Scotland on Sunday's critics pick the fads and phenomena that made all the difference in 2009

Published on Tuesday 15 December 2009 13:19

SUSAN BOYLE DREAMED A DREAM AIDAN SMITH ON TV

One thing about Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent still bothers me – did Simon Cowell know? Did he know she could sing like that? I need to know if he knew, to establish how much control he has over my life. Does he know, for instance, that I'm writing this in my underpants?

Watching again on YouTube (80,593,486 views and counting) it's hard to tell, because despite being in charge of all television Cowell is not a TV natural and his gasp seems contrived. The "1.24 Girl", though, was real. This was the lass in the audience who – at 1 min, 24 secs – laughed scornfully and was subsequently demonised.

From West Lothian (via the Priory) to absolutely everywhere, the unstoppable Subo even took on the Rolling Stones, covering a song written about Marianne Faithfull. Who'd have thought it? Simon Cowell, that's who.

This year, Aidan Smith has especially enjoyed The Thick Of It (BBC2) for the Olympian swearing of Malcolm Tucker: "Come the f**k in or f**k the f**k off"

NORMAN CHALMERS ON FOLK

Aidan O'Rourke

IN GLASGOW'S Stereo, and three nights later in Edinburgh's Queen's Hall, Lau proved that, on stage, three can sound like a massive crowd, and a magnificent crowd-pleaser.

The band title might be an Orkney word for gloaming, but there's nothing dim in the line-up of Martin Green's accordion, Aidan O'Rourke's fiddle and Kris Drever's acoustic guitar and vocals as it moves from whispering understatement to the explosive intensity of a Shuttle liftoff.

But reckless stagecraft they don't do: their music is original, carefully thought out and wrought, always interesting, beautifully played and often very moving. From folk backgrounds, these three superb musicians from The Fens, the West Highlands and the Orkney Islands are evolving beyond any clichs of the tradition to create a passionately enthusiastic worldwide audience (recent gigs in Japan have sold out) for music and songs filled with energy, wit, intelligence, invention and joy.

This year, Norman Chalmers also enjoyed Shetland instrumentalists Fiddler's Bid, young Scots singer Siobhan Miller and Gaelic singer Catriona Watt

DAN BROWN SOLD HALF A MILLION BOOKS IN FIVE DAYS

STUART KELLY ON BOOKS

It may not have garnered the most glowing reviews or swept the board of literary prizes, but Dan Brown's hokey The Lost Symbol is the book that tells us most about the world of books in 2009. In its first five days on sale it clocked up 550,946 sales – at a time when the Booker winner Hilary Mantel had sold a tenth of that. More significantly, in the States the success of the e-book version of The Lost Symbol marked a change in how, not what, we read: 5% of total first week sales were of the digital version, and 160 pirated e-texts were discovered.

Although sales of Dan Brown lifted the market for novels in the UK by 41%, aided and abetted by vampire romances and undead mash-ups like Pride And Prejudice And Zombies, they couldn't save Borders, which went into administration last month. So 2009 wasn't the tipping point for the old-fashioned book, but it put a lot more weight on the other side of the scales.

This year, Stuart Kelly was struck dumb with admiration for Roberto Bolano's 2666, as well as the forthcoming Nazi Literature Of The Americas. Collections of stories and poetry by AL Kennedy, Don Paterson and John Burnside didn't let the home side down either

FRINGE AUDIENCES GOT NAKED

MARK FISHER ON THEATRE

It was the point in Nic Green's Trilogy when the women in the audience were invited to strip naked on stage. Many of them did – and as many again wished they had.

It's too soon to say whether 2009 was the year people power (and feminism) came back into fashion, but Trilogy was one example among many of a show in which the audience became part of the event.

Elsewhere on the Edinburgh Fringe, the Belgian company Ontroerend Goed was treating audiences to an unsettling speed-dating experience in Internal, while in the Edinburgh International Festival, the Romanian director Silviu Purcarete invited his audience to cross the stage with Faust on his journey to possible damnation.

Earlier in the year, David Leddy gave audiences a taste of Victorian melodrama in the secret corners of Glasgow's Citizens' and, in November, audiences were left to choose which bits of Derevo's Natura Morte they would see in the bowels of Glasgow's Arches.

This year, Mark Fisher enjoyed Interiors, a unique piece of theatre by Vanishing Point in which all the dialogue happened unheard behind a glass screen

JIMMY CARR TOLD THAT JOKE

JONATHAN TREW ON COMEDY

This was the year when comedians became the whipping boys of public opinion. The touchpaper was lit in 2008 with Sachsgate, but Frankie Boyle fanned the flames this year with his comments about the Olympic swimmer Rebecca Adlington and the bonfire of the comedians burned brightest when Jimmy Carr made a crack about amputee soldiers boosting Britain's hopes in the 2012 Paralympics.

It's a sure bet that most of the public won't be able to name the winner of this year's Edinburgh Comedy awards, but even those who never watch comedy will have developed definite views about which topics are acceptable for comedy and which are not. The line between the two is usually a fine one and, in the court of public opinion, a number of comics have misjudged it spectacularly in recent months. Calls to censor comics are ludicrous, but it will be interesting to see if they self-censor in 2010.

This year, Jonathan enjoyed watching 22-year-old comic Kevin Bridges broaden his material out from his Clydebank roots into a set that was more wide-ranging but just as gritty. Next year could see him go stellar

VENEZUELA CONQUERED THE UK

ALEXANDER BRYCE ON CLASSICAL MUSIC

With Bryn Terfel announcing his stage retirement, and Purcell, Handel, Haydn and Mendelssohn all celebrating major anniversaries, it was an orchestra of 200 Venezuelan youngsters that provided the most striking evidence of what imagination, talent and enduring commitment can bring to the concert hall.

In April, the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela's residence at London's Festival Hall witnessed sell-out concerts from one of 120 orchestras and choirs created as part of Venezuela's 30-year commitment to the arts – and classical music in particular – and as a way of reaching some of the most disadvantaged youngsters in the country.

Bouncy rhythms may characterise their energetic music-making, but can't hide real collective talent, and the intention of "normalising" classical music for widespread audiences doesn't make this an exercise in glossing over major social challenges. But if a country with a quarter of its population living in poverty can achieve this, what does it say for Scotland?

This year, Alexander Bryce's highlights included Rolando Villazn's spectacular Handel arias, Janine Jansen's performance of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto and Bernard Haitink's 80th birthday reissues

MICHAEL JACKSON BOWED OUT

COLIN SOMERVILLE ON POP

The King Is Dead! Long Live Simon Cowell! When Michael Jackson exited stage left in a pathetic puff of scandal, it was a hugely anticlimactic end to a career that glittered and shone. He had not made a studio record since 1991, and it was 22 years since Bad, his last truly notable album.

Most recall where they were on hearing the news of John Lennon being shot, or Elvis Presley gorging on his last sandwich, but few will remember where they learned of this tragic 51-year-old man's demise. Be thankful he did not live long enough to personally host Michael Jackson week on The X Factor.

Such is Cowell's music business acumen, he has become the tail that wags the dog, with major artists basing their entire promotional campaign around the programme.

For pop and rock to have a future, musicians desperately need to take back control of their art.

This year, Colin Somerville enjoyed the blossoming excellence of The Twilight Sad, Frightened Rabbit, The Low Miffs, Twin Atlantic and the renaissance of rock music in Scotland. Watch out for Isa & The Filthy Tongues' new album early in the new year

THE JONAS BROTHERS (AND EVERYONE ELSE) WENT 3D

SIOBHAN SYNNOT ON FILM

This was the year that the Jonas Brothers whipped out fire hoses, held them at their waists and sprayed their adolescent fans with shaving foam. This was a 3D illusion of an illusion: a movie concert designed to make Jonas fans feel they could reach out and touch a pop group that barely exists in two dimensions.

However, this has been the year of a determined 3D movie rollout. As part of an in-your-face attempt to revitalise cinemagoing, Avatar, Up, A Christmas Carol, Coraline, My Bloody Valentine and U2 all required you to pick up their redesigned 3D Ray-Bans, and companies such as Pixar and Dreamworks diverted substantial future slates to 3D. In October, I even spent a day in glamorous downtown Wandsworth watching a scene being shot for Streetdance, Britain's first modern 3D feature.

By the way: the sound in the background during the Jonases' shaving cream sequence was probably Freud weeping.

This year, Siobhan Synnot enjoyed Let The Right One In, Moon, Up, Seraphine, The Damned United and even Inglourious Basterds

SCOTLAND TOOK THE TURNER PRIZE

MOIRA JEFFREY ON ART

It's the time of the year when you ready yourself for harping and harrumphing. Penned into the galleries of Tate Britain along with my fellow sheep in the press corps, I braced myself and heard… at first nothing, then some gentle, interested questions. My goodness, even the newspapers could see that the 25th Turner Prize exhibition was really rather good. That night, with Glasgow-trained artists Lucy Skaer and Richard Wright (wearing white heather that turned out to be lucky) flanked by their Scottish galleries Doggerfisher and The Modern Institute, it felt like there was no rolling back the two-decade revolution in art from Scotland. Overall it probably wasn't a vintage year, what with the enervating effect of the slow creep towards Creative Scotland. But with the chilly winds of recession blowing and public sector meltdown imminent, on that October evening I glimpsed just how far we had come.

This year, Moira Jeffrey enjoyed two entirely contradictory moments: the grim Thomas Hirschhorn exhibition at DCA and a summer's day in Oxford when Glaswegian Karla Black's art truly came alight

FUSION GOT THAT SWING

ALISON KERR ON JAZZ

It seemed to me to be the year in which jazz and pop fused successfully for the first time in ages, thanks to two terrific albums: Bare Bones by Madeleine Peyroux and My One And Only Thrill by Melody Gardot.

Peyroux, who has made a comeback (we're probably at comeback number three now) after some dodgy live performances at the time of her earlier albums' releases, turned songwriter for Bare Bones and the result – a mesh of country, jazz, indie pop and blues – is one of the finest albums of the year, and one which has undoubtedly attracted new listeners to jazz.

The same could be said of her fellow American songstress Gardot, whose beguiling and lush strings album ensured that her recent Edinburgh gig was packed out.

This year, Alison Kerr enjoyed listening to four world-class pianists playing simultaneously at the Nairn Jazz Festival, singing along with Melody Gardot (and the rest of the audience) at the Queen's Hall and listening to silver-tongued smoothie Sir Michael Parkinson discuss lyricist Johnny Mercer at the Glasgow Jazz Festival