Rotatey Diskers

01 New Order - Waiting For The Sirens' Call 02 Doves - Black And White Town 03 Royksopp - What Else Is There? 04 Goldfrapp - Ooh La La 05 Hard-fi - Tied up too tight 06 Goldfrapp - Number 1 07 Coral - In The Morning 08 Rihanna - Pon De Replay 09 Garbage - Why Do You Love Me? 10 Mylo - In My Arms 11 Missy Elliott - Lose Control 12 Arcade Fire - Rebellion (Lies) 13 Futureheads - Hounds Of Love 14 Editors - Munich 15 Audio Bullys ft Nancy Sinatra – Shot You Down

01 Secret Machines - All At Once (It's Not Important) 02 The Upper Room - Black And White 03 Nelly Furtado - All Good Things 04 Lily Allen - LDN 05 Pink - U & Ur Hand 06 Hot Chip - Over and Over 07 Pipettes - Pull Shapes 08 Orson - No Tomorrow 09 AFI - Love Like Winter 10 Sigur Ros - Hopippolla 11 Beyonce ft Jay-Z - Deja Vu 12 Corinne Bailey Rae - Put Your Records On 13 Guillemots - Trains To Brazil 14 Massive Attack - Live With Me 15 Pink - Stupid Girls

The Cure track is, of course, fab, and these other indie ones are OK too!

I'm assuming that must be 100% by Sonic Youth. I hadn't realised that had done so well in the charts until I just looked it up!

Is #1 Ouija Board Ouija Board by Morrissey? I remember it got panned in the music press.

Commiserations on getting into music in such a thin year. I've just about managed to scrape together this album! 01 - The Boo Radleys - Lazarus I much prefer the shoegazing Boos to their later pop incarnation. 02 - Manic Street Preachers - Motorcycle Emptiness Wave your lighters in the air! What's not to like? 03 - Leftfield - Release The Pressure An early classic from this enduring group. 04 - The Heart Throbs - Hooligan Underrated indie-pop group. 05 - L7 - Pretend We're Dead Classic pop grunge from this US all female rock group. 06 - Orbital - Halcyon On + On + On Early Orbital track that points the way towards trance. 07 - Sonic Youth - 100% Never my favourite group but I like this one. 08 - The Darling Buds - Sure Thing Their last and, in my opinion, best single. Almost shoegazing. 09 - REM - Man On The Moon This was the year of Automatic For The People - one of their finest albums. 10 - TLC - Ain't Too Proud To Beg Their debut hit. 11 - The Prodigy - Out Of Space This was the year of Rave. Here's the Prodigy sampling an old Max Romeo tune. 12 - Stereolab - Laisser-Faire Back in their drone-rock days, when they were good!

Before the New Romantic scene exploded on the charts towards the end of 1980 with the arrival of Fade To Grey and To Cut A Long Story Short there were the clubs like Blitz and Club For Heroes where the scene started. Naturally there were no New Romantic artists on record at the time, so here's my album of pre-new romantic tunes you would have heard at a New Romantic club! 01 - David Bowie - Sound And Vision The godfather of the scene, really. The Berlin period in particular yielded up several popular tracks (Heroes, Golden Years, Boys Keep Swinging, The Secret Life Of Arabia, etc). 02 - Kraftwerk - The Model The other main influence on the New Romantics; the godlike genius that is Kraftwerk! 03 - Japan - Quiet Life Japan were slightly ahead of the curve and were making pop dance records before the New Romantics got into a recording studio. 04 - Giorgio Moroder - The Chase From Midnight Express - a classic early electro dance track along with From Here To Eternity and I Feel Love. 05 - Gina X Performance - No GDM Absolute classic louche, camp masterpiece from Germany. 06 - Ultravox - Quiet men The pre Midge Ure Ultravox were lead by John Foxx. This was there great dance track. 07 - Yello - Bostich An absolute classic floor filler from Switzerland's greatest musical export. 08 - Lori and the Chameleons - Touch Great electropop single. I don't know who Lori was, but the Chameleons were Bill Drummond (manager of Echo and the Bunnymen who later formed JAMMS/The KLF) and Dave Balfe (keyboard player in the Teardrop Explodes who later set up Food Records). 09 - Iggy Pop - The Passenger Another floor filler from the former Stooge. Produced by David Bowie. 10 - Telex - Moskow Diskow Another classic electro floor filler, along with Twist A St Tropez. Belgium's finest musical export. 11 - Grace Jones - She's Lost Control Looking and sounding like that, how could she not go down well at a New Romantic club? Especially covering Joy Division. 12 - Simple Minds - I Travel Pounding dance track from the pompous ones. They were good once, you know! Other mentions should go to Talking Heads, Yellow Magic Orchestra, Can, The Normal, Fad Gadget, early Human League, Roxy Music, etc, etc.

Yeah I always thought Ciao! should have been a single, and a love that Pepper track too.

Some interesting and varied choices so far! Mine would look something like this: 01 - Duffy - She freak No, not that Duffy! Stephen 'Tintin' Duffy was going by this moniker at the time and did a great jangly indie album with members of Velvet Crush. 02 - Kula Shaker - Tattva Yeah, I know, probably as unhip as 'Macarena', but I love it's swirling 60s psychedelia, courtesy of John Leckie's production. 03 - Manic Street Preachers - A design for life The Manics returned after the loss of Ritchie with this over-the-top production (if you listen carefully you can probably hear someone playing a kitchen sink). Fab! 04 - Kenickie - Punka Lauren Lavern's finest moment. All shouty enthusiasm and great hooks. Who'd've thought she'd end up as a telly presenter? 05 - Chemical Brothers - Setting sun A great howling single with Noel Gallagher struggling to be heard over the top of it. 06 - Lush - Single girl Lush stop gazing at their shoes long enough to produce this great three minutes of guitar pop. 'Ladykillers' was pretty awesome too. 07 - Gretschen Hofner - Welcome to my Judy Garland life A band not a woman - this was their finest and campest moment. Another big swirling production - are we detecting a theme here? 08 - Legend B - Lost in love (Red Jerry remix) Nine minutes of throbbing trance with crescendo after crescendo and breakdown after breakdown. Magnificent! 09 - Tiger - Race Indie darlings who vanished very quickly, leaving two great singles; this and 'Shining in the wood'. 10 - The Prodigy - Firestarter Anything that upsets the press has to be good. Especially if it's as great to dance to as this. I think this album idea is going to produce some good, interesting threads. Must go away and have a think! :D

01 Secret Machines - Nowhere Again 02 The Soundtrack Of Our Lives - Bigtime 03 Razorlight - Golden touch 04 Morrissey - Irish Blood, English Heart 05 Killers - All These Things That I've Done 06 Rasmus - In The Shadows 07 Vines - Ride 08 Kasabian - Club Foot 09 Basement Jaxx - Good Luck 10 N.E.R.D - She Wants To Move

01 Dandy Warhols - We Used To Be Friends 02 Chemical Brothers - The Golden Path 03 Goldfrapp - Train 04 Junior Senior – Move Your Feet 05 Goldfrapp - Strict Machine 06 Blondie - Good Boys 07 Libertines - Don't Look Back Into The Sun 08 Lemon Jelly - Nice Weather For Ducks 09 Wayne Wonder - No Letting Go 10 Queens of the Stone Age - Go with the flow 11 UNKLE - Eye for an Eye 12 Muse - Times Is Running Out 13 Radiohead - There There 14 Biffy Clyro - Questions And Answers 15 Nelly Furtado - Powerless

01 Spiritualized - Do It All Over Again 02 Idlewild - You Held The World In Your Arms 03 Queens Of The Stone Age - No one Knows 04 White Stripes - Fell In Love With A Girl 05 Garbage - Cherry Lips 06 Flaming Lips - Do You Realise?? 07 Sugababes - Stronger 08 Basement Jaxx - Get Me Off 09 Oakenfold – Starry Eyed Surprise 10 Layo and Bushwacka - Love Story

01 Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit 02 Beach Boys - Good Vibrations 03 Rolling Stones - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction 04 Elvis Presley - Suspicious Minds 05 Beatles - Hey Jude 06 Blondie - Heart Of Glass 07 Rolling Stones - Paint It Black 08 Beatles - Let It Be 09 Elvis Presley - Jailhouse Rock 10 Beatles - Strawberry Fields Forever 11 Dusty Springfield - Son Of A Preacher Man 12 Madonna - Like A Prayer 13 Beatles - Yesterday 14 Elvis Presley - Heartbreak Hotel 15 Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) 16 Simon & Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water 17 Oasis - Don't Look Back In Anger 18 Mamas & The Papas - California Dreamin' 19 Guns 'N' Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine 20 REM - Everybody Hurts

I think this is what lead the British public astray - Andy Abraham's WAS the best performance. He's the only one who stayed in tune throughout the night (listen to how ragged Michelle Gayle got towards the end of her second performance). I think The Revelations had the best song but they couldn't sell it because of a poor vocal performance. I don't blame the public, I blame the organisers for giving the best song to some shopgirl wannabes. Back to the make-up counter at Boots for them I fear!

I actually wonder if we shouldn't go back to a very old idea - pre-select one big artist and have them perform all the songs - that way it's only about the song and not all the flim-flam that surrounds it. Just a thought.

I don't think the BBC would be any better at selection. They try too hard to pick a eurovision song (i.e. cheesy) instead of a great pop song. There's actually no difference but the BBC don't seem to understand this. They're all too post-modernist and tongue in cheek at the Beeb.

It needs big stars with big songs. There were plenty of Brits with great songs in the charts last year - but no-one will do Eurovision because it's perceived as too cheesy. We used to send big names like Cliff, Lulu, Sandie - now we send has-beens and never-weres.

It won't win - but we won't come last.

You're not alone. It wasn't the strongest song but it WAS the most accomplished performance.

Despite what you're all saying I bet we don't come last this year - judging by those clips of the other entrants we saw earlier! You could all be a little less negative you know.

The best Singers went through but not necessarily the best songs. If only the Revs vocal performance had been stronger!

I think it's going to be close between the Revelations and Michelle Gayle.

If LoveShy could sing they would have gone through - Andy Abrahams was the right choice for Wildcard.

1. The Revelations 2. Michelle Gayle 3. Andy Abrahams 4. Simona Armstrong 5. LoveShy 6. Rob McVeigh That's how I'd rank the songs 1. Michelle Gayle 2. Andy Abrahams 3. The Revelations 4. Simona Armstrong 5. LoveShy 6. Rob McVeigh That's how I'd rank the performances.

The 2 strongest vocal performances in the last section - perhaps they should get Michele Gayle to sing the Revelations song!