Saint Etienne - milk bottle symphony, 2005

"Choosing a highlight from a concept album is always tricky. It could have been 'Relocate', in which Ms Cracknell and one David Essex argue about whether leaving London is leaving life itself. Having just done that very thing, my ears burned. But not as hotly as they did throughout 'Teenage Winter', where 'middle youth' is forced to accept that it's just middle-aged, and the local pub jukebox has been replaced by 'Aussie bar staff playing the Red Hot Chili Peppers'. But the vote goes to 'Milk Bottle Symphony', partly because it's the only pop anthem I own that stars the milk company Unigate, but mainly because it has the most fabulous melody of the year. The song simply introduces the album's central characters by waking them up and having them deliver and drink milk. That's it. But the symphony is the sum of all the melodies they are whistling and humming, making the morning bearable, transforming the mundane into the hope contained in every new day. It conjures memories of the early Seventies, when there was only one pop radio station and everyone emerged from their homes singing the same song in a silly symphony of human joy. Except, of course, that that never happened. Which is what this album is really all about, and what this song does its damnedest to redress."