It's an odd thing. The jukebox in reallyrather's head has had tunes like Change of scenery and All hat and no plans on rotation for the best part of a couple of years now and yet hardly anyone else in the whole world has ever heard them. They've been going round in the heads of their creators even longer, of course, but if they're getting sick of them it still isn't showing. To Brixton for the Windmill's Christmas bash Sunday where My Sad Captains [for 'tis they] featured on a monster popmungous bill. Five bands and all the mince pie action you could handle for a quid. In the wake of Betty & the Werewolves' sparkly party frocks and shouty indie-pop thrash ['He said he really liked The Libertines/Who the fuck are they?' - nice!], the Captains dropped a couple of newer tunes ('Not a lot we can do', 'I don't like to'??) into an otherwise familiar greatest hits setlist. And their relentless quest for world domination gains pace in Feb when All hat... drops as a single on White Heat Records. This blog declared it a minor classic back in April 06 and no amount of giant seagull silliness can shake this conviction:

And if you liked that you'll like this...

... from Future Clouds and Radar, latest project of ill-starred pop classicist Robert Harrison. Kontiki by his former band Cotton Mather is surely one of the great lost albums of the last ten years ('One can't-get-it-out-of-your-skull pop song after another', Allmusic) and their few London shows at places like the Underworld and the original Barfly are still vivid in the memory. reallyrather hasn't felt compelled to acquire FCAR's sprawling 27-track double-album debut as yet but it has its admirers, ranking No.4 in Harp Magazine's top 50 for the year just behind Okkervill River, Band of Horses and Iron & Wine...

'I might not have found many new albums that i liked, but there were some good reissues released this year...at the moment i'm particularly enjoying the soundtrack to Ivor the Engine and Pogle's Wood that's just come out on Trunk Records' - The Boy Least Likely To's Jof Owen dishes out his own 2007 Blue Peter badges...

...and the band seem destined for a knockdown featherweight contest for the UK top of the twee with Aberfeldy in '08. Ruth and Sarah left the latter this year and TBLLT also jettisoned Eva and Bahar. OK, there are no rules about these things but it seems almost a law of nature that bands like this should have at least one girl in them. Happily, Riley Briggs understands and has Done Something About It [look]; Boy Least Likely To, think on...

But's what's really going to be worth hearing next year? The Guardian asks The People Who Know, one of whom really did say this: 'On a pop tip, Alphabeat are pressing the right buttons in a B-52s style. They're already big in Denmark'. On a point-of-information tip, that person was Matt Cook, 'director of talent' at MTV2. Dirty work but, etc...

...and rather amazingly not one of those polled uttered these three little words...