If 2012 was the year of Dev Hynes, insouciance and shrugging shoulders, in effect of youth (We Are Young, Die Young), then 2013 was a year in retrograde. The biggest song of the year (what else, but Get Lucky) sounded like a Chic out-take (which, given its provenance, isn't an inaccurate simile). The second-biggest, Blurred Lines, was retro in a less appealing way, for reasons which a thousand thinkpieces will explain. American import Ariana Grande dressed like a 1950s debutante and warbled like 1990s Mariah. Haim, the success story of the year, were a traditional success story. Theirs is a well-beaten path, one that was was easily followed in the 1970s as now. A trio of gigging sisters, plugging and plugging away, touring and gigging, playing their own music and finally getting where they wanted to be. A triumvirate of Stevie Nickses, wearing cut-offs and American Apparel.
It was a year that held its breath for the most part, waiting. A year that teased. Beyoncé nudged along tracks such as Grown Woman, and did the Pepsi campaign, and every few months, mentioned an album. And then dropped the album overnight, with no explanation. Britney promised her Ray Of Light, and her most personal album yet. Instead, we got Work Bitch – a glassy, game-face of a single – the opposite of a confessional chat in the loos. Gaga's ARTPOP was tweaked endlessly, then leaked, then singles were released in a panic.
Meanwhile, labels teased fans with videos, and lyric videos, and, most ridiculously, previews to lyric videos. Some artists took this more seriously than others, and Katy Perry's lyric video to Roar is indeed an emoji masterclass. The experience was drip-fed, with the intention of streamlined "content", but the effect was one of overexposure – snippets on repeat, like ringtones on the back of the bus.
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It was a year where moves that would once have worked, didn't cut it, as Justin Timberlake found out, puzzled when The 20/20 Experience didn't go down as well as it could have. Equally, Gaga was on the rocks with ARTPOP – a jumble of an album, more statement than songs. Lurking within though, were three bona-fide singles (two of which, Applause and Do What U Want have been released, the third, Sexxx Dreams, remains with its nose pressed against the glass). But as always, it was a year in which the big song won out – as Mirrors proved for JT, and Applause for Gaga.
Other big solo artists hammed it up in a manner that Cher would approve of, with Britney bagging herself a Vegas residency with the resplendent Work Bitch. Cher, incidentally, had a wonderful year, both career-wise and on Twitter. Coming back to emojis, Cher's fave, reports the Guardian, is the cheeky ghost one. "That's happy. That's me dancing, when I put that on."
It was a year when sometimes things wouldn't click, no matter how much we willed them, as Mutya Keisha Siobhan/ MKS found out. The floorplan was a dream – some bloggy covers (including Lay Me Down In Swimming Pools) and a Dev Hynes co-write on Flatline, but the foundations crumbled, and the track failed to build. (Is this how housing metaphors work?)
Meanwhile, Girls Aloud played their final show together, clenching hands on the runway, grinning solemnly. As the months went on, even Kimberley spoke out about tensions in the group, writing in her autobiography: "For a long time, the rest of us had felt that she was holding us to ransom, and with the constant whispers of Nadine's imminent solo deal, we felt as if she was calling the shots, and that the band's future was in her hands . . ." .
Despite this, it was a year for groups, even though JLS are no more. (Although their ongoing break-up tour seems to indicate otherwise). One Direction were kings of the charts, as well as kings of our hearts, launching a film and an album. Niall Horan grew as a young man, inspiring his hometown to consider opening an exhibit dedicated to him. And rightly so. Zayn got engaged to Perrie Little Mix, and so may be on the way to creating an excellent pop-star gene pool for future boy and girl groups.
Meanwhile, The Wanted managed to spring from the chrysalis and become a group of note. And, let's not forget, McFly and Busted came together to create McBusted, proving that two bands are better than one, especially when air jumps to Year 3000 are involved.
Little Mix continued to dominate the charts both at home and afar, growing wonderfully weird as their star rose. There hasn't been a ballad since DNA, and let us not forget, the lyrics to DNA included the dementedly intense couplet "And my heart won't beat again /If I can't feel him in my veins". The Saturdays followed in a similar vein –
releasing the marvellous Gentleman, but then backing down with Disco Love, perhaps
It was a year in which women spoke up, and controlled the story. Lauren Mayberry from Chrvches wrote a searing comment piece for the Guardian: "What I do not accept . . . is that it is all right for people to make comments ranging from 'a bit sexist but generally harmless' to openly sexually aggressive. That it is something that 'just happens'. Is the casual objectification of women so commonplace that we should all just suck it up, roll over and accept defeat? I hope not. Objectification, whatever its form, is not something anyone should have to 'just deal with'".
And ex-Disney star Demi Lovato played her part in changing the narrative, speaking openly throughout the year about coping with mental illness and the unrealistic depiction of women in the media.
It was a year that lacked subtlety, but who wants subtlety in their pop? Justin Bieber's charm waned, bombastically, the social media that had brought Biebs to the top didn't help, as the singer was filmed wee-ing into a bucket (lovely) amongst other things. Lily Allen's two-punch comeback felt heavy-handed. A tactical Christmas cover, and a brash buzzy single – one reminding people that yes, she can actually sing very nicely, and the other, that perhaps she could do with an edit.
Meanwhile, Miley's "transformation", clunked along with the subtlety of a teenager smoking a cigarette behind the bike sheds, coughing and spluttering, while maintaining that this was totally the plan, and they do it all the time, honest. It was a transformation that could only have been helmed by two whopper singles – and whopper singles they were.
It was a year where the dance floor was the source of the problem, rather than the solution of 2012. There was no flirtatious number exchanges, like in Call Me Maybe. Instead of shining bright like a diamond, Rihanna called for comfort in Stay. From Katy B’s existential crisis in 5AM (‘oooh, I need somebody to calm me down, a little loving like valium’) to Avicii’s surprisingly sombre banger in Wake Me Up (“All this time I was finding myself/And I didn’t know I was lost”). Even Swedish House Mafia were in reflective mode, on Don’t You Worry Child, (“In a happy home/I was a king, I had a golden throne./Those days are gone”).
It was a year that knew when it was being fobbed off, where scepticism crept in around the edges. Young upstart Chlöe Howl made ripples in the summer by releasing the caustic No Strings, dropping her 'h's' and talking about teen life in a way that Skins glossed over, all the nitty-gritty of a Just Seventeen problem page. Twenty-year-old Charli XCX, fresh from writing the all-conquering I Love It, put out the glitch-pop album True Romance, and then knocked it out of the park with the Gwen Stefani-ish single Superlove, all the while writing a song for the Britney album and telling VICE that "when people think about producers and writers, generally my friends, including friends who are girls, all assume they're men, when they're not."
The other side of the sea, Lorde became the unwitting voice of fake IDs everywhere,
eye-rolling at a life of Cristal and Maybachs.
On second thoughts, though we might bash Lily for fumbling her post-feminism, and Thicke for having women on display like in a shopfront, having three under-21s slowly pulling apart the seams of pop makes it feel like perhaps 2013 wasn’t so retro after all.
