#3, 1968: This Guy's In Love With You - Herb Alpert. (video)
#3, 1978: Substitute - Clout. (video)
#2, 1968: Fire - The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown. (video)
#2, 1978: You're The One That I Want - John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John. (video)
#1, 1968: Mony Mony - Tommy James and the Shondells. (video)
#1, 1978: Three Times A Lady - The Commodores. (video)
Listen to a short medley of all six songs.

Final tie-break results:
1968: Mony Mony - Tommy James and the Shondells. (141)
1968: Fire - The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown. (132)
1968: This Guy's In Love With You - Herb Alpert. (125)
1978: You're The One That I Want - John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John. (106)
1978: Substitute - Clout. (105)
1978: Three Times A Lady - The Commodores. (84)

1968: Mighty Quinn - Manfred Mann. (video)
1978: Take A Chance On Me - Abba. (video)
1988: I Should Be So Lucky - Kylie Minogue. (video)
1998: Doctor Jones - Aqua. (video)
2008: Mercy - Duffy. (video)
Listen to a short medley of all five songs.

Have I really wasted 20 years of my life hating this record? Listening to it now, it all seems so...so... innocuous. How could I have expended so much passion loathing something that is ultimately this harmless?

I was too old for this back in 1988. Now, I'm not.

Running totals so far - Number 1s.

1978: Take A Chance On Me - Abba (155)

Like an express train to the heart. Almost too perfect. (betty)

There isn't a single phrase of praise about this group or song I can think of that hasn't already been said. (asta)

There is no chance of objectivity or shocking revisionism when it comes to me and Abba. This record's genius is so easy to love because its art seems so carefree - which is never to be confused with "careless." The sudden explosion of frank emotionalism from the general subtly tantalising vocal delivery on Frida's part ("'cos you know I've GOT...") are the difference between living and existing and the thought of Agnetha and Frida amiably and simultaneously winking with their "I ain't gonna let ya" and "soon I'm gonna get ya" inspire thoughts in me which are inappropriate for a blog family audience. (Marcello Carlin)

The girls are singing the words that the boys want to hear, but it seems clear that these are boy's words, of vulnerability and patience and longing, the pitiful cajoling of the spurned. When she finally realises she's made a mistake, he'll have moved on to an inferior version and he'll be too polite to abandon her. I hear missed opportunities and unhappy relationships. With a disco beat. Probably the best song of the fifty. (imsodave)

I remember noting at the time that it was the best thing they’d ever done in my opinion, and although nowadays I’d give that palm to “Winner Takes It All”, this is still up there. (Remember a song called “I’m A Train” by Albert Hammond, father of one of The Strokes? – it sounds like Benny and Bjorn did.) The video shows that Agnetha is no great shakes as a dancer, but as I’ve said before in Another Place, was there ever a woman more beautiful than she was in the late 70s? (Easy? – who did your schoolmates think they were?!!) (Erithian)

Yadda yadda yadda classic. I was surprised how 2008 their clothes look! Of the fifty songs there are only ten I would wish to hear again, and only Abba would be in contention for my Top One Hundred (but even then it's not my favourite Abba song!) (Gert)

Used to hate Abba, but there's a great craftmanship behind its arrangement. (Simon)

Total closet Abba head. Will watch Muriel's Wedding repeatedly for the soundtrack and to hear Toni Colette say ABBA in that twisted Australian way she has. (jo)

No searing critique from me (so what's new). My very first musical memory is Abba winning the Eurovision song contest, and the first album that was bought for me was Abba's Greatest Hits vol 1. I'll always have a huge soft spot for them. Have they ever won a God-like genius award? (Sarah)

I played Take a Chance on Me two nights ago as I DJed for a friend's 30th (this being the number one when he was born). And, as a peek at my last.fm profile implies, the Swedes can get five points from me without breaking a sweat. (Will)

Despite being the Abba song that always reminds me most of French and Saunders' spoof it really is rather good. (NiC)

Despite rediscovering Abba slightly before the rest of the world in the early 90s, they've fallen from favour of late. I think it's time for me to re-rediscover them. (Adrian)

3 pts. Seems unkind to rate it in midfield but, well crafted as the arrangement is, it's by no means one of their better songs. (Z)

Abba have pretty much always left me entirely cold, but as I've got older I've come to appreciate their clinical pop genius. It's alright, but it still doesn't get me up and dancing. And I loathe Dancing Queen too. Sorry. I must be missing the Abba gene. Even I can't deny that this is clearly the classiest thing here though. (SwissToni)

Having moved from Bowie/Mott/Alice Cooper onto punk and metal, I was immune to Abba at the time and legally obliged to hate them. I think this gives the more mature me a far more objective view on them that most people who are viewing them through rosy nostalgia tinted spectacles, and I can recognise them for what they really were, which is a very average pop band with a few good tunes who lucked into capturing the zeitgeist of the times. This song is not unpleasant, but really a bit bland and dull, and that's as much as I can say for it. (Alan)

2008: Mercy - Duffy (113)

I love her voice and I enjoyed the song. It's a whole lot more classy than most chart-toppers are nowadays. (Z)

I think in time this will turn out to be a classic. My sort of music. (Tina)

Sorry. I. Love. Duffy. The voice, the retro vibe, the Dusty feel. The 60's girl group sound. I. Can't. Help. It. Tom Jones, Sterophonics, Shirley Bassey, Cerys Mathews, Bonnie Tyler...maybe I just like Welsh voices. (jo)

Damned original stuff, and one of the few modern number 1s we're still going to remember in ten years time. (diamond geezer)

This one is simply the best Number 1 for a long while, and good luck to her. Incidentally, when the New Amys (or rather the Channelling Dustys) have big hits I get a bit indignant on behalf of Candie Payne, whose voice is up there with theirs and whose songs have the edge, but who hasn’t had quite the promotional push. (Mike, I saw Carmel live back in the 80s and she was terrific.) (Erithian)

I wasn't sure about Duffy, but this track made me think that perhaps there is something in the hype. And whenever I've seen her perform live she's been amazing. (Oliver R)

I definitely like this. Lulu vocals, yes, but then in the background it's referencing Ben E King and The Doors, and putting all that together somehow it works fantastically well. (Alan)

This is a great song and given most other competition would be flying high at the top of my list. I'd never seen the video before though. What's with the flame-grilled dancer? (Sarah)

No she's not the next Amy. Amy's a better lyricist, and sings from the core of the genre. This song is from the 60s song book of R&B catch phrases. It's like somebody loaded up her Ipod with Ann Sexton, Peebles and Sharon Jones and said," write me a song from that". I see your Carmel and raise you a Marianne Rosenberg. But don't think I don't like this. I think it's terrific, in it's way. (asta)

I think she's more straight retro and less original than Amy and the arrangement is indeed a bit tame (more Lulu?) but it's still pretty good. (NiC)

It's not quite the authentic, dusty fingered soul classic that it purports to be, and it's not even as good as Rockferry, but it's solid and catchy and danceably laid-back. I'm surprised how nasal she sounds on this though. She's hardly Mahalia Jackson, is she? (imsodave)

Heard this on a radio in a doctor's waiting room last week without knowing what it was and was surprised to find I didn't mind it as much as I thought I did (or maybe that was because of all the Century 106 schlock around it). Straight up revision without progression, of course, but tellingly not produced by the terrible joy-sucking Bernard Butler but by someone who appears to have done nothing of note past album tracks for Natalie Imbruglia and Heather Small before this but appears to understand that instantaneousness was the key to great soul. (Simon)

Good, high quality work. Inventive, but I don't think it carries it all the way to the finishing line. (Simon C)

Hmm. A large part of me wants to cry out that this is simply trying too hard; that the song is too retro and ultimately too repetitive.... but I simply can't deny the power of that voice and the fact that this song has got hooks. I'm sure she'll get better material than this in her career, but this will probably do for starters. The Social is going to be a great place to see her, that's for sure. (SwissToni)

Looking forward to seeing her. The B side of the 7" suggests that there is a genuine soul girl there (and she's 22 for crissake - at 22 you think you've seen everything, and certainly have a right to sing the blues) I could listen to this more often than Kylie or Abba but it's not that memorable. (Dymbel)

There are hints of Motown in this. If I didn't know they were in order, I'd suspect it was the 60s track. It's reasonable enough, but not a classic by any stretch of the imagination. (Adrian)

I was feeling rather pleased about the fact that I'd realised that she was the new Carmel, and was going to drop that into the comment in a very smug and self satisfied way, only to find out that other people have got there instead. Harumph. Perhaps they should do a duet, compare bleached hair and black shift dresses, that sort of thing. This single isn't quite as bad as I would have expected after her appearance on Later last year. At least she didn't go to the Brits School. (betty)

The introductory Stand By Me meets Human Behaviour bedrock motif promises little and yes it sounds moderately enhancing, if not enchanting, but it sounds spliced together by committee and Duffy really needs to do some more living before we can begin to believe (in) her. That is, if her management will allow her to live. (Actually, the Duffy riff is "Time Of The Season" innit? Paging Mr Argent...) (Marcello Carlin)

The Duffy album is such a mixed bag. I first heard a 5 track sampler, which sounded pretty decent - but it now seems as though all the best songs were on it. "Warwick Avenue" is an attractive piece of work, which might make a good follow-up single, but then we have tedious non-songs like the one where tells us, over and over and over again, that she doesn't want to be a stepping stone. And bearing in mind his asset-stripping reductio ad tedium job on the third Sons & Daughters album, having Bernard Butler as your closest collaborator is nothing to shout about, either. (mike)

The Lambrettas to Amy Winehouse's Jam. (Nottingham's 'Mr Sex')

This is getting more and more play on Heart. It'll soon be played more than Valerie. Duffy will replace Sam Brown when she's kicked out of Jools Holland's big band in a few years. (Geoff)

Her voice really grates after half a dozen seconds. I ought to like this a helluva lot more, considering the classy support of inter alia McAlmont and Butler. I'd just rather it was David McAlmont on vocals. (Gert)

1968: The Mighty Quinn - Manfred Mann (100)

Possibly the second ever Number 1 I can remember from the time (the first being “Bonnie and Clyde”) and an instant time-travel back to growing up in Stretford, just down the road from an older lad called Stephen Morrissey. As Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, they were the first band I went to see live several years later. Of course drug references – “everybody’s gonna want a dose” and Anthony Quinn went right over my head, it was just a fun song and still is. (Erithian)

I've never understood what the lyrics are about for this, but I've always had a soft spot for this song. I'll give it the nod over Abba because I'd be less likely to skip it if iTunes chose it on party shuffle. (Adrian)

Slightly odd and silly but no sillier than singing about Yellow Submarines or Bullfrogs with names. (asta)

The slight oddity of it adds to its attraction. (Z)

The Mannfreds were always a blues rock outfit that had been shoehorned into a pop role. Their live performances were purportedly bizarre because they played in a much harder, rockier style that half the audience, who had only heard the singles, hated. They wanted to be like the Stones, but they were hamstrung by their record company who wanted a more commercial sound, and it's the reason Paul Jones couldn't take it any more and quit. This one, from the Mike D'Abo era, was one time that the rockier sound started edging its way into the singles, if only a little, and was deservedly their biggest hit. It's a stepping stone between singles chart fodder and the more innovative music that was being created elsewhere at the time, and any band who could take an obscure Dylan song and make the public think it was pop magic are always going to get the thumbs up from me. (Alan)

I will always say yes to MM, they are one of my faves. When husband first moved over and I was touring him around the states we spent a lot of time with Roaring Silence in the CD player. (jo)

It reminds me a little of a rotund footballer with a big moustache, but it's a great song isn't it? The production has dated a bit, but the song stands up okay I reckon. One point seems very harsh when this would have topped most of the other day's selections for me. Them's the breaks though, eh? (SwissToni)

Remarkable how these jazzbo rep reliables managed three number ones in the sixties when the Small Faces managed only one and the Who none at all, and even more remarkably this was the first Dylan-related (as composer) UK chart topper; all very affable and the "Eskimo" angle ensured some Junior Choice play even if the producers chose to turn their back on the subtext (if there be any, depending on whose memories you trust).

Oh, and if anyone wants to know where Spiritualized copped it all from, check out the two extremely scarce albums released by "Manfred Mann Chapter Three" after the pop Manfreds split in two; maybe if Jason Pierce had been doing the vocals instead of the rather wobbly Mike Hugg, these records would get proper props. (Marcello Carlin)

Very minor Dylan. I'm humungously fond of the Basement Tapes,which I have in every incaranation and play from time to time but not especially this version, though, yeah, full marks for making such a throwaway a pop hit. (Dymbel)

I didn't know any of the meta stuff. This exercise is quite interesting because if this song came on in the pub, I would be like, yeah, I know this, great song. But actually, it isn't, really. (Gert)

Just sounds a bit generic 60s novelty song to me. Can't summon up an opinion on this one. (Sarah)

People like songs they can hum and whistle, I suppose. Quite why they would then want to buy it in such numbers I have no idea. (imsodave)

Erm, it's the Generation Game theme tune, isn't it? Life, is the name of the game, and I want to play the game with you. The Eskimo version, obviously. (diamond geezer)

I'm sure they were mouthing "Mighty Quim" on TOTP the other week. (Geoff)

1988: I Should Be So Lucky - Kylie Minogue (90)

I hate to disagree with you, but this is bloody brilliant. It may be cheesy, it may be over-bubbly, but it's still perfect pop. And I'm not ashamed to replay it, over and over... (diamond geezer)

Ahhh...London '88, sparkling and new, Kylie in the original video (not the more famous and infinitely naffer second one) streaking through Melbourne in her open-topped car (the same one in which Morley takes his journey?) as if the world's opening up just for her, the Australian sun recreated in a gloomy studio in Warrington, the light, the hope, the promise, and no it wasn't Rick Astley sped up. Elegantly loving even if a little too aware of the pressures of mortality. (Marcello Carlin)

Love it. Classic. What's to be ashamed of? And how many costume changes? (NiC)

I Should Be So Lucky was a big hit when I was at primary school (for which I apologise), and I remember it being quite popular in the playground. The boys who liked it all ended up gay, of course - she had that effect even then... (Will)

When this was out I was just that bit too old for this to be anything other than terribly uncool. Now it's got a kind of quaint charm. (Adrian)

I dismissed this at the time, but I think it's held up pretty well. (Z)

Really hated this at the time. Repetitive, squeaky nonsense - but with the maturing of Kylie (and myself) I guess I've forgiven her a lot over the years. It's nowhere near as bad as my sneery teenage self believed 20 years ago. I was probably just hacked off that she had left Neighbours. (Sarah)

If your birthday had been a week later we’d have had the odd outcome (has it happened in Which Decade before?) of the same artist featuring in different decades, 20 years apart – as “Wow” entered the top ten last week. 20 years of hits, who’d’a thunk it? That first single wasn’t for me back in the day – wasn’t pitched at the likes of me in any case – but now both her and Jason’s opening singles exude all the healthy escapism of the soap that spawned them, along with SAW’s sense of just how to create a massive hit. (Mind you, listening to Kylie and Jason’s duet can actually rot your teeth.) (Erithian)

Now, it's a bit of a dog this song, but... I get the feeling they knew, and didn't care. There's a happiness and carelessness that is really endearing. (Simon C)

This is chirpy Kylie. I much prefer the more mature pouty, vampy Kylie. (asta)

I'm not a fan. Only like a handful of her songs. This has a certain yearning quality. No doubt it's a result of Pete Waterman deciding that the teenage demographic has to empathise with the words if they're going to buy the single. (betty)

It feels somewhat harsh to only give this a mere two points. I remember this affectionately for some reason, but I think that's bound up in how I feel about "Our" "Brave" Kylie than about the quality of the music. We've grown up with her, haven't we? Pretty generic SA&W nonsense really, isn't it? I'm not sure I can forgive the whole "Hair Hat" thing on the album cover, to be honest. (SwissToni)

I'm supposed to like NeighboursKylie, I know, but this hasn't got any better in the twenty years since we all stood smugly folding our arms and glowering. (Simon)

I don't like anything she's ever done, especially this. (Geoff)

It is really irritating isn't it. I can't say I cared for very much of the Stock Aiken Waterman stuff. This was amongst the best. NiC mentions French and Saunders spoof of Abba, but they also spoofed this. (Gert)

I don't get Kylie. At. All. Cute? Sure. Hot? Maybe. But all in all, useless. (jo)

No amount of redressing can disguise the fact that this is a turkey of the highest order. (imsodave)

Another artist I have never had any feel for in any of her various incarnations. She always seems to me like she spends her career playing catch up and being a cut-price version of whoever was popular six months ago. But worse still, I saw Pete Waterman interviewed on a show recently and he described himself and cohorts Stock and Aitken as "we were the real punks" which had the effect of making me loathe their collective output even more than I already did, which was quite a considerable amount to begin with. Engineered tripe of the worst kind, it's become a laughing stock of a song since and rightly so. (Alan)

1998: Doctor Jones - Aqua (67)

I do like aqua, it's what 'pop' is supposed to be, completely silly and with a "it's got a beat and you can dance to it" vibe. (Clair)

Surprisingly fresh ten years on considering how played to death it was at the time. (NiC)

I read an unbelievably po-faced review of "Barbie Girl" not so long ago, I think on the captions of one of those music channels that tried to take the piss out of the silly scandinavians.... apparently completely missing the point that they were taking the piss out of themselves far more effectively, and as they were at number one, the joke was on us. I actually like this. Harmless pop fun, and nothing wrong with that, eh? eh? (SwissToni)

Huge in Denmark. When Love with Arthur Lee were touring the UK, they had Danish roadies and a sound man who had worked on Aqua tours and were very positive about their professionalism and musicianship (I kid you not). (Tina)

AquaFact 1: I once saw the hunky guy, Rene I think, come out of a dry cleaner's in Copenhagen and jump into a black Ferrari with a big load of clean clothes. I never see celebrities, so found this pretty cool. AquaFact 2: A year or two later, some friends and I thought it would be a really great idea to go and see Aqua live (this was the era of irony, and we were its children). As I ordered (standing) tickets, everyone thought it very hilarious when I had to confirm to the ticket agent on the phone "yes, we are all over five feet tall". (Simon C)

3 pts. Now I have to confess something here, this isn't purely a musical decision. But I don't think it is possible to be. Aqua were a band who understood that in the modern era, the visual was equally important. Take away the video and there's nothing much here. With the video, however, it's brilliant kitschy fun and makes you grin from ear to ear. (Alan)

You could win a pub bet on this – the biggest selling single in the UK by a Scandinavian act was “Barbie Girl” and not anything by Abba. In the sales boom of late ’97 there were two huge hits with possibly the youngest target audience of any Number 1 ever – this and the Teletubbies – and although the follow-up was more listenable, it’s still out of its depth in ths company. (Erithian)

I prefer this one to Barbie Girl, which isn't saying much. The Bloke Out Of Aqua was the '90's Bloke Out Of The Sugarcubes. (betty)

Fun like bubble gum. Is bubble gum really fun though, or just annoying? (Geoff)

This is the 90s novelty group with surprise, surprise- novelty songs. Dr. (Indianna) Jones, isn't even as good as Barbie Girl, which at least could be thought of as biting social comment.

Not a patch on "Barbie Girl"; a rather hackneyed variant on the old Goodness Gracious Me/Dr Kiss Kiss/Doctor Love sex-as-medicine template, naff rather than "ironically great." (Marcello Carlin)

No fond memories of anything by Aqua. Were this later in the year, I'd assume it was the hangover from our yearly exodus to dodgy Mediterranean resorts...ugh! (Sarah)

The power of the tweenie market in full effect. Well and truly on the crest of the Barbie Girl wave here. Presumably they suffered a painful crushing death on the descent. Shame. (imsodave)

Music for shop mannequins to smile to. (diamond geezer)

Decade scores so far (after 9 days).
1 (2) The 1960s (32)
2 (1) The 1970s (30)
3 (3) The 2000s (27)
4 (4) The 1990s (25)
5 (5) The 1980s (21)

"It was often a letdown, because the records I really liked tended to get to Number Eleven, not Number One. I would much rather have seen Mott The Hoople do All The Young Dudes than Don McLean singing bloody Vincent again."

1968: Cinderella Rockefella - Esther & Abi Ofarim. (video)
1978: Figaro - Brotherhood Of Man. (video)
1988: I Think We're Alone Now - Tiffany. (video)
1998: All I Have To Give - Backstreet Boys. (video)
2008: Rockstar - Nickelback. (video)
Listen to a short medley of all five songs.

Running totals so far - Number 2s.

1988: I Think We're Alone Now - Tiffany (147)

Ah yes. Pop genius, and following on from Debbie Gibson the other day, another of this year's wholesome 80s starlets who got'em out for Playboy. God love her. There's a great song in here underneath that production. It still sounds alright today, I reckon. (SwissToni)

Yay! I think this may actually be the best version of this song. (And before anyone says anything, this movie is not about me, OK?) (jeff w)

5 points, since out of this singularly sorry lot this is the only record which truly deserves any points. I liked the shopping mall marketing plan, though (and what was our equivalent in the UK of the late eighties? The late, lamented Don Estelle flogging his tapes and singing along to them in Arndale Centres up and down the land!), and she grasps the "children BEHAVE" motif in a way that Tommy James or the Rubinoos (being boys) wouldn't have been able to do. Harmless fun and an obvious number one, although the Tommy James original with its hesitant pauses of chirping crickets - what happened to the concept of spaces and silence in pop? - is overall architecturally and aesthetically better as a pop record. (Marcello Carlin)

The first version of 'I Think We're Alone Now' that I heard was by The Rubinoos and I still love their take on it, though I later acquired the fine original. (I always first think of Tommy James as 'Crimson and Clover' though, a key early record for me). I once named a short story after this song and, by implication, the mediocre Tiffany version is playing in the story's final paragraph, so I guess I owe her. (Dymbel)

Proof that good music transcends genre. You see, it has all the Eighties trademarks (except scratching) that have pissed me off throughout this exercise, but actually it is a good song. Not great, but almost certainly in my top five for this year's WD (which is damning with faint praise). I like her voice, especially the richness at the bottom of her range. Towards the top she's a bit of a poor person's Cyndi Lauper. (Gert)

Not a classic by any stretch of the imagination, but at least it's reasonably well produced and inoffensive. (Adrian)

Like you said, it’s very difficult to screw up with a song like this. (Erithian)

Really never imagined that I'd ever give this 5 points. No-one who knows me in real life comes here do they? A bit of remixing and this could be quite something actually. (NiC)

5 Points - solely on the grounds that it wasn't anything like as bad as I remember it. It's still pretty f**king bad though! (Alan)

5 points to Tiffany, and I never thought I would say that, as I've alwas thought it unbelievably naff, but compared to the rest of this lot, it's fantastic. (David)

Almost irresistibly catchy. Talking of comedy clubs, as Alan does below, I was in one of Nottingham's scuzziest last Friday night and they played this track - the hen party from Barnsley and the big group of blokes from Hucknall did jiggy to it all over the place - complete with imitation lurex microphone which all and sundry sang into. (Tina)

The song may have its moments, but I don't like her delivery at all. (Z)

1 point, because I've discovered she posed topless and I'm totally against that sort of thing. Oh, and it was a stinking pile of 80s turdiness. (Geoff)

1968: Cinderella Rockefella - Esther & Abi Ofarim (107)

5 points, because it reminds me of being tucked up in bed during one of my never ending childhood illnesses, feeling safe, secure, and best of all, listening to the radio because I'd had time off school. Plus, I'm still likely to start singing it when I'm drunk, so it *must* have a special place in my heart. Stands head and shoulders above the other four songs, gawd help 'em. (betty)

I've only got good memories of this. Genuinely strange and wonderful. Tiny Tim crossed with Lee Hazlewood. (Geoff)

Everyone I know, including my mum, still assumes this to have been a Eurovision entry, but no, that year's winner, even beating Mr Forever Guy Cliff into second place, was Spain's Massiel with the memorable "La La La" (although whoever wrote Andy Williams' "Happy Heart" obviously remembered it).

Still, it can't be under-emphasised that in a year when CBS were more prepared to put marketing resources behind Solomon King than the Zombies (can you believe that "Time Of The Season" was never a hit single in its native country?), that when the US number ones of '68 included not only the aforementioned Archie Bell & the Drells ("from Houston TEXAS!") and Hugh Masekela but the Rascals ("People Got To Be Free"), "Love Child" (top 20 only in Britain) and "Dock Of The Bay" (#3 in the UK), serious questions have to be raised in the house about the misleading (?) picture of music that the success of trifles like "Cinderella Rockafella" would seem to have indicated.

It is perhaps excusable in the light of the song's author, Mason Williams, also having a much better hit in the same year with "Classical Gas" (which sounds like a lost Forever Changes backing track), and the excellent work that Esther Ofarim has done elsewhere (see for instance "Any Day Now," her "guest" appearance on side one of Scott Walker's 'Til The Band Comes In), but really these 4 points are in Monopoly money. (Marcello Carlin)

They've chosen a direction and gone all out for it. In company like this such conviction, even if mis-placed, can lift you above the rest. (Adrian)

This amused me when I was fourteen, which allows me to give it a modicum of tolerance. (Z)

A fondly-remembered novelty rather than anything of great value (although their “One More Dance” had a haunting quality).(Erithian)

I don't like novelty records. I wonder who was buying the records back in the Sixties, because I don't see the chart being particularly Teens or even Twenties oriented. Unless young people were prematurely middle-aged. (Gert)

I really was hoping for a " Young Girl" or Baby Come Back" or even "Lady Madonna" but no, this is what we get. Another f*^#*ing novelty act. I really think it's got to be February. When we finish all the Februarys will you consider a comparison with July/August? Pretty please? (asta)

I always thought it was Mike Moran & Lynsey du Paul. (David)

Blimey. There's not enough yodelling in the charts nowadays, is there? **seconds pass** Ah, okay, now I'm bored of this. The joke isn't funny anymore. En Suivant! (SwissToni)

2008: Rockstar - Nickelback (103)

Hmm, you were praising with faint damns there, weren’t you Mike? I like this – not sure I’d ascribe profundity or wryness to it (and I hated “We Didn’t Start The Fire” as much as the next man) but it’s refreshing to hear a rock band intentionally sending up both itself and the "raaawwk" lifestyle. In the tradition of “Life’s Been Good” by Joe Walsh or Dr Hook’s early material (if you only know them for gloopy ballads try “Cover of the Rolling Stone”). And it’s still fun after it becomes familiar. Nice vid as well. (Erithian)

Just what is happening with the creepy voiceover stuff? Nickelback were never that good, but I was hoping they'd provide some guilty-pleasure-style respite. (Adrian)

Take your point, Erithian. It's not for me in any shape or form, but I can see that it's a reasonably accurate lampoon on an awful lot of people's fantasies of the rock star lifestyle - but they could have taken it so much further, so I can't help feeling that it's a waste of a decent premise. (Those creepy voice-overs that Adrian mentioned were provided by a member of ZZ Top, by the way.) (mike)

For the first few bars I thought 'not bad' but then I just fell asleep, it is so boring. An unusual reaction, if I don't like something, I still tend to react. (Gert)

I'm giving this 4 points? Oh sweet lord above. Now, the thing about this is that I'm absolutely convinced that although this is being seen as ironic, it was written with a perfectly straight face. Chad Kroeger has cut his hair. He has many cars. He is a rockstar (and is there any sadder an indictment of music than that?). I don't know about the hookers and the dealers and stuff, and I know he's canadian and all (sorry asta), but I'm prepared to take a wild guess that he didn't have to look very far for his inspiration. (SwissToni)

Should be number one for 26 weeks in a Bryan Adams way. Would have been in the 80s. And the 80s were great, weren't they? (Geoff)

I was in a comedy club a few weeks back, Tom Stade was headlining and because I was sat in the front (and because I look like, well, me) he naturally made me his buttmonkey for the night. And one of the first things he said was "I don't know anything about you, except that you smoke a lot of dope and like Nickelback." I really wanted to put him right on that second one. This is a band who started out by distilling everything that was great about bands like the Pixies, Nirvana, Soundgarden and the Smashing Pumkins, and then discarding that and using what was left over. Like I said with Rod Stewart, I'm a die-hard rocker from way back, and that's exactly why I don't like this. It isn't rock music, it's what someone who has had rock music described to them but has never actually heard it would create. (Alan)

With all the fabulously talented Canadian singer/songwriters out there, Nickelback is sitting in the number 2 spot? Outrageous. They've been recording the same paint-by-numbers song for seven years. Only the lyrics change. Oh lucky us, this one is a self-indulgent whine about MTV kids and rock star life. (asta)

Peter Robinson's recent piece in the Guardian Guide was the definitive study of Nickelback's true awfulness. Hey, even though he's a rock star who lives the rock star lifestyle, he's slagging off other people who want to be rock stars and live the rock star lifestyle! Way to go, dude! Gets three points because the singer is quite funny ... for a few seconds. (betty)

At least BoM have the decency to be bland and know it (I imagine). This is bland posing as rock. Begone. (Stereoboard)

Thank goodness for Duffy, eh? Otherwise this might have got to #1. I knew there must be some reason for her existence... (jeff w)

1 point, because they're Canadian and therefore should know much, much better. Because really I don't care whether it's supposed to be ironic or not. It's a lump of overspent Mothers' Pride bread blocking up the orchard of popular music development. I can't abide Duffy but I do applaud her for keeping this muck off the top. Now come down, dear, and give H(two)) a chance. (Marcello Carlin)

1978: Figaro - Brotherhood Of Man (65)

It could be down to the fact that I've got a bad headache, but I'm now imagining what Brotherhood Of Man's version of I Think We're Alone Now would sound like. Oh, and I can remember The Barron Knight's spoof version, which then leads me to remember The Barron Knights' Boney M send up There's A Dentist From Birmingham. It's terrible and I'm probably having some sort of meltdown. (betty)

Pure nostalgia. This was the very first pop record I bought, for 69p. Objectively, I have to say it is pretty bad, low-rent Abba, over-produced vocals blah de blah, but the tune is so etched on my mind, it has the comfort of the familiar. And now I'm freaked out that Betty's mentioned "Dentist in Birmingham", because I brought this into conversation today at work, sight unseen, as a follow-on from a discussion of the Wurzels (you had to be there) but I couldn't remember the name of the band so I googled it. (Gert)

I never liked Abba, so a second rate middle-class English imitation with mumsy looking women is quite painful. For some reason, watching the video made me think of Abigails Party. (Alan)

If you're going to rip off ABBA could you at least put some effort into it? God, a highschool production of Mamma Mia could outdo this. (asta)

oh crikey! Amateur hour. Bjorn Again are probably deeply offended by this. I don't even like Abba and I know I am. (SwissToni)

Motherhood of Bran, as we used to refer to them at school (why couldn't it have been the Brotherhood of Breath, my all time favourite band in any genre of music?), and this was a truly terrible number one in a chart which also contained "What Do I Get?" and "Shot By Both Sides" (now THERE would have been a top-of-the-chart battle worth following). The subtext here: watch out for all those greasy foreigners who'll steal your wife/your job/your house/swamped by alien culture &c. They were rightfully swept away one week later by the Harold Wilson to their Mike Yarwood (or, if you know your seventies Brit impressionists, the David Frost to their Peter Goodwright) - Abba. And if you think this was bad, what about the follow-up to "Save Your Kisses" - "My Sweet Rosalie" which seems to promote canophilia. (Marcello Carlin)

Yes, the horror that was "My Sweet Rosalie" - an earlier (and more metaphorically apposite!) example of BOM deploying the dog-returning-to-its-own-vomit, "if you thought the other one sucked, try sucking on THIS you suckers" trick. I am still scarred by the memory of their "Seventies medley" at the Royal Centre last year, in particular the segue from "Remember You're A Womble" (complete with GLOVE PUPPET) to "My Ding-A-Ling"... (mike)

3 points: Brotherhood Of Man. Because I like the sentiments behind the group's name. (Geoff)

1998: All I Have To Give - Backstreet Boys (58)

I dislike "production-line boy-band ballads" as much as the next man, but the Brit and Irish variants are 10 times worse than this. the BBoys are dodgy singers but the arrangement is lovely and the song's OK; the melody in the chorus is pretty strong, actually. (jeff w)

I think you're being unfair here Mike, they're much better than Westlife. Mind you, so is having major bowel surgery without an anaesthetic. This is dull, bland and pointless, but it's not awful, hence the four points, because frankly everything else is. (Alan)

Aside from the half-strangled mimicking of Prince singing a ballad, they're not that bad. Let me be more precise- they're better than a lot of other boy bands. O Town anyone? (asta)

I can't believe that I'm placing this shit so high. Hmmm. There was a time when I was in Florida with a friend that every time I touched the radio dial, the Backstreet Boys came on with "I Want It That Way". Now, I didn't much like that song, but compared to this one, it's Ivor Novello winning stuff. Lazy, unimaginative tripe of the kind now cranked out by Westlife. You can see them standing up as the song cranks up for a big finish. Awful. (SwissToni)

Oh god, painting my numbers. You'd have thought, when he wobbles, they'd have gone for another take. (Gert)

Completely unmemorable. Louis Walsh must indeed have been taking notes. A real letdown if compared to the awesome Everybody (Backstreet's Back), the band's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. (betty)

I wasn’t paying a great deal of attention to the charts at this period, but just the thought that this was an influence on the likes of W------e is enough to earn them a place in the bowels of hell. (Erithian)

Decade scores so far (after 8 days).
1 (2) The 1970s (29)
2 (1) The 1960s (29)
3 (3) The 2000s (24)
4 (4) The 1990s (23)
5 (5) The 1980s (16)

1968: She Wears My Ring - Solomon King. (video)
1978: If I Had Words - Scott Fitzgerald & Yvonne Keeley with the St. Thomas More School Choir. (video)
1988: Tell It To My Heart - Taylor Dayne. (video)
1998: Never Ever - All Saints. (video)
2008: Now You're Gone - Basshunter. (video)
Listen to a short medley of all five songs.

Running totals so far - Number 3s.

1998: Never Ever - All Saints (149)

One of the greatest of number ones and the competition which the Spice Girls direly needed at the turn of '97/8; so patient a record, so effortlessly hip an approach (their Woody Allen-style hands-in-pockets/shrugging-shoulders routine), and the red alert sign for New Pop Mk II (Cameron McVey changes music for the third time in less than a decade) - a wonderful Shangri-Las in W11 intro (as Brit-born, Canadian-raised expats I think we can accommodate the Appletons' AC/DC accents - the magic lies in the accentual instability), a sublime shuffle of a pop song which turns into a near-gospel hymn at the end (that organ) without descending into Jools Holland worthiness and then SNAP! the beats break up and they become even hipper as the song fades. (Marcello Carlin)

5 points. Totally has to be, and not just because I’ve been mates with Melanie Blatt’s dad for 20 years or so. (Check out his book “Manchester United Ruined My Wife”, the Old Trafford answer to “Fever Pitch”.) Yes, it’s a little patchy with that spoken intro, but a deserved massive hit. Marcello will confirm it holds the record for the most copies sold before the week it reached number 1. (Erithian)

Confirmed - 770,000 copies sold before it topped the chart, and it ended up selling just short of one-and-a-half million. (Marcello Carlin)

This is how you do 'slow' without 'plod'. Quite what the formula for success here is I couldn't say, but the ladies stumbled on it here. (jeff w)

Well yes, there's really no choice but All Saints is there? Head and shoulders and pretty much all other parts above the rest of these selections. Never really liked them much, but this one was palatable and easily the best of their singles. Pity they chose to follow it up with their execrable wimpy cover of Under the Bridge. (Alan)

One of the best pop groups of the 90s who hardly put a foot wrong. They even made a silk purse out of a plodding Red Hot Chilli Peppers sow's ear. (Geoff)

Not as good as "Black Coffee" but an awful lot better than their cover of "Under the Bridge" and any of the rest of this motley selection. It's classy sounding, for heaven's sake, even if I seriously dislike the alternating pronunciation of Ay to Zee and Ay to Zed. (SwissToni)

The almost pseudo-Shangri-Las spoken intro is a bit dubious but once that's over it's pure pop genius (though very much a slow grower on me at the time I recall). (NiC)

Not even my favourite song by them, but gets the most points by default. Always had a soft spot for that wobbly thing Shaznay does with her vocals ... (betty)

Never ever have I ever liked this song. Clearly written by someone with a limited vocabulary. It's the sound of a toddler having a lazy tantrum. (imsodave)

When Shaznay sings: I'll take a shower, I will scour... am I the only one who pictures her cleaning under her arms with a green scouring pad and some fairy liquid? (Oliver R)

1988: Tell It To My Heart - Taylor Dayne (118)

Haven't heard this in years. It's held up better than I remember, and although it's not fantastic, it's easily top here. (Adrian)

Blistering vocal performance from TD and again a breakbeat which seems to skate right through the walls of Streathamm Ice Rink; furiously busy, completely 1988, as tinny as any Carnaby Street Acieed smiley T-shirts but it still feels exciting. I wonder if McCartney might want to have a word apropos "No Reply," though. (Marcello Carlin)

While I sit at home and say "ah yes, very fine specimen of 80s pop, that", sipping my wine, I know that if I somehow found myself at an 80s disco night and it came on, I'd be on my feet in seconds. (Simon C)

I certainly enjoy this more now than at the time. But enough about me. This is a cracker. Crackles and fizzes with sexual energy. Hang on, that's me again. The song is good. The best of a poor bunch today. I like it. Cheers. (imsodave)

I've always felt that this would be better without the tinny computer drumtrack; I'd like to hear it done as Rock Anthem, and I think her voice makes her a Rock Belter. It's not bad, but don't need it in my collection. (Gert)

My mother would have called her rough. We all thought she was scary. Song's nothing all that special- but better than the dregs to follow. (asta)

This drips testosterone, oddly. (SwissToni)

Is this where Stock Aitken & Waterman got that irritating keyboard sound from? Curse you, Taylor. (jeff w)

I assume she was a former backing singer for Foreigner or Toto. That's where she should've stayed. (betty)

2008: Now You're Gone - Basshunter (86)

As this genre goes, I find I can live with this track – effective use of the big beats, and it’s even got a tune you can whistle. Loses a point for deploying the old “chewed-up cassette tape” effect. (Erithian)

Went home to celebrate midsummer the right number of years ago for this to be The Song in Sweden at the time. Was horrified. Now I would say, well, fair enough. Untz untz fodder for the masses. (Simon C)

Formulaic... even when the beat kicks in it hasn't got any energy. (Adrian)

A sort of Bachman-Turner Overdrive to the Guess Who of the superb Swedish original. (Marcello Carlin)

Will have to have a listen to the Swedish version then. Doesn't really go anywhere, does it? Reminds me of Snap!'s Rhythm Is A Dancer, but nowhere near as good. (betty)

Not sure I agree with you about Nena, but this is clearly the most disastrous attempt to anglicise a eurohit since Las Ketchup. This did so well in the end, I'm sure 'Boten Anna' could have been a hit in its own right here. (jeff w)

Are you sure this is from the Noughties because it even has Eighties Big Hair and Sinclair Spectrum drum track. At least it doesn't scratch. (Gert)

This must have taken all of 1 minute to write. I bet Chris Moyles probably took longer writing his parody. Is that chorus bit meant to be euphoric? It fails and only serves to depress. (SwissToni)

Look at any edition of the Now series from the last fifteen years. They're packed full of garbage like this. I think it was existential philosopher-lover-poet Haddaway who said it best when he sang "What is love? Baby, don't hurt me". Alright? Quite. This nonsense is essentially just a ringtone. Basshunter indeed! We know where the f*cking bass is. It's all over this mess of a tune. (imsodave)

1978: If I Had Words - Scott Fitzgerald & Yvonne Keeley (80)

I do like this song. I liked it way back when I was 10. And I continue to like it, I think there is a very bright mood about it. I don't think the 'reggae' bit ever really came through a valved radio tuned to Medium Wave (although obviously, the Top 20 on Sunday did also go out on Radio 2 VHF). Someone on YouTube has made some comment about it not being shown on TOTP, and I have to admit I have always assumed the male singer was black. White men shouldn't sing falsetto. (Gert)

I have always liked it despite itself - better known these days for its use in the film Babe, I guess, but I like the fugal/spiritual construct, the French/reggae fusion which hasn't been properly followed through, and the bells at the end - undeniably corny, but as a 14-year-old boy with a doomed classmate crush it spoke directly to me. The missus heard it for the first time when Dale played it on Pick Of The Pops the other Sunday and she loved it! (Marcello Carlin)

Nice bit of cod reggae with a James Last feel. (Geoff)

A pleasant surprise after your build up. I do like cod-reggae in general though. (jeff w)

Never heard this before, and it's not as completely horrendous as the other options today, despite the weird, choral, reggae-lite nature of it. Yvonne is not a sexy name. (imsodave)

4 Points - Oh dear, none of them deserve it, do they? I'm going for Scott & Yvonne just because, well they tried to do something. I'm not sure what though. This could have at least been inoffensive if it weren't for the falsetto screeching. That man cannot possibly have any testicles to be able to sing that high. (Alan)

I didn’t care for it much at the time, and since then it’s been tainted even further by being used to the point of nausea on the soundtrack to “Babe”. (Erithian)

What was it with the late 70s and school choirs? Did people think that was the good bit from Pink Floyd's Wall? Or is my timeline completely out. Still, trying to work that out will help me ignore this track. (Adrian)

Is this a really rubbish attempt by an uncool white woman to do reggae? I do believe it is. What was Fitzgerald thinking? And I can only assume that a white person wrote this too, with all that talk of "moonshine". (SwissToni)

I wish someone had been there at the time to say, "Please step away from the microphone, and no one will get hurt". (asta)

1968: She Wears My Ring - Solomon King (62)

Superb opening, kind of sinister, but then he starts singing, and it sounds like its being played about 10% too slow. (Stereoboard)

I've actually got a copy of this, on a 3CD compilation called The Greatest Voices. Good thing it didn't say greatest songs, or greatest lyrics... (Adrian)

See what he did with the name there, clever huh? Even my mum would think this was too old fashioned, and she's nearly eighty and likes Perry Como. (Alan)

Memories of drunken family party choruses of “She wears my ring, ding-a-ling, ding-a-ling…” Ugh. (Erithian)

So they DID have a cure for insomnia in the 60s then? Dreadfully tedious crap. Oh, perhaps I'm just being unfair and it's aged badly. Maybe in the 60s it made perfect sense. (SwissToni)

t's astonishing that, in any week of any year, this could be deemed to be more popular than The Love affair or Amen Corner. People will buy any old rubbish. And this is both old and rubbish. (imsodave)

The bad bit of Sixties Music already (over) represented by EngHump. "She belongs to me" - ha ha ha, the Seventies were just round the corner. (Gert)

"THIS TINY RING IS A TOKEN OF TENDER EMOTION!" Subtle. (Geoff)

Deeply creepy with the added potential to induce vomiting. (asta)

I've reached the stage of finding twisted humour in it, but context is everything, and perhaps the smirks are ultimately misplaced. (mike)

Even as a four-year-old this record gave me the creeps (and this involves personal, family-related reasons which I'm not going to go into here)...Solomon King, nee one-time (and future) Jordanaire Allen Levy from Kentucky, standing at 6 ft 8 out of his polished shoes, who belted out this genuinely frightening belch of proprietorial pride, curiously written by the generally placid Felice and Boudleaux Bryant. "She belongs to ME!" "She's MINE - ETERNALLY!" he intones like Victor Mature following a steroid overdose; he begins at Engelbert level but quickly progresses to Mario Lanza skyscraper-shattering high Cs so dementedly immense that they actually drown out the music. Like Jerry Vale's similarly-themed "My Woman, My Woman, My Wife" this record was especially popular among prospective wife beaters in Scotland and the North of England. Number three this got to in our charts, where it stayed for the best part of half a year. Meanwhile, America got things like "Tighten Up" and "Grazing In The Grass." No wonder Radio 2 is now so ardent to rewrite its own history and hopefully make its audience forget that this was the sort of Brylcreemed drivel they played endlessly at the time, rather than "Brown Eyed Girl" or "Piece Of My Heart" or whatever. Oh, and for examples of how to do the big ballad thing and carry it off, please investigate the collected works of the late, great Roy Hamilton. (Marcello Carlin)

Decade scores so far (after 7 days).
1 (1) The 1960s (28)
2 (1) The 1970s (27)
3 (3) The 2000s (21)
4 (4) The 1990s (17)
5 (5) The 1980s (12)

1968: Everlasting Love - The Love Affair. (video)
1978: Come Back My Love - Darts. (video)
1988: Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car - Billy Ocean. (video)
1998: My Heart Will Go On - Celine Dion. (video)
2008: Sun Goes Down - David Jordan. (video)
Listen to a short medley of all five songs.

Running totals so far - Number 4s.

1968: Everlasting Love - The Love Affair (146)

This is miles ahead of anything else so far this year. (chris)

The kind of timeless greatness that WDITFP should ultimately be about (but, alas, that would be too hard to judge for the more recent decades) (Simon C)

5 points: it just has to be. For me a beginning of time; it was number one the day I started primary school (and therefore the day where my memory really begins) and it felt like the whole world in all its bizarre colours had been suddenly opened up for me - I think of FAB ice lollies, Tintin books, the kiddies' crazy golf course in our local park, Glasgow with everyone still wearing hats and suits, the transistor radio blaring while playing on swings and roundabouts, my first piano lessons - it feels, in short, like waking up on a brilliant day when there have been no previous day.

As a pop record it stands up brilliantly and I would argue better than the Robert Knight original (though this also marks, in tandem with Felice Taylor's "I Feel Love Coming On," the early onset of Northern Soul crossover; and also Carl Carlton did a very fine cover in the mid-seventies) - Steve Ellis always wanted to be his great personal mate Steve Marriott, really, and he more than holds his own against Keith Mansfield's opulent orchestration and Clem Cattini's characteristically clattering drums (and Mike Smith's production - with that last cymbal/backing vocal/drum roll sequence it's hello, Trevor Horn). Great b/vox also (Sue and Sunny) which sometimes threaten to overtake Ellis. Who cares who played on the record, especially since one of the people who didn't - Morgan Fisher - went on to Mott, Lol Coxhill and much, much else? (Marcello Carlin)

1968 seems to have been the year for these big, orchestrated numbers. This packs so much punch compared to whatever the modern equivalent would be (I dunno, The Kooks?!). Love the follow up, Rainbow Valley, as well. Is it worth the £6 to get the Best Of compilation in HMV, I wonder? (betty)

One of my favourite songs of all time, in whatever incarnation. Possibly prefer this above Robert Knight's (original?) as it's more frenzied and less mannered. Bass, drums, horns and soul. "Need a love to last forever". Indeed. (imsodave)

Soaring chorus, this is far far above any of the rest of today's offerings. (Adrian)

Love the bass, as up in the mix as Chris Squire's. The only decent song today. (Geoff)

Good to find that fond memories of 1968 aren't simply nostalgia. (Z)

I absolutely have to give this five points, plus another five bonus points, because this is my birth song. Can you believe it, what a wonderful song to have as the number one on the hit parade when I made my auspicious start in the world. I didn't actually find this fact out until I was sixteen - for some reason it didn't matter to my parents - so I was delighted to discover it was a really ace song. At that point I knew another version, by Rachel Sweet and I was going to write Rex Harrison, but that would be so so wrong, so I w'k'p'd it and it's actually Rex Smith, but thinking about it, a Rex Harrison version would have a certain something. (Gert)

Generally I listen, review and then read your commentary so as not to be SWAYED. It's a good thing I read the top paragraph because there I was again thinking...yet again, another version that is different from the one I knew. Husband and I went through this also in the summer when I was playing Seals and Crofts Summer Breeze when the night blooming jasmine was smelling up the entire back garden and he told me about the version he had known all along by The Isley Brothers, of course I had never heard that version. (jo)

Brilliant. Right from the 'woo-ooo-ooh' bit, the brass and the bass line. Even the limp singing can't ruin that kind of a start. Just think of that chorus people.... hang on for the chorus! Sadly not the best version of this song, but it's still a great song, innit. (SwissToni)

They were a moddy little bunch weren't they - I seem to think Steve Ellis was about 14 at the time (actually looking at Wikipedia he was 17). (Tina)

Solid 60s fare, always great to hear again. Another favourite from my personal dawn of time. (Erithian)

Great song, but while it's playing, I'm wishing it was Carl Carlton singing. (asta)

Yes it's a decent song and a big epic sweeping production but it's all a bit soulless. (Alan)

Tries too hard for significance. And the singer reminds me of hotel bar performers in the Balearics in the 70s. (jeff w)

1978: Come Back My Love - Darts (111)

5 points – if only for the way that, one second after I read the title, my bonce was reverberating with “WOP! (do-de-doo) DO THE WANG! (do-de-doo) DO THE WOP, DO THE WANG…” I might not have given them more than a passing thought for 20 years, but the names of the four singers - Den Hegarty, Rita Ray, Bob Fender and Griff Fish - spring to mind like a Proustian madeleine… (Erithian)

Ooooo I was raised on Doo Wop. My Dad was a city boy with leather jackets, the hair and the cars and doo wop played a lot into my later years when he would come home from work, start pouring Manhattans and playing music. PURE nostalgia - not that I ever heard this version...but Doo Wop..she is the doo wop universally. (jo)

This happens to be my favourite Darts song and such a shame that's it up against such a fabulous song from the Sixties, otherwise it would be worthy of 5 points. It is okay to have a favourite Darts song isn't it? I can't believe that we have just missed the 30 year reunion :-( nor can I believe that I am now watching Duke Of Earl as well. And I never knew that Darts had common DNA with Rocky Sharpe and the Replays. Obviously not cool enough for a Smash Hits Family Tree. Interestingly, someone has said they bought Boy from NY city for 65p but in February 1978 singles cost 69p. (Gert)

Them and Rocky Sharpe must have been the only band to split up due to 'musical similarities'. (Nottingham's 'Mr Sex')

I'd forgotten them but this one got my feet doing a hand jive (maybe you had to be there). Unreconstructed reconstructed rock'n'roll-be-bop or something. They were sort of a cool Showadiwadi weren't they? (NiC)

Darts were essentially the cool alternative to Showaddywaddy and this is agreeable enough if not quite "Boy From New York City" or "Daddy Cool Oblique Stroke The Girl Can't Help It Open Brackets Medley Close Brackets Ten Points Dignified Don" since there's not enough Den Hegarty on it and a little too much of the guy who looked like Simon Cadell Out Of Hi-De-Hi. (Marcello Carlin)

And again the watchword is fun. I was a confused punk/metaller when this came out so of course I hated it. And yet I kind of secretly liked it, even then. And amazingly it holds up really well. Also, I have the right voice to sing the "doh doh doh doh doh" bits. (Alan)

Were Showaddywaddy part of a scene then? On second listen it redeems itself a bit - my foot was even tapping. (Adrian)

Thought that there may be more here than meets the ear, but there's not, is there. I'd rather listen to Showaddywaddy. (imsodave)

The Boy From New York City is far superior to this. They used to be played so much on Radio One that their singles usually became extremely irritating after a while. I'm surprised that Geoff didn't share his Rocky Sharp And The Replays anecdote with you. (betty)

I'm going to go and listen to Jive Bunny now! (Rebecca)

It's Doo Wop. Sha-Na-Na killed Doo Wop for me. Sorry. (asta)

Whatever happened to the Flying Pickets anyway? (SwissToni)

2008: Sun Goes Down - David Jordan (98)

Did somebody say "hello, Trevor Horn"? Well, this is he producing, and Jordan seems to be set (up) to become a soberer Seal for the noughties. Good record, this, with lots of subtle approaches and divergences - a real slow burner (the album is also recommended). (Marcello Carlin)

I'm as surprised as anyone about me giving top points to a current hit, but despite not having heard it before, this is great. Okay, it sounds a bit like it should be an Eastern European entry for the Eurovision Song Contest, but it's lively, fun, quirky and I think I'm now going to earworm it for about a week. (Alan)

5 points: I've surprised myself here looking at the competition but I think it's great, should be the Turkish Eurovision entry or something of that ilk. (Tina)

My kids are (hopefully) too young to be embarrassed by Daddy, but I can see myself à la Hugh Dennis’s character in The Mary Whitehouse Experience, dad-dancing and saying “This has got a good beat!” I still find myself wanting to sing Stop The Cavalry to the tune of that chorus though. (Erithian)

Love, love, love this, and this is the first time I've heard it. I'm surprised nobody's mentioned that this is essentially a work song ( slave work- prison chain gangs) one of the original American Roots beats. At the end it's got the flavour of Eastern Europe and Klezmer. (asta)

I heard this on the radio this evening for the first time, and it struck me then as it strikes me now: as an interesting song that gets less interesting and more repetitive the longer it goes on. I was interested enough to sit in the car to see who it was, but Scott bloody Mills thought it would be more entertaining to blather on with his crew instead. Now I know, eh? Oh, I've forgotten his name already. (SwissToni)

I wouldn't rush out and 'borrow' it from Limewire, but it's passable. (chris)

I'm slightly perturbed by how easily this morphs into Cotton-eye Joe in my head. I was hoping for something to bolster a poor selection, but now I have to work out which comes last... (Adrian)

This is the first time that I've heard more than a few seconds of this, because whenever it's on TV/Radio I change channels. I've got this idea into my head that some record company has signed him up as The Sensible Mika, which has put me off. Actually, as said before, it sounds like a Eurovision entry, although minus the fifteen tribal drummers and flame throwers. Not much going for it. (betty)

I've had a quick thunk, and I don't think I like it. It's all a bit incongruous. Shimmering pop with vaguely Turkish overtones. A eurovision song looking for a contest. I hear this and I want to smash something. Is that right? (imsodave)

Bland and featureless, I've already forgotten it. (Stereoboard)

1988: Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car - Billy Ocean (87)

It's so utterly, utterly ridiculous that it's brilliant. I stupidly adore this silly, naff little record and I don't care who knows it. I'm rolling up the sleeves on my linen jacket as we speak. (SwissToni)

He was far better in the 1970's of course. Even my dad, who hated virtually all music, thought Billy Ocean had a lovely voice! This is inoffensive enough. He now looks like The Old Man Of The Sea, which is quite a good way to grow old gracefully. (betty)

My dad was a big fan, but he preferred the "go and get stuffed" song. (Alan)

4 points: Because I like his silver dreads and Everybody Hates Chris wouldn't be the same without him. (Geoff)

I was on the point of damning it below Darts, then the power-chorus kicked in. Good work William. (Stereoboard)

I wasn't overly enamoured with this first time round, and it hasn't improved with age. (Adrian)

I was never a fan of "When the Going Gets Tough", so Billy Ocean doesn't help himself by remaking it under a different name, although it does benefit from not actually being the same song. (Will)

Props for the seventies stuff (someone really needs to do a proper appraisal of Ben Findon and Pete "Not The Buzzcocks One The Dulux Dog One" Shelley and why are you all looking at me all of a sudden?) and for his surprisingly Billy MacKenzie-like vocal support on Scott's "Track Three" but the hi-gloss thrusting Thatcherkid eighties stuff I couldn't take to at all (including all the carefully worked out geographic demographic versions of "Caribbean/European/African/Antartica Queen") and this ghastly effort perhaps least of all. The title instinctively draws me back to Ringo's "You're Sixteen" from '74 which is everything this isn't - warm, funny and spontaneous. Plus he kept Sigue Sigue Sputnik off number one the bastard. (Marcello Carlin)

I thought this had a dubious message when it was a hit, and it only makes me think of a criminal case that concluded this week. (Dymbel)

Never really understood what he was going to do to her if she ever got into his car, but it didn't sound healthy. More dreadful 80's production, but it's bouncy enough to get away with it. A slowed down, acoustic version of this would sound very seedy indeed. (imsodave)

When the going gets tough, somebody brings out a crap record like this. (Tina)

1998: My Heart Will Go On - Celine Dion (53)

You remember when Tomorrow's World would regularly tell us that in the future songs would be written by computers by analysing the elements of previous successes. If it ever happened, this is the song they would come up with. It doesn't miss a trick, from the big soaring choruses to the little riverdance touches. Everything calculated for maximum effect, nothing left to chance. And utterly devoid of any artistic merit whatsoever. (Alan)

Titanic ruined it a bit, but it's a good song. Although now it reminds me of slow dances at discos. (Rebecca)

Michael I fear you may be grievously wrong about La Celine but equally I think we both need 1 x CRASH COURSE in her singing in French as I am told by the missus that the French stuff is absolutely magical and I can believe it. Can't really abide this with or without the Sigur sealions and as with "Think Twice" she has the fatal habit of climaxing too soon (usually midway through the second verse) instead of waiting for natural emotional build-up. I speed-read Carl's book and it's a fair-ish try but he should never have apologised for writing it. I think I could write a better book about her but I'd have to write it in French as well. (Marcello Carlin)

I forget this song every time I hear it. I read the whole Wilson book without any recollection of what Dion's voice sounded like and had to dl this to remind me. He says a lot about the songs in French. That Las Vegas mash up is excellent and rather endeared her to me. It also reminded me to track down this post-Katrina clip, which is discussed extensively in Wilson's thought provoking book. Looting's OK with Celine.(Dymbel)

She's done many things better than this, esp. (as others have mentioned) in French, but I don't hate it. Titanic is 90% of a great movie too. (jeff w)

Don't be fooled. Celine in French is just as execrable as she is in English. She just emotes more and uses more bizarre hand gestures. No really. It's been more than 15 years since its release, and I still can't shake Je Danse dan ma Tete. I live in Quebec where she is worshipped. I keep mum. (asta)

The oddest thing is that there are so, so many people who don't find her, or her songs, appalling. It's the dreadfully 'authentic' flute that really crowns this plodding monstrosity. (imsodave)

I actually think that this is so bad it makes Katherine Jenkins' version sound listenable. I do like that Celine Dion is amazing video, found it few weeks ago. It's mesmerising. Amazing. I wonder if Celine will outdo EngHump and get an entire clean sweep on the bottoms. (Gert)

I would like to listen to your dirge fairly but I can't. I hate it. (NiC)

I tried to give this a fair hearing. But I can't. Wasn't this used in some film that I haven't seen? (Adrian)

I fail to understand why I still hate this tripe even a decade later. Does that make me a bad person? (chris)

In my darker moments I wonder if there's a parallel universe in which I am less cynical, and can enjoy this sort of thing. I think I might be happier. But no, it's just not me. (Stereoboard)

Ah, Celine. I remember going to watch Titanic (a film I remember enjoying at the time but can't imagine now ever wanting to watch again) and as this song began at the end being struck by just how much it didn't belong there. It is, as you rightly say, a dirge. My beloved 1990s are let down again. (Will)

I can't hear this without also hearing The Dame Edna Experience imitating a foghorn. (David)

Another act rightly torpedoed by French and Saunders in their Titanic spoof – “go wooooorrn”… (maybe torpedoed isn't quite le mot juste) (Erithian)

Robbie's Angels plus this would make for the funeral of a lifetime. (Geoff)

I'm sorry to break this to you, Geoff, but it is not at all unusual to get requests for both the Celine Dion track and Robbie's Angels at the same funeral. I haven't yet been asked for Eric Clapton's 'Tears In Heaven' as the third track with those two, but I expect it's only a matter of time. (Zinnia)

Oh Jesus, the last thing anyone needs is to hear sealion honking all over this neverending pile of sentimental rubbish. Climb back into your trunk and don't bother us with this vocally gymnastic claptrap ever again matchstick woman! And don't even get me started on that appalling Oirish pipe music either. Come back Michael Flatley, (nearly) all is forgiven. Never seen the bloody film either. Life's definitely too short for that. (SwissToni)

Somehow that Celine Dion seems like it's been around for a lot longer than those 10 years. And if it gets stuck in my head this evening, I'm holding you responsible! (Clair)

OK, head over parapet, I like My Heart Will Go On. It's the only English-language Dion I do like, and indeed the French ones I like best are her Jean-Jacques Goldman collaborations. So I suppsoe I love MHWGO despite Celine rather han because of her, perhaps with a feeling of relief that she doesn't fire up her afterburners and start belting it out until the last verse. When she can be bothered to sing sensitively, she's surprisngly good at it. But no, this one's all about James Horner, who until "Titanic" was an unsung (though not unplayed) hero of Hollywood. Field Of Dreams, Willow, Sneakers, The Mask Of Zorro: you've heard a lot of his music. I feel no need to apologise for liking MHWGO, which has as good a melody as any ballad of the past 50 years. The words are only so-so, but so-what? More here.

And why all the carping about the tin whistle? The whistle, and that tune fragment, are an idée fixe in the film score (remember the film?), and here simply serve as a link with the rest of it. To complain about them is as irrelevant as moaning about the manic laughter at the start of the Bonzos' "Urban Spaceman" (a link from the previous album track)("Monster Mash")(on "Tadpoles")(I'm starting to sound like Mike, aren't I?). Anyway, yes, 5 points for Celine. (Rob)

Decade scores so far (after 6 days).
1= (2) The 1960s (23)
1= (1) The 1970s (23)
3 (4) The 2000s (18)
4 (4) The 1990s (16)
5 (5) The 1980s (10)

1968: Bend Me Shape Me - Amen Corner. (video)
1978: Hot Legs - Rod Stewart. (video)
1988: Beat Dis - Bomb The Bass. (video)
1998: Cleopatra's Theme - Cleopatra. (video)
2008: Chasing Pavements - Adele. (video)
Listen to a short medley of all five songs.

Running totals so far - Number 5s.

1968: Bend Me Shape Me - Amen Corner (157)

Have to admit I’m slightly biased towards ’68 as the time I first became aware of TOTP and pop music in general, and a lot of these songs take me back to that joyful, innocent time. This one’s no exception – love the brass. (Erithian)

I love finding out that the rest of the world knows an entirely diferent version of a song than me. I grew up with this version by American Breed - regardless of which version, I like the song and I'm rooting for the 60's and this point. (jo)

Always liked this band and Andy Fairweather-Low's vocals in particular. A good tune in a great era for chart music. (Stu)

Top marks to the brass section. They sound like they're loving it. And who wouldn't? Was a suitably geometric dance performed whilst listening to this? I hope so. (imsodave)

I'd never really thought what this was about before but it is a bit risque (for the time) now that you mention it, isn't it? (NiC)

Smile Andy, you're on the telly! Although it reminds me of the King Cone advert at the cinema, still a lovely bright pop song. (Geoff)

Ah, a classic 60s soul sound, and a classic 60s soul classic. Digging that groovy brass from these cool cats. (SwissToni)

Nice and bubblegummy. Way better than the extremely punchable "If Paradise Is Half As Nice". (jeff w)

There's something quite endearing about the fact that someone must've thought that it would be possible to make a pop version of a Stax soul review, with some weedy voiced Welsh singer, and it actually works. (betty)

Not the best that 1968 had to offer, but the best of today's batch. (Z)

Listening to this takes me right back to childhood - but only as far as the 80s (IIRC). For some reason this can instantly summon memories of watching the Golden Oldie Picture Show - a rather poor and overly-literal cartoon video had been crafted for this, if memory serves. Doesn't set my world alight, but doesn't grate either. (Adrian)

4 points; not because I particularly like it but because the competition is so inordinately weak. Sticking points: (a) not as out there as the American Breed original; (b) Andy Fairweather-Low's wino with asthma voice has always been a barrier for me. Good horn charts though. (Marcello Carlin)

I suspect I keep going on about how similar so many of the Sixties Merseybeat-inspired ditties are, and in a sense this is no exception. However, it is sufficiently different and catchy to make it almost memorable. (Gert)

Interesting to hear American Breed's orginal for the first time. I have to say that I miss the "ooh, cheeky!" brass parps, but then I'm vulgar like that. As for Andy Fairweather-Low's voice, I've long been rather partial. His 1976 hit "Wide Eyed And Legless" (wonder if they played that at Paul McCartney's second wedding?) was a big favourite of my father's, and a rare single purchase of his (along with Dr Hook's "If Not You" - he liked the line about having somebody else iron all his shirts!), and so every time I hear it, fond memories are evoked. (mike)

I was all set to bop along to the sample- but it's the wrong one. No, No, No -- The American Breed did the better cover. (asta)

Spirited and not without charm, but really this is one of innumerable attempts at making British soul/Merseybeat records with equal eyes on the dancefloor and TOTP and falling between both stools. (Simon)

I saw Andy Fairweather-Low at a blues club in Brussels about ten years back and he was superb. But this was just an identikit of all those sixties stomp-a-longs. (Alan)

A novelty record, surely - and only brings to mind those dodgy hot dog adverts at the local cinemas. (Sarah)

1988: Beat Dis - Bomb The Bass (129)

A clear winner. Much overlooked these days, but ground-breaking at the time. (Adrian)

Much imitated, rarely bettered. Loving their use of samples, like, er.... a digital alarm clock. (SwissToni)

5 pts. This is one of the rare ones I base on importance to myself, nostalgia and such. The song was around just as I graduated from liking what the radio fed me, and moved into the new and exciting realm of searching out and defining myself through music. Regardless, it's a good one, still. (Simon C)

An urtext in the Jeffosphere of pop. If we could play one joker in any one round each year (now there's an idea), this is probably where I'd play mine. (jeff w)

Clearly of its time, and already edging into "oh no not again" sample cliche territory but it still sounded excitingly less than legal when it came straight into the chart at number five (and back in '88 that was still an achievement), plus Simenon changed music at the other end of '88 with the aid of Neneh Cherry and Morgan McVey. I think it stands up. (Marcello Carlin)

I'd rather be listening to M.A.R.R.S or Coldcut, but I suppose I've got to give credit to this one because it reminds me of some good times when clubbing became fun again (pretty naff excuse, but there you go). (betty)

Seems delightfully amateurish in comparison to some of the 'big beat' dance anthems that were to emerge in subsequent ten years, but it has a playful charm that's not often evident these days. (imsodave)

Music by numbers but in a good way. (Geoff)

A period piece and nothing wrong with that. (Z)

I like some of the samples, and it shows at least some attempt at originality. (Alan)

It now sounds more Big Beat than the acid house movement it helped usher in, and it's certainly post-M/A/R/R/S and Coldcut, but all these hits from the early, less litigously/obviously minded sampling days are very much fine by me. (Simon)

Well, it's got the requisite Big Hair sound, the computer-generated drum track, the necessary scratching. In fact it's exactly the reason why 1988 was the beginning of the end for chart-oriented pop radio for me. (Gert)

1 pt, because there was proper hip-hop knocking about at the same town that didn't even scrape the top 40, and when you could buy Marley Marl broadcasts on WBLS behind the counter at Arcade Records, why bother with tunes like this? (and it automatically remind me of Janet Street-Porter every time I hear it) (Nottingham's 'Mr Sex')

2008: Chasing Pavements - Adele (117)

Love her voice and if she manages to avoid Amy's pratfalls she could be around for a long time to come. Who knew I would put a sung from 08 this high up in the ratings? (jo)

Five points. I forgive her an accent so thick it makes anywhere sound like anyway. The voice is an raspy echo of 60s soul singers. This isn't a whole song; it's a chorus with a couple of bridges- but it's a really catchy chorus. (asta)

Hints of Amy Winehouse and Regina Spektor... I quite like this. (Adrian)

I like her voice; I loved Hometown Glory; I'm not enamoured of the Brit School (it's all about creativity, right); I haven't got a clue what she's trying to say...but it still beats three of the choices today. Gawd help us! (Sarah)

There's a decent song somewhere in there struggling to get out. (Alan)

I quite like her voice and it's a not bad song. It's not exactly making me rush out to buy the album, but this brief clip is enough to explain why she is getting so much attention. Although, I can't help thinking that if she really is the best that contemporary pop music can offer, I'm well out of it... (Gert)

Has the sheen of quality and an undeniably fine voice, but am I alone in thinking this has started to grate surprisingly quickly? I agree with you about the over-reliance on a big chorus, and the video is utterly macabre. (Erithian)

Pleasant enough, but what the hell does "Chasing Pavements" mean exactly? It means bloody nothing, does it? It's all too obviously all about the chorus too, even from the first chorus you can hear them cranking the volume up to get their hooks into you. Enough Amy Winehouse-lites already (not that you can get much liter than Ms Winehouse already is... certainly not if you're Adele, anyway) (SwissToni)

Starts well, pity about the chorus. (Z)

I hate everything she (or the hype at least) stands for, and the lyrics are apalling. But the monster chorus, brilliantly sung, almost saves it. Almost. (jeff w)

Is it just me that thinks this could easily be a Melanie C song? It's got the same kind of overly cheap and cheerful string arrangement and key change and there's something in her voice that reminds me of Never Be The Same Again. (Simon)

3 points: See to what base uses I am come. I detest this prematurely pleased with itself photocopy of emotion. Not as bad as "Chasing Cars" but this is being measured on an Aitken/Archer scale. (Marcello Carlin)

Horrible. The Pat Butcher of the 1983 revival "actually, I don't listen to hoary old rock music, I listen to qualidee singers such as Etta James" movement. I wonder who the new Sade is going to be ? (betty)

Brit School Die Now. (Geoff)

1978: Hot Legs - Rod Stewart (97)

5 points: I'm sure I thought it was his career low at the time, but it is surprisingly actually quite boogily good. (NiC)

Reminds me of Bruce Springsteen on his River album for some reason. A lot better than I remember. (Geoff)

Ludicrously dumb, encapsulating a fantasy image that you suspect he has been attempting to live up to ever since. But if I ever wanted a boogified soundtrack to a suggestive swagger, then this would be a good choice. As would Rod be for a f*ck buddy, it seems. (imsodave)

Yeah, the video is a corker. I feel a bit cheap and nasty for liking this, but there you go. (betty)

A tad embarrassing but fun. Rod had left The Faces and things were beginning to change big time. Not for the better generally. (Stu)

Not one of his best, not by a long chalk. OTOH, it's quintessentially Rod, love him or hate him. (Gert)

He’d hardly put a foot wrong since “Maggie May”, but the road to self-parody started in earnest here. (Erithian)

Already memories of mike twirling, kickabouts and John Peel on mandolin were fading fast. (Simon)

God. Sorry. I loved Rod in the 70's and 80's...LOVED HIM. After this though it was a long downhill slide to crapliness. (jo)

This one gets the "pushing past 60" crowd on the dance floor at the social club. Enough. (asta)

Not even after a skinful. Not even after a leopard-skinful. (Z)

1 point. "I love you ho-NAAAAAAAAYYYYYYA!!" = anti-Christ. (Marcello Carlin)

Oh, heavens, but he's such a plonker. Oasis are largely modelled on the Beatles, it's true, but there's a hefty chunk of Rod in Liam too. Oh wait, that sounds like I'm starting a rumour... (SwissToni)

I don't know if it's just because it's by Rod or if it's because it's called "Hot Legs" but I hate it. (Rebecca)

I think my abject loathing of Rod Stewart probably stems from the fact that he was my older brother's favourite in the seventies, but also being a rocker from way back Rod was always like a cartoon character version of a rock star rather than a real one. Rock music for golf players. Utter shite. (Alan)

1998: Cleopatra's Theme - Cleopatra (54)

Bless their cotton socks, these girls had a freshness and talent that I thought would last them longer than it did. Precocious without being stage-school brattish (yes, I’m thinking of the front few rows at the Brits). (Erithian)

3 points to them for that rhyme. There's not enough ancient Egyptian inspired rhyming going down these days is there? (NiC)

The lead singer has a decent stab at some early Michael Jackson vocals, but the song is absolutely devoid of hooks, a decent chorus or any other distinguishing features. Probably not the best selling points for an out and out pop song. (betty)

The main one, who may even have been called Cleopatra, has been trying to relaunch herself as a post-Beyonce R&B diva for a couple of years now. Fair to say it hasn't worked out as well as Billie Piper's reinvention. Good on them for trying, but essentially it's 'street' teens shouting. (Simon)

I'm very partial to girl bands with cleverly crafted but ultimately bland songs. This is more of the latter though. (Simon C)

Whenever I find the first couple of tracks on the medley a little uninspiring, I'm always excited that this will mean the more recent decades will have a chance to catch up. And then I hear Cleopatra. (Oliver R)

If the Spice Girls had been Elvis, Cleopatra would have been Tony Crombie and his Rockets. (Marcello Carlin)

Was Akon dressed as a girl and recording in the 90s? (Sarah)

Little girl groups can't help looking like precocious novelty acts- because that's what they are. (asta)

Haha oh dear, my girlpop love only goes so far, you know? (jeff w)

There is nothing to it at all. Is this the 1998 version of Debbie Gibson? I really actively dislike that tiny sound of over-over-over produced backing vocals (Gert)

Comin atcha, indeed! A band concept seemingly revolving around a very bad slogan. I had no memory of the verses or melody, so I suppose at least there was something that got its hook in me. It's out now though, so i'm fine. Just fine. I'm ok. Thanks. (imsodave)

Truly awful. Noteworthy only for the "comin' 'atcha" thing. She can't sing and the backing vocals are shockingly and charmlessly amateur. (SwissToni)

Dreadful. Children showing off their lack of talent. (Z)

The worst thing is, I'm sure I've danced to this with enthusiasm. (Rebecca)

Are you kidding me? This was a hit? I could have been FORCED to listen to this in my car? Get me the novocaine now! (jo)

Decade scores so far (after 5 days).
1 (2) The 1970s (21)
2 (1) The 1960s (18)
3= (3) The 1990s (15)
3= (3) The 2000s (15)
5 (5) The 1980s (6)

1968: Am I That Easy To Forget - Engelbert Humperdinck. (video)
1978: Wishing On A Star - Rose Royce. (video)
1988: When Will I Be Famous - Bros. (video)
1998: Angels - Robbie Williams. (video)
2008: Don't Stop The Music - Rihanna. (video)
Listen to a short medley of all five songs.

Running totals so far - Number 6s.

1978: Wishing On A Star - Rose Royce (156)

Absolute genius song. If the World Trade Centre was still about, this song would be on top of it, weeing down on the other four. (Nottingham's 'Mr Sex')

This was THE slow dance song when we were in grade school, well this and Stairway to Heaven - but no one could ever figure out what to do when things broke loose about 3/4 of the way through the track. Keep clinging to your partner or break apart and do more of the white people dance. I remember hearing it for weeks on end on Kasey Kasem's Top 40 on Saturday mornings when I would be forced to clean my room before being let outside. (jo)

Lovely gooey Norman "Roger" Whitfield production and Gwen Dickey vocals. (betty)

There’s a word for this, and the word is “Sumptuous”. (Erithian)

Well, you can see what they're aiming at with the big Motown strings. Well arranged, and I like the counterpoint wah-wah pedal, and Dickey's tremulosity just about wins through. (Simon)

A gorgeous lush voice that would place much higher in previous groups. (asta)

Gorgeous, but disconcerting. The syrupy sound of an obsessive? This is possibly the hopelessly optimistic precursor to the distraught husk of the following year's Love Don't Live Here Anymore. She got her man. And then he left her. Because she was a psycho. It's a lesson to us all. (imsodave)

I first heard this as the 80s cover by Fresh 4 feat. Lizz E, but the original is even better. (Adrian)

Ooh, I like this. It's a rather lovely, wistful and yet hopeful lament. Sadly, my liking of this song is rather ruined by the knowledge that Paul Weller has covered it....hideously. (SwissToni)

4 points. The reason for that "nearly" qualification; the disorientated strings from "Just My Imagination" (both Whitfield and Riser still on duty) turning in on themselves to face the opposite end of a less luscious decade than they might have expected. Note also the Sisyphus performance of Gwen Dickey; every time she threatens to go over the top and explode, Whitfield's finger rolls her back down to the bottom, especially in the extended fadeout. Still a dry run for the superior "Love Don't Live Here Anymore," however. (Marcello Carlin)

Kind of hypnotic. Can be annoying, depending what mood one is in. A reasonably good example of the late 70s liking for tunes, words that mean something however obscurantist. An all-round good song, but I could happily live without it. (Gert)

I'm sure at the time I'd have thought this annoying pap but it seems to have something after all. Timeless in its own way. (NiC)

This is more a kind of coda to the great years of soul and Tamla Motown, it's decent enough but heavily overshadowed by what went before. (Alan)

Wonderful voice, dreary song. (Z)

2008: Don't Stop The Music - Rihanna (127)

It's just so bloody good. Roots stretching wide and far through pop history, firmly planted in the moment, reaching far into the future. Commence accumulation of Rihanna songs (I have been blind and a fool to dismiss her as just some other contemporary nonsense...) (Simon C)

5 points, because it's her time (did the Klaxons even need to bother turning up last Wednesday?) and she drives whereas nearly everyone else in this list is still arguing about parking spaces. (Marcello Carlin)

I remember seeing her being interviewed on Much Music (Canadian MTV equivalent)shortly after Pon de Replay took off. She was just a girl from Barbados with looks and a catchy tune. Now she's sleek, slick, and cold as polished granite. She records to her strengths. Don't Stop the Music works. (asta)

Like H two O, a staple of MTV Dance at the moment. I like Rihanna very much and will buy her greatest hits when it comes out. (Geoff)

There's an automaton quality about her appearance/voice which I love. (betty)

Powerfully effective pop. She sells her own Rihanna branded umbrellas, you know. Of course she does. (SwissToni)

The bottom three aren’t particularly strong today, but this has more life to it than the others. Still, it’s a bit monotonous, from the woman who brought us the most overrated single of 2007. (Scrub that – I was forgetting “Bleeding Awful” or whatever it was called.) (Erithian)

Seems to be the logical extension to the mash-up movement, I guess. Mindlessly fun, and relentlessly danceable, yet it leaves me cold. Will almost certainly be forgotten in comparison to her other future classics. Good samples though. (imsodave)

You get the feeling that Rihanna could one day produce a stone cold production-led pop classic for the ages, but it's not happened yet (Umbrella reeks too much of a Top Of The Pops album studio band trying to be Linkin Park). This is her singing over a Janet Jackson record being played by the flat below. (Simon)

Now here's why I should probably not take part in these things. I listen to so little chart music these days that, 3 months or no, I'd never heard this before. Furthermore, and you're really going to roll your eyes here, although I keep hearing about this umbrella song, I've never heard that either. Anyway, taking this purely on what it is, I'm not a fan of modern R'n'B, but as far as it goes it could be a lot worse. Have to say I was finding it a bit monotonous by half way through though. (Alan)

Fine for the first minute or two, and then it grated more and more. It was too relentlessly thumpy for me. (Z)

I would like it a lot more without the retro-HI NRG computer beat. That would make it a decent-ish song. But IMO if you're going retro you have to do it better, not be a low-rent imitation. (Gert)

Had the misfortune to hear the new Akon/MJ duet of Wanna be Startin' Somethin' this afternoon. This tune instantly dropped a couple of places by association. (Sarah)

1998: Angels - Robbie Williams (127)

Do I have to apologise for really liking this? It is a great song. I could get all pointy-headed and deconstruct it, but being a great song, it transcends deconstruction. Yeah, lots of really uncool people like it, but maybe that's because it's a great song. (Gert)

A bit hackneyed from too many plays it may be, but it’s no accident that it became an alternative national anthem, it’s a terrific record. But you could win pub quizzes on the fact that it wasn’t the highest-charting single from the album – “Old Before I Die” was number 2 the week New Labour came to power. (Erithian)

North America never got caught up the mutual love/hate relationship between Robbie and the audience. I'd be lucky to find a dozen people on the street who even know who Robbie Williams is. It wouldn't occur to anyone around here to play Angel at a funeral. It wasn't played relentlessly for months on end on the radio. All that to say, stripped of the baggage, Angel is a big soppy power pop ballad of the first order. (asta)

Rarely heard on the radio now, but still massively overplayed on the many music channels on TV, yet despite EVERYTHING it remains a classic of its type. I always assumed the turning point was the Glastonbury performance where both crowd and performer suddenly realised that they weren't alone in thinking that he might actually be ok. Of course, someone had to then go and take things a little too far, but... (imsodave)

The one British male pop star I'll go out of my way to defend almost to the death is, coincidentally, Robbie. I thought Rudebox was by turns hilarious and genius, and I'm crossing my fingers its alleged "flop" status doesn't send him scurrying back into the MOR hell he was stuck in previously. As for "Angels", well it's low down on my list of favourite Williams singles, but I still get a lump in my throat when TV or radio broadcasts that Glastonbury performance. (jeff w)

There is just something about Robbie, I like him - I really couldn't tell you why if pressed further, but he has something. (jo)

5 points. I hate Robbie Williams but I'm being objective... (Dymbel)

5 Points - Oh I hate myself! He may be an irritating little twunt with the most punchable face in the music industry, but when he got it right, he really got it right, and he never got it so right as on this song. (Alan)

I'm not really a fan, but it's kind of hard not to have had this sort of seep under my skin over the years. There's a kind of underdog, vulnerable puppy-dog charm to our Robbie, and it's perfectly captured on this record. Women have been aware of this charm for years, of course, and have fallen for him in their droves....but just because he's straight and I'm straight doesn't mean that I won't acknowledge its power either. (SwissToni)

A karaoke classic, but with far too large a range for me (or almost anyone else) to do it justice. Doesn't stop many drunk blokes from trying... (Adrian)

I've heard it too many times but it's good to sing to when you've had a few too many. (Rebecca)

I was never a fan, and I think we (oh damn, I'm doing it too) need more time to forget just how tired we became of this, but I think it's holding up pretty well. (Z)

This one still shines for me despite its ubiquity. Though somehow it seems dimmer this time. Hmmm, maybe it's fading for me too at last. (NiC)

The sort of song loved by young mums who only liked one Oasis song, Wonderwall. I have to admit that I prefer this to Wonderwall, but then I don't have to listen to Heart FM or Magic all day, where I assume both are played to death. (betty)

Truth be told, I was all for Life Thru A Lens at the time, even things like South Of The Border which he now says was his creative lowpoint and from this distance sounds like an attempt to be a Costcutter Northern Uproar. This, however, was never really anything but an attempt to show that just because he wasn't in a boy band any more couldn't mean he couldn't do great big lighter waving ballad anthemry. And only reached number 4, lest we forget. (Simon)

I'm basically on Robbie's side, albeit with reservations. There's something of the Magnificent Failure about Rudebox, which I can see eventually obtaining cult status, and as a live performer he is almost without parallel: it takes a lot to create "atmosphere" within the Birmingham NEC, but his sheer love of being on stage came across loud and clear, leaving me feeling at the time that he was our natural successor to Freddie Mercury (as reinforced by Brian May and Roger Taylor's presence at the same show). But yes, it's those lapses into MOR balladry which put me off most of all... (mike)

Problematic in a sub-"All Of My Heart" This Is Me sense, such that he verges more towards Freddie Starr than Martin Fry. Too much growling and indecision to make the song anything like the hymn intended, too many bad rhymes and schemata without Trevor Horn or Anne Dudley to cover for them. "I'm loving angels instead." And I respond with the same question I've been asking for the past decade - instead of WHAT? (Marcello Carlin)

I've disliked it ever since I first heard it, and its appropriation by drunken karaoke singers and warbly auditionees on reality TV shows hasn't helped. (Will)

Des O'Connor with tats. The other one who capitalised on Lady Di snuffing it. Horrible, mawkish bum-vomit. Fact: Every train-wreck of a relationship you see on Jeremy Kyle started with the male singing this to the female on Karaoke night. And if any of my friends have this as their funeral song, I am going to rip the coffin lid off and cling on to them as they go up the conveyor belt, getting in as many punches to their faces as possible. (Nottingham's 'Mr Sex')

I once saw Robbie in Trafalgar Square. He was much taller than I'd imagined. Has he ever sung this live at a funeral? (Geoff)

1988: When Will I Be Famous - Bros (95)

5 points. I was too old for this back in 1988. Now, I'm not. (Z)

Maybe I was too young, maybe they were never big in Sweden. Either way, without any frame of reference, I have to say I like the song, quite a lot in fact. (Simon C)

They were nicely torpedoed by French and Saunders, various lines in “Only Fools and Horses” and their own interview in Q – but it has some merit. (God, how condescending does that sound – like Frasier Crane discovering karaoke.) (Erithian)

I remember, at some point in the late eighties, this Bros track playing loudly as I trepidly completed circuit after slow circuit of the local roller disco while the older boys did tricks on their skates. The song itself is surprisingly OK in hindsight. (Will)

Fond memories of this song (and what easy targets Bros were for p*ss-taking) - though it doesn't wear all that well with time. (Sarah)

Hmm, I was just too old to buy the Bros hype. Listening to it now, the over-production, late 80s artifical glam is really quite sickmaking. But the chorus is catchy and iconic, and with the wisdom of being a forty-something in today's celebrity culture, it has a delicious irony to it. (Gert)

I guess I was one of those puzzled by the next generation suddenly elevating Bros to Next Big Thing status. But as you say, the acid test is: how does it sound now? And whereas the Debbie Gibson song leaped out at me the other day as obviously great, Bros... don't. Then again, I do have previous as preferring female teenpop over male... (jeff w)

Have I really wasted 20 years of my life hating this record? Listening to it now, it all seems so...so... innocuous. How could I have expended so much passion loathing something that is ultimately this harmless? (SwissToni)

I agree it's not as bad as I remember, but it's still pretty bad. And remember, this may have been what all the "cool kids" were listening to, but at the time the "really cool kids" were listening to the Pixies and the Violent Femmes instead. (Alan)

When everybody is using the same synths with the same beats it's very hard to tell one group from another. (asta)

The look and sound of clattering metal. Hatred possibly coloured by the fact that just when I became interested in girls, the girls became interested in this bag of toss. (imsodave)

Joyless Hitler Youth Teenybopper nothingness, who should have stuck with their original band name, Caviar (Caviar!) 1988 seems to be the year where it all started to go horribly wrong for Pop, doesn't it? Somebody please make Tom Watkins write his memoirs, though, they'd be absolutely hilarious. And put him on the X Factor. (Nottingham's 'Mr Sex')

Cupid & Psyche '85 without the Baudrillard and Adorno and therefore without much point (I cringe at the Oliver!-type moment just before the last chorus). So you want to be famous? So what? (Marcello Carlin)

Was the idea of calling your song When Will I Be Famous? all postmodern and ironic in 1988? I seem to remember that they brought out I Quit just before they split as well. Perhaps they should re-form and bring out a single called A Paternity Suit And A New Conservatory To Pay For. (betty)

My mate - who had just started working for the Daily Star at the time - was mistaken for a Bros by a Mirror writer at a press launch, and even gave him an interview, which was splattered all over the paper the next day. That morning, he walked into the office to a standing ovation, as if he was both Woodward and Bernstein. (Nottingham's 'Mr Sex')

1968: Am I That Easy To Forget - Engelbert Humperdinck (65)

Like Tom Jones and Glen Campbell I have a strange affection for this period/style of music. Hearing it reminds me of hearing my mom wandering about the house singing along and it remains a happy memory. Rose coloured glasses and all. (jo)

Engelbert is one my mum's favourites and I can still smell the Bush radiogram and blue Decca labels of my youth so I'm not going to say anything against him in this context. A fairly makeshift song, however, too flimsy to get him a fourth consecutive number one (if only Decca/Gordon Mills had gone with "Quando Quando Quando" as an A-side)... (Marcello Carlin)

I couldn't stand him back in the 60s and I'm rather relieved to find I'm not mumsy enough yet for him now. Horrible overblown backing and too much false emotionalism. Actually, given a different, edgier treatment, I think I could like the song. (Z)

Am I riding on horseback through the countryside? (Rebecca)

This doesn't really get going. You're letting the 60s down, my son. (Geoff)

Oh 60s, 60s, 60s it was going so well. (Stereoboard)

My parents ran his local pub (when he's in Britain) for a week in the early 90s. He wasn't in at the time. In my head everything he's ever done sounds like this - drowning in syrupy arrangements and an ironed-over smooth, well within himself delivery with one eye already on the Las Vegas club. (Simon)

The opening strings and crooning set me off badly. Then he comes in and it's even worse. Here's a guy who thinks he can sings but plays it safe and croons, then he fails to hit a high note. Surely on a studio recording the trick is to try and try again until it's hit. Or record the high notes first and splice them in. (Gert)

It's the moment where the cooing backing singers swoon in and the cloying strings begin to smother the dreadfully emotionless vocal that any chance of not wanting to forget The Hump is lost. This was the real sound of the sixties, I suspect. (imsodave)

The oily creepy 'uncle' who seemed far too interested in hearing about your high school gym classes at your parents' dinner parties. (asta)

1 point. Although, objectively speaking, his hairstyle was a mainstay in those posters you used to get in the windows of provincial barbers until about 1980, so perhaps that's where his strength lay. (betty)

Good heavens. Loving that orchestration and 'aahh-aahh-ahhh' stuff, but then old Hump comes along and ruins it with his sentimental old clap-trap. Are you that easy to forget? If only Hump, if only.... (SwissToni)

1 Point: Engeldink Humperbum. No, with a name like that you're not easy to forget, but the song is. (Alan)

Decade scores so far (after 4 days).
1 (1) The 1960s (17)
2 (1) The 1970s (16)
3= (4) The 1990s (12)
3= (3) The 2000s (12)
5 (5) The 1980s (5)

1968: Pictures Of Matchstick Men - Status Quo. (video)
1978: Uptown Top Ranking - Althea & Donna. (video - link fixed)
1988: Say It Again - Jermaine Stewart. (video)
1998: Gettin' Jiggy With It - Will Smith. (video)
2008: What's It Gonna Be - H "two" O featuring Platnum. (video)
Listen to a short medley of all five songs.

Running totals so far - Number 7s.

1978: Uptown Top Ranking - Althea & Donna (162)

The best of this bunch and a classic. One of those tunes that’s always been there. (Sarah)

Legendary track and critic-proof as far as I can tell. (jeff w)

5 Points, by dint of being original and at the time (feeling depressed that I'm old enough to remember) like nothing I'd heard before. (Alan)

At the time I wasn’t too happy with them for denying a certain other single its historic 10th week at number one, but whenever I hear it now the reaction is of pure unpretentious joy – which is pretty much what you hear in the vocals. I’d love to see the face of a Lily Allen fan hearing this for the first time as well. (Erithian)

By default they should receive honorary damehoods for displacing "Mull Of Kintyre" from the top, but this felt like a punk number one (and not just because Strummer was in the habit of namechecking or quoting from it at Clash gigs); contentedly young and explosively confident and its meaning and intent (even though Record Mirror felt itself obliged to print a glossary of Jamaican patois and a "translation" of the lyrics) are latent and luscious. Note the crucial hooks of the "oo!"s and that brief but devastating harmonic modulation near the end. (Marcello Carlin)

A beautiful pop record, nothing to do with going to the bingo apparently. (Geoff)

Looking back, I modelled my own personal '70s look on Althea (or was it Donna..) - big hair and even bigger glasses, and also at times an 'alter back (see me gi you heart attack most definitely). I still jig around the kitchen when this comes on the radio - oooh. Ting. (Tina)

5 points, although obviously it's jumping on the bandwagon of Reggae Like It Used To Be by Paul Nicholas. (Simon)

Lovely, but destined to be a one hit wonder, or to be considered as a "novelty" record by really stupid people. Shame. (betty)

Not a fan at the time, but it's grown on me every year since. (diamond geezer)

If retrospective TV documentaries are anything to go by, this was much more influential than it sounds to me. (Adrian)

This duo had zero impact in North America...and I've never been a big fan of reggae. I like it in principle, but it does nothing for me. (asta)

Top quality stuff, obviously. But not top marks. It's a great song but I find myself drifting off before the end. Maybe I'm too white and too male? And ting? (imsodave)

Rather drab and repetitive attempt at the genre. (Stu)

I recognise that this is regarded by some as a seminal track, but I've never really liked it very much. I suppose I don't like the reggae-disco fusion. Be one or the other, not both. (Gert)

1968: Pictures Of Matchstick Men - Status Quo (137)

The finest Quo song ever - I am a sucker for psychedelia. (Stereoboard)

I remember this coming out - I was a big Small Faces fan at the time and this was in a similar vein. SQ were almost cool back then (almost) - and seemed to know more chords, which they subsequently erased from their repertoire. (Tina)

I'd always associated Status Quo with the school bullies and heads down no nonsense mindless 70s boogie. That was until I heard this gem on a cheap psychedelic compilation we got about 10 years ago. It's not Status Quo. It doesn't look like them or sound like them. It can't be them. The bullies certainly wouldn't have recognised them. (Geoff)

Gloriously gormless pop-psych which fits snugly into the lemon belly/tangerine bread bin where-are-we-all-going mood of inventive early '68 teenpop. Still their only American hit (as THE Status Quo) but see also the undervalued follow-up "Ice In The Sun," one of several strange '68 hits written by the unlikely team of Marty Wilde and Ronnie Scott. (Marcello Carlin)

Four points for the riff, and the fifth for the crazy phasing effects that clearly encourages the listener to sway their arms in a suitably 'far out' manner. The sound of bad drugs gone good. (imsodave)

You can picture Rossi and Parfitt, can't you, on some nostalgia TV show watching Top Of The Pops footage of this and chortling about how they thought they were part of the counter culture, haw haw haw, while trying to shove out another few copies of their latest warmed over boogie and just before the bit where they start boasting about being off their heads on coke at Live Aid. Or worse, Steve Wright on TOTP2. Great skeletal riff, lovely phasing, beautifully of and out of its time. (Simon)

I love the story of how Rossi wrote this. None of us can hear it now without knowledge of the long career to follow, but that opening guitar sound must have been pretty cool back then. A nice little time capsule of a song. (Erithian)

There's something not quite right about this. It's almost as if someone has tried to make a psych pop record having never heard one before and relying solely on an Ikea-style instruction manual. This is a compliment btw! (jeff w)

Everyone can play that opening riff on anything, including plastic rulers and rubber bands. (Nottingham's 'Mr Sex')

I've a soft spot for the Quo generally (although a soft spot that involves owning none of their records, I note). This is not typical Quo of course, but sounds...er... a bit like that early Spinal Tap thing "(Listen to the) Flower People" (you know.... "Shhh. Listen"). Actually, that's exactly what this is, isn't it? Spinal Tap. It's no "In the Army Now" for sure... (SwissToni)

Pleasant enough, but whenever I hear it I can remember it being on the radio in 1968 and I'm thrown into a state of depression about the passage of time :( I once covered as a temp in Ian Gittins' brother's job. That's how sad my life is: I can remember things like that. (betty)

False nostalgia for this tune as The Divine Comedy covered it during one of their tours (as they did ‘Mr Blue Sky’, now I come to think of it). I prefer Mr Hannon’s version but thanks to him this remains in the top three. (Sarah)

The singing is strangely slow, but it still sounds good. (Z)

Suffering quite badly as you say from its GreenShield Production but still there's something there. Is it still in their set I wonder? Was it ever? Don't think it was when I saw them in '78 (shameful I know). (NiC)

Plodding and uninspiring, but better than their later offerings. (Adrian)

Yes it was a poor man's psychedelia, but still better than the rest of this twaddle. (Alan)

Another group that I really like but have never bought one of their albums. This isn't one of my faves of theirs, but it nicely breaks the 60s formula. A good classic track but not one that actually does anything for me emotionally or intellectually. (Gert)

That Quo riff depresses me. To these ears, it sounds forlorn, bleak and broken (i.e. not qualities that I respond to well), and a hundred years old in a way that makes me shudder. (mike)

"I see your face beneath my pillow"? Right, Did she choose suffocation over having to listen to that guitar solo? I would have. (asta)

1998: Gettin' Jiggy With It - Will Smith (110)

Well, I think I was about the only person who said they thought Warren G's I Shot The Sheriff was great last year. I'm consistent at least! Come on, what's to hate about Will? This is infectious and a lot of fun. (jeff w)

How can you possibly dislike Will Smith? Even if - like me - you generally can't abide rap. Ah, but this isn't rap is it? It's sun captured on tape. Uh. Ah yeah. Look, it's got kiddies helping with the chorus and everything. It's about as street as Coldplay. Unlike Usher though, at least our Will realises that this is all ridiculous and not to be taken too seriously... (SwissToni)

Cheap formula, but the end result is surprisingly good. Too many aim too high, and as a result space is filled with debris. Or something. (Simon C)

Unbearably catchy. Usually this sort of thing would have me cringing, and indeed Will Smith himself makes me cringe, but his summery pop tunes just seem to get under your skin, don’t they? (Sarah)

My appetite for Mr. Smith never regained the heights of his initial offering Summertime, but this sounds better than I remember. A surprise first placing. (Adrian)

Five points: I have trouble believing this. On paper, he's everything I object to- but even with repeated listening I can't help wanting to dance to this. However, I refuse to have anything to do with oversized shiny track suits. (asta)

I cannot give any reasonable reason for why I like Will Smith, but I can't help myself. 5 points. (jo)

Love the big ass video. Its got me doing strange things with my hands. (Tina)

Uncool perhaps, but I prefer rap with a smile rather than a snarl, or with a message (or indeed The Message) – and a smile is what Big Willie’s giving us here. Not one I’d search out, but fun. (Erithian)

Big Willie expresses the pressing issues of the nineties male, by tossing off some nonsense over the butchered remains of a classic. I'd much rather get jiggy with the instrumental version. (imsodave)

Karaoke mock rap was unfortunately the late nineties rage and this is as bad as Stars on 45 or Mark Ronson. Where did all the gusto of "Boom! Shake The Room" go? Should we ask Will's accountant? (Marcello Carlin)

His affability is his undoing. (betty)

Did the cloying tabloidese of 'jiggy' predate or post-date this? Good luck to him and all that, but it is really as if the Vibrators were the biggest selling punk band ever. (Simon)

Let's face it, Will Smith was to gangsta rap what Busted are to the hardcore death metal scene. The one great thing about Will's successful movie career is that he rarely sings any more. (Alan)

How to ruin a classic tune in one easy lesson. Get Will "Multiplex" Smith to do one of his tedious little "raps" over it. Give me MC Hammer any day. At least he's funny. (Geoff)

Oh god, it's pathetic. A song assembled by committee to ensure that it will tick enough boxes to sell. (Gert)

2008: What's It Gonna Be - H "two" O featuring Platnum (85)

You know, I'm really excited about the music scene right now. Because the really great moments usually come along at times of horrendous musical stagnation, and I can't remember a time when music has been as stagnant as it is now. If this is the big new sound, how come it has absolutely nothing in it I haven't heard a hundred times before? (Alan)

I wasted days in the 90s stuck at the back of clubs listening to this breed of characterless tinny rubbish, hoping in vain that the DJ might play a decent track, but they never did, they just spun the 12 inch version afterwards, and I went home miserable and unfulfilled, and this rubbish is just continuing the awfulness, it's such a bland grim attempt at music, and the singer even namechecks herself which is a sure sign of shallow desperation, and as for the misspelling of Platnum that's just unforgivable, but I guess in this age of txtspeak not entirely surprising, and this has no redeeming musical features whatsoever, and basically I despair. (diamond geezer)

Oh God. The name. The music. Make them stop. In the name of all that's holy make them stop. (SwissToni)

OK, so I’m in that vast majority you spoke of! 1 point. (Erithian)

So, it sounds exactly the same as hundreds of other tracks that have been assembled in exactly the same way. I am tempted to go off into a rant about the cynical marketing of meaningless products to people who are too young and naive to realise that a) you don't have to have it b) that the test of good music isn't its fashionableness and c) advertising is never the equivalent of critical judgement. (Gert)

Council House. Not even the fact that it's one of the few successes of the Trent Tempo (recorded in a toilet at the Golden Fleece, Notts Kids), can save it. (Nottingham's 'Mr Sex')

It's music for thickos. For those who have no knowledge of, or interest in, the huge scope and breadth of the history of popular music. And that's fine. Everyone needs a soundtrack to their own misdemeanors, but that's no reason to imply that this is in any way a good pop song. (imsodave)

With the opening bars of this I wondered if it would be an unexpected high ranker, but as it progrssed it became clear that my expectations were right all along. (Adrian)

Following the Britpop revival, the speed garage revival was inevitable. My problem with this sort of thing is slightly obtuse, in that I have Channel 4's Freshly Squeezed on over breakfast, and at the moment they're playing a lot of records that sound like this, before which Nick Grimshaw will always go "this is bassline house!" in a really smug fashion even though he might as well be reading it from Latin for all the knowledge of what that means he clearly has. (Simon)

Having videos puts a whole different complexion on this - are they trying to recapture the whole Britney business of more innocent days with the schoolgirl thing? Although Britney did in those days actually look like a teenager and this lot look like they're about 33. (Tina)

The video is ridiculous, the female singer's voice is grating and yet I still like it. A lot. (asta)

Despite my better judgement, I quite like this. I liked ‘Heartbroken’ too. I’m far too old to be frequenting the kind of clubs where this will be played. Instead, I’ll throw a nostalgic nod to my first Mediterranean holidays sans-parents and jig about while I’m doing the ironing. (Sarah)

They'd hate to know I like this, when I could be their granny. Heh heh. (Z)

Christ that was just like my schooldays. This is a real grower as the one girl who went to my school probably said to someone (not me). (Geoff)

Why do people have such a downer on songs that teenage girls would probably like? Er, rant over ... it would be wrong and slightly creepy of me to show too much knowledge or enthusiasm for bassline house but I prefer My Destiny by Delinquent featuring K Cat. I'm having a midlife crisis and will be using terms such as "rinsing" and "dropping some hot joints" next. So embarrassing. (betty)

Top two too close to call really - Althea & Donna is an all-time classic but H Two O is a right now classic and deserves its moment in the sun, especially as I've been crossing my fingers on it crossing over for the last 8 months. (Down with the kids? Moi?). Upcoming T2 single, "Gonna Be Mine", is the best bassline pop smash yet BTW. (Tom)

This is as completely and uncompromisingly fabulous as Althea and Donna and Mel and Kim were; it's the latest in a glorious line of fuck-you-but-we're-nice-girls-really pop classics; unruly and all over the Top Shop but brilliantly propulsive and deliciously insolent as all great pop should be (and if it gets to number one, as it ought, it will possess the best bassline on any chart topper since "Babycakes." As a 44-year-old I am glad that I lived long enough to hear and love this wonderful record. (Marcello Carlin)

The kids (on the bus) are all right. As per. (jeff w)

1988: Say It Again - Jermaine Stewart (76)

Found myself liking this, rather surprisingly. Nice clear voice and a good hook to the tune. (Stu)

Deserves more! I actually luv the plastic sound of the late 1980s, even when I don't remember the song, but I also appreciate this is just mourning for the adolescence I wasted listening to The Wall. (Tom)

I probably danced to this in a Walsall nightclub when it was snuck in between the Vandross and Alexander O'Neal played on a loop, without knowing who it was. God, they don't know they're born these days. (betty)

3 Points - and if you'd told me beforehand I'd be rating this colourless twaddle so highly I'd have hit you with a baseball bat. (Alan)

It's not terrible. That's about as nice as I can be about this. The chorus is alright, if you can get past the nasty production, I suppose. (SwissToni)

Michael Jackson lite. Unmemorable - although I did like his other one about not having to take your clothes off - a bit cold IMHO for that sort of tomfoolery. (Tina)

"We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off" was really his moment and this was OK but hardly the beginning or even the middle of time - it sounds ready to be covered by LEON. (Marcello Carlin)

Dull. Comparing it favourably with Debbie Gibson's song is faint praise indeed. (Z)

Jermaine's funk is particularly insipid here. There were a lot of very badly produced songs in the 80's, and weak tunes like this just seem horribly exposed. I want to give it a cuddle. (imsodave)

Yea, i used to like Terrence Trent D'Arby too. Sad I know. A repeat listen reveals that I should have sliced my ears off years ago. (jo)

People should be laughing at the late 80s in the way people in the late 80s laughted at the 70s. Did the record company have an expense account with C&A and Staples for the wardrobe budget? (Nottingham's 'Mr Sex')

The worrying thing is, there are still records being made that sound like this aural sludge of cream drum machines and aural compression in the name of wine bar funk. (Simon)

Generic, forgettable, squeaky. (Sarah)

The whole thing is pathetic. (asta)

Crap. Sorry, I know he's dead and all that, but I don't like this idea that making ugly strangulated noises is an adequate facsimile for emotion. I much preferred We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off. (Gert)

Please don't say it any more times. Please. (Adrian)

Decade scores so far (after 3 days).
1. The 1960s (13)
2. The 1970s (11)
3. The 2000s (10)
4. The 1990s (8)
5. The 1980s (3)

1968: Fire Brigade - The Move. (video)
1978: Mr. Blue Sky - Electric Light Orchestra. (video)
1988: Valentine - T'Pau. (video)
1998: You Make Me Wanna... - Usher. (video)
2008: Work - Kelly Rowland. (video)
Listen to a short medley of all five songs.

Running totals so far - Number 8s.

1978: Mr. Blue Sky - Electric Light Orchestra (155)

This is very near to pop holy writ for me for reasons too personal to talk about here but it is touching in its ruefully celebratory way. It points to both past and future - "Sparky's Magic Piano" prepares to welcome "O Superman" - and it comes out of ideas posited in '67 but presumes there will still be a now thirty years later; hence goodbye "I Am The Walrus," hello Arcade Fire. "Please turn me over" makes me melt every time. (Marcello Carlin)

Class act. Quite possibly my most favourite band of whom I own zilch records. It really is about time I got a Greatest Hits of ELO. I suspect this might prove to be one of my favourites of the entire 100. Tune, orchestration, harmonies, words with meaning and that one can identify with. Plus, there was a time in the mid 80s that every time I heard this on Piccadilly Radio it was interrupted by "It's a goal, United have scored" so much so that I was expecting that to break into it now! (Gert)

With this in the selection the other tunes didn’t stand a chance. I gave it 5 points before I started listening. Nostalgia getting in the way? Yes, and tough. (Sarah)

Bloody hell, why was I ashamed at owning this on blue vinyl only a few years ago? Excellent. (NiC)

5 points. The obvious choice but the right choice, even if the Hoosiers have done their best to handicap it for yer ultra-modern listener. (Tom)

Doomed by association with Sean Rowley's anti-snobbery snobbery, but not only a great singles band but one who had plenty of ideas to go round, even if most of them were built on top of the Beatles back catalogue. The Hoosiers haven't managed one yet. (Simon)

My favourite track by one of my favourite acts. I especially like the false ending followed by the jarring key change that heralds the coda. (jeff w)

The overblown ending almost loses it some points, but by then the battle is won. (imsodave)

Mr Blue Sky is the only track so far that I own. It's also the only one so far that's been in Doctor Who. It was played at a friend's birthday party last year and the DJ almost got lynched for chopping off the last minute. All such nostalgia aside, it's still marvellous. (Will)

I'm a bit surprised, but this tops today's offerings. It's not going to change the world, but who said pop had to? (Adrian)

I hated ELO as a young progger, especially this song. The lyrics couldn't compete with Yes. I've grown to love them over the years. Roy Wood gets the nod over Lynne though cos at least he didn't join the Travelling Pillsbury Dough Boys. (Geoff)

Very enjoyable, rather too much in it; slightly too clever for its own good - I was a little too conscious of the arrangement. (Z)

Not my favourite of theirs, but it's got a railway crossing warning/alarm in it. Bonus. (asta)

One of those bands I have a closet, box set type of love for, but can only listen to handful of tracks before his voice makes me want to grate my eyes out. Also see Supertramp and Yes. (jo)

Yes, finely crafted and all that, but ELO are almost a reverse Guilty Pleasure for me – everyone says how much they liked them, yet I have to admit to finding them routinely over-produced and stultifying in places. (Erithian)

Second place but I always hated the bland Beatles copyists. Shame because they started so well with 10538 Overture early on. (Stu)

There are other singles I prefer by them. 10538 Overture and Strange Magic specifically. When they go overboard with the Sergeant Pepper influences it tends not to work so well. (betty)

Would have got 5, but nowadays it reminds me of a steaming argument I had with a mate in the Social over how better The Ballad Of Horace Wimp is. (Nottingham's 'Mr Sex')

Can't agree with you here, for me this was a band that started off interesting and got progressively more dull with every pompous overblown release until they finally imploded under the weight of their own ridiculousness. (Alan)

Didn't Take That write this? (SwissToni)

1968: Fire Brigade - The Move (142)

Solid Gold Classic. Roy Wood is a genius of pop. And I'm not just saying that because we once had a curry on the table next to him. (Geoff)

Yeah, Roy Wood, the only celeb we've shared a curry house with apart from Paul Shane (who ordered chicken tikka massala, like someone's mum). I prefer California Man, but this is a stonker nonetheless. I can get away with using a word like "stonker" because I'm a thick Brummie. (betty)

Marvellous. That riff is worth the 5 points in itself. (Z)

Loving that cheeky "Ooh!" in the lyrics. And the siren noises. Brilliant and bonkers. (SwissToni)

Very easy decision today. Essentially it’s the DOINNNG-da-da bits that do it for me too. I was struck by the cut-and-paste heads on the TOTP chart rundown: without giving too much away, the top 20 was almost wall-to-wall groups, and the graphics gave it the feel of a fan’s scrapbook. And being almost the same age as you, Mike, it was my first image of the exciting world of pop. (Erithian)

And this is their best single too. That bit where Wood throws in the Duane Eddy twangy guitar for just half a bar and then cutting to the chorus is one of pop's great "moments". Against anything else we've had so far this would have got 5 points easy. (jeff w)

Unfortunate Brum clash here but superbly deranged pop(were any "mainstream" '67-8 Britbeat group as fearlessly OUT OF IT as the Move? Ace Kefford's behaviour at times made Keith Moon seem like Keith Potger!). Neither of these great pop singles is at all undermined by the trademark clunky drumming of top Tory drummer Bev "Bev" Bevan. (Marcello Carlin)

I was never a fan of The Move but they were an influential and seminal sixties band. Good songwriting and not forgetting Roy Wood can play 3,058 instruments including the pipes (very badly). Nice catchy 45 though. (Stu)

I don't think I've ever listened to the lyrics before, not that I'm much the wiser having done so. A solid sixties song. (Adrian)

I have dreadful memories of Cilla Black performing this on location one Surprise Surprise around the house and workplace of some long married fireman. Even if the bells in the intro is less "never a dull moment down the station" and more "bring out your dead", it's still tremendous British Invasion whimsy. Shame, really, that Roy Wood has never managed a pop cultural position greater than "man with large beard in 70s Christmas hit that isn't by Slade". (Simon)

What Which Decade has taught me is that most Sixties songs have the same beat and pretty much the same tune. The ones that don't really stand out. This is a superior working of the formula but I don't ever need to hear it again in my life. (Gert)

Sounds like (and could well be) novelty psychedelia. It could be so much more. (Stereoboard)

The musical juggernaut skips along relentlessly, but at about half-way I find myself wanting to get off. And not like that either. (imsodave)

Ok, I guess. That chorus would irritate the hell out of me if I had to listen to it again though. (Sarah)

It must be an English thing-like the taste for marmite. This got annoying as soon as the OOOO was over. (asta)

1998: You Make Me Wanna... - Usher (89)

Five points: It's R&B that's managed to move beyond Al Green while still remaining true to the cornerstone of the genre- slow and smooth love grooves. The drums aren't too shabby either. (asta)

I thought, in the first few seconds, that I was going to hate it; but not at all. (Z)

I wasn't expecting much from this, but it's better than I expected. Has it been ten years already? (Adrian)

Pleasing slice of R&B from the king of R&B. ("Surely that's John Lee Hooker" - Ed). (Geoff)

Yes, to me this felt like the first number one of the new millennium - way ahead of its time in both production and approach and it was underacknowledged as such at the time (1998, for those who care to investigate, was one of the great years for number one singles - lots of classics). (Marcello Carlin)

Can't believe I've given high marks to nineties soul records two days in a row; I usually hate all soul recorded after 1971 but that's because it always sounds overproduced, and I like the stripped back feel of this one. (Alan)

3 pts - Usher. Who I despise for being a nob and the poster child for women with Bestwood Facelifts who mill about outside Burger King, but this is passable. (Nottingham's 'Mr Sex')

Helped forge a path for the next few years of male R&B, but Jermaine Dupri is the most overrated producer in urban music this side of Pharrell. (Simon)

Far too smooth for his own good. (Stereoboard)

Somewhere in there is a melody, I'm sure. If this is indeed the symbolic start of a dominating branch of 00's music, then it is everything that's wrong about everything. Almost. (imsodave)

No points. You heard. NONE. Usher - cretinous no mark. You make me wanna what? eh? (SwissToni)

There’s only one thing this record makes me wanna, and it wouldn’t be pretty. (Erithian)

You Make Me Wanna stick pins in my eyes. Is it possible to take points away, Mike? In a word - garbage. (Stu)

2008: Work - Kelly Rowland (87)

Thank goodness for this one to wake us up at the end of the selection. Scuse me while I get up to dance around the living room. This would easily be at the top if ELO hadn’t made an appearance. (Sarah)

As overtly-sexualised, up-tempo, crowd-pumping, sports-tastic, leotard-clad, crotch-pumping, fist-in-the-air, sisterhood-empowering, pseudo-anthems go, this is a belter. (imsodave)

Nice vibe going on there, as well it might given its clear influences – the verse modelled on “Crazy in Love”, the chorus on “Hips Don’t Lie”. Nice girl, scrubs up well, but none too original. (Erithian)

I see we're still following the Destiny's Child trademark of singing really really fast. I like the gratuitous South Asian sampling in the remix. (asta)

Pleasing again and very pleasing on the eye as ever. Kelly is so much more gorgeous than Beyonce. (Geoff)

The 5 points are really for the remarkable Freemasons. How they manage to make gold from really quite rubbish RnB tracks (see Beyonce) is amazing. I *heart* Freemasons. (Oliver R)

Competent enough, but nothing special. (Z)

Like title, like approach...reasonable standard issue R&Booty but nothing particularly special... (Marcello Carlin)

Wasn't the bhangra-Knight-Rider thing done a few years ago? Is pop eating itself that quickly now? I quite like it though. (Adrian)

You'd be able to guess it was a non-Beyonce Destiny's Childer whatever surrounded the voice, but the remix varying between retro electro and Mundian To Bach Ke doesn't help. (Simon)

Alright, I suppose, but MY GOD is there only one song in the whole wide world of music that these people think is worth sampling? (SwissToni)

Yeah, the remix is a bit overrated isn't it? Too early for 2002 nostalgia surely! (Tom)

I think this is meant to be a "return to form". It's okay, but there doesn't seem to be a point to any ex-members of Destiny's Child now we've got Rihanna. Er, in my opinion ... (betty)

I truly believe you could play this record to me 100 times and tell me who it was every single time, and when I heard it the 101st time I still wouldn't remember. (Alan)

The only decent members of Destiny's Child were 1) Beyonce and 2) Beyonce's arse. (Nottingham's 'Mr Sex')

So, "the kids" are opining that this is better than all but 7 songs around right now. My god, the rest must be dross. (Gert)

1988: Valentine - T'Pau (67)

Always thought they were harshly treated by the crits – somewhat underrated. (Erithian)

I wish I could've given this three points, but it's been quite a strong selection this time. Endearingly rubbish, with the usual terrible lyrics. Ahem. I used to have hair a bit like that in 1988. There, I've said it. (betty)

The edginess of the lyric gave it the - er - edge. (Z)

Quite liked the naff rap sections of "Heart And Soul" but even Carol Decker in interviews of the period was keen to point out that she was "boring" and alas so was the music of the first (and last?) Salopians to top the chart. (Marcello Carlin)

Just because I sometimes like to get drunk and listen to T'Pau songs, it don't mean they're actually any good tho, innit. Well some are, but this is just a pretty power-ballad-by-numbers. (Oliver R)

Who was responsible for miking drums in the mid-80s? No wonder the Musician's Union got worried, machines made a much better job of such things without sounding much like an actual drum being hit. Power grab-enabling ballad by rote, naturally. (Simon)

Ah the power ballad. Most of its power seems to have seeped away. (Adrian)

Not exactly in the class of China in Your Hand. I don't even remember this. It has something of that pre-Black Wednesday feel of the late Eighties. All glamour and no substance. And yet later in the year, the pop charts experienced a mini-false dawn. (Gert)

You can almost hear their 80's hair can't you? I don't remember this song at all though it does sound like the whole thing was made from "Chine in Your hands" out-takes. (NiC)

Sorry. I fell asleep while listening to this. One of my best friends at school had Carol Decker hair – awash with Body Shop henna. Does that qualify for an incisive comment? (Sarah)

Has not aged well. Unlike Carol herself. Would she have been viewed as so feisty if her hair wasn't quite so red, I wonder? (imsodave)

I used to know someone who originated from Shrewsbury and was most proud of 2 things: the town's status as most polite town in Britain and the birthplace of Carol Decker. It's the most polite town because they are forever apologising for Carol Decker. (Geoff)

Incredibly bland and boring from everybody's favourite Leicester housewife (not including Rosemary Conley obviously). (Stu)

Portentous, self-involved cobblers. (SwissToni)

Let's face it, this lot were always terrible. This plods even worse than I remembered. (jeff w)

Excessive, and oblivious. It's the musical equivalent of what happens when little girls get into their mothers' make-up. (asta)

This is not nearly as bad as all the comments suggested. Emphasis on "as bad" though. (Tom)

1968: Judy In Disguise (With Glasses) - John Fred & His Playboy Band. (video)
1978: Love Is Like Oxygen - The Sweet. (video)
1988: Shake Your Love - Debbie Gibson. (video)
1998: High - The Lighthouse Family. (video)
2008: I Thought It Was Over - The Feeling. (video)
Listen to a short medley of all five songs.

Running totals so far - Number 9s.

1968: Judy In Disguise (With Glasses) - John Fred & His Playboy Band (147)

5 points, since it stands several continents, not to say cosmos, above the rest of them - yes it's something of a pisstake of its times but it still sounds smashing, especially in the context of the UK charts of the period which were already sinking slowly into the swamps of bellicose balladry. Great Northern Soul-type thrust as well. Sadly Mr Fred checked out a couple of years ago, although I dimly recall some attempt at the time of the 2004 Presidential elections to allege that John Fred was actually John Kerry. (Marcello Carlin)

What is it with the name Judy, which isn't that common in swinging groovesters and hip chicks, and songs? Off the top of my head, besides this I can think of Judy Is A Punk, Judy Teen, Judy Blue Eyes, Judy And The Dream Of Horses and, well, Judy. Great proto-soul groove, and the unexpected attempt at a pathos ending is something to behold. (Simon)

Actually I think this is a great tune. It embodies a time in music when it was still appropriate to be seen to be having fun. Great hook, great brass. Catchy and memorable. (Stu)

I've always had a soft spot for this song. I love the kick drum and bass chase in the beginning. It's just a really happy song. (jo)

Good inventive musicianship wins me over every time. (Alan)

The kind of stuff that gives bubblegum a good name. I might even have first heard this on Junior Choice. (Erithian)

It's got pep. and.. um.. yeah, pep. One of my neighbours used to swear the lyric was " Judy in the sky. Molasses." (asta)

Dig that psychedelic video - with glasses. (Tina)

A proper Imperial Phase Radio Trent tune (Nottingham's 'Mr Sex')

1 point: I don't understand what the rest of you like about this one! (Lizzy)

I'm with Lizzy. This is not a good song (and I love novelty tunes usually). Just about bearable in the Silicon Teens' cover version, but the original just screams: smack me hard. (jeff w)

Another piece of proof that Sixties music is mainly overhyped and disposable. (Gert)

1978: Love Is Like Oxygen - The Sweet (130)

I think this is a classic. Mind you I also thought it was by 10cc, so what do I know? (Stereoboard)

5 pts - as long as it's not the extended version with the horrible Mike Batt-like guitar solo. (Nottingham's 'Mr Sex')

Has a wistful pathos. (betty)

More ELO, more obviously...mixed with the vocal earnestness of Chris de Burgh. (asta)

They may be ripping off ELO (and to an extent 10cc?) but I like ELO (and, to an extent, 10cc). (Will)

One of my favourite 70s bands. Glad they had a last chart hurrah with this song, and it's a decent tune... but it sounds just a wee bit pedestrian now. (jeff w)

A last hurrah maybe, but not a bad one as last hurrah's go. Oh and, by the way Mike, as a mountaineer I can confirm that when you decend rapidly from altitude to an oxygen rich environment, you can spend the next half a day feeling like you've smoked the world's biggest doobie. (Alan)

Hmm. Guilty Pleasure time. I really like this but then – thanks to the dodgy musical taste of an ex-boyfriend – I have a soft spot for certain types of harmony-ridden soft-rock. (Sarah)

Ah, I'm a sucker for those guitars, and I'm even prepared to overlook those silly high-pitched vocals too. Awful lyrics, mind. (SwissToni)

4 points – though at least partly out of brand loyalty. They were MY band of the glam era - like many I moved on to Queen soon afterwards, but surely there was room for both. But compared to the Sweet glories of ’73-74, this one’s bilge. (Erithian)

Meh. A token three points, two of which are purely for Blockbuster. This effort is neither here nor there. (imsodave)

I suppose we're getting near to the 80s now aren't we. And this sounds like it could be from either decade. I wouldn't have said it was the Sweet though. (Adrian)

I need to be careful here. In the seventies one could be drummed out of the Led Zeppelin appreciation society for admitting to liking...Sweet. The band self-professed their 'we're heavy really when we play live' stance. but sold out to Chapman/Chinn in spite of a few memorable riffs. Extra points for Brian Connolly being the brother of Mark (Taggart) McManus. (Stu)

4 to the Sweet, though that's no indication of superior quality; the song's central metaphor is biologically and philosophically suspect (how exactly can you die from too much love, or was this a far-seeing premonition of Brian May's "Too Much Love Will Kill You"?). Indeed the hapless Mr Connolly sounds like a stranded Freddie Mercury who's missed his chance, and much the same could be said of the Sweet from '74 onwards once Queen got going commercially. (Marcello Carlin)

This is not the version I remember hearing in the States, but close enough for government work. Child of the 70's. Say no more. (jo)

Someone's been listening to ELO. Not much call for facial glitter here. (Simon)

I feel there is a decent song waiting to get out of there, but not on this performance. I don't care for it. (Gert)

1998: High - The Lighthouse Family (121)

This song made little impact over here, which is a shame. I can't say I think all that much of the chorus, but the bridge leading into the chorus perfectly hits every "wistful yearning" note. "At the end of the day..' is likely to stick with me. (asta)

5 points. I'll probably regret this in the morning. Like asta, I found the "At the end of the day" bit appealing. And the competition isn't up to much. That's my excuse. (Will)

I rather like this, but it appeals to my cheesy side, which I'm not going to encourage. (Z)

Like Simply Red without the annoying ginger gimp, a nice bit of relaxing soul with a decent hook. (Alan)

I was never a big fan but always enjoyed them when they came on the radio. I like his voice although I suspect it would get very boring very soon. Nice atmosphere about the song. But to be honest, it only gets such a high ranking because the others are so bad. (Gert)

This should really be higher as it's a good and tasteful tune. What turns me off the band are the extremely limited range in the slightly dreary vocals of the lead singer. Pity. (Stu)

2 to the tiresomely reliable Lighthouse Family, the band who still thought it was 1987 with smooth and vaguely soulcialist intentions - had to remind myself which one this was since they all were minute variations on the group's one song. Not offensive but then again possibly offensive in its relentless inoffensiveness. (Marcello Carlin)

The epitome of effortless bland (diamond geezer)

Taupe, with big shoulder pads. (betty)

Cheesy choirs for a sentimental chorus? No, ta. Brings to mind a nasal karaoke singer. (Sarah)

I don't seem to be able to get away from this song. I used to like it. Now it just makes me want to apply a brillo pad to my ears. (The commenter formerly known as)

Paroled maybe but not quite forgiven. (Tom)

Interminably dull. I've always found the singer's voice to be particularly grating and, almost, tuneless. Even by 90's soul standards, this is strangely soulless. Not something I would willing listen to for either motivation or pleasure. (imsodave)

God, I hated the Lighthouse Family's iron-crease soul at the time. And, by the sounds of it, still do. (Simon)

2008: I Thought It Was Over - The Feeling (119)

This song annoyed me slightly when I first heard it but it's grown on me a lot. And obviously I approve of what they're trying to do. (I'm not sure why everyone's citing 70s acts as their inspiration by the way. Duran Duran is who I thought of first!) (jeff w)

Lots of individual bits I liked, but all thrown together into a bit of a mess with a tedious refrain. Still can't decide if I like their first album. (Will)

I bought their first album and every time a song comes up on random play I find myself hitting the skip button straight away. One of those I can enjoy in moderation. (Alan)

It's got bits and pieces of Steve Miller guitar sounds, ELO arrangements, and what I think of as a Scissor Sisters pop feel with a the sincerity of Mika. That's too many people for such a small song. (asta)

Annoyed that I didn't hate this as much as previous songs I've heard by them ... not that that's saying much. (betty)

I don't care for the faux-profound 'You were there when the wall came down'. I assume most buyers of current pop music will not have a clue as to the reference. The best of a forgettable to bad bunch. (Gert)

Surprisingly effective dancefloor-filler, sounds wretched in its natural habitat on Costcutter Radio next to the Wombats. (Tom)

Caitlin Moran in “Pop on Trial” gamely championed the Noughties as encompassing all the influences of the previous decades, and here you might think she has a point – this could really have been from any one of the decades under review. (Erithian)

Ah, now what's happened here is Dan Gillespie-Sells has bought another Guilty Pleasures volume since Twelve Stops And Home and got to the early attempts to cash in on disco tracks. Still, they're not Scouting For Girls, and for that we should be grateful. (Simon)

Why are the 70s getting two entries? It's the Sweet again, innit? The boy can write, but he really needs to escape his 70s fixation. (SwissToni)

70s-lite. The real thing is better. (The commenter formerly known as)

I actually don't dislike this tune but found myself tiring of it after...oh...one and a half plays on the radio. (Stu)

Had you not told me so, I would never have guessed this is a current track. It can now slip into obscurity please. (jo)

1 to the Feeling, since the Lighthouse Family might have been monointentioned but at least they knew where they stood, rather than the abysmal 2008 trend of cut-and-paste for spurious exhibition of catholic tastes or facile nostalgia rather than singing about what they feel and believe. What are they hiding from? (Marcello Carlin)

This is the worst selection of songs ever. I didn't think I would ever find a band as tiresomely dull as the Lighthouse Family, but The Feeling have managed it. After listening to the few seconds of them on your clip, I truly did wish it was all over. (Oliver R)

Yesterday I thought the 00s could make a comeback this year, but not with this. I thought it was over but it's not. Yes, quite. Ah, it is now. (Adrian)

1988: Shake Your Love - Debbie Gibson (83)

I hated most late 80s chart pop when it was happening (and went around boosting the likes of My Bloody Valentine and similar Melody Maker-supported art rock bands instead). Boy was I stupid. This is brilliant. (jeff w)

There were a few posters of Miss Gibson adorning the walls of my teenage bedroom, but then it was the primetime of my buying Smash Hits... Not as dated as some of the other album tracks (she pops up on party shuffle from time to time). (Adrian)

Freestyle rip-off but that's as close as we're going to come to freestyle in this poll so it gets big points for its simple joy. (Tom)

5 points. It's overwhelmingly sugary, but sometimes my ears have a sweet tooth. (imsodave)

I prefer Tiffany in the 'Shopping Mall Rock' stakes but I'm a handclap merchant so third place. (Stu)

3 to Debbie Gibson - this is a bit like Billie Davis doing Madonna at 78 rpm on the Freddie "Parrot Face" Davies Show but props to her for reading out the Melody Maker review of the Sugarcubes' Life's Too Good on American TV in full in protest against the US authorities' decision not to grant Bjork a visa. (Marcello Carlin)

3 pts - only because it has the same intro as Play Your Cards Right (Nottingham's 'Mr Sex')

You could bottle this as the absolute essence of the late 80s, along with that clip they always show of the yuppie lasciviously fingering the wad in his top pocket (who IS he and I hope he’s selling the Big Issue nowadays). Not at all bad, but even then it was aimed at a younger audience than me and the competition’s strong today. (Erithian)

The wrong-footing of the title pronunciation at the end of the chorus is appealing in a very odd way, but here's someone not yet willing to give up their Fairlight. (Simon)

Typically over busy '80's pop production. (betty)

Concentrated lollipop sickness (diamond geezer)

To think that ten years later she'd have been packaged as a Britney or a Christina, but here she's just so wholesome and sickly sweet you'd get diabetes from watching too much of it. (Alan)

Hm. She did Playboy, didn't she? This sounds a bit like something Gloria Estefan (wisely) rejected. (SwissToni)

Meh. All five of these would be right at home any big box store's retail sound system- music to buy ratchets,toilet paper and 400-grit sandpaper. I'm surprised the Disney Channel isn't using this tune as a Saturday morning programming lure for the under 10 set. (asta)

1968: Gimme Little Sign - Brenton Wood. (video)
1978: Sorry I'm A Lady - Baccara. (video)
1988: The Jack That House Built - Jack 'N' Chill. (video)
1998: Together Again - Janet Jackson. (video)
2008: A&E - Goldfrapp. (video)
Listen to a short medley of all five songs.

Running totals so far - Number 10s.

2008: A&E - Goldfrapp (160)

Brilliant. Yes indeed it probably is the pills, dear. We middle-class westerners have embraced pharmaceuticals to a startling degree in search of numb. If we surround ourselves with enough stuff and pretty we can block out just about anything - for a while. (asta)

Kazuo Ishiguro remixes Marianne Faithfull's "Sister Morphine" and Billy MacKenzie is somewhere in the shower. Staggering. (Marcello Carlin)

Gorgeous and slightly disorientating when you realise what she's singing about.
(SwissToni)

Dreamy, and a beautiful song…then you hear the lyrics (which I may never have noticed without a certain POTW nomination) – and yoiks! (Sarah)

First Goldfrapp record I've really enjoyed, actually. (Tom)

I was all set to take the mick out of Baccara's dodgy rhymes - stranger/danger, lady/shady (FGS) - right up until Alison Goldfrapp dropped Saturday/slip away in front of me. And yet, the sheer classiness of her track means she carries it off where Baccara...really don't. (Will)

This isn't the theme-tune to a rebranded Casualty then? Shame. A fine progression from Felt Mountain (my only Goldfrapp CD). (Adrian)

I have been slightly disappointed by Goldfrapp since "Felt Mountain" (Top 10 albums of all time definitely), but this sounds like I might be buying the new album. (Stereoboard)

Know little about them but this has a nice, smooth and cultured sound. I like. (Stu)

Very palatable, and possibly the sound of Kylie in a year or two’s time. I swear that when I first heard “Two Hearts” I was convinced it was Goldfrapp’s latest. (Erithian)

I rather fancy The Seventh Tree is going to be on a lot of peoples 'best of 2008' hits on the basis of what I've heard so far. But "A&E", while it oozes quality, still hasn't grabbed me emotionally as yet. (jeff w)

It's admirable. It's low key. It has hidden depth. But is it really a great single? The depths are submerged beneath an ocean of blandness. I don't know what to feel about it really. Is her hospital visit a result of a suicide bid or mere over indulgence? I can't sympathise with something I do not understand. And I certainly can't dance to it. (imsodave)

Still not sure what to think of this Alison'n'Will-go-Wicker Man-via-Kate Bush's Wow route, and bar Alison's ever inventive vocal stylings there's already well established 'folktronica' (urgh) acts who do this kind of thing better. Winner by rote, I s'pose. (Simon)

I wouldn't rush out to buy it, but it's quite pleasant. She has a decentish voice, and there's a nice ambience to the track. I haven't a clue about the words, though - I'm in a backless dress on a pastel water. Yes dear, of course you are. (Gert)

I liked it well enough, but I forgot it as soon as it finished. I can't remember anything about it and I only stopped listening five minutes ago. (Z)

Never got what the fuss was about, this is bland overproduced and truly forgettable. (Alan)

We'll end up buying the album and I'll play half of it and say, "Sorry, I can't go on." (Geoff)

1968: Gimme Little Sign - Brenton Wood (147)

A yearning plea for recognition that all can relate to. Brenton emits signs of being an obsessive stalker, but in a manner that cannot fail to win over the girl in question. I like a good begging song, and this will do for now. (imsodave)

It's clambakes on the beach in August- beer in stubby bottles- and a flirting so sweet it gets laughed at these days. And, as you pointed out, catchy beyond belief. (asta)

Makes me dance and sing INSTANTLY. Catchy, great vocals, Timeless in my opinion. (jo)

5 points – not just for being a right sprightly piece of soul, but also for giving me the chance to tell my The Night I Met Paul Weller story. It was back in 1984 when I went to a National Film Theatre screening – they were having a Pop on TV season not unlike the one BBC4 just had, and this particular night they were showing the very edition of TOTP that was on BBC4 a few weeks ago. We’d spotted Weller, not yet the Modfather but then just a Style Councillor, in the queue, and once inside the cinema he spoke to me. He said, “Scuse me mate” as he squeezed past to take his seat. I imagine “Gimme Little Sign” was one of the songs he most enjoyed. (Erithian)

This song is a typical example of a genre that has some amazing one-hit wonders. The sound is dated but the tune remains instantly memorable. (Stu)

I played them all three times (don't say I don't take this just a little too seriously) and this was the only one I liked as much the third time as the first. (Z)

Keep the faith, in an Emperor Rosko kind of way (come to think of it, probably more in a Mike Raven kind of way). (Marcello Carlin)

Could this be from any other decade? harmless, tuneful, inoffensive fluff.
(SwissToni)

Still has signs of the fluffy-pop the earlier years of the 60s have given us, but the complexity of the music seems to have moved up a notch. However, I can see why I have no knowledge of either Brenton or his sign... (Adrian)

The Oogum Boogum Song is even better, AND it got banned because the BBC thought he was singing 'Check out the pussy' at the end. (Nottingham's 'Mr Sex')

I'd forgotten this song, but it's a good slice of sixties soul and head and shoulders above the rest of the pap in this selection. (Alan)

Sounds like it should be a Trunk Records curio rather than a hitmaking soulster from the name. Nice enough, but it feels like Atlantic Records filler. (Simon)

1998: Together Again - Janet Jackson (134)

Happy song, roof down in the car, sun on the face, wind in the hair everything will be just fine. (jo)

Funny, you thought of towelling and I thought of a warm scented bath deep enough to float in. (asta)

Never thought I’d be giving one of the Jackson clan four points, but this one really grew on me. It was one of a spate of songs (Tubthumping, Never Ever etc) that hung around the top ten for absolutely ages, and didn’t outstay its welcome. And 40-plus or not, she has an awesome body. I know that’s not among the criteria we should be considering, but it has to be said… (Erithian)

It's perfectly pleasant, though I suspect that Janet is as flighty as the tune itself. No doubt, in between being back together with her man, she's been pursuing other options. The heartless cow. But she was certainly, back then. Y'know. Sex-wise. Which helps. (imsodave)

Ah, once this starts I remember it. I wouldn't leave the dancefloor if this started, but I wouldn't be rushing onto it either. (Adrian)

As with Kim Appleby's "Don't Worry," mourning's pretence towards brightness undermines the song somewhat; compared with the devastating "Come Back To Me" this is rather lightweight but it has lasted better than the bottom two. (Marcello Carlin)

Don't know about cool producers, if you'd told me it was Stock Aitken Waterman I wouldn't have blinked. But gets second place just by dint of being catchy. (Alan)

It's better than it should be with the drum machine basic programming and wafer thin nature of the lyrical message, and my recollection of a dance remix which Radio 1 played incessantly at the time. (Simon)

I don't like it. It's a waste of effort. No tune, uninspiring beat. Words poorly enunciated. Singing too breathy. Over-produced. It's not like it's bad, it's just so utterly nothing. (Gert)

1978: Sorry I'm A Lady - Baccara (82)

I've only heard Yes sir, I can boogie before, but you can spot the similarities. I think I'd rather listen to this one though as Yes sir... has worn a little through popularity. (Adrian)

Look at that cover. I'm becoming a lesbian. Right now. (The commenter formerly known as)

Totally kitsch but the memory of the ladies themselves gives them a sentimental vote. (Actually I spent most of that era wanting to listen to The Clash and The Jam and trying to avoid this tripe on the radio.) (Stu)

Maybe the nostalgia is kicking in. But while this is trivial and disposable, it has the main elements of a half-decent pop song, catch tune, words with some semblance of meaning and a disco beat that was just the thing for Primary School discos. And back then, the poor pronunciation didn't really come over on Medium Wave. (Gert)

Well after the stranger/danger rhyme I couldn't figure out what the hell she was singing. Something about being sorry she was a lady? I'm sorry she recorded this. (asta)

Oh good heavens no. That accent is criminal. It's like low rent Boney-M, if such a thing could ever exist. Hideous! (SwissToni)

Everything that was wrong with the seventies, just looking at the middle-aged people in the dinner jackets on the video tells you why this should never have been allowed within a million miles of the charts. (Alan)

Yes, they definitely needed a certain song, and this isn't it. (Simon)

One more thing to add to the list of 'what was wrong with the '70s.' Not nice, especially the Vaseline-on-cheeks look. (Yes, I know it's the music that counts, but a woman can bitch once in a while, can't she?) (Z)

Even I, a child of the 70's and rather proud of it if you might ask, yet still I would not have missed this track either by it's absence nor its is exit from the planet. (jo)

Strangely sinister. But still shit. No one would look good dancing to this. (imsodave)

Proof that "poptimism" has its inbuilt flaws. No, this isn't a lost camp classic or a g**lty pl**s*r* - sometimes, folks, crap is just crap. (Marcello Carlin)

1988: The Jack That House Built - Jack 'N' Chill (78)

This is the only one I recognised by title alone! This early house stuff is always overshadowed by the acid house that followed, and I don't understand why. Interesting to read the different takes; I guess it's the difference between getting a residency around that time and getting old enough to go to Woolworths on your own around that time... (Adrian)

Entertaining enough in a Rod Hull House sort of way at the time but as with other late eighties hits of which I've recently been reminded ("I Love My Radio" by Taffy, anyone?) it doesn't really stand up (whereas contemporaries like Krush's "House Arrest" and even "Tired Of Being Pushed Around" by a Gift-less Fine Young Cannibals under a silly pseudonym - 2 Men, A Drum Machine and A Trumpet, wasn't it? - have proved more durable). (Marcello Carlin)

All over the shop, but it has some snarl to it. (Tom)

I love the early years of House music but this isn’t one of the tunes I have any nostalgia for. Just a bit too empty and dated for me. (Sarah)

Oh the name! I see what they did there, but still.... unimaginative rubbish on a synth. Back when synths were thought clever and sophisticated, I suppose? (SwissToni)

Ooh look I've got a computer. It can make a drum track. I think this is one of the major contributors to my 'all modern pop music is crap' mentality. (Gert)

Yes, you've got some synths and drum machines. Now make them do something interesting. (Simon)

Someone probably shouldn't have been given that Bontempi keyboard for Christmas. (Alan)

Someone's been having fun with their drum machine haven't they? (chris)

Reminds me of a music making CD ROM I used to have. (Geoff)

Jack 'N' Chill took some effort on my part as I wanted to switch it off after a few seconds, but forced myself through all the silly groaning and grunting on YouTube. (Will)

For a lovely moment there I misread it as “The House That Jack Built”, that lovely piece of nu-mod by Tracie earlier in the decade, but no such luck. This typifies a time when the charts were going down the crapper in a big way. (Erithian)

Ugh. Just brings to mind pencil-tached gibbons in stripey grandad shirts and chinos pretending they've done 5 E's on Hitman & Her. (Nottingham's 'Mr Sex')

If ever there was background music, then this is it. Rubbish then and rubbish now. (imsodave)

It has 'n' in the middle, what more need I say. (The commenter formerly known as)

This made it onto a chart? I can only be thankful that it so utterly unmusical, that I've forgotten it already. (asta)