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[BillyH]

Five years ago this weekend, I took part in a project where you wrote a letter to yourself that would be posted through your door in five years time, along with a Polaroid photograph(!) of you with the letter. A couple of days ago, having long forgotten about it, I received an email reminding me of it and asking me for my current postal address so they could send it off! So either today or tomorrow I'll be receiving a letter that I wrote to myself when I was 20, almost 21 years old, as I'm about to turn the age of 26 in a couple of weeks. I have absolutely no memory of what I wrote but I'm looking forward to finding out.

Gordon Brown was prime minister, David Tennant was Doctor Who and I thought I'd look back at the top 40 announced that Sunday evening, week-ending 19th September 2009 - helped by the fact that there's some astonishingly good tracks particularly as we reach the top 10. But in James Masterton style, let's start with #40 and go upwards from there:

40: Livvi Franc feat. Pitbull - Now I'm That Chick

Starting with one I don't remember at all, #40 was as high as this got - the title's the radio edit version of a song that's actually called Now I'm That Bitch. Spotify has it though, and giving it a listen it's an average bit of end-of-the-decade electro-pop by someone who was clearly attempting to be the British Rihanna (same age, part Barbadian and they're both styled the same) and slightly failing, never appearing in the chart since.

39: Daniel Merriweather - Red

Ah now this one was alright, a big "new face of 2009" after first being heard on a Mark Ronson track, he had a minor hit with 'Change' but this was obviously meant to be the big solo breakthrough, peaking at #5 and having a major chart run after being released back in May and would have a couple more weeks top 40 around the end of the year and beginning of the next. And, erm, we've never heard from him since, being one of a host of talented singers who brush with brief success only to be immediately thrown out the door when everyone loses interest. Shame as this is nicely above average if not spectacular.

38: Biffy Clyro - That Golden Rule

A group that passed me by completely at the time, only being aware of them after Matt Cardle covered Many of Horror, it's a mildly upbeat rock track just before the genre almost completely vanished from the charts in favour of urban dance-pop for a few years. Something that could have been a hit at any point in the noughties, but by this time I was sick of all this having had a decade dominated by indie and much preferring the electro-pop being released.

37: Black Eyed Peas - Boom Boom Pow

Instead it was things like THIS that soundtracked 2009 for me, probably my fave song of the year at the time though I think In For The Kill's overtaken it these days. This absolutely blew me away at the time and it took me a while to work out what the hell the BEPs were doing, returning after a long absence and producing a song so weird it sounded like they'd gone nuts.

The power of Boom Boom Pow may have faded a little since, but I still love it just for seemingly being about six songs in one, changing style every 30 seconds or so and I actually prefer the radio edit for adding to the weirdness by not just silencing out the swear words but digitally messing with the surrounding vocals to sound like the track's glitching like mad. Not to everyone's tastes but I think this is fantastic stuff, and blows the much more commercial follow-up single out the water - as charming as that may also be.

36: Cascada - Evacuate The Dancefloor

The first group I ever saw live, at the Hammersmith Apollo in March 2008 having spent the preceeding year or so being OBSESSED with 'Everytime We Touch' soundtracking many a pre-clubbing adventure. Words cannot describe the absolute dismay when they came back with this, a desperate, ugly attempt to stay relevant by copying Lady Gaga's 'Just Dance' in all but name - and what's worse was that they ended up being bloody rewarded by it by not only becoming their first and only #1, but beating Michael Jackson's Man In The Mirror to the top!

They've failed to come anywhere near since despite other copycat attempts at nicking other people's song ideas. For me, Cascada's golden age spans Everytime We Touch to What Hurts The Most and everything after that I'm trying to forget ever happened.

35: David Guetta feat. Kelly Rowland - When Love Takes Over

He'd been in the charts for years, I'd been a fan since 2005 and he'd reached as high as #3 with Love Don't Let Me Go, but this track was truly the start of Guetta mania and when everyone started jumping on the bandwagon to make so-called EDM songs, actually your standard European dance music but given a cooler name so the previously dance-phobic Americans could get on board.

And yet this didn't really seem like the start of anything at the time, it's a fabulous summer track but seems very much a typical noughties dance song - it could have come out as far back as 2006 and done just as well. It was his follow-up that really did sound a bit different and much more part of the next decade, but you'll have to wait for that

34: Jeremih: Birthday Sex

Oh god this is dire, thankfully the end of the bland, needlessly sexual R&B that bored me to death through most of the decade before things got more upbeat in the following years. There's a big following for it but it's never a genre that's appealed to me, maybe because it takes me back a bit too much to the dying few minutes at the end of overpriced, slightly sleazy Central London clubnights I visited a few of around this time. Never again. Peaked at #15 here but a much bigger hit in the US where it reached #4.

33: Jamie T - Chaka Demus EP

One hell of a weird singing voice but there's some good tracks and clever ideas during his brief bit of late noughties fame, the lead track here was probably his most commercial to date but it's what made me first take notice of him and introduced me to the brilliant 'Sheila' from a couple years earlier. It's a brilliant, carefree pop song despite some slightly angry sounding vocals and I'm mystified as to why it only peaked at #23 and slid out the chart soon after, surely it deserved a top 10 place?

32: U2 - I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight

What was at one point one of the world's biggest rock groups made a huge misfire at the start of the year with one of the worst comeback songs I can remember, the bewilderingly bad 'Get On Your Boots' which flopped majorly by their standards. This is single number 3 and by now they're back to standard U2 fare, but perhaps it was a little too late as this only got to #32 - better at least than second single 'Magnificent' which missed the top 40 altogether. None of them are first single material in a Beautiful Day/Vertigo sort of way, and with downloads putting an end to fanbase purchases from 'legacy' acts such as Bon Jovi, Kylie, the Pet Shop Boys etc, their hit single career seems to be over. Perhaps that's why they've resorted to sneaking their new album onto every iPhone...

31: Pitbull - I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)

Some songs I can't claim to have ever been a proper fan of but they do at least take me back to some good times, this song was hammered in every club I went to that summer - hearing it on slightly worn-out headphones in my room late at night can't really compare to it being blasted out of bass-heavy speakers on a crowded dancefloor, buying drinks at the bar and wincing at the prices (bearing in mind we're talking about £4 a pint here, standard in London today but on the expensive side back in 2009). It's still something I'd not actually make the effort of listening to but I close my eyes and I'm back to being 20 years old again, living my mid-university life with the quest to get as drunk as possible while *still* waking up bright and refreshed for studying the next morning. Good, slightly messy times.

30-21 to follow in the next post!