Andrew Marston chooses his top ten tunes of 2011
These are the top ten tracks played on BBC Introducing in Hereford & Worcester, as chosen by the show's presenter, Andrew Marston.
1. On Beyond by Muchuu - I absolutely fell in love with this group when I first heard them two years ago - and they rightfully featured in my top ten back then. They since got signed, left their record label, turned down a performance at Glastonbury, appeared at BBC Maida Vale, played Underage and made it onto the BBC Radio 1 playlist. Just some of the opportunities we made possible for them this year as my favourite Hereford act.
2. Let It Go by Natalie PYT - a steaming hot track. Natalie joined us for a BBC session in Leominster earlier in the year stripped back to just vocals and an acoustic guitar and gave Jessie J a run for her money on a glorious cover of Price Tag. Here she is, proving that you can't put a price tag on such a great track.
3. Simon Says (Grab Your Sax) by Fraxure - one word - banging! This is a massive tune that should be played in clubs everywhere. If 2011 was the year of anything - it was the year of dubstep. But, not everybody's a fan, and this Upton musician (who's also in Bash:Roland) made it completely accessible by mixing it with some funky house and a fab of phat sax.
4. Single Status by Ronda - a cheeky song by a cheeky band. Ronda have played alongside Belinda Carlisle, Bananarama, The Human League and Heaven 17 as well as doing their own Band Aid attempt - but there's no skipping the fact that this is just one of their all time greatest songs.
5. Possibility by Zophia - this girl only started playing music after leaving college - and what a fine job she's done of it. She's already toured America and has one of the most "grown up" sounds around. Think Nashville. That's where she played - and that's where her sound is from. She caught the attention of the Worcester Warriors, too, and sang in front of a 10,000 capacity at Sixways welcoming our favourite local team back into the premiership.
6. Don't Forget To Breathe by Goldman - a surprise discovery by a group who are based all over the country, but written and edited together in the middle of nowhere out towards Ross-on-Wye. Goldman have been producing amazingly catchy commercial tracks for a couple of years and firmly deserve a place in our top 10 - despite the fact they've now missed about four opportunities for a live session.
7. Weekend by Lil Dre & Diggy Stylus - some great commercial sounding tracks by the Evesham guys who've featured on the Clubland albums. We put them on at the Big Chill Festival - but they ended up singing over their already produced tracks which sounded a little messy and off-key. But on their recordings, they're razor sharp and their tracks are production masterpieces.
8. Sleeping Lions by Inca Hoots - I've let Andy O'Hare concentrate more on the live element this year and feature a lot of bands - but this group just wrote one of the most catchiest tracks of 2011. Inca Hoots are a good fun band who aren't frightened to play to small audiences but still achieve a big sound. There's got to be a great future for this great bunch of guys.
9. Fade Away by 5parks ft Jemma 'Pixie' Hixon - Marc Churchfield packed in an amazing performance during his live BBC session at the University of Worcester and his tracks have just been epic all year around. Marc is like a little production factory - much to the annoyance of his neighbours (he nearly had his kit confiscated by the police). He worked with Jemma on these tracks who suffers from agoraphobia and achieved nearly three million hits on YouTube after her story was featured on BBC Breakfast and BBC Midlands Today.
10. Your Call Is Important To Us by The Audacity - a great fun track by production geniuses. The Audacity are humorous duo from Kidderminster who can churn out songs like butter - and on any subject (the more bizarre, the better). One admits that his mum "doesn't really understand" his tracks and is more into "church music". We put them onto our BBC stage at Nozstock a couple of years back and they blew the organisers away and landed themselves an invite back. They also turned down a visit to BBC Maida Vale after they thought the email was spam.
I, too, share the same opinion as Andy O'Hare regarding some of his selections. Tina V and the whole of This Wicked Tongue deserve another credit (they were also in last year's poll).
God Save The King's Coast To Coast was a cracker, together with Too Many Bears by The Fiction and 'Stars' by The Cohen Brothers.
Robot Song by Calm Like A Riot was a cracker and so was Jesus Loves You by V2A, Big Man Blues by BabaJack and too-many-tracks-to-mention by The Roving Crows.
Robinson has also produced some blinders, so have Tropicaux,
Tripbuk with Kamos, Jeaga, Ashley Foster and the sadly-missed Pink Traffic Band.
Shaking Trees also produced great tracks, so did George Barnett, Mamoolian, Darren Mudge, Sam Eden, George Baker, Sugar Mama, Synthetic Epiphany and Lisbee Stainton.