Videotape

Radiohead
In Rainbows (2007)

Videotape (Live)

Radiohead often tread a finely balanced route between music for the head and music for the heart. There's enough in the lyrics here to occupy your mind if you're so inclined (although my regular reader will know I'm usually not): is it the singer's last few days, his final words, wallowing in memories?

In isolation this would too mawkish for my taste, but the music makes it a definitive requiem. A central, mournful piano progression is surrounded by sparse, fidgeting electronic percussion and shot through with Thom Yorke's thin, pained voice singing like the words are being pulled out of him. It's all very dry, very close and personal.

Not comfortable listening by any means but beautiful and wonderfully constructed. There is relatively little pop music that can genuinely be described as haunting, but this is one such track.

Shoot Speed / Kill Light

Primal Scream
XTRMNTR, 2000

Primal Scream are the chamaeleons of indie rock. Is there a band that can claim the same range, from blissed-out baggy on "Higher Than The Sun" and "Loaded" to brain-melting trance with "Swastika Eyes"? Probably not. Unfortunately, neither can Primal Scream. Their only musical successes are due to having the foresight or luck to choose capable collaborators, and the wisdom to then leave them alone to do what they do best. On their own, Primal Scream revert to a cartoon caricature of a "rock band", complete with parody "attitude", and playing bad rip-offs of early seventies Stones - apparently unaware that the Stones have reserved that right to themselves for many decades now.

I first heard "Shoot Speed / Kill Light" over a pint in The Jekyll & Hyde in Edinburgh, when my friend Keith fished a Walkman out of the depths of his coat and told me, "You'll love this." (Keith, a man with impeccable taste in music, never despaired of improving mine.) He didn't tell me who it was. My first impression was that it sounded like New Order abusing My Bloody Valentine in a Glasgow fetish dungeon. As it turned out, I wasn't far wrong. Recruited for the XTRMNTR album, MBV guitarist and sonic guru Kevin Shields was joined for this track by Bernard Sumner. Whither Primal Scream? I can't hear any evidence that they played on the track, nor are they missed.

The track is superb, a howling, screaming collision of krautrock, Hawkwind and techno, with a classic New Order bass line (presumably played by Mani. I suppose), gusts of patented squawling Shields guitar, topped off with a minimal, heavily processed, vocoder lyric that just recites the title over and over. It is utterly compelling, hypnotic and driven. It's also pretty much unlike anything else on the album.

The rest of XTRMNTR is patchy: "Swastika Eyes" is excellent (in both versions, although I prefer the Jagz Kooner mix), and "Blood Money" is a fun combination of John Barry, sub-Coltrane free jazz and Neu, but too much of the rest is just their default sub-Stones riffage played while doing a Stars In Their Eyes take on The Stooges or MC5. And Bobby Gillespie's voice is probably the most annoying in rock. Yes, even more than Bob Dylan's.


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Hope There's Someone

Antony & The Johnsons
I Am A Bird Now (2005)

I heard this via a recommendation from an acquaintance. She'd discovered the album by accident (well before its Mercury Music Prize success), but despite being captivated by its unusual sound (Antony's voice is probably an acquired taste), she couldn't persuade any of her friends that it was any good; mostly they laughed at it. In desperation to find someone else who would appreciate it, and knowing my reputation as a man of catholic musical tastes, she almost forced the CD on me one day. Happily, I loved it too.

This is the first track and captures the atmosphere of the album as a whole; a mixture of hope and despair, fragility and strength, uncertainty and courage. It still sounds unlike anything else I can think of and the opposite of most pop or rock, containing only simple, sparse instrumentation. It sounds more like chamber music than pop. And Antony Hegarty's tremulous voice floats over it, also providing an eerie choir of backing vocals. Thought-provoking and beautiful.


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A&E

Goldfrapp
Seventh Tree, 2008

This is a pretty, pastoral saunter through a sunlit woodland (although I could be influenced by the video here). Er, except isn't she singing about attempting to get someone's attention by committing suicide?

Still, as I have remarked on many occasions, I don't really understand lyrics. It's like trying to understand people: they just don't make sense half of the time, but maybe they're not supposed to.

I love the combination of gentle acoustic instrumentation and low-key electronic burble in the background. I love the slightly other-worldly feel ("pills at work"?). I love the way it builds up to the final chorus, the vulnerability in Alison's voice and the quiet ending. Just beautiful. Even if it is about something horrible.


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Everything In Its Right Place

Radiohead
Kid A, 2000

This is an excellent example of why I cannot make snap judgements about music, why I have a stack of unlistened CDs taller than my eldest child and why I can't keep up with new stuff. I've been listening to this song since it came out and I've always loved the warm, claustrophobic atmosphere (no reverb, you see); it feels like taking an illicit peek into someone's thoughts. But for a long time I couldn't really figure out what it was about.

Recently - so, only about twelve years later - I got it.  I think, anyway. It's about OCD. Maybe this is an over-literal interpretation of the title, but I think I'm right. Thom Yorke disagrees apparently, but what does he know? He only wrote it. Maybe he was chanelling.

No, it's definitely about what it feels like inside to have OCD, even if Thommo doesn't realise it (and nor would I know really). It starts by imposing order on some random elements; this goes here, that goes there. "There are two colours in my head" - black and white, presumably - Thom sings. The real world, however, intrudes. The random elements return, the instrumentation starts to fracture, things are not in the right place any more. The echoes and distorted repeats threaten to overwhelm the voice, which sounds increasingly desperate. Order is only restored by a retreat into the womb-like security of your own head, with just the beating heart for company. Live (such as on I Might Be Wrong) this process is made explicit by the more extreme sampling and distorting of the musical elements. It's all very cool and not even spoiled live by the whooping morons attempting to clap along (honestly, ffs).

14. The Smashing Pumpkins : Stand Inside Your Love

(single, 2000)

This is as straightforward a love song as you could expect to find anywhere. "Who wouldn't be the one you love," sings Billy Corgan, who has called it the only "true" love song he has ever written. For what it's worth - or even inasmuch as it's even important - it does sound like he means it.

For some, Corgan's whining vocals are an acquired taste, and the whining guitars and whole rock ambience will put them off. It's a taste I acquired a long time ago during repeated plays of Siamese Dream (1993). I found some of the subsequent material a little underwhelming, but this was a real return to the "classic" Pumpkins sound: quiet verse, huge chorus, soaring, shrieking guitars - all the good stuff. I particularly like the way the lead guitar sounds on the verge of feedback all the time, with an infinite sustain effect making it more like a synthesised instrument than a guitar. (With my guitar geek hat on, I'm guessing the effect is achieved with an E-Bow or a Fernandez Sustainer. Or possibly just a really, really loud amp.)

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13. Linkin Park : In The End

(Hybrid Theory, 2000)

Garry Mulholland, in his flawed but entertaining This Is Uncool, puts forward the theory that every band has one perfect single in them. This is probably Linkin Park's. This is just immense. I love the brutal growl of the down-tuned guitars, the light industrial ambience, the little piano riff at the beginning.

But most of all, this works because the chorus has a tune. Hear that guys? A *tune*. It works because you can *sing it*. This is pop. Sure, it's angsty, metallic edged, over-serious but it's still pop. Just ace.

And did you know that Hybrid Theory is the second best selling album of the noughties? Hmmm ...


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12. Junior Boys : In The Morning

(So This Is Goodbye, 2006)

In The Morning captures that queasy sense of over-indulgence we've all felt in the small hours; whether by over-indulgence in substances or in our desires, there's that feeling of mental and physical regret. It's in the gentle, wheezy, percussive gasps, like a shortness of breath; in the nagging, high pitched synth in the background, like a headache; but most of all the hazy melody and woozy, circular, circulating chords that never quite resolve. Sounds like many early mornings I've experienced (all in my youth, of course).

Despite the title, the most repeated phrase in the lyrics is "too young", used almost as percussion. Too young to be wasting your life? Too young for me take you home? (Thereby qualifying for "jailbait pop" in the tradition of Gary Pucket & The Union Gap's Young Girl or Abba's Does Your Mother Know)

Unusually for me, I first heard In The Morning while watching the video, so my interpretation is probably irrevocably affected by the imagery I've seen.


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11. Sugababes : Stronger

(Angels With Dirty Faces, 2002)

Although not the highest entry in this chart that could be described as "mainstream" (despite notionally indie or more "authentic" roots, it's a bit of a stretch to describe Muse, Snow Patrol, Mark Ronson or Kings Of Leon as anything else), Sugababes do operate much more at the manufactured end of the pop spectrum, to the extent that some might be surprised to find them this high. And yet you shouldn't be. Modern day pop is produced by an army of very accomplished back room men and women, and it's insulting to think them incapable of something genuinely affecting. To some extent it's a percentages game, given the volume of product; I wouldn't expect to find that all Sugababes tracks are this good (although, to be fair, I haven't checked). But many of the people working in this field have real pedigree; we'll meet a few of them further down the chart.

In fact, unlike some comparable artists, Sugababes do co-write their songs - or, at least, they have a credit on this. I'm sure they've had their troubled times, like the rest of us, and perhaps that contributes to the feeling of reality. What I like about this hymn to female empowerment is its sense of grim determination. Rather than promote a cheery, senseless - and more obviously commercial - optimism, the song explicitly acknowledges that, if you're looking for a happy ending, your current situation is probably less than perfect. The slow, measured beat, the doleful strings and the (relative) lack of vocal histrionics, along with the dense close harmonies behind an unusually horizontal melody (it rarely moves outside of a single octave) all give a real sense of purpose. The whole thing is beautifully atmospheric and I feel like an empowered woman just singing along with it.

I think the video that shows the girls walking away from their situation capture the overall sense of the song very well. Although the bit where all the male customers applaud the stripper who puts her clothes back on and walks out of the club doesn't strike me as particularly realistic. And obviously it was very important to show the 'babes by the pool in their bikinis. And if I was to be really picky, I might say that the whole thing sounds a little too in debt to Massive Attack's Unfinished Sympathy but that would be carping.


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10. Queens Of The Stone Age : Go With The Flow

(Songs For The Deaf, 2002)

"I want something good to die for, to make it beautiful to live"

Josh Homme's guitar tone is probably my favourite right now. Gutsy, articulate and yet often sounding on the brink of disintegration, it locks with Dave Grohl's engine room of drums and relentlessly drives the track from the beginning, while the lead provides squealing, swirling punctuation. It feels like we're on the brink of something important, that churning feeling of anticipation in our stomachs, the sense of running out of time to make a life-changing decision - but somehow it's out of our hands already.

"I can go ... with the flow"

The whole album is superb and if it wasn't for my self-imposed limit of one track per album for this list I would have featured one, possibly two more.


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9. Kings Of Leon : Sex On Fire

(Only By The Night, 2008)

Having been at or near the top in many end-of-decade polls, the boys from Nashville will surely be disappointed with their lowly position in this chart.  But let's not let that detract from a classic track.  A triumph of feel over meaning, it could be about anything - the singer's pet hamster, the tragedy of genocide in Rwanda - and still transmit that sense of breathless desperation.  The urgency of the Caleb Followill's voice trumps any lyrical deficiencies and the guitar sounds like it is actually on fire through the chorus.  Wonderfully arranged and put together, it's no-brained modern rock for us all to groove and shout along with, and what more can we ask?

In fact, the whole thing reminds me of U2, both in the specific guitar sound - subtly but importantly laden with delay and a smidge of chorus, I'd say - and technique - the half rhythm, half riff powering the chorus, and also in the way that the whole thing sounds way more portentous than any examination of the words actually proves it to be.

The rest of the album has summarily failed to impinge upon my consciousness and so this remains the only thing from it that I play.


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8. Mark Ronson : Stop Me

feat. Daniel Merriweather (Version, 2007)

There probably isn't another song on this list so likely to be divisive.

For ex-indie kids of a Certain Age, the memory of The Smiths continues to be sacrosanct.  They represent so much to these people; a sensibility new and yet shared and the first flowering of an individual taste (ironic, isn't it?).  Truth to tell, their catalogue (like that of The Stone Roses, another coming of age band) doesn't really live up to the hype.  Sure, there are some superb tracks: "This Charming Man", "How Soon Is Now?", "Bigmouth Strikes Again".  But Morrisey's unique singing style is an acquired taste and, like Bob Dylan, it's a taste that is becoming more and more "selective".

"Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before" came from the last Smiths album Strangeways, Here We Come, and the whole thing sounds lacklustre to me.  I'm no expert on the history but I'm betting the whole band were getting sick of each other by the time it was made.  I'm sure it's someone's favourite track ever but I'm willing to bet it's not in many Smiths top 10s.  So full marks to Mark Ronson for recognising its potential.

Say what you like about Ronson's production techniques, you have to acknowledge the craft.  Perhaps there's too much of a formula and he probably came close to saturating the market with Amy Winehouse's Back To Black album and his own Version.  Some would call the sound "ersatz soul" and say all it does is mimic the classic Motown or Stax singles.  I think to say this is to fundamentally fail to appreciate the philosophy behind both those labels; they weren't producing art, they were mass-producing product, using a formula.  Sometimes it worked like a charm and those moments are elevated to the status of art and accorded classic status.  It's those we remember now.  But for every classic there were a dozen also-rans, and that's without considering the glut of records from minor labels that subsequently fed the Northern Soul scene.

My point here is that even if you think that the Ronson sound is too retro, too formulaic or even fake, sometimes it works.  Here, it works.  Bizarrely, applied to a doleful, monotonic indie dirge, the whole things kicks arse.  Regardless of their original provenance, the sentiments of the song are the same as those in "Where Did Our Love Go?" or "Stop! In The Name Of Love" by The Supremes.  The quoting of "You Keep Me Hanging On" at the end is just perfect, not just a convenient coincidence of chord sequence but a cute acknowledgement of the common ground.


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7. Calexico : Red Blooms

(Carried To Dust, 2008)

This has a wonderfully autumnal atmosphere: weary yet hopeful, doleful yet content, bleak yet beautiful, like a landscape.  Is that possible?  It sounds country to me, and I'm not talking about the keening, reverb-drenched steel guitar that swoops and glides in the background like a flock of starlings.  I mean it sounds like it's made in the country and about the country.  I'd say it sounds rural.  Again, I couldn't tell you what the song is about, but it makes me think of the cycle of the seasons.

One of the best sources of new music over the decade has been my good friend Paul Smith and many of the tracks on this list first came to my notice via his periodic compilations.  Thank heavens for his efforts and short attention span, I say.  Calexico is a band I'd heard of before - even heard before - but had never really caught my attention.  Truth to tell, they still haven't.  It's just this track.


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6. Low : Monkey

(The Great Destroyer, 2005)

I have literally no idea what this is about.  The intense, claustrophobic, bass-heavy instrumentation swirls around a monotonic boy-girl duet, punctuated by shards of distorted guitar.  So I'm guessing it's not a love song, then.

There are some tracks that evoke a feeling so powerfully that for their duration they override whatever situation or feelings you have.  My favourite example of this is Portishead's Roads, which I can't hear without being dropped into a film noir for three minutes.  In Monkey's case, it's a night drive in a road movie.  To a Destiny.  With DEATH.  Er, no, it's not a zombie film though.

I'm not sure it really matters what it's about, anyway.  Like I said in my intro piece, often words are just pegs to hang a tune on.  As long as the lyrics don't actively intrude, they're OK.  "Tonight you will be mine", they sing, "Tonight the monkey dies".   Well, it all sounds portentous enough to match the music.

I've just watched the video for the first time and it shows the band playing in the middle of a road, at night, in winter (hey, I wasn't far wrong!) before being abducted by a UFO.  See, I told you - no zombies!


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5. Kate Rusby : No Names

(The Girl Who Couldn't Fly, 2005)

I came across this on a Word magazine compilation from 2005, although I didn't actually listen to it properly until about three years later.  It probably came up when I was randomly playing tracks from my collection I hadn't listened to.  Initially, the tune just captured me - simple, unadorned and direct, sung with purity and possessing a freshness because the lack of a fake American rawk accent.

After a few listens the fullness of the track sunk in.  It's a goodbye song.  The end of a relationship.  "We were drifting, year after year", she sings.  "When we tried our best to fly, my dear ... let me go, now - let me go."  The straightforward melody just highlights the sadness of the situation.  The accompaniment is sparse - a couple of acoustic guitars.

Kate is joined on vocals by Roddy Woomble of Idlewild, who also sings on a couple of the other tracks on the album.  I did buy the album but I'm ashamed to say I haven't listened to it as much as I should.  However, it does have Little Jack Frost, which I was pleasantly surprised to hear over the credits of a BBC children's animation during Christmas.

The track isn't available on Spotify but it is on Youtube.


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4. Snow Patrol : Set The Fire To The Third Bar

feat. Martha Wainwright (Eyes Open, 2006)

Apparently the big track from this album was Chasing Cars (it was number 1 in Channel 4's top 20 of the noughties) but that passed me by completely.  The reason I bought the album was this duet, which painfully evokes the powerless yearning of separation.  The plaintive melody meanders above the brooding soundscape* but never reaches any kind of conclusion in either narrative or melody.  Some things are out of our hands.

I like the parent album but as a whole thing I prefer 2004's Final Straw (see #37).


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* eek! sonic cathedrals of sound alert!

3. Mint Royale : Don't Falter

feat. Lauren Laverne (single, 2000)

Don't Falter is pop at the poppest of the poppermost pop. Light and frothy yet paradoxically embued with enduring substance in the way that only good music can be, it fills the atmosphere with sunshine, sweetness and light. I love it.

The divine Lauren Laverne, when she was in Kenickie, was also responsible for another of my all-time favourite songs: In Your Car, which encapsulates and embodies the heady, hormone-fuelled adrenaline rush of adolescent sex like no other sound. "Give me a lift - I get so tired of walking" - oh, baby ...

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2. Muse : Map Of The Problematique

(Black Holes And Revelations, 2006)

This is a song that creates a very palpable atmosphere and plunges you head first into it. I see a man driving through the night on wet city streets, over flyovers, hours along deserted motorways, to reach his love. Clearly something apocalyptic (there's always something apocalyptic about Muse) has separated them and now he will not stop before he reaches his destination. I can see the film now.

The music has a restless, seething, barely restrained power that always seems on the verge of an explosion but never indulges in it. The soaring anguish when Matt Bellamy sings

Loneliness be over
When will this loneliness be over

contrasts magnificently with the circling chords and insistent beat.

There's a hint of Depeche Mode's Enjoy The Silence about the chord sequence, but where Enjoy The Silence has a stripped down, oiled up elegance, Map Of The Problematique throbs with a desperate obsession.

I enjoyed Muse's previous albums but with this one they polished their formula to a gleaming shine.  It accompanied me on the daily commute to Coventry a couple of years ago when I was working on a project there and this song remains my most played according to my stats on last.fm.

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1. Queens Of The Stone Age : In The Fade

(Rated R, 2000)

It starts with an eerie, high pitched whine, part intoxicated bee and part hellish dog whistle. A resigned voice describes the final stage in a broken relationship.  Then a dissonant, downtuned guitar revs up like a demon Harley and boosts us down the highway of the chorus and we learn that everything was doomed, doomed.

Mark Lanegan's vocals are wonderfully resigned, attractively devil-may-care and beautifully restrained, but the killer hook is Josh Homme's intense, compressed riffage cruising through the chorus before the gutsiest, ballsiest guitar tone ever lifts the track and places it firmly onto the two-lane blacktop and Out Of Here.

Rated R was my introduction to QOTSA and despite the stoner rock rep, is just pure pop in places.  Presumably this is why they tried beating their listeners round the head on their next album, Songs For The Deaf.  Didn't put me off though; see 10.

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Best Tracks of the Noughties

There were a lot of "best songs" lists going round at the end of last year.  Everyone loves a list, don't they?  Some of them have been more valid than others.  Channel 4's 20 "Greatest Songs of the Noughties" was enjoyable viewing and represented a good mainstream selection.  On the other hand, Absolute Radio's "Song of the Decade" top 100 has been amusingly spammed by extremists.  Apparently, thirteen of the greatest songs of the last ten years have been by McFly.  Who knew?

Although most critics talk about "songs", I think the wrong word is used.  A song is a melody line and a set of chords on sheet music.  When we talk about our favourite songs, we're probably thinking of a specific track.  A track is a performance.  It's the way the singer's voice cracks slightly in the third chorus, the way a guitar line weaves across the beat; it's the bass drum and bass guitar locked together, the crack of the snare through a retro 80s gated reverb (thanks Phil).  And, yes, sometimes <sigh> it's even the truck driver's gear change, god help us.

Like most people, I listen to a wide range of music but what I really love is pop.  That means two things to me.  Firstly, "pop", which stopped meaning "popular" a long time ago and now describes a combination of elements, which together produce the potential for mass appeal.  For all but the most masochistic listeners, it requires a tune - the old grey whistle test.  If I can't sing along, I'm not interested.

Secondly, "music" means just that - and not words.  The best lyrics in the world cannot save a mediocre tune or production.  There's a reason why only Dylan zealots can remember his original version of All Along The Watchtower - as a musical performance, it's dreadful.  (I'd argue the lyrics are pants too, but that's a separate discussion.)  However, Jimi Hendrix surpassed himself with the arrangement and performance, and so it's his cover we remember.

Music will take you places that words cannot; it will spin you above the clouds and drop you in an abyss.  It must be well arranged, played and recorded.  I have no patience with lo-fi amateurs.  The best words match the performance perfectly, but such symbiosis is rare.  As far as I can tell, most lyrics are just there because scat singing is art-jazz wank.  (FWIW, the tracks with the best lyrics - ever! - are "Reasons To Be Cheerful, Part 3" and "The Winner Takes It All".)

So, clearly that's enough words from me.  The world has been waiting; ladies and gentlemen, I present the best tracks of the noughties.

1. Queens Of The Stone Age : In The Fade
2. Muse : Map Of The Problematique
3. Mint Royale : Don't Falter (feat. Lauren Laverne)
4. Snow Patrol : Set The Fire To The Third Bar (feat. Martha Wainwright)
5. Kate Rusby : No Names
6. Low : Monkey
7. Calexico : Red Blooms
8. Mark Ronson : Stop Me (feat. Daniel Merriweather)
9. Kings Of Leon : Sex On Fire
10. Queens Of The Stone Age : Go With The Flow
11. Sugababes : Stronger
12. Junior Boys : In The Morning
13. Linkin Park : In The End
14. Smashing Pumpkins : Stand Inside Your Love
15. Radiohead : Everything In Its Right Place
16. Goldfrapp : A&E
17. Antony and The Johnsons : Hope There's Someone
18. Martha Wainwright : Jesus And Mary
19. PJ Harvey : This Mess We're In
20. M83 : Teen Angst
21. Primal Scream : Shoot Speed/Kill Light
22. Ian Brown : F.E.A.R.
23. Friendly Fires : Jump In The Pool
24. Goldfrapp : Number 1
25. The Flaming Lips : In The Morning Of The Magicians
26. Gonzales : Real Motherfuckin' Music
27. Kasabian : Processed Beats
28. Alfie : You Make No Bones (Revisited)
29. Neon Neon : Dream Cars
30. David Gray : Please Forgive Me
31. Midlake : Head Home
32. Radiohead : Reckoner
33. Radiohead : Videotape
34. Elbow : The Bones Of You
35. Doves : The Cedar Room
36. Outkast : Hey Ya!
37. Snow Patrol : Run
38. The Clint Boon Experience : White No Sugar (New Improved Bascombe Mix)
39. Passion Pit : Sleepyhead
40. The Flaming Lips : Pompeii Am Gotterdammerung
41. Klaxons : Golden Skans
42. Radiohead : I Might Be Wrong (Live)
43. White Lies : Death
44. Interpol : Evil
45. Kylie Minogue : Love At First Sight
46. The Feeling : Helicopter
47. Supergrass : Diamond Hoo Ha Man
48. Elbow : Powder Blue
49. Burial : Archangel
50. The Avalanches : Since I Left You
51. Jose Gonzalez : Heartbeats
52. Will Young : Leave Right Now
53. Loney, Dear : Violent
54. Doves : Jetstream
55. MGMT : Time To Pretend
56. Girls Aloud : Sound Of The Underground
57. Keane : We Might As Well Be Strangers
58. Coldplay : Shiver
59. Daft Punk : Face To Face
60. N.E.R.D. : Rock Star (Jason Nevins Remix Edit)
61. Interpol : PDA
62. The Music : Getaway
63. Lowgold : Beauty Dies Young
64. Madonna : What It Feels Like For A Girl
65. Franz Ferdinand : Auf Achse
66. Kalomoira : Secret Combination
67. High School Musical Cast : Breaking Free
68. Rilo Kiley : Close Call
69. Bloc Party : Helicopter
70. Badly Drawn Boy : Disillusion
71. Stereophonics : Dakota
72. Blonde Redhead : 23
73. The Streets : Turn The Page
74. Sufjan Stevens : Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois
75. Aimee Mann : Save Me
76. Noonday Underground : London
77. The High Fidelity : IThankU
78. Girls Aloud : Call The Shots
79. Vast : Free
80. Miracle Fortress : Have You Seen In Your Dreams
81. Mansun : I Can Only Disappoint You
82. Fleet Foxes : White Winter Hymnal
83. Benjamin Diamond : Little Scare
84. Crashland : New Perfume
85. The Darkness : Love Is Only A Feeling
86. Liberty X : Just A Little
87. Turin Brakes : Underdog (Save Me)
88. Richard Ashcroft : A Song For The Lovers
89. Unamerican : The Closer You Get
90. Death In Vegas : Scorpio Rising (feat. Liam Gallagher)
91. Daniel Bedingfield : If You're Not The One
92. U2 : Electrical Storm
93. Hercules & Love Affair : Blind (feat. Antony Hegarty)
94. James Morrison : Wonderful World
95. Hot Chip : No Fit State
96. Spiller : Groovejet (If This Ain't Love)
97. Seth Lakeman : How Much
98. Sia : Taken For Granted
99. The Supernaturals : Life Is A Motorway
100. The Feeling : I Thought It Was Over
101. Kylie Minogue : Spinning Around
102. British Sea Power : Carrion
103. St Deluxe : New Wave Stars
104. Melanie C : Never Be The Same Again (feat. Lisa “Left Eye”Lopez)
105. Birth : Last Night
106. Joe Bonamassa : Happier Times
107. Liberty : Thinking It Over
108. Manu Chao : Mr Bobby (Live)
109. Flight Of The Conchords : Ladies Of The World
110. Carlene Carter : Why Be Blue

I'll be writing short pieces on some of these tracks over the coming weeks.

Also available as a:

• Spotify playlist (missing 9 tracks sadly)