detached robot persona of Femme Fatale in tracks like the "artsy fartsy" 'Coupure Electrique' (which, in Brit's most experimental move to date, is sung entirely in French): the repressed sex kitten of 'I'm A Slave 4 U' in 'Do You Wanna Come Over?'; the 90s teeny bopper of '...Baby One More Time' in 'Hard To Forget Ya'; and the high-pitched trumpetting of Alvin and the Chipmunks 2: The Squeakquel in 'Private Show', a new sound for the reigning queen of Vegas. But the most impressive thing about Glory is Britney's own presence on the album. It's clear to fans that 2016 was the year that she came out of her shell - from swearing off relationships publicly to talking openly about her conservatorship and making more TV and festival appearances than she did for her last two albums combined - and her newfound independence is reflected all over this album. Glory might not be an album without missteps, but it's propelled forward through it's dullest moments by a quintessentially Britney energy: a tangible spark in the popstars eye which hasn't been harnessed since at least 2009's Circus. It might not have ignited the charts, but in the eyes of her fans, Glory has proved that Britney is officially back.

We always knew that behind the sugar-coated R&B-pop veneer of perfection she displays in every strand of her ponytail, there was a rebel hiding inside Ariana Grande - and 2016 was the year she proved it. When she wasn't out licking donuts with her boyfriend or calling out Ryan Seacrest live on radio, Grande was promoting her latest effort, the aptly titled Dangerous Woman - and with three singles, six music videos and a plethora of live performances to consume, it's clear that this is the album that she, and her label, are most dedicated to. From the soulful and powerful belting in the title track to the chilled out hip-hop vibes of the Lil Wayne assisted 'Let Me Love You' to the reggae-styled beats of 'Side To Side', a song which is literally about being fucked so hard you can't walk straight, Ariana diversifies her sound here like never before, stepping away from the saccharine tones of her previous singles to explore a darker, more edgy sound. And even on the album's filler tracks, Ariana keeps the transformative tone consistent, making the inspired choice to work with R&B legend Macy Gray on 'Leave Me Lonely' before jumping into the realm of dark-pop with fan favourite 'Touch It'. The vocals and production may still be a little too pitch perfect to suggest any real rebellion, and the fake lashes may prevent us from seeing too deep into her eyes, but the tracks on Dangerous Woman mark a sorely needed step forward for Grande; and mark a solid, cohesive body of work from the most effortless popstar we've seen in years. 

  This past Monday at the 58th Grammy Awards, Lady Gaga partnered with Intel to pay tribute to the late music icon David Bowie. Gaga and Bowie fans alike praised Gaga for her incredible vocal performance and undeniable appreciation for Bowie's musical craft. Though some compared her attire to a down town L.A. Elvis impersonation, Lady Gaga, without a doubt, was the highlight of the entire show. In honor of the late rock icon, here's a look back at our 10 favorite David Bowie covers.

10. Kittie - Space Oddity

  Kittie, a Canadian heavy metal band, contributed a cover of to one of Bowie's most well known songs, Space Oddity, on the 2015 tribute album A Salute To The Thin White Duke. Lead singer Morgan Lander toned down her normally abrasive vocals to give Kittie fans a new perspective of her vocal abilities. Though the performance is lacking the emotional depth of other covers on the list, it is great to see Kittie drift away from the style they are most know for (such as fan favorites Never Again and Flower Of The Flesh & Blood) and to give non-metal fans a glimpse into the hidden vocal abilities of heavy metal singers.

9. Behemoth - Hello Spaceboy 

  While this may be the most controversial and disliked choice on this list, blackend death metal band Behemoth covered Bowie in a very unique fashion. While most artists try to keep the covers as close to the original as possible, Behemoth dared to record the most unusual Bowie cover to date. The belligerent vocals and classic black metal instrumentals are a testament to the universal appeal of Bowie's music. 

8. A Camp - Boys Keep Swimming

  A Camp, a side project of The Cardigan's lead singer Nina Persson, included this overlooked Bowie classic on their 2009 EP Covers. Persson, known for such hits as Love Fool and My Favourite Game, transformed this vocally haunting yet unapologetically upbeat hit into an anti-patriarchal anthem that Bowie himself would undeniably praise.

7. My Chemical Romance (feat. The Used) - Under Pressure

  In 2005 rock bands My Chemical Romance and The Used teamed up for this top 40 charity single to support victims of the Indian earthquake and tsunami. Originally performed by Bowie and fellow rock icon and Queen front man Freddie Mercury, this modern rock cover is a stand out song in both band's discographies. Without a doubt, the best performance comes from a MTV live duet shown below. Bert McCracker (The Used front man) and Gerad Way (My Chemical Romance front man and now solo singer) harmonized their post-hardcore and emo vocals to rejuvenate a classic song while also blessing viewers with one hell of a performance. 

6. Bruce Dickinson - All The Young Dudes

  Iron Maiden lead singer Bruce Dickinson created one of the most brilliant Bowie penned covers of all time on his first solo album Tattooed Millionaire He was able to keep all the things we love from the original while providing Iron Maiden fans with the effortless belting he is most known for. Bowie purists almost unanimously agree that though the video is a bit strange Bruce recorded one of the best Bowie covers of all time.

5. Marilyn Manson - Golden Years

  What may seem like another oddity on this list is the spooky kid himself Marilyn Manson. While his inclusion may seem odd to some, Manson has cited Bowie as one of his greatest inspirations several times over his nearly 3 decade career . Manson's version is a perfect blend of Bowie's uptempo funk and Manson's industrial rock, creating one of Manson's most accessible songs.

4. Barbra Streisand - Life On Mars

  The year was 1974 and Barbra Streisand had just finished recording ButterFly - which she described to Larry King  in 1992 as her least favorite album. Her producer and then boyfriend Jon Peters rushed an album of modern songs in an attempt to cash in on Babs' success.  Though the top 20 album is the most forgettable out of her 40+ album discography, Streisand did record the most alluring rendition of Life On Mars. The tale of a young woman seeking movie stardom is evocative of Streisand's first film role as Fanny Brice in Funny Girl as well as Streisand's own early desires for fame and celebrity. 

3. Joan Jett - Rebel Rebel

  Dubbed the 'Queen Of Rock', the better suited 'Rock Goddess' Joan Jett included her remarkable cover of her friend David Bowie's Rebel Rebel on her album of rarities Flashback. Lyrically, the song is complimentary towards the juvenile successes and androgynous appearances of both Jett and Bowie. Stylistically it fits perfectly into any album by the rock rebels. Joan Jett effortlessly possesses the rock n roll spirit this song was made for. 

2. Jessica Lange - Life On Mars

  Fans Of American Horror Story will quickly recognize this Teutonic rendition performed by freak show owner Elsa Mars. Set in 1952, nearly twenty years before Bowie's original release, Elsa Mars, played by Jessica Lange, takes the stage dressed in a tortoise suite and eye shadow, similar to the ensemble worn by Bowie in the Life On Mars music video. At first, AHS fans were a bit shocked to hear Lange's comic German accent, but by the end of the song Twitter was filled unanimous praise and admiration.

1. Amanda Palmer (feat. Jherek Bischoof & Anna Calvi) - Blackstar

  Forum favorite Amanda Palmer recently released Strung Out In Heaven: A Bowie String Quartet Tribute in honor of the late music pioneer. Palmer, who is known for her 'punk rock cabaret' style of music, beautifully crafted one of the first covers of the recently released Blackstar. The eeriness of Bowie's vocals can't compare to the unearthly chill of hearing Palmer softly chant 'something happened on the day he died', evoking a sense of despair for all fans to hear.  The narrative of the song quickly changes from a tale of a stranger to a recounting of a cultural legend. You can stream Strung Out In Heaven on Amanda Palmer's bandcamp page. 

Do you agree with this list? Were your favs snubbed? Discuss your favorite Bowie covers below.

Now that 2016 has finally arrived - and any hopes of a surprise release ala Beyoncé have been completely dashed - we thought it was the perfect time to look back at what made last year in music great. Although the bigger names in pop such as Gaga, RiRi and Katy all took unexpected hiatuses for the majority of 2015, these breaks only made room for newcomer artists and previously unpolished gems to dominate the charts. Read on below to find out how!

In fifth place...

In fourth place...

In third place...

In second place...

And in first place...

What do you think of PHF's official list of the five best albums of 2015? Have we covered all the bases, or are you ready to hunt us down for not including your favourite project? Let us know in the comments section down below!

With the end of another year imminent and New Year's Eve fast approaching, it wouldn't be surprising if now's the time you start to stress about your NYE party plans. While technology hasn't yet progressed far enough for us to send Chris Hemsworth through your screen as a midnight kiss, we are happy to help with what we can do best: and that's countdowns! This year, we've selected the top ten best singles of 2015 for you to add to your NYE playlist (one for every hour of partying, of course!) - and from 'Call Me Maybe' sugar cube Carly Rae Jepsen to Canadian alternative rock band Glass Face, we've designed it to keep everyone happy. For bonus points, finish off your party with the annual Pop Danthology mashup, where tracks like 'Hello', 'Trap Queen' and 'Bad Blood' do battle against each other!

10. Allie X - Prime

You may not have heard of Allie X, who follows in the footsteps of acts like Marina & The Diamonds and Charli XCX as pop's latest indie darling. But rest assured that once you've heard your first taste of her breakout single 'Prime', you won't want to stop. Treading the precarious line between feel good party lyrics and social commentary, X reflexively hides a message on her generations need for instant gratification both sexually and socially through a killer chorus. Just be warned: you will have this song in your head all week.

9. Florence + The Machine - Ship To Wreck

Flo's latest offerings from How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful never reached the commercial heights of more radio friendly tracks like 'You've Got The Love' or 'Sweet Nothing', which is a shame given that 'Ship To Wreck' is one of her most powerful and ambitious songs to date. The English songstress has always excelled at painting some of the strongest images in pop, and this track is no exception, with Florence calling on nautical imagery to discuss the self-destructive addiction she faced at the tail-end of her Lungs release. Get ready to dance with this one.

8. Adam Lambert - Ghost Town

At the beginning of this year, the most we really knew about Adam Lambert was that his killer set of pipes had gotten him far in American Idol, and that he had a penchant for penis. But with the release of 'Ghost Town' in April, we became privy to a new layer of Lambert's personality, and experienced a level of pop knowledge and talent that was almost scary. Edgier and more experimental than anything the singer had worked on before, the (literally) haunting lyrics are improved only by the expertise of the supreme Max Martin, whose heavy beats and whistles propelled the song right onto the dance floor. Have glowsticks on hand for maximum effect.

7. Mark Ronson - UpTown Funk (Feat. Bruno Mars)

While it may also qualify for most overplayed song of the year, there's a reason that 'UpTown Funk' was blasted from every radio station, barber shop and boombox for the majority of 2015. Mars has always been known as a prophet in pop, predicting the newest trends years before they happen, and Mark Ronson (best known as Amy WInehouse's most frequent collaborator) was the perfect choice for his new funk and soul inspired project. If you're looking to switch it up a little, try Fleur East's 'Sax': it's a formulaic rewrite but the melody's unique enough to get you dancing all over again. 

6. Glass Face - Hotline Bling

Probably more appropriate for the morning after than the big night itself, Glass Face's alternative rock cover of Drake's 'Hotline Bling' is admittedly more of a "slit your wrists in the bathtub" kind of song than it is a club banger. Nevertheless, their ambient blend of vocal harmonies, heavy percussion and stunning synths draws a sad vulnerability out from the original song that make the lyrics much more effective than they were in the awkward dancing original. 

5. Skrillex & Diplo - Where Are Ü Now (Feat. Justin Bieber)

J. Bieb's first major foray into EDM (after the admittedly catchy 'Beauty and a Beat' which was produced by Zedd) also marked a comeback for the one-time teen star, whose overblown antics made more waves than his music for the majority of 2015. With 'Where Are Ü Now', a collaboration with dance music heavyweights Skrillex and Diplo, Bieber strikes a delicate balance between danceable hit song and surprisingly vulnerable lyrics, a formula he'd later replicate somewhat less successfully with follow up singles 'What Do You Mean' and 'Sorry'. Even those who aren't fans of the Ruby Rose lookalike have to admit this track is a jam.

4. Major Lazer & DJ Snake - Lean On (Feat. MØ)

Gone are the days when MØ was simply known for being the awkward girl dancing behind Iggy Azalea on SNL. Now, she awkwardly dances behind Diplo in India! In November, 'Lean On' was named by Spotify as the most streamed song of all time, and it's easy to see why with it's global lyrics, powerful vocals and total earworm of a post-chorus. Not only did this track bring both Major Lazer and MØ to the forefront of pop music for 2015, it also sparked a sonical revolution that reverberated through the rest of the scene for the next six months and undoubtedly made Rihanna roll in her grave. Am I the only one who can still jam out to this song?

3. Demi Lovato - Cool for the Summer

Before the release of 'Cool for the Summer', no one could have called Demi Lovato a risktaker. But with the first single from her otherwise disappointing album, Confident, Demi reinvented herself as sex kitten supreme, following in the footsteps of former Disney stars like Britney and Christina with a genre breaking hybrid that combines experimental pop, 90s power ballad and heavy metal. Matched with a new image I like to call "Tumblr meets sex shop", the track successfully pushed Demi out of her Disney Channel haze and into the adult world. It becomes even better when you realise the whole thing is basically about lesbianism.

2. Pia Mia - Touch

It's crazy that at age nineteen, the ridiculously good looking Pia Mia already has more stellar pop songs under her low strung belt than most of her contemporaries double her age. It's equally silly that the almost amazingly mediocre 'Do It Again' blew up worldwide while the Stargate and Blood Diamonds produced banger 'Touch' went pretty much unnoticed by anyone who wasn't following Kylie Jenner on Instagram. Riding the same tropical house wave that made 'Where Are Ü Now' and 'Lean On' hits, characterised by some steel drum synths, a distorted vocal sample and an island beat, the would be hit was only improved by the super sexy video, in which Pia grinds, emotionlessly stares, and dances (rather well) her way to pop stardom. Make this happen people.

1. Carly Rae Jepsen - Run Away With Me

It would have been easy to write off 'Call Me Maybe' star Carly Rae Jepsen as yet another flash in the pan after her big comeback single, 'I Really (Really Really Really Really Really) Like You' failed to make waves, even with endorsements from Justin Bieber and, bizarrely, Tom Hanks. But the second single off this year's EMOTION is pretty much everything you could want from a pop song and more. Backed by a saxophone sample that veers the song away from the dangerous bubblegum territory it might otherwise fall into, the song does what only an 80s inspired sax-laden pop song can do: it makes you want to dance, cry, change your life and do push ups all at the same time. Forget the Syrian refugee crisis: the fact that this song didn't blow up is the biggest social issue of the year, and we should all be attending to it as quickly as possible.

What are your favourite singles of the year? Are you crying that we left out 'Hello', or screaming that 'Drag Me Down' didn't make the list? Let us know in the comments down below!

The Christmas season is upon us, which means that everytime you venture out in the cold to your local mall, workplace or church you'll be blasted with the hollow sounds of sanctimonious carols and tinny holiday tunes that have been covered by as many popstars as Taylor Swift in an average calendar year.

If you're looking to escape the sounds of carolers at your door, look no further: PHF has the answer for you! We asked our most-loved members (and @trayertrash) for their absolute favourite holiday anthems, compiled them into a list, and checked it twice. Then we put a brand new bow on it and regifted it to you as an early Christmas gift! Browse through our offerings and make sure you let us know your own favourite Christmas song in the comments below.

@Baby V Alex: Britney Spears - My Only Wish (This Year)

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Ugh, I have tons of faves: 'Winter Wonderland' by Vanessa Hudgens, 'Christmas Song' by DWV, 'Bring Me a Man' by AAA Girls.

But the cake might go to the one and only enchanting mistress Miss Britney Spears!

Back in 2000 there was a rumor floating around that Britney would record a Christmas album just like her shadow (reference) and the only track we heard from that project was "My Only Wish (This Year)" and it's amazing. I mean, it's a complete bubble gum jam for Christmas, it's personal and raw. The only complaint I have for this is that we never got a video of Britney putting up her Christmas tree and writing a letter to Santa. But hey! Nothing is perfect in the world. So start your Xmas season with a big throwback to the 2000s, because after all we are a bunch of millennials.

@Countess: Mariah Carey - All I Want For Christmas Is You

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This, along with Judy Garland's 'Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas', is one of the only Christmas songs that I can listen to at any time of the year and get that warm, cosy yearning for the holidays to come again! It always makes me want to dance around and those whistle vocals at the end slay me every single time, even if she can't perform them like she used to.

Long before I even knew who Mariah was, I heard a cover of this song in Love, Actually which is one of my favourite movies and which I watch every year on Christmas Eve with my mum. So it has sentimental value as well as the fact that it's just a flawless song. I'm so glad to have an excuse to play it again!

@Cypher: Cascada - Last Christmas

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I'm gonna keep my response short and simple. Cascada's 'Last Christmas' because it's the easiest song to dance to.

Okay, one more. I also really like Christina Perri's 'Ave Maria'. I love the song as it is and Christina's rendition, while not perfect, reminds me of warmth and holiday lights on the staircase banister.

@infidelity: Hilary Duff - What Christmas Should Be

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I don't listen to a lot of Christmas music as it's not up my alley, however, I do have Hilary Duff's christmas album so I'll pick something off that.

'What Christmas Should Be': The instrumental is calm and it's about wishing for peace on earth which is what the world needs right now. The song has some sentimental value to myself as it reminds me of the transition from primary school to high school lol.

'Last Christmas': Old classic. I will usually sing a long to this if I hear it in a store/out and about somewhere. It makes me think of a white Christmas and how I hope to experience one someday.

@Matilda Mantis: Lady Gaga & Tony Bennett - Winter Wonderland

@roger: Meg & Dia - Joey Had A Smoke

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Thank you for considering me.

This is my favorite Xmas song: 'Joey Had a Smoke' by my favorite band Meg & Dia (Dia Frampton, winner from The Voice US season 1).The song is punk rock, it comes from the compilation album A Santa Cause "It's a Punk Rock Christmas" 2 so it's a cool track, it's basically a modern take of when Joseph realized Mary was pregnant. I don't like carols, they annoy me, I fucking love Hilary Duff and I can't stand her Xmas album (except for 'What Christmas Should Be' and 'Last Christmas') but this song is super cool and it comes from my favorite band ever.

Earlier this week, Lady Gaga officially farewelled the ARTPOP era with the last show of her 'artRAVE' tour in an emotionally charged, high energy performance which many believe bested even her highly acclaimed 'The Monster Ball'. Love it or hate it, Gaga's latest era has certainly been a bumpy ride, even more marred by controversy than her first couple of projects. From early song leaks by Gaga herself, to emotional onstage breakdowns over the loss of her manager, to confessions of both drug and sexual abuse, to scrapped duets and music videos, and some of the whackiest outfits that have ever been rocked, the one thing that can be said for the era was that it was never dull. And yet, ARTPOP was always marked - even pre-emptively - as the first time in Gaga's career that she'd truly "flopped". Despite the fact that the album hit #1, featured an early hit in the form of 'Applause' as well as two moderate successes in 'Do What U Want' and 'Dope', and emitted more "YASSS"'s than had ever been heard in pop music before, critics were quick to bash the album as underwhelming, criticizing the "bizarre album of squelchy disco" and describing it as "sexual but not sexy".

And they may have had a point. We couldn't help but feel slightly let down when, after promising a third part to the trilogy established with 'Paparazzi' and 'Telephone', Gaga delivered a pretty basic music video in the form of 'Applause'; when, after the amazing, energetic new sound she debuted with a remix of Zedd's 'Stache', she returned to safer electro-pop with her lead single; and when the ARTPOP app, which had always been promised as a key part of the album experience, turned out to have about ten minutes of excitement in the whole thing. But how does ARTPOP live up to the hype a year later on? Detached from the excessive fan anticipation, the ridiculous bandwagon of negative criticism, and the endless publicity stunts, what is ARTPOP?

A pretty good album, if you look at it as a whole. With ARTPOP, Gaga traded in the fresh-faced enthusiasm of The Fame, the dark industrialism of The Fame Monster and the synth-pop cheesiness of Born This Way for a sound which, if not revolutionary, was new and exciting for her. There may be a few sprouts of genericism in songs like 'Donatella' (which, if it fails at everything else, always managed to get an audience on their feet at artRAVE) and 'G.U.Y.' (whose rather interesting lyrics and a fantastic headbanging section at the end was overshadowed by a somewhat lacklustre chorus), but the majority of the album does a pretty good job of offering something fresh yet still mainstream. 'Applause', our first taste of the album, was an electro-pop stomper, but the synths and effects used were different to anything else on the radio at the time; and 'Do What U Want' (which we maintain is probably the best song of the year) offered a throwback vibe that no one had heard in a Gaga album, or on pop music charts, before. Then there's the relentless experimentation in one of the album's highlights 'Aura', whose absolute flawlessness was dulled somewhat by an early leak and some last minute vocal changes; and the rousing, yet creepily detached screams of 'Swine', an angry rejection of rape culture. 'Dope' provided us with a twist on the classic Gaga ballad, with a haunting, raw production and intensely personal lyrics; while it's counterpart 'Mary Jane Holland' worked as a nevertheless somewhat uncomfortable ode to marijuana given Gaga's current circumstances. There's an absolute plethora of experiments with genre and sounds on the album, which explains in part why everyone's favourite song is completely different.

So why didn't the album work? Part of it almost definitely has to do with the impossible amount of hype placed on the project - with a lot of it, in all fairness, coming from Gaga herself. Promising a "lack of maturity and responsibility" on the album confirmed, for a lot of fans, a return to the The Fame era, as did the blonde bob Gaga brought back for the album - yet the majority of the album lacked that carefree nature, trading it for a colder, more detached comment on a variety of social issues. The album was also under an insane amount of pressure to sell better than her past masterpiece Born This Way, which controversially shipped a pretty incredible six million copies and set up an almost impossible standard. The majority of the songs were also released, in one way or another, before the album, which destroyed some of the fun of hearing them all on release day; with 'Applause', 'Venus', 'Do What U Want' and 'Dope' understandably released as (promo) singles before the album's release, but other songs, such as 'MANiCURE', 'Jewels 'N' Drugs', 'ARTPOP', 'Sexxx Dreams' and 'Swine' being played live, and 'Aura' leaking way before it should have. Even 'Dope' was precursed by 'I Wanna Be With You', which turned out for a lot of fans to be a better song; and the final version of 'ARTPOP' lacked a few qualities that made the live version truly pop. But the main issue with ARTPOP was it's initial concept: one which, while at first sight appearing to be all-encompassing and broad enough to build a project around, turned out to be a little too simplistically pretentious for the tastes of many fans. Gaga claims that everything she's done in her career has been ARTPOP, and it's probably true; but the album had a little too much pop, and not quite enough art; and those art projects promised to revolutionize, like Volantis, failed and sank quicker than a Mariah Carey album on the charts. Gaga's personality, too, was a turn-off for much of the general public; with the fun-loving girl of yesteryear replaced by an intensely serious, often stoned, drunk or high musician who waxed lyrical about an album that possibly didn't quite deserve the praise she herself was bestowing on it.

Luckily, the album seems to have had little of a lasting impact on Gaga's career. The majority of her core fanbase appears to have stuck by her, and she's tapped into a new market with her top-selling Cheek To Cheek album with Tony Bennett, which provided a much-needed reiteration of her natural vocal prowess. While some of the general public may have jumped ship, we can tell by past comebacks from artists like Rihanna (post-Rated R) and Britney (post-Femme Fatale) that all they really need is a catchy hook to get them excited again. And if it was good for anything, ARTPOP seems to have pushed Gaga to try harder and strive for more, in a more determined, direct way; the meticulously planned 'artRAVE' album launch party has now been replaced by spontaneous, fun live performances with much less anticipation building up for them. Maybe it's true that ARTPOP was a disappointment, as it could never have been the album that Gaga promised; but maybe, just maybe, it was the one she needed.

Here's hoping for that long-promised Act 2.

While much has been made over the comebacks of pop princesses Gwen Stefani and Fergie over the last month (and with good reason!), there's one artist who we at PHF feel is criminally underrated. Departing from fanbase expectations of her traditional style, she broke out in the same year as our two favourite frontwomen; reinvigorated the pop music scene with fresh new dance sounds straight from the far east, as Gwen did with R&B and Fergie did with hip-hop; and explored the same anxiety over the big time seen in songs like 'What You Waiting For?' and 'Glamorous'.

Her name? Utada Hikaru - Utada for short.

Bursting onto the American music scene for the second time just over a decade ago (her first foray into the American market came with 1996's Precious, which failed to chart anywhere until it was re-released in 1999 at the height of her Japanese popularity), Utada's Exodus album came at a significant time for not only the artist herself, but also for the world at large. With a title alluding to the singer's move from Japan to America, as well as her transition from rather straightforward, if odd R&B to experimental dance music, the Biblical allusion may have given the album a lot to live up to - but Utada (or Hikki, as fans call her) delivered in droves. Like Britney's Blackout after it, the album documented the electronic emancipation of a 20 something former teen star who was tasting her first bite of freedom, and licking her lips with every morsel. Capitalizing on a post 9/11 fear of the foreign and the so-called "Asian invasion" which permeated much of early 2000's popular culture, Hikki shocked her fans and the public at large with a dark, eclectic album perfect for the dancefloor, and the post-dancefloor hangover after it.

What makes the album even more incredible is the level of input Utada herself had. Describing herself as a "mad scientist" who shunned human contact and label intervention during the making of the album, Hikki self-wrote and produced every track on the album, bar two co-productions with her childhood inspiration Timbaland on 'Exodus '04' and 'Let Me Give You My Love'. Disregarding the slightly ill-advised introductory first single, 'Easy Breezy' - whose fun, irreverent lyrics of "You're easy breezy/And I'm Japanesey" clash a little with the overt darkness of the rest of the album, the majority of the work is filled with quirky, unexpected clashes of eastern and western sounds and surprisingly honest, personal lyrics documenting the failure of Utada's marriage to her director husband, Kazuaki Kiriya. 'You Make Me Want To Be A Man', whose music video was directed by Kiriya himself, features shockingly intimate lyrics such as "I really want to tell you something/This is just the way I am/I really want to tell you something, but I can't/You make me want to be a man"; while 'Kremlin Dusk', which features possibly the most epic breakdown of any song ever, contrasting Hikki's concerns over her break into the American music scene with the neediness of a first love with lyrics like "Is it like this?/Is it always the same?/When a heartache begins, is it like this?/If you like this/Will you remember my name?/Will you play it again, if you like this?". Yet other songs explore Hikki's obsession with the fantastical, such as 'Hotel Lobby', which describes a working night for the prostitutes of Japan over an understated, sultry beat; and 'Tippy Toe', which describes the desire for an adulterous relationship in almost uncomfortable detail. Linking all the tracks together is an insatiable desire for honesty which pushes the singer further and further into the realms of her own mind, before exposing her thoughts brazenly for all to hear.

Sadly, the brightness of Hikki's star was not for us to experience eternally. Following the release of her somewhat less epically experimental R&B album This Is The One back in 2010 and the exhibition of a few compilation albums in the following years, Utada announced an indefinite hiatus from music back in 2011. She's returned a few times, releasing the beautiful one-off single 'Sakura Nagashi' in 2012, hosting her own monthly radio show and responding to the tragic suicide of her mother in 2013, and revealing her marriage in 2014 - but she's yet to make plans for a true comeback, or even let us know if she's ever coming back at all. Recently, a cover album dedicated to Hikki's work and featuring big J-Pop names such as Ayumi Hamasaki and Miliyah Kato was announced for release next month, reflecting her ongoing popularity as the nations sweetheart - but nothing quite matches the excitement running through your veins the first time you listen to Exodus the whole way through, with an empty house primed for dancing all to yourself.

And that's why, as the fourth quarter of the year approaches and the joyful Christmas season begins, we can't help but feel a little disappointed at the lack of the most important face in the comeback crowd for 2014. Gwen and Fergie have both wowed us with innovative, fun comeback singles recently; but 2004's Holy Trinity of Pop just can't be complete without a new album from Utada. Here's hoping for a Christmas miracle.

Britney Spears debut single, '...Baby One More Time', has officially had it's sixteen year anniversary! The song, first released in 1998, hit #1 in over twenty international charts, and is still performed today on Spears' Britney: Piece of Me Las Vegas residency. She honoured the song on her Twitter today, saying:

To celebrate the single's sweet sixteen, we're counting down sixteen moments that made Britney a true icon.

1998: The 'slutty schoolgirl' look takes off

Let's start at the beginning, shall we? Britney's status as a sex symbol came early with the release of the '...Baby One More Time' music video, which featured her breaking the rules in high school and triggered a huge amount of sales of low cut school shirts and mens ties.

1999: From one Rolling Stone...

The virgin whore archetype was taken to a whole new level with the release of Britney's 1999 Rolling Stone cover, however. Set against a backdrop of pure pink, the cover showed off Spears' body like never before, and let her quip such lines as ""Kids have low self-esteem, and then the peer pressures come and they go into a wrong crowd. That's when all the bad stuff starts happening, drugs and stuff. I think if they find something that keeps them happy — writing, drawing, anything like that — then they'll have confidence." The teletubby doll she's hugging would later sell for over one hundred billion dollars.

2000: ...To another!

2000: Britney in space: 'Oops!...I Did It Again' music video released

A loving homage to one of her favourite movies, the 'Oops!...I Did It Again' marked another controversial moment for Britney. Nineteen year old Spears referenced the legendary Titanic in this legendary video as she travelled throughout space in one of the sexiest, silliest outfits ever. The real question is: can she still fit into it?

2000: Timbersnake unleashed

Britney and Justin were childhood sweethearts since they starred together on The Mickey Mouse Club, but it wasn't until 2000 when their relationship was officially confirmed. And gosh darnit, were they perfect! They had matching double denim outfits, wrote each other songs, and talked about saving their virginity until marriage for three whole years. And then, in 2003, it all ended. Justin, alleging that Britney had cheated on him, wrote 'Cry Me A River'; and Britney, in response, penned her best song ever, 'Everytime'. Where's that crying emoji?

2001: A snake of another kind

Brit's second VMA performance came in 2001 with this amazing number. Not only did she slay with some of the best dancing of her career and a new, even sexier sound, but she brought a whole zoo with her. The Garden of Eden symbolism is going on for days, huntie.

2003: The infamous threeway kiss

In her third VMA performance, Britney also enjoyed a threeway kiss with fellow icon Madonna and some other girl named Christopher or something. The struggle for Confessions on a Dancefloor promo was real, but we weren't mad at all: the moment was talked about for months and Britney's image took a huge leap forward. Britney and Christina's alleged rivalry continues to this day, but her and Madonna's flawless duet with 'Me Against The Music' entirely makes up for that.

2004: Britney goes 'Toxic'

One of the most expensive music videos ever made at the time of its release, with a budget of one million, 'Toxic' combined a flawless, unique song with some sexy dress ups and some flawless special effects. A little known fact is that the video is actually about Brit taking revenge on a cheating lover - which is what the weird brunette girl in the shower is meant to represent - meaning that the comparisons with 'Womanizer' are very, very real.

2004: A marriage shorter than Kim Kardashian's

In one of the best Vegas weddings in history, Britney married her childhood friend Jason Alexander in 2004. The marriage lasted an entire 55 hours before Spears seeked an annulment, citing the fact that she "lacked understanding of her actions". Is it weird we kinda believe that?

2004: K-Fed to Fed-Ex

Just weeks after Britney's back-up dancer Kevin Federline broke up with his then-pregnant wife Shar Jackson, he managed to woo her with that sexy goatee, seductive fedora and sleazy bad boy "rapping". The couple dated for three months before their engagement, and had quite a large output of material including a reality show, a failed single (Federline's 'Crazy' which remains hilarious to this day) and two children, which are probably the only good things that came out of the entire relationship. Kevin quit rapping, got fat for a while, lost the weight and managed to find another girl to marry (literally, how did he do that?) and still occassionally sees Britney around at their kids soccer matches. How awkward is that?

2006: Inspired by Demi Moore...

In 2006, Britney posed nude and pregnant for Harper's Bazaar, drawing comparisons with Demi Moore's famous and often replicated nude photograph for Vanity Fair. Britney looked flawless and natural on the cover, debuting a darker hair shade than she'd ever had before and bragging about her new, happy life.

2007: To make 'Gimme More'

But while we knew that Britney had always had a wild side, this was made super apparent with the 2007 release of 'Gimme More'. Even though she originally went to great lengths to film an elaborate music video for the track, complete with Elvis references, a funeral scene and a cat (?), the final version featured just Brit pole dancing with a blonde doppelganger and flashing her pasties to the camera. Although the song was, at first, critically appreciated, things took a turn when Britney performed the song at the VMA's. Her choreography was totally off; her stomach was hanging over her lingerie; her extensions were showing; and her lip syncing was a mess. And yet, this performance launched one of the most amazing albums in history, and Britney's undeniable best.

2007: The blackout begins

In one of the most controversial and crazy moments of her career, Britney shaved her head (micro extensions and all) in 2007 at a barbers shop before allegedly getting a tattoo on her bald head. While Brit continues to assure everyone that her activities here were totally normal and that "a lot of people shave their heads", rumours still hang around that the big shave had to do with her avoiding a drug test that required a sample of hair. Blackoutney had officially arrived.

2007: Britney predicts future hits

Amidst the release of Blackout, Brit later continued her crazy streak by attacking a papparazzo's car with an umbrella. Weirdly, she had previously been offered Rihanna's 'Umbrella' as a demo to record for her album, which would later go on to blow up as her breakthrough single later in 2008. it was around this time that Sam Lufti and Brit began dating, and rumours started swirling that he would routinely drug her to keep her passive; disconnect her phone so she couldn't call friends; and control her finances and schedule under the guise of manager. The two would later go to court over such allegations, although the court case would be thrown out (but only after some really shocking revelations had been leaked).

2008: Comebackney/Robotney

Britney's comeback officially came in late 2008 with the announcement of her single 'Womanizer' and her attendance of the 2008 VMA's. Britney looked as flawless as a wax figure here, with a spot on weave, a flawless tan and an amazing, toned body. However, with this comeback came a new problem: the arrival of Robotney. Limited by a conservatorship and controlled by her parents, Britney seems to have lost some of the spark she originally had in the past few years, relying heavily on scripted answers to questions, a highly controlled social media presence and stage theatrics to distract from her somewhat lacklustre performances.

2012: Britney reclaims her X Factor

While it's still a point of controversy among fans, Britney's short stint on the US The X Factor was generally deemed a success. She seemed less stressed and scripted than she had in years, debuted a few truly flawless looks and seemed to be really coming into herself. Sadly, Brit left the show after just one season, with creator Simon Cowell citing a lack of knowledge and a shy personality as the reason for her departure.

2013: Britney: (A Very Small) Piece of Me

Started from the bottom now we here! Since late 2013, after the release of her (pretty disappointing if we're honest) album Britney Jean, Britney's been performing five nights a week at a Las Vegas residency, joining greats such as Elvis, Cher and Celine Dion. The show's impeccably crafted, and Britney's debuted some fierce choreography and beautiful throwback costumes during her time there. Her run has already been extended into well into 2015, so there's plenty of time to catch her there in the future.

And after that? Who knows! While Britney's talked in the past about potentially retiring from music, she just signed a deal with her record label that should keep her around for another few albums at least. She recently debuted her lingerie line internationally and continues to have a successful perfume career. But whatever happens in the future, it's pretty amazing to know that Britney fans will still have sixteen years of flawless, fun and legendary moments to enjoy. Now excuse me while I break out that old private school uniform.

What's your favourite iconic Britney moment? Let us know in the comments section below!

Sad news this Throwback Thursday - Girls Aloud are reportedly splitting up after ten years at the top! Rumours have been spreading about the group's status ever since the announcement of their greatest hits album Ten, but the group seems to have made it official through a post on their Twitter account today:

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Dear Alouders, we just want to say from the bottom of our hearts Thank you!! This tour has been an amazing experience and the perfect chance to say thank you for being on this journey with us through a decade. It has far exceeded any of our dreams and we hope we are forever your inspiration and reminder that dreams really do glitter!! Your love and support will stay with us forever but we have now come to the end of our incredible time together. Love you lots.

It's unsure if the Girls are truly done for good, however. Several of the girls already declined the reports after Cheryl stated in her book that their time together was through. And, with an upcoming single release for 'On the Metro' planned, it does seem possible that the message was simply referring to the end of the tour.

Either way, one thing's for sure: Gods Aloud has a lot of hits! We've complied a list of their top five songs for old time's sake.

5. 'On the Metro'

The Girls' next single (and possibly their last) also happens to be one of their best. With lyrics from the incredible Nicola Roberts and production courtesy of DJ Fresh and The Invisible Men, 'On the Metro' is by far the most danceable song in the group's catalogue, and is a perfect reintroduction of the group to a brand new pop listener. The only thing that confuses us about this song is why it was skipped over as a second single in exchange for the rather bland 'Beautiful Cause You Love Me'.

4. 'Sound of the Underground'

The Girls' first ever single following their successful entry in Popstars: The Rivals, 'Sound of the Underground' remains one of their best songs. While it may not be as current as it once was, the drums are strangely reminiscent of drum and bass, and the chorus is as catchy as ever.

3. 'Something New'

Released last year, 'Something New' doubled as the group's official comeback single as well as the official single for Children in Need 2012. Backed by synth-laden production, some intense rapping from the girls and a rather catchy hook, the song made a perfect comeback single despite it's somewhat disappointing standing on the charts. Flawless!

2. 'Sexy! No No No...'

Think back to 2007. The Sound of Girls Aloud: The Greatest Hits had just been released, and amidst rumours of a potential break-up, a new single was announced. 'Sexy' was the group's triumphant comeback, an electro-pop song actually composed of three different songs that the girl's had recorded separately. Accompanied by one of the best tour opening's in history, 'Sexy' sounds just as interesting and forward-thinking today as it did six years ago. And let's not get started on Nadine's vocals!

1. 'Love Machine'

And here we are! Undoubtedly the girl's strangest song, 'Love Machine' also happens to be one of the catchiest. With lines like "let's go, eskimo" and "we're gift wrapped kitty cat's", how can you not like this song? Produced by Xenomania, the song has become a standard for the group and continues to be flawless almost ten years later. Besides, it was once voted the second "most exhilarating" song ever. How cool is that!

And there you have it! As sad as it is that the group might be coming to an end, fan's can rest assured that the songs they've loved in the past will remain just as brilliant and groundbreaking ten years on. How do you feel about the break-up? Did we get it right with our top five list? Let us know below!