3 - **Laura Marling – 'New Romantic' (Explicit) - 21

Explaining away 'New Romantic' is in some respects pointless; the lyrics are ridiculous and the sentiment one-dimensional. But that’s how I felt at 17, and I like to think there’s a residual piece of this youth left in me, maybe in all of us - coursing round our skinny frames, that can only be awakened by such overt displays of faux-romantic “first love” drama. It’s a breath of fresh air to creaking 21-year-old bones, crippled by highs and lows and too much floating, absent emotion. If this weird biological connection doesn’t extend to you then your mind’s gone long before your beating heart...

As such I cannot downplay her, because that would be to downplay a small piece of me, of us all. So, it’s all brilliant - the subtle hints of Morrissey (“I find it dull where my heart meets my mind”), the grit and blacken’d eyes and melodies that rise, the creaking violins spilling out a world’s worth of grief over one absent, adolescent melodrama... and I’m already out of words and out of time.

I cried.