The Metaphorical Boat's Top Songs of 2018 - 10-6

We're in to the top 10, with songs that ranked 10 to 6 on the countdown, as well as a few words on what's so great about each of the songs in question - 

10. Isaac Gracie - Last Words

I don't really listen to Radio 1 as much as I used to in the past, although given that I wouldn't have discovered such wonderful gems like "Like Words" by Isaac Gracie without it. It's the kind of emotional, acoustic folk that harks back to Nick Drake & Jeff Buckley, as well as more contemporaneous artists like Ben Howard.

9. Suede - Life is Golden 

Now that Suede have got to the stage of their career where they're no longer chasing radio hits, their albums have become more self-contained pieces of music, without as many songs that you could call "single-worthy", whatever that means in this day and age. That doesn't mean that the albums can't have stand-out moments mind, as "Life Is Golden" can attest to. It's a rather grandiose track, with swelling strings and an anthemic chorus.

8. Snow Patrol - Life On Earth 

It was a long time coming, but after a 7 year wait, we were finally treated to new music from Snow Patrol. The highlight of the new music was "Life On Earth", a slow building emotional blanket of a song, which reminded us a little of "Ordinary World" in places.

7 . The Fratellis - Starcrossed Losers 

Now this is a band that we never thought would appear in one of our year-end countdowns, let alone in the top 10. We had more or less written The Fratellis off back in 2008, when they launched their 2nd album with the honest-to-God, ruddy awful "Mistress Mabel", when even now we think is one of the worst songs ever recorded.

None of their other music released in the intervening period really gave us any hope of getting us back on board, which is why when we bowled over "Starcrossed Lovers", we were surprised to discover it was a song by The Fratellis. It's a brilliant, updated version of the Romeo & Juliet story with a real emotional heart and a little rock swagger. Sometimes, it's nice to be surprised.

6 . George Ezra - Paradise 

George Ezra gets his third, and highest placing, entry in this year's list with the ubiquitous "Paradise". It's hard to underestimate just how much this song turned around his fortunes. After "Don't Matter Now", the lead track from this album, flopped, if this song hadn't gained enough traction he would probably have been dropped from his record label, loyalty be damned.

Thankfully for George, people really responded to "Paradise", it went on to become a monster top 10 hit, and led the way for "Staying At Tamara's" to be the biggest, non-soundtrack album of 2018. And it's a pretty great pop song to boot, so there's that as well.