Hello you, and welcome to this small round-up of the past year’s musical treats and horrors. First off, let’s start with the good stuff, shall we? OK then. I’ll start off with Marilyn Manson’s Tainted Love, in which a perfectly innocent little tune is turned into one of the scariest songs you’ll ever hear (if you remember Mr Manson hollering “Once I ran to you / Now I run from you” you’ll know what I mean) – well, I liked it. There were also the Horrendously Limited Editions that were Supergrass’ Never Done Nothing Like That Before, The Shining’s Quicksilver and Doves’ There Goes The Fear – damned good songs, the lot of them, it’s just a shame they weren’t given proper releases. Mind you, I’ve seen the Doves single hanging around on shop shelves, so at least you can still get one out of three. In terms of songs that you can dance about like a fool to, for me Energy 52’s Café Del Mar remixes were the only ones even in the running here. Sorry Scooter, you just missed out. However, the biggest surprise to me was discovering my favourite song of the year is a slowie. It’s not often that Robbie Williams does a decent song, but Feel really hits the mark. It’s just a simple tune with lyrics that make perfect sense – sounds easy, but look at how much rubbish has been hurled at the Top 40 in recent years. Right then, that’s the good stuff out of the way, how about the tat? Well, We’ve Got Tonight showed just how good a singer Lulu is and just how uninteresting Ronan Keating is to listen to, so that’s 1-0 to Lulu. My opinions on the Cheeky Song are already well known, so I’ll move on. Here’s a controversial choice for you – Nelly and Kelly’s Dilemma. I hated this. How a song as lazily written as this got to Number One is almost (but not quite) beyond me. While we’re at it, anything released by Will Young or Gareth Gates – can’t blame the singers, but the session musicians really couldn’t be bothered. I’m adding Moby’s 18 album too because it’s little more than Play 2 – no wonder he got beaten up. And finally, Oi by More Fire Crew – if you didn’t hear it, you’re very, very lucky. That’s it from me for this year, have a Happy New Year and I’ll see you in January!