Nerve Pop

Tear up the ballot papers, stop counting the votes and tell the bookies to pay out on the bets: 2012's best single is here. It's called Nerve Pop and it's by Small Reactions.



There might be a word for the excitement that this kind of record generates. I've had the same feeling this year - all three songs on the Standard Fare 7", the whole of exlovers' Moth, Stay Heavy by Cassolette - and I call it pop music.

In the face of higher powers, which is what Nerve Pop is, I turn to a higher power, the author Amy Hempel, for the best description of happiness I know. Writing in Today Will Be A Quiet Day, she describes a father playing with his kids one rainy Sunday: "He doubted he would ever feel - not better, but more than he did now."