The songs that defined a decade... The noughties

Okay, this might go a bit dad at the disco, but I've set myself a task, so I'm going to see it through...

1. 'Yellow' by Coldplay (2000)

No, I don't like it either, despite Devon being centre of the musical universe in the noughties, Coldplay and Muse being the UK's bona fide international stadium filling acts, and Will Young being the reality show star it's almost okay to like - but not quite. However, it's hard to deny that this record did define the sound of mainstream - it is hardly Indie in label or inclination - lite rock for the decade, and many imitators followed, posh lads with pianos crooning yearningly vague lyrics like this one.

2. 'I Can't Get You Out of My Head' by Kylie Minogue (2001)

Being a child of the eighties, I really didn't think I'd be proclaiming a Kylie track as not just one of the defining songs of the decade more than twenty years after her debut, but a dance-pop classic to be enjoyed on its own terms, preferably on a crowded dancefloor. Written by Cathy Dennis (a solo star of the early nineties) and Rob Davis (formerly guitarist with Mud, and composer of 'Groovejet (If This Ain't Love)' which was another contender in this genre, as were The Scissor Sisters, who have their own Kylie connections), the single went to number one in forty countries, and has soundtrack'd many a great night out at the discotheque. Oh, and 'Spinning Around' deserves a mention too, if only for those gold hot pants.

3. 'Lose Yourself' by Eminem (2002)

With hip-hop and r'n'b becoming the commercial mainstream of the decade, my list might seem a little light on rap, but this track broke all records (number one in twenty-four countries, the most successful rap song of all time) crossed all boundaries (it's been used as a motivational piece in primary schools and is a perennial at sporting events) won both an Oscar and a Grammy and deservedly so. It is also the lead single off the soundtrack to 8 Mile, that rare thing - a movie about music that works for the non-fan.

4. 'Hey Ya!' by Outkast (2003)

Outkast became a pair of solo acts joined at the hip only by a shared moniker, so this could equally be described as an Andre 3000 solo track, and although the duo were born in hip-hop, this is closer to funk, but what it is first and foremost is POP, leaping out of the speakers and asking you to dance. For the visually inclined, the video is also a masterpiece of its kind, featuring a cast of Andres dressed as jockeys and golf caddies mimicking The Beatles' 1964 debut performance on The Ed Sullivan Show.

5. 'White Flag' by Dido (2003)

Again, not a track that would ever trouble my stereo, but at the time it provided the musical accompaniment to many a yuppie dinner party. It must have a secret place in more CD collections than I care to contemplate, 'Life for Rent' (the album it was the lead single off) selling over ten million copies worldwide and being in the top ten selling titles of the decade. I blame Eminem's 'Stan' for making her famous, and almost regret not including it in place of 'Lose Yourself' to do Dildo without having to give her a slot of her own. Others in the 'boring music for boring people' slot include the comeback of Take That - if your Granny likes it, it's probably not very good but 'Patience' is a consummate pop song - and James Blunt, may he be stuck in Sesame Street hell forever.

6. 'Crazy in Love' by Beyonce featuring Jay-Z (2003)

R'n'B has been the dominant sound of the decade and few would deny that Beyonce is the queen of the genre, while Jay-Z is not only her husband but hip-hop's premier artist-entrepreneur; between them, their record sales are well into nine figures; together, they are black America's second couple, next to the Obamas. As for the record, it really is an arse-shaker and take it from me, that really is a compliment.

7. 'I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor' by The Arctic Monkeys (2005)

There's only space for one indie anthem of the noughties, but this one earns its right to decade defining status on several counts. For a start, it demonstrated the power of the internet to hype a band from nowhere to chart topping status, barely touching the sides of the mainstream media in the process. More importantly, it was our first listen to Alex Turner, the best British lyricist since Morrissey. An honourable mention to The Strokes for 'Last Nite' without this, the careers of the likes of The Arctic Monkeys, The Kaiser Chiefs ('I Predict a Riot') and The Libertines ('Can't Stand Me Now') and Franz Ferdinand ('Take Me Out') - not to mention the American contingent such as The Killers ('Mr Brightside') and Kings of Leon ('Sex on Fire') - might never have happened.

8. 'Crazy' by Gnarls Barkley (2006)

One of those songs that came from nowhere and stayed around forever, Crazy was the first song to top the charts by download sales alone, a good couple of years before the MP3 was the dominant medium for the purchase of music. Gnarls Barkley is a collaboration between Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo. Nothing in their previous careers prepared them for success on this scale and they've failed to repeat it, but if this is all they're remembered for, remembered they will be - after nine weeks at number one, they deleted it from the catalogue to save us from the unlikely event of getting bored by it.

9. 'Rehab' by Amy Winehouse (2007)

Somewhere around the middle of the decade, a bunch of girls were doing retro soul, jazz and ska and as good as 'Frank' was, Amy Winehouse seemed like just another chip off that block. Then came 'Back to Black' and for all its musical reference points, you realised you were dealing with a true original with a talent for words, tunes and their delivery. The title track itself could have taken this spot and both 'Tears Dry on Their Own' and 'Love is a Losing Game' will be torch song standards if they're not already. But it's 'Rehab' that both transcends celebrity culture and subverts it, truly a song for our times.

10. 'Pokerface' by Lady Gaga (2009)

I had a moment of conscience here - how can you represent the noughties without a single act born out of a reality TV show? Then I remembered the rules and forgave myself. These songs aren't just meant to define the decade now, but forty years from now. When we look back, I suspect most of the Simon Cowell acts will have thankfully faded from memory, may he be buggered with a ten-foot barge pole. Girls Aloud with 'Biology' came into serious consideration, but more for the Xenomania songwriting and production than what the girls made of it. Girls are very now, of course - Florence and the Machine, Bat for Lashes, Lily Allen, Duffy etc - but the true original among them to my eyes and ears is Lady Gaga and it's no coincidence she's also the one with international reach who goes across genres and defines not just a sound but a look, the Madonna of our times. She wears rubber, scares your parents and if she doesn't have a cock, she probably wears one on a regular basis. Dishonourable mentions in the minx category also go to 'Hit Me Baby (One More Time)' by Britney Spears and 'Umbrella' by Rhianna, both top pop videos, even without the sound turned down. Respect to Dizzee Rascal for this year's most fun single 'Bonkers' but until he breaks America, he doesn't count as decade defining.

The songs that defined a decade... The sixties.

1. 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' by The Beatles (1964)

This isn't a list of the best songs of the decade, remember, but the singles that defined it. This number was not only The Beatles' biggest selling single, but also the one that broke the American market, the number one of that infamous top five that accompanied their first transatlantic trip. It's also the number in which Bob Dylan heard the refrain as 'I get high...' inspiring him to our boys their first joint. They were quick learners, those Liverpudlians.

2. 'Like a Rolling Stone' by Bob Dylan (1965)

Talking of Dylan, even his most vehement detractors find it difficult to argue against his being one of the defining personalities of the decade. There's an argument for choosing one of his earlier protest songs - 'The Times They Are A-Changin', say or 'Blowin' in the Wind' - but they were never chart hits and besides, as a pop phenomenon this was his pinnacle. At over six minutes in length, it broke all the rules of radio play, its impressionistic and yet accusing language was hardly typical pop fodder, and yet yet it hit the top ten all over the world. More importantly, that opening snare shot kicked open the doors of the minds of a generation to a different way of being, described in sound by Mike Bloomfield's spiky guitar and Al Kooper's swirling organ riff. It regularly, and rightly, tops lists of the best singles of all time.

3. 'Make it Easy on Yourself' by 'The Walker Brothers' (1965)

Many would argue for 'The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore', an equally great song from the following year, but this was their first hit single and had teenage girls pursuing Scott Walker and his supposed brothers wherever they went. It was composed by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, probably the best non-performing writing team of the era, for Dionne Warwick and has been recorded by many other artists since, but this is the defining rendition. Scott now spends his time hanging out in betting shops and backstreet boozers or beating lumps of meat in his avant-garde recordings, released in album form once a decade or so, but for all the qualities of his later solo albums, this was his great pop moment.

4. 'I Got You (I Feel Good)' by James Brown (1965)

The Godfather defined the black music of the era - funk, soul and rhythm 'n' blues - and still seems somehow more current than his contemporaries. With 99 charting hits, there's plenty to choose from, but this was both his biggest smash and signature tune, concise in single form but lending itself to extended workouts on stage.The screams, hollers, drum beat and horn riff have all been sampled numerous times. If there's one artist of the sixties who is truly still setting the agenda for the mainstream of today - dominated by r'n'b and hip-hop - then it's James Brown.

5. 'Good Vibrations' by The Beach Boys (1966)

If we're keeping it simple with our Beatles choice, we've got to go for one of Brian Wilson's mini pop symphonies by The Beach Boys to show how musically complex pop was to get within a couple of years of the puppy love songs typical of the early decade. I'm not saying this is my favourite of their songs - that would be 'God Only Knows' - or even my favourite track of theirs of this type - 'Heroes and Villains' - but while many would advocate going with one of their earlier surf sound classics, but this sums up the ambition of the times when the best composers aspired to out-do each other with every release, create a pure pop masterpiece and top the charts both sides of the Atlantic.

6. 'I'm a Believer' by The Monkees (1966)

The first - and best - of the manufactured boy bands were put together as an American rival to The Beatles, and made a clutch of classic singles, written by some of the best songwriters of the day, before claiming their independence and drifting towards the psychedelic obscurity of 'Head'. All four members had musical talent and creative ambition, qualities no longer priorities to those assembling X-factor style pop acts. The Monkees TV series is a repository of sixties fashion, humour and music and still bears watching today. This number, the biggest selling hit of 1967, was written by Neil Diamond, one of the several Brill Building writers who developed successful recording careers in their own right, and demonstrates that even teeniebop pop can be great.

7. 'River Deep, Mountain High' by Ike and Tina Turner (1966)

Phil Spector has claims on being the producer of the decade and many consider this to be his best work, himself included. Ike Turner might be credited on the label, and ran his revue like Spector governed the studio - but was paid to stay away during recording. It's flop Stateside caused Spector to withdraw from the music industry and lose himself in paranoia and conspiracy. In the UK, it reached number three, justifying its inclusion as a bona fide hit. Many other Spector productions were contenders, but this was his peak, despite some contending that backing black voices with a white pop sound had passed its sell-by date by 1966, the height of the civil rights era.

8. 'Purple Haze' by Jimi Hendrix (1967)

With only one slot available for some riff-driven rock'n'roll there are some tough choices to be made. 'Satisfaction' by The Rolling Stones and 'My Generation' by The Who are each contenders. Both bands certainly had a hand in defining the decade, although arguably didn't hit the heights of their creativity or international fame until the seventies. As well as being the greatest guitarist of his generation - indeed, of all time - Hendrix is the bridge between English and American psychedelia and defines the Summer of Love.

9. 'Waterloo Sunset' by The Kinks (1967)

It's been called the most beautiful song of the rock'n'roll era and the greatest ever written about London but even though it is born of urban loneliness, which has never sounded more romantic, its tone is more that of an English pastoral. Almost thirty years later it became the lodestone of the Britpop movement ,but although some came close, none managed to match its perfection and although he kept up his run of classsic singles into the early seventies, Ray Davies didn't either.

10. 'I Heard it Through the Grapevine' by Marvin Gaye (1968)

If Phil Spector epitomised the master-slave model of pop hit production, Tamla Motown established a new business model, run and staffed by black musicians, collectively making records for a burgeoning multi-racial market that broke the traditionally segregated audiences of both radio station and concert hall. Again, there are many contenders from the Motown repertoire, but this one stands out. It was also recorded by The Miracles, The Pips and the Isley Brothers before finally becoming a hit for Marvin Gaye. Berry Gordy hated the track and it might never have been a hit if it weren't for only relenting unprecedented demand from DJs and the public for it to be released off the 'In the Groove' album which was later renamed to bear its title.

The songs that defined a decade...

A friend of mine recently suggested I broadcast the 'best ever singles' (in sequence) on my radio show. I yawned and suggested it had not only been done many times before, but it was a fatuous exercise - one man's best being another's boredom.

He stated that this time it would be different. It wouldn't be any old top ten, it would be THE top ten, not opinion but FACT, by which he meant not somebody else's opinion but HIS.

Too dulled by red wine to argue, I asked him for his list. He reeled it off, expressing the pleasures of many an onanistic hour spent considering this important matter. Too sharpened by red wine not to argue, we then spent a further pleasurable hour or two debating the merits of his list.

His claims to objectivity were limited by the fact that all of his contenders dated back to his youth - from the mid-sixties to the late seventies. Now there is an argument that states this was the golden era of pop music in which the all that a guitar, bass, drums and the human voice can do was done and what has followed has been little more than repetition to ever diminishing returns. It is an argument I have some sympathy with; I've even been known to make it myself on occasion.

But I also have an observation: when it comes to pop music lists, the compiler invariably focuses on the music made when they were in their teens and twenties. Most of us are unable to keep up with the charts beyond the age of thirty. There are exceptions, but they tend to be parents who want to be their children's friends, rather than assume their rightful role of enemy. These funky families share record collections. My God, they even go to gigs together. They probably also share sexually transmitted diseases.

Yes, most of us maintain the diet of our salad days, and are convinced any other vittles just don't taste as good. We're prepared to proclaim the merits of the early Beatles puppy love singles whilst dismissing the current teenie bop pop as mush for minds yet to grow up, their hearing distorted by hormones. We'll extol the virtues of David Bowie and Roxy Music but choke or chortle over Lady Ga Ga's latest bizarre costume creation. We'll wallow in punk rock nostalgia but bemoan the violence implicit - or explicit - in contemporary rap.

How do we break out of the strait-jacket of our times? If there's one thing I like better than lists, it's rules. Give me a list of rules and I'm a happy chappy, so long as I drew them up myself, of course. So I suggested to my friend we make our own lists of the ten songs that defined each of the last five decades, then spend several more happy and drunken hours arguing over them:

1. The songs should have been popular. What's the point of pop music if it's not a hit? Number ones are preferred, but sometimes the tortoise wins the race, so any chart single will be considered so long as it's a genuine hit.

2. The songs should be insanely catchy. When you hear one, it doesn't leave your head for a week. Come across it forty years later, and it's still there, playing on repeat in some back room of your mind. You should know it even if you think you've never heard it - the best pop music has the properties of a virus, enters by osmosis.

3. The songs should be like nothing else before them. Not just popular but ground-breaking. Look back over the charts of past decades and you'll soon realise how many forgettable singles sold in spades. Invariably, those who made a new sound made it best.

4. The songs should have influenced what followed. Sure, there are some one-offs that no one could repeat, most often because no one wanted to. All the best music has its imitators. We think the music of the past is better than that of today because we only remember what of it is worth remembering.

5. The songs should soundtrack their times. When we hear them, we should be transported back then and there - wear the clothes and know the moves that accompanied the grooves. Pop music is the folk music of today. Therefore, in it's own unconscious way, it should also have something to say about its here and now.

If I don't stop on five rules, I'll have to make it ten, so that will do for now. Let's try them out on a couple of decades that bookend the pop era, see what we come up with...

Top ten reasons why lists are rubbish...

1. It is no coincidence that 'best of' lists proliferate at this time of year. They are written by drunken hacks, filing copy from the pub.

2. Lists are the lowest form of cultural commentary, produced by those with nothing to say for those for whom nothing is worth reading.

3. Lists are either produced by self-elected experts (to show how cool or clever they are) or by an aggregate of public opinion (for which the term 'lowest common denominator' was invented.)

4. Lists are invariably produced by men. Only men have both the time and inclination. Only men are that nerdy and that inane. All men are on the autistic spectrum and should be prescribed Ritalin at birth.

5. Women do produce lists, but of a far more practical kind than 'the best Spurs XI' or 'Bob Dylan's studio albums in order from 1 to 42' lists men favour e.g. shopping lists, Christmas present lists, DIY to-do lists, wedding planning lists for the year after next in anticipation of an engagement that never comes, potential name lists for babies yet to be born.

6. Lists have been the saviour of land-fill TV. Got a three-hour gap in the schedule? Knock up a best-of programme on your Apple Mac compiled from stock footage and a bunch of C-list celebrities talking out of their arses.

7. Lists attempt to objectify the subjective. They are the equivalent of ancient rulers carving their decrees in stone. Only written up by the sad and lonely and posted on their blogs hoping for the attention they'll never receive.

8. Lists are most fun when written by committee, a process usually lubricated by alcohol. It's not true that men don't like to express their emotions. They get very heated about which Bob Dylan album is the best - 'Blood on the Tracks' or 'Blonde on Blonde'. The thought that anyone can consider the Manchester United treble winning team to be superior to the Tottenham Hotspur double winning team has been known to reduce a man to tears.

9. You can measure a list maker's ego by the title of his list. 'My favourite...' is modest. 'My recommended...' even considers its audience. 'Top ten...' shows some delusions of grandeur. 'Best ever...' is the province of the ego maniac, only exceeded by 'Countries to invade next' lists, traditionally the territory of blood-thirsty dictators who invariably spent many of their waking hours drawing up lists, usually of enemies to eliminate and town squares requiring their statue.

10. The rule of lists is that they should be a top 10, 50 or 100 and cover the year, decade, century or millennium e.g. the best 10 madrigal performances of the last 1000 years. If you can't think of a tenth that's worthy, you read a rival list and crib of that. If you have more than ten, it's time to kill your darlings...

Now I've got that off my chest, time to have fun compiling a few lists...

An Endorsement from Bob Dylan

Cinema: Michael Jackson's 'This Is It'

Not everyone gets eighties pop, just like not everyone gets Andy Warhol. Used to judging the heirs to Picasso on the production of paintings or the new Bob Dylan on the degree to which they write songs like the old Bob Dylan, naysayers declare the likes of Michael Jackson to be unworthy of their attention and return to their personal canon of the great artists, the classic songs.

The pop process is all about the creation of the pop persona. What the pop persona creates as saleable products are of secondary consequence: records, films, fashions, books and tours for the masses; collectible relics for the connoisseur. The pop artist should aspire to be Midas: in his or her imperial period, everything they touch will turn to gold, and they will seem golden to us.

That is the triumph. It is now a familiar story. Then comes the tragedy. When the lustre fades, the pop artist is stuck forever in the guise of his own creation, forgets his origins as the creator, and in so doing Frankenstein becomes his own monster. Enter Michael Jackson, king of the pop artists and the most fascinating icon of the last quarter of the twentieth century who dragged his bones into this one before giving up the ghost.

I had not previously bought into Michael Jackson - none of his diminishing fortune was filched from my pockets - but I have long been fascinated by both him as his own creation and how we view that creation through that hall of mirrors that is our 24-7 media. If I had plotted his end, would you have bought my book? It was almost too perfect - that final image of the man stripped of his gilded uniform, denuded of his wig, wiped clean of makeup, swimming with pharmaceuticals and prickled with needle holes. He overdosed not on the some Jesus juice that made him feel more alive, but that mother's milk that gave him the perfect sleep of death.

Admiring the chutzpah of his corporate masters - who churned new product of all kinds so soon after his death, before he was even buried, and called each a tribute - I went along to bear witness in the chapel of the cinema, that place where heretics go to play. Just as Roman Catholics dismember the bodies of their saints over time - sending a head here, an arm there - so the pop artist is destined to become more productive in death than he was in life as his acts of self-creation acquire the power of immortality.

But 'This Is It' is not a typical post-death product: to realise anything on their investment in a show that was rehearsed but never performed, their only option was to release a performance compiled from rehearsals. In doing so, they leave a door ajar on how Michael Jackson the pop artist worked - how he went about creating his pop persona.

The rehearsal footage is intimate by necessity: it's primary purpose was to assist Michael Jackson and his creative team in realising their vision for a show that was to be played out fifty times in the O2 Arena in London. The Millennium Dome was the perfect choice, as it came to symbolise the failures of the previous era, rather than becoming an inspiration to the new century. When the HIStory album was released, a giant statue of the pop king was floated past its future construction site.

Now the same footage is put to alternate use as the primary product: the putting together of the show becomes the show itself. The camera is just too in his face for the conspiracy theory of body doubles to be plausible. Old audio may have been dropped into the mix, but there is no mistaking the body that sometimes sketches out a performance with moves and vocal ticks, sometimes responds to even the smallest audience by letting himself go, taking us with him into Neverland.

Would the show have gone on? They seem ready for the crowd. Is Michael a dead man walking? At times he looks flimsy as an x-ray but when he dances he is never frail and when he sings his voice seems to have lost none of its range or power to project. Is it drugs that get him up onto the stage and drugs that put him down again? Anyone who saw the bizarre 'press conference' that launched the enterprise on TV would feel safe in concluding so, and there are moments when his enthusiasm appears enhanced, but he is sound of mind and absolutely focused on every element of the production.

Yes, Michael is the man in charge. This is no doubt the image the editors wished to create, but nevertheless had to have raw material to create it from. He was able to communicate every musician's part with his voice as if he had long ago mastered each of their instruments. He instructs dancers half his age at how to move with more poise and use their energy to greater effect. The details of costume and visuals are clearly important to him. In this way - his way - he shows himself to have been perhaps the greatest showman of our times - even in rehearsal, your eyes can't leave him alone.

Arts in the Recession: The Cult of Amateur Radio

Emails of excitement pulsed out of Phonic FM HQ when The Times published a full length feature on the home station of The Blah Blah Blah Show. In truth, such mainstream recognition barely registered a ripple. The regulars on the Phonic message board were preoccupied by missing keys, faulty equipment, the challenge of staying financially afloat and all else that goes with running a 24-7 radio station on a shoestring.

Maybe I'm on the broadsheet fringe of the roster of presenters - many of whom would have only taken their headphones off to check a mention in Kerrang, Mixmag or some other specialist music or technology glossy - but I read it with interest, not least because it fits well with my current series of articles on trends in the arts during a recession, my theory being that lack of subsidy from the exchequer may be a blessing rather than a curse when it comes to cultural regeneration.

Which isn't to say that Phonic FM is run grant-free and we're very grateful for all those who back us. But it is a station run by enthusiasts, not employees, on a not-for-profit basis, has aspirations to become a company run by the community for its community, and in that way fits my grassroots thesis. Commercial radio is beholden to its advertisers to maintain the largest possible audience, while BBC radio has to constantly reaffirm its raison d'etre by demonstrating mass appeal. Listen to most stations on your dial most times of the day and you'll soon begin to wonder if it doesn't all sound a bit samey the presenters are slick but scripted, their music choices defined by a playlist, the playlist determined by committees of producers who in claiming to forecast popular taste are in fact defining it.

Phonic FM presenters work to a very different rulebook. They receive no pay or payola, have no budget or expenses, do what they do only because they like doing it and hope that others like what they do too. There is a steering group that considers pitches by would-be presenters and does its bit towards quality assurance by listening in and providing feedback but it is hardly intrusive in its methods or working to a grand design. Our audience is known only so much as they make themselves known to us, interacting via email, on the phone or via sites such as this. I could pick out my favourite shows, but yours would be different, best located by tuning in: some are name checked in The Times article, others on the station's Wikipedia entry, all on the Phonic FM schedule. All tastes are catered for except those tastes already catered for by our mainstream alternatives, which isn't to say that you won't hear the popular sounds of now, they'll just be mixed in with sonic curios from all eras and genres with the occasional programme such as ours majoring on spoken word rather than promoting its particular musical manifesto.

DAB radio was meant to widen the dial to British listeners. Although I regularly tune in to some digital-only stations, the choice available is still restricted to 60 or so channels, akin to the range available on Freeview TV. The American model of a subscription based satellite service offers more variety - the US market has always been more niche driven, every town having a station dedicated to country, most one grooving on rap and R&B - but at a price to the listener. In Sirius XM, a merger of previous providers, it now also has a monopoly supplier. Community radio has a different ethos. It reminds me most of the glory days of pirate radio - not the 1960s boat-based channels such as Radio Caroline, as ground-breaking as they were, dragging British broadcasting and its monopoly corporation into the modern era - but the nineteen-eighties when technology became cheap enough to fall into the hands of inspired amateur enthusiasts and a station could be run out of a suitcase from a squat or bedsit. Tune into Phonic FM, relax with your favourite relaxant, and you could almost be back there back then...