Best of 2014: Song of Proves

Anyone who reads blogs, whether as a seasoned supporter or a sometime-sifter, will know that come this time of year the Christmas posts screech to a halt and the round-up/run-down/look-back posts begin to #BreakTheInternet. If that’s what you’re looking for here, you won’t be disappointed, if it wasn’t what you wanted, tough, you’re getting it.

Song of Proves is a really special feature that we publish every month. We started in April of this year, and with each one we curated we got more comfortable, confident and inspired.

Music is so important to us, the sheer fact of the matter is that cooking in a deathly quiet kitchen is actually unpleasant and uncomfortable for us. We love the act of preparation, cooking, and even begrudgingly cleaning, and music or some kind of background noise always plays its part in those tasks. Music adds energy and vigour to the act of cooking. When we have raw ingredients in front of us we roll up our sleeves, put on some music and begin to get lost in the act. You pour your love and emotion into a dish, whatever emotion that may be, and often music’s energy contributes to that and overall makes the entire process so much more enjoyable.

A keenly curated playlist of songs also sets the tone when entertaining and dining together; softly lulling in the background, a selection of songs is as important to this activity as having the table nicely set or keeping the wine glasses topped up, in our opinion. It can make or break a dinner party.

We’re actually pretty pleased, and shocked, that we predicted some of the year’s biggest and best-performing tracks on the charts.

Among our premonitions for chart-topping success were the likes of Clean Bandit and Ella Henderson, whose singles ‘Extraordinary’ and ‘Glow’ both hit the Top Ten a month after we featured them. The same months that we included Ariana Grande’s ‘Problem’ and Kiesza’s ‘Hideaway’ they cinched the chart top spot.

Also, possibly the definitive anthems of 2014, Sia’s ‘Chandelier’ and Meghan Trainor’s ‘All About That Bass’ were picked by us almost two and three months before they propelled to the top of the charts.

Heck, we even predicted the five acts who finished top of the leaderboard for this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, including the very obvious and worthy winner Conchita Wurst, in a special edition of Proves. Seven of the ten tracks we picked when we first heard them all ended up finishing within the top ten [the other three we were way off – including the UK and Ireland, ha!]

We take Eurovision very seriously, as you can all probably imagine, and we also featured in the Guardian Cook magazine during the year for our Song Contest-inspired dinner and viewing party.

Almost all of our selections in this ‘Best Of Proves’ playlist are newcomers who have burst onto the scene in the past few years and we think they are deservedly going to be huge in the next year, like Years & Years, Jess Glynne, Marlene, For BDK, Jungle and Lucius.

We love what seasoned music veterans like The Horrors, The Klaxons and Kylie have done this year too – most of which have turned a new chapter and gone off in a slightly skewed direction which we are living for.

Here’s our Top 15. It’s just under an hour long, so put it on at the beginning of your New Year’s Eve party, or just when it hits 11pm to tee up the momentous celebrations and chiming in the exciting year ahead. Tracklisting below, in no particular order, and playlist underneath that…

Enjoy, and we hope you love our foray into music as much as we do – we can’t wait to get started on January’s selection…