What Happened In 2012?

"2012," mused noted philosopher Jay Sean, "it ain't the end of the world". He wasn't wrong. I know because I've been to the end of it. (The year that is, not the world.) Not much has changed but they live underwater. Actually that means quite a lot has changed. Quite a lot indeed...

Excitement built in January as the BBC Sound Of 2012 was due to be announced. Only joking, everyone knew that all the acts on the shortlist were doomed to fail anyway, with or without the poisoned chalice of the title itself. Nonetheless, a lack of rock acts on the list prompted countless 'Is Rock Dead?' 'thinkpieces', and several counterclaims that "No, it's nozzzzzz". Oh and Neil McCormick mumbled something about Bono.

February was when Adele cleared up at the BRITs. It was nice for her for a while, but it wasn't too long until she came face to face with the spectre of Dido: the crushing realisation that it'd most likely be all downhill from here.

In March, Matt Cardle was dropped by Syco. Tragically, only seven people noticed. One was the successor to his X Factor crown, Marcus Collins, who quickly scrapped plans for a double disc chillwave concept album based on his time as a hairdresser and instead rush-released a collection of classic soul covers in time for Mother's Day. It was a smash hit.

In April, Marcus Collins was dropped. Elsewhere, the Steps comeback tour was, by all accounts, a triumph, and triggered something of a domino effect. By Christmas Scooch, allSTARS*, Marvin and Tamara, and Leilani had all had their own reunion series on Sky Living, even in spite of the latter being only one person. The new Steps album surprised many by being Actually Quite Good and the first single from it, a cover of Abba's unreleased 'Just Like That', was Number One for five weeks. Blimey.

After April came May, and this year's Eurovision was hailed as one of the best ever. The UK entrants, Hurts, took home the spoils. Look, no-one said this was going to be realistic.

June was the highlight of a packed year for Xenomania. Along with releasing the new Girls Aloud single and celebrating Alex Gardner's second Number One of the year the team opened the first Xenomania theme park, just outside their Westerham bunker. Rides included the mysterious Nadine's Passport, the Westminster-themed Swinging London Town, and the Malakouti. Although there was minor controversy over Brian Higgins' treatment of his employees (to be honest Vagabond should just have been happy he was keeping them in work) it was a riproaring success, with another three opening before the end of the year.

Wtih July came the Olympics, and all naysayers made an about turn as early as the opening ceremony, with its '50 Years of Pop' segment featuring performances from Half Of The Beatles, David Bowie (his first in God knows how long), Pet Shop Boys, Pulp, Girls Aloud and Adele. It'd be churlish to reveal too much about the goings on, but let's get one thing clear - it was amazing. Then some sport happened, and that was jolly good too.

The biggest news in August was that of a male popstar coming out, much to the delight of a number of frothing internet gays, who still had absolutely no chance of ever doing that to him, never mind *that*.

September signalled the launch of a new boyband - LadBanter. None of the members could sing, or had any interest in music, but all agreed that being in a band was "a great way of pulling birds". Their first single, the Chris Isaak-sampling 'WKD Game', was the fastest selling Number One of the year; thousands of teenage girls went wild and Mary Wollstonecraft died all over again.

In October Matt Cardle quite literally cleared up at the MOBOs.

Then, in November, David Guetta visited a club for the first time and decided that he didn't actually like it all that much really.

Finally, December saw a twist on a seemingly age old tradition: the ridiculous Facebook Christmas Number One 'cause célèbre'. With The X Factor winner scheduled to record a new track described as "Kylie's 'The One' mixed with her 'I Believe In You' and Girls Aloud's 'Call The Shots'", completely ridiculous Real Music proponents took a break from their Stereophonics CDs to actually listen to the songs in question, and decided that yes, they are all incredibly amazing. On further inspection they discovered that The Sound of Arrows' 'Into The Clouds' was even MORE amazing, and set about trying to get that to Number One instead. The only bad news is that neither they nor 'The X' succeeded; the Official Charts Company's magic supercomputer buckling under the brilliance of the two songs, and blowing up before the chart could be announced. In a way, everyone was a winner.

And that was about it.