...as a clicky-on-the-piccy YouTube blog. Wildly diverse, but hopefully there's something there for everyone.

Which one's your favourite?

Postponed from February, but finally ready to roll: Part Four of our collaborative annual quest to establish the Greatest Decade For Pop Music Ever starts on Monday, right here on Troubled Diva.

As ever, we'll be comparing the Top 10 UK singles from my birthday week (i.e. mid-February) through the past five decades, and voting for each decade in order of preference over a ten day period. On Monday, we'll start by comparing the Number 10 singles from 2006, 1996, 1986, 1976 and 1966. On Tuesday, we'll move onto the Number 9 singles, and so on until we reach the Number Ones.

All you'll have to do each day is listen to a short medley of the five songs under review, place them in order of preference, and leave your votes (plus any supporting comments, should you so wish) in the comments box. I'll be totting up the cumulative scores as we go along, using a simple system which should prove self-explanatory.

Ooh, can't wait. Have a good weekend, and we shall re-convene on Monday. In the meantime, I shall endeavour to find something interesting to say about Pinkerton's Assorted Colours, Pluto Shervington, Double, Technohead and, er, does anybody still remember Shayne Ward?

Labels: whichdecade06

...I have just this second finished watching archive footage of the supreme musical hero of my adolescence, whom I have never seen on "television" before in all these years, and I simply have to share it with you.

Kevin Ayers and the Whole World, featuring Lol Coxhill and a very young Mike Oldfield, in 1972, performing "May I", from the Shooting At The Moon album.

I can now die happy.

This is the new single from The Knife. It's called "We Share Our Mother's Health", and I like it a lot. To activate the rather wonderful red-and-black animated video, go clicky on the piccy.

Back from the pub last night, four pints the worse for wear, and in a sudden rush of blood to the head, I decided that it would be A Really Good Laugh to augment the "25 Lines" lyrics quiz (see below) with home-made acapella audio samples for each song.

God, I don't half come up with some shit ideas for this weblog.

To experience the full horror, scroll down and click your way through the lyrics.

(Actually, #15 could have potential as a novelty ring tone, don't you think? From Crazy Frog to Crazy Fa... yes, well.)

The long, slow climb back into the musical saddle continues (and my, what a fetching image that conjures up). After many months of non-participation, I am back on the Stylus Singles Jukebox team - and enjoying the novelty of listening to new music so much, that I ended up being quite uncommonly charitable to everything I was given to review. Yes, even that dreary dirge by Paolo Nutini.

No doubt this wave of charitable feeling will quickly pass. In the meantime, go and read me saying nice things about Mr Nutini, McFly, Franz Ferdinand, Plan B and Sarah "her out of Black Box Recorder" Nixey.

Update: I scored a reasonable 5.5 out of 12. The full shortlist is here.

Arctic Monkeys
An absolute cast-iron dead cert, and the obvious favourite to win. If this doesn't make the shortlist, then I WILL POST A PICTURE OF MY COCK ON THE INTERNET, JUST SEE IF I WON'T.
CORRECT. (Phew.)

Corinne Bailey Rae
...is to the 2000s what M People were to the 1990s, and what Sade was to the 1980s. Feel free to interpret this statement as positively or as negatively as you wish.
INCORRECT.

Girls Aloud
Pop music that it's OK for broadsheet intellectuals to like, thus neatly ticking the Token Pop Act box.
INCORRECT.

Guillemots
Clever, quirky and literate, whimsical but far from trivial, with lots of twiddly-widdly musicianly bits that will flatter the intelligence of the selection panel. God, I'm feeling cynical this morning...
CORRECT.

Hot Chip
I preferred the more laidback lo-fi sound of their debut album, but this ticks the box marked Fusion Of Disparate Influences, and we know how much the Mercury judges love their Disparate Influences...
CORRECT.

Jon Boden
Token folkie, ergo this year's Seth Lakeman - but also bloody good in his own right, so I've got my fingers crossed. Also performs as part of the duo Boden & Spiers, who are more on a Trad Tip, Dad.
INCORRECT.

Kate Bush
The other cast-iron dead cert to qualify, but I shall refrain from making any more rash promises.
INCORRECT!!!

Muse
...who, with their fifth album, suddenly seem to have found universal critical favour, after years of being seen as really rather naff.
CORRECT.

Plan B
Hot young white rapper du jour, inviting inevitable comparisons with Mike Skinner and Eminem. The single is excellent: go clicky on the link above, but mind the strong language. Ticks the box marked Urban; could be this year's Dizzee Rascal.
INCORRECT. (The Token Urban nomination went to Sway.)

Richard Hawley
Ticks the box marked Deserves Wider Exposure. That's my box, not their box. Sublime stuff, even though I'm always getting asked to turn it off because it's "depressing".
CORRECT.

The Feeling
Skilful (if a tad shallow) evocation of 1970s AOR/MOR, laced with contemporary corporate-indie-lite "attitude", hence will appeal to the "Guilty Pleasures" sensibilities of the predominantly middle-aged judges. (Pot... kettle...)
INCORRECT.

The Pipettes
Relentlessly jolly and catchy retro-modern indie-pop exuberance from Brighton, hence this year's equivalent of The Go! Team. Oh, and they're also very good indeed, which always helps.
INCORRECT.

Possible substitutes: Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan (CORRECT), Kooks, Lily Allen.

Ah, just see if I'm right... I'm never very good at this sort of thing.

Update: The other inclusions are: Editors, Zoe Rahman (token jazz), Lou Rhodes (she used to be in Lamb), Scritti Politti, Sway and Thom Yorke.

Picking up on the "25 Lines" blog-meme which I last spotted at Gordon's place, here are the opening lines to the first 25 songs (*) which came up on Shuffle Mode, on my lovely new iPod. As you'd expect, some are dead obvious, some are super-obscure, but all have at least some sort of vague merit.

But what songs were they? Let's all find out together, shall we? Please leave your answers in the comments box, and I'll post the full results in a few days.

Rules:

a) One answer per person only, please.

b) No cheating! I'm placing you all on trust here. Remember: if you resort to search engines, then you'll be letting me down, yourself down, and all the other readers of this weblog down.

Update: For added entertainment value, click on each lyric to hear it sung, by me, badly, late at night, pissed up on four pints, with my headphones on.(*) Well, not exactly the first 25 songs, as the following categories were excluded: instrumentals (duh), song titles revealed in opening lines (double duh), foreign languages, unintelligble lyrics (so that's all the thrash metal up the spout, then).