Amber's Glow

Ditzy Dutch dance dealer Amber's surreal expressions of sexual politics pick-up a unique momentum as she collides into a melodic oddness that her contemporaries could only dream of. Her skirt-raising goodtimes 3rd album Naked is a sophisticated affair unafraid to beat around her own bush. Her voice - like aspirin dissolving into syrup - holds firm with a mellow contemplation enough to still make it exuberant when it needs to be.

Skin on skin opener Yes! is an orgasmic Hi-NRG build up indicative of the silky grooves of which as here flare up into wave-crashing house splashes. Ambiently sublime, when it erupts into the 2:42 rave-up, the grimacing chorus is clarified with her earlier Real McCoy beginnings, a fleeting flashback nod to Runaway perhaps (if only this segment was sustained longer if not throughout). Only Amber's thigh-aching vocals could convey the sophistication of a man 'going down on me so I can feel my breasts'.

Clarifying things further, The Need To Be Naked sounds like a lost late 90s Metro or Thunderpuss production - crisp and clear melodies syngeing with a dance template of throbbing succint beats and jaded guitars.

'Youre so jealous, no I am not!'

The tentatively beautiful Anyway (Men Are From Mars) thaws with oozing 'doo doo doo doo' cooing that absorbs like cotton wool. Amber's split-screen viewpoint of the sexes distinguishes her unbridled love as seeing past her lover's need to control (hell, sometimes on a Friday night this blogger here is actually after that sort of thing). - 'we are so different, why give it a chance?' she sobs. Her angelic chorus is steered through misty synths by the speedy promotion of teetering bleeps reminiscent of Kylie's The One. The beats, bleeps and strings amass until she blurts out "I don't know what you feel /should I go or stay? / I love you anyway' tugging her extensions with the ups and downs of being in love with what must be a moron, and to make her benign struggle sound joyful is no easy task.

The album's biggest surprise is the smoothly chaotic eruption of If There Would Be No Tomorrow. Not since Dannii's Get Into You have the barriers between splintering rock and dance been so menacing detroyed, nor have I been so scared, uncertain and turned on in equal fashion. Punctuating 'ha! ha! c'mon!' commands a dancing avalanche of full frontal attitude. Her balm-like vocals melt into the ears as per, but the firework hooks such as her crying out 'people' bookmark it with her unique eccentricity. Amber is smart and crazy: her associative lyrics are perfect fodder to seal over the jagged and crumbling guitars crashing. Simultaneously strident and inspirational.

Whether Amber is catholic or not, she can't keep anything to herself - Dirty Thoughts is just divine. It's a double-cream vocal job as she languidly giggles that she just 'can't get off'. Her surreal sensuality reaks of glamorous self-doubt and courageous narcisism.

Wet wipe mid-tempo ballad You're Sent From Heaven is a deeper rnb groove fluctuating with flamenco flutters Gina G would kill her career for. She even hires a choir and makes Madonna's Nothing Fails sound borderline racist by comparison. It fades far too fast, which is my only gripe, but Amber's pulse reacts as I for one keep thinking she's going to burst into What's Love Got To Do WIth It. She really nails it.

Amber seems to be sitting on her dentist chair with her interesting 'ahhhhhhhhhhhh' backing vocals. He seems to be built of lyrical repitions that sadly don't amount to much beyond a stellar groove. Starting to waver a bit.

The ambiguous Sex Without Sex keeps us guessing yet again. Is it the mind? Is it her new 'welcome mat' design? Explain yourself, gurrl. 'As you watch my mouth' she sniggers. I can't resist the mild drizzly tempo that hints to an exotic life using her unequivocal wisdom, but this takes a few spins to convince you to lie down and take it all in.

The sunbathing Ace of Base-meets-Sade ambience of Love On You is all smooth and slick transitions with warm vocals filtering through.

Heavenly Proximity could be an album track from Cher's Believe. Despite an almost forgettable dance beat and a hook you can see a mile off, this is another easy to swallow dance cut. Her central vocal is gurning with weakness as ever and her lush self-driven backing vocals are reliably mezmerising - her vague message of, like, heavenly proximity is neither here nor there, yet if her lyrics aren't always decipherable at least her off-hinged vocals never disappoint.

Above: Amber's so-so Taste The Tears was featured on the first soundtrack compilation for the hit HBO series Sex In The City, but her cynical cash-in album cut of the same name failed to impress gays who refused to date girls just to give ladies 'hilarious' stories about gays not being 'real men' or something - Amber's punishment was to record a rock song called Just Like That, but was soon forgiven after Jason Nevins gave her a decent pounding on a remix he liked to call the 'Jason Nevins Remix'.

She takes a stab at penning a Geri Halliwell track with Sex & The City ,which is on equal par with Kylie's So Now Goodbye or anything from Sheena Easton's Fabulous album. 'Gurrrrl, no she didn't' and the LOL-arious 'it turns out that your date is gay' is only going to appeal to bingo-wing women in shit marriages - what strong independant woman is not going to know her 'date is gay' or to the point what self-respecting gay guy buying an Amber album is going to want to go on a date with a vadge unless it's some kind of 3-way? It just reaks of Amber's assumption that this would feature on a soundtrack for the TV show after both Taste The Tears and the classic Above The Clouds were featured in series 2. Intitally unlistenable, it gradually just becomes shit.

Quietning the room, Don't Say Goodbye is about as meaty as an Amber ballad could hope to be. Before you write this off as dull, limp and lifeless, Amber is always viagra for the ears and she carries this admirably.

I am over the moon with Amber's decision to include Sexual (Afterlife Remix), as - purely for Dannii reasons - it seems to make this affair feel that more special and it's not even a fan-release. This is the singer's second - and most lethal - signature single after This Is Your Night. The tide-like chorus seems to wash ashore and melancholically rinse away. The chill-out vodka-blurred arrangement illustrates the helpless sentiments one feels when devastated by another's crippling beauty or paralyizing body organs. The haunting residue maintains the original's exotic magic and probably makes the listener ask new questions to the exposed lyrics.

The Smile of My Child is an uneasy listening attempt at some Liza-style drama, but I won't be bothering to listen to such shit again if I can help it.

Amber is her name and cleanly constructed dance-pop jams are her game. That's what she wants us to believe anyway, yet American radio were having none of it, refusing to play the smut on offer on the album opener Yes! The understated sexual angst with suggestive backing vocals echoing the contemplative grooves and her sobre lyrical clarity really sell it. Even on the moments of balladry, she is always sort of compelling. Not many dance divas can call their album Naked and make it seem ambiguous enough to be open to not just penetration but interpretation. The utterly decisive lyrics of Anyway are pleasantly cut-throat, but cynicism gives way completely on the sumptuously drifting chorus groove: when she wrenches out the line 'you're so jealous, no I am not' Amber is just clearly a tradition of her own accord. Her sensual but flaky vocals are vulnerable yet never desperate and even in her most disparate moments there are isolated lyrical gems that make the slog worth it. Her lyrical obsession is of the transition from innocense toexperience, which oddly never loses any of its bump. However, when she ventures away from the formula (If There Would Be No Tomorrow) there is no telling how far she could really go. Overall, Amber takes a subtle U-turn from crazy town and enters a deeper filling of remarkably sophisticated trash.

Trish Flaps Her Flaps

The classy sight of an overweight black woman's weave sticking to her sweating forehead as she spits yet more of it off from sticking to her lip gloss, has never left me even if Lutricia McNeal left the UK charts years ago - I am talking about her legendary 1998 TOTP appearances of course. Her wide-bearth of rnb-tinged pop hits ran dry after an impressive 3 top 10s: Ain't That Just The Way (the kind of Mary J-ish pop melody Shola Ama would have killed her dealer for), the simply stunning Stranded and the song she wrote for homeless people, Someone Loves You Honey.

The competent Perfect Love wasn't even given a chance, and it was not until 2005 when I worked in a really big department store in Glasgow that I heard her true masterpiece: 2000s Fly Away. With its gushing melancholy and striking resemblance to Dannii Minogue's 1995 smash hit Everlasting Night, it felt like a full facial I dare not wash off, and no man, woman or tranny has ever splashed my face with quite the same emotion ever since.

Grace Jones - Portfolio

The stark aloof glamour of Grace Jones was introduced via a throwaway disco cut I Need A Man - a glossy if generic disco impulse. It's the only track here really rendered with her adgitated lust. With vocals as if her tongue were a tattoo needle, it's a novelty to hear such faceless productions being chewed up by such a legend earning her stripes.

Buried into a camp disco send up, Send In The Clowns is pleasing but sounds more like Boney M. Her tempestuous eroticism is tinged with the melancholy of the original's ballad treatment whilst the disco encouragement illuminates sympathetically.

The non-revelatory What I Did For Love is another elegant rueful disco slumber - she sounds about 80 on this.

Tomorrow is horrendous. There is just no bond between this song and the genre of disco - it's a bad marriage and thankfully these two never saw each other ever again.

The album reached it's soaring peak on her surprisingly vulnerable version of La Vie En Rose. Lush, languid and lascivious, her 4-octave crooning miaws into dimensions of vast confliction and seizing rapture the singer isn't often given credit for. The smooth arrangement nearly blurs into jazz, but to hear it is to be grateful.

Her sensual-but-distant voval groanings are well suited for Sorry, a track where she sounds anything but.

That's The Trouble. More disdainful howling. More of the same.

The album lacks her decadent glamour, but the flamboyance is applied thick regardless of her often flat performances - when she comits she eclipses the camp fluff this really is. Her trademark sexual scorn is absent, and Portfolio's stubborn disco is perfumed with a fine attention to detail, yet the results deliver nothing new beyond bodiless arrangements struggling to really sell the potential of its wonderfully determinded singer.

Are The Saturdays So Yesterday?

When The Saturdays launched whenever it was last year, Diva Incarnate wrote them off as a slutty makeshift girlgroup, a bunch of skanks who were proud of it like cosmetics girls defiantly strutting back to their counter from lunch like they had just heard their man's wives were booked in for a consultation. You know the sort. Hardly the next big thing, more like the next big cam girls.

Their primary-coloured cartoon imagery was executed well if a little bland - hell it says something when sampling Yazoo still isn't enough to get this blog on your side. Up changed everything, with its plodding plonky synths and beats sprouting a usurping chorus that was raised higher than their legs, and they followed this up with a chav-with-feelings-catering ballad Issues, and the dutifully lightweight charity single Just Can't Get Enough. Then their we-hope-it-is-safe-to-finally-act-like-skanks-in-the-video final single from the album, Work, failed to work its magic on their young girls fanbase despite crap gays rushing to New Look to dress up as them.

From their new released-too-early second album, Forever Is Over came from and seeming went nowhere despite its number 2 success, and when I finally did listen to it found the track to be the biggest turtle-head of a Kelly Clarkson reject since My Poo Got Stuck Without You (Jason Nevins Remix).

Still, my jaw was dropped lower than their used sachets of KY when I heard the electro-lubricated rock condescention Ego - speaking of being dropped, it is a sad state of affairs when a song of this calibre can't save your record deal. It's a sturdy and surly performance from the girls who competitively get a verse or bridge each to sing, all progressively sounding more tranny than the last. Natasha Hamilton's much prettier in another lifetime twin sister Una, who sounds like she's got 5 I.R.A members' cocks stuck in her mouth whilst caught alone at the cashpoint, always gives me a smile as she barks her line 'you used to be so laid back' whilst sounding like Rosie O'Donnel having phone sex. The uptight chorus is stunning, a told-you-so finger-point as they pout 'you need to have a sit-down wit your ego'. I love the prickly, slightly jarring momentum, but it clearly hasn't caught on having recently peaked at #9 and the superhero-themed video was badly directed: the only superpower any of them seem to have is being able to blow really hard, which has already been covered.

Planned third single Here Standing has all the misery as one of their unplanned pregnancies, and is a water-breaking ballad with face-slapping drums and a raw coldness of emotion that seaps out from all orifcies. This is their best shot at a top 5 single at this stage, and they are only 1 and a half boob jobs from making this happen.

Predicting my interest, No One has all the misery of the girls waiting on their one night stand to text his cock pics like he promised he would. Una is amazing on this, which doesn't surprise me since she can't stop gushing to magazines about all her 'just in ma bra like' images she sends to guys she meets in clubs, which in Ireland they call pubs.

The ironically named One Shot is another deadpan vocoder electro 'gem'. It's a bit of a dud with about as much charisma as a blow up doll on a life support machine. Only Shonelle's trannylicious verses cause any twitches down south, but it's not her fault she sounds like a brutal dom top.

The title track Wordshaker is the biggest grower of the lot, with its Beyonce-style strident chorus and hissy swagger having most endless impact. With synths so dirty you'll need a cleansing wipe, it's the album's equivalent to a full-facial flush of fierceness.

The girls put their love to the pregancy test on Denial, but abort all possibility of a decent melody, presumably a meaningful ballad would simply cramp their style and ruin their figures.

Open Up is a trite Hepburn-lite affair, vacuous lyrics ('I will be a good girl / just open up the fucking damn door' or something), but is actually amongst the top tracks.

Lose Control is the fourth best song here, and represents the album's cut off point for amazingness. The formulaic jagged verses kick up a fuss about being 'not the hot girl' but the chorus is great as you don't have to listen to them and they are much more convincing when spying 'who's that boy' presumably whilst signing into a swingers party.

The self-aware Not Good Enough adventageously takes away their pride by summing up their place in pop..

Whereas Deeper discreety sums up why girls-with-boyfriends might not like them so much.

The early nighter 2 A.M is a lush pop ballad worthy of S.O.A.P, Samantha Mumba, Billie Piper and Cleopatra. It's gorgeous, slighlty festive and would have been worth releasing as a Christmas single and holding Ego back for a February flushing instead.

A solid album lacking the 'let go' handbag disco of Up and If This Is Love, but their whiny brand of fierceness penetrates to excruciating levels of pleasure on 3 uptempo tracks, which are padded out with 2 severely good ballads of varying tempos and sex decisions.

Skip to these: Ego, Wordshaker, 2 A.M, Lose Control, Here Standing.

Follow This, Christina You Bitch

Above: Christina talks a good game teasing an NBA basketball player off camera.

Below: blabbermouth Cher tells Chrissy how much she loves Blackout and The Fame.

Below: a pensive Cher considers what material to make a new face out of. Brave woman.

Below: as Xtina gets more and more desperate to secure a good picture for the blogs she does the classic look-at-my-fingernails gesture to Cher who concentrates on her blinking instead.

Pop TV Special: Dancing On Ice

'Welcome to Dancing On Ice - Holly's breasts are bigger and better than ever'.

This season really does (or did) promise to be the best series yet: Sinnita finally found a gig, Heather Mills still has a leg worth standing on, Daniella's new nose is all ready to brave the white stuff again (as in actual ice), and 2 homosexuals (a twink and a daddy - not to mention Philip and those persistant 'hoodie' rumours) will be convelling over sequins and Spice Girl b-sides on their VTs.

First out the hen coup was soap-tart pixie Daniella who goes on and on about being nervous and worried she'll snort the whole rink before people have time to give her a 6th or 7th chance. Her song is Evacuate The Dancefloor and it is obvious it has been chosen for a capabale and talented beginner - the routine is excellent, and Daniella's nose flares up to sneeze completely clean air of relief. It really was fun.

Sharon Davies' VT sees the pocket-swimmer come across exactly as an ex-Olympic athlete shouldn't on reality TV - her rueful 'I have all the muscle, the discipline, the protein shakes, the clean urine, but WHY do I not have a CLUE how to just have FUN!!??' is cringeworthy. Her face is so tight - classic case of too much chlorine from all her watersports.

Sinitta's subtle brand of fierce is adequately soundtracked by Beyonce's slef-doubt saga Halo, and her routine contains the highest difficulty in content with what is called a 'monkey lift' which is no way to talk about a black woman in 2010, but Sinitta wants her career back and succeeds with glorious lip-syncing as her gigantic Russian dance partner balances her on his irristably huge thighs.

Above: just who shall be hanging up her boots first?

So Sinitta and Shaz Bags are in the bottom two. Sharon pumps herself up to convey the charisma of a po-faced ex-Olympic athlete (again), and poor Sinitta does a monkey see monkey don't and almost cries and loses the vote off with only an absolutely livid Emma Bunton sticking up for her, who also fumes that the Toy Boy singer was '158.5 % better than that fucking wooden tranny bitch' before running to join Geri for some bin-raking to enjoy her new size 10 body for the whole week it's going to last.

'Join us next week for Holly's most competitive cleavage ever!'

Sophie's Back Again

Above: Lisa Scott-Lee's unforgettable Electric music video spurned a dozen copycat promos.

In an exclusive letter to Diva Incarnate, which I sourced from her official website, Sophie Ellis-Bextor has finally broken her silence:

Hello everyone less fabulous than me,

So here you are at my new website. I hope you like it. I find this site a wonderful way for us to keep in touch between pregnancies.

This will be the first and official place to find out all the latest news for all things SE-B shaped - yes, like a pear that's 3 months gone. It was time for a new look. It'll go nicely with the new album which is nearly done and has been for 2 years.

The first single is released early April 2012. It's called `Pack It In Already (Yah Yah Yah)' and with it I have once again collaborated with the lovely and very fabulously fabulous Freemasons. It's a good introduction to the fourth album because, as with the majority of first singles it is an introduction to what else is on there - like all my anthems, uou can dance to it even if you're not gay. The new tracks feature collaborations with Calvin Harris, Metronomy, Cathy Dennis, Richard X and Ed Harcourt. It's been a lovely experience to make this album and I am so looking forward to sharing it with you all when it leaks.

In the meantime, good to see you here. You're looking really well and I think
2010 is going to be our year. See you on the telly when my Rimmel adverts come on!

Sx

Best Singles of 2009

Since learning how to count, compiling a list of 2009's best ever singles was a simple thing. My tens of readers have been counting on me, and here is the Diva Incarnate end of (last) year count-up.

01. Gala - You & Me

Gala just about composes her 1-on-1 orgasm down to a disco beat; gasping and shrieking on a brutally heartfealt dancefloor love song, this utterly adorable bipolar romance epic is unassuming and yet veers from cooing lesbian pride ('sooner or later you'll understand, sooner than later you'll hold my hand / speaking those words I've been longing to hear, a destiny stronger than your fear' - think Ellen and Porcia holding hands in the queue at Starbucks) to hysterical masochism that left me devastated as it was simply that perfect. With endearing lyrics, which emphasise her liberal gender politics to sweetly reveal her guts to fully qualify what it takes to experience true love, the visionary singer's struggle to contain herself is positively heroic as she wails with an incredulous and grappling grasp of passionate euphoria that is tinged with touching melancholy of the effort it has been to get there. I feel the same just getting out of bed in the morning, but we all have to start somewhere: breakfast, porn, coffee and then just like Gala I am howling like a bitch on heat - whatever it takes. Those stoic Banshees' Hong Kong Garden guitars (1:54) are inspired: and the final 46 seconds almost make me want to be a lesbian with amazing cheekbones.

Not technically a single, but an intimate video was shot using her Nokia and therefore, without a major label backing her, is good enough for me.

02. Kelly Rowland - When Love Takes Over
'Head under water, now I can breathe' fondly remembers former manager Mathew Knowles' preferred method for anal whilst enjoying a UK #1 and potentially the best dance song of the decade. She ain't no Lolleatta, but the one that looks like a tranny from Destiny's Child just released the best song she will ever record (plus it was playing all the time when I was in Germany). I’m not just writing this for namesake, but this really was a Kelly Llorenna tribute single and she’s not even dead yet despite appearances.

03. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Zero
Karen O's extinguishing groans are ecstatic as is the brilliant escalating disco trigger.

04. Whitney Houston – Million Dollar Bill

Tarted up by the picky Freemasons, this was exactly the invigorating dancefloor outing I wanted from her. Hard to think of her as an actual functioning pop force as evident on the X-Factor, she’s more of a spectacle, but a very fine one at that.

05. Dragonette – Pick Up The Phone

The slightly Arcade Fire sounding Autumnul album version or wintry-disco of the trembling-electro Richard X version – Dragonette’s finest song yet.

06. Girls Aloud – Untouchable
Nadine's elegant chorus and heart-bleeding middle eight are stark, aching and completely superior - what a shame we need to hear fat Kimba, born-again racist Cheryl and primrose slag Sarah on it too. I can honestly say this would be at least my 5th favourite song of 2009 were it simply sung by classy Nadine or with chav-glamour Nicola on the enchantingly plaintive and desolate verses.

07. Ladyhawke - Magic
Enjoy The Silence 2009 - kinda makes Gaga look like a try-hard tranny in comparison, as do cameras.

08. Shakira - She Wolf

With its corkscrew ploughing bass, lascivious disco sleaze and feeble ‘awoooo’, Shakira desperately needs to ditch the hip hop as this is her way forward.

09. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Heads Will Roll

Siouxsie meets Nina Hagen meets Grace Jones meets Depeche Mode.

10. The Temper Trap – Sweet Disposition

Something about its jangly sensations and sky-pleading vocal that just hits a raw nerve with me.

11. The Saturdays - Ego
Forever Is Over was a frigidly frozen turd and it still managed to hit #2 on the UK charts - I've taken such a U-turn for these girls with this still-climbing song though. Frankie is well above these roped in cosmetics counter girls, but they can all wail competently enough unlike some British girlbands. The not-quite-pulling-off-scorned lyrics aren't quite the right fit, but the bittersweet chorus is too huge to pay much attention.

12. Groove Armada – I Won’t Kneel

Imagine Stevie Nicks on the best grimacing Hi-NRG trip she would never be able to remember. The glittery neon video is yet another glistening dance showcase that makes me wish Dannii Minogue had a clue.

13. Therese - Neon Lights
With vocals sharper than sniffing tip-ex, I could not get enough of the chaffing bass courtesy of Rex The Dog. The sense of lubricated adrenaline and being pursued is addictively violating with particular fun from the messy, squelching yet glossy production toying with the singer's transparant damsel in distress 'oh daddy don't you worry' lip-biting club cubicle predicament - even Dannii would be mortified.

14. Letoya - She Ain't Got Shit On Me
When beyond-shit Beyonce gets too much for me, I slam this jam on, which blows a fuse with Luckett's outrage at being compared to 'what I think is trash ... bringing flees around here'. The UK would have lapped this up like Beyonce's love-blender devouring Jay-Z's cola bottle. Extra points for the Jason Nevins remix, which is a treadmill lifesaver.

15. Mylene Farmer – C’est dans l’air

Bizarrely ripping off Cyndi’s High & Mighty only with a tremendous galloping chorus – those lucky French.

16. Sugababes - About A Girl (Keisha version)
The ska-rave intro scorched a similar heat as Gala's Come Into My Life, and Keisha's unnoficial swansong boasts her finest gravy-gargling vocal ever. Let's not mention Ammelle's 'apple pie' vocals, which sound like a dry turd being squeezed out of an unwilling vagina. Yes, this blog gets classier with every post.

17. Saint Etienne - Method of Modern Love

Cracknell’s candyfloss vocals get spun into the band’s best melodic momentum since the Eric Kupper remix of Stars Above Us. Glistening and brisk.

18. Linda Sundblad - To All My Girls
The explosive and spiky chorus is just what her last album needed, except it went and flopped. File in amongst Robyn, Louise and Margaret Berger.

19. Aqua – Back To The 80s

Despite sounding like a novelty song (really, from Aqua?), this high-voltage blast from the past anthem showcased how good I’d have wanted a solo or group comeback song to be and then some.

20. Britney - 3
Miles better than anything Justin has delivered since cry-wanking rivers, her gorgeous put-down to her black bodyguards 'are you in?' sent chills down the spines of black cock addicts all around the world and then some.

21. Stacey Q - Trip
This actually sounds like Richard X creaming his load over Corona and Livin' Joy at the same time, only cougar Stacey's unmistakably fervent and sultry vocals are keenly out to 'start a crusade' and poor Annie's fanny-fart vocals just seem limp and a bit irrelevant by absent-minded and obviously-biased comparison.

22. Lady Gaga - Bad Romance
The theatrical execution is more demented, striking and disciplined than her contemporaries combined- she officially is what Madonna was in 1986, and I can't even imagine what her Madonna circa 1990 peak shall be like (if we get there of course, her nose is a cocaine catastrophe just waiting to happen). The bulked-up chorus is more of an avalanche that takes no prisoners, I just love the industrial noise and bile-wrenching disgust at nothing in particular.

23. Lady Gaga - Poker Face
Her nose might be a cocaine dealer’s wet dream, but this overrated song was still peaking when I wrote 2008's best of list back in March this year: eventually clogging the charts at the top spot in both America and the UK. It seems destined to become her signature hit even if its heftier follow-up Bad Romance left it sounding like a demo.

24. Agnes - Release Me
Trapped wind can be such a bitch, especially for old Wig-On-A-Turd who blasts a cracker with this epic pseudo Lara Fabien, Kelly Llorenna, Mary Kiani, Tina Cousins, Hex Hector remix bonanza. Just don't ask what's happening next, but Agnes left her skidmarks all over the joint with this one - a genuine classic and gave me nice feelings when I heard it in Germany during the climax of summer.

25. Vanessa Amorosi - This Is Who I Am
With a chorus just as big and butch as her shoulders, the Australian beefcake would make a great PE teacher yelling this chorus at her pupils as she battles her adolescant demons. She gets away with the 15 year old diary entry lyrics by the skin of her muffin-top (some might say victoria sponge) not least due to her mature Joan Osborne vocal duty that's got more guts than Sharon Osbourne in a bikini.

26. Eva Simmons - Silly Boy
This quickly wore off faster than Kelly Lorenna's fake tan on a much-needed cleansing wipe, but it's an angsty onslaught of slushy Atrari shoot 'em up synths and spat out vocals. Rated 'better than Rated-R' pop perfection. The shin kicking vocals deserved to make this a hit, but her forthcoming duet with Chris Brown at least promises something with a bit more tasteful venom.

27. Annie - Songs Remind Me of You
With anorexic vocals so thin you could peel them off like a sticker, her emaciated delivery is oddly sharp and incisive - the whisper siren's finest ever single apart from Heartbeat, and by far the 4th best song off the album. What does it remind me of though?

Ahh yes, an air vent.

28. Lily Allen - The Fear
More impressive on initial rather than repeated listens - her lyrics I just grow out of, but the chorus is like a cold gust of wind, it's just beautiful and I forget what a monster she used to come across as.

29. Madonna - Celebration
Dana International won't be losing any sleep, but I happen to love the sun-kissed oceanic late 90s wave-crashing trance. Just drop the wicked-cougar-witch vocals and channel your inner Rescue Me singer next time, plus she could do with some of Dana's hormone pills. I swear Jo Whiley was filling in for her in '09.

30. Solange - Would've Been The One
She really needs to cover the Dolzier-Lamont pop of Billie Ray Martin's Where Fools Rush In, this is the most unassuming pop song since, well, Sandcastle Disco.

31. Pet Shop Boys – Did You See Me Coming
New Order-sounding, dreamy, wistfully optimistic and much much better than the oh-so-sarcastic Love Etc.

32. Beyonce – Halo
Beyonce sings to prove a point, she doesn't sing because she has soul - she sings because she wants that fucking Oscar dammit. And she has never sounded so cynically convincing than on this - I absolutely love it, I love how desperately sad the lyrics are (well I hear what I want to hear, but there are bits that nip my nipples into submission like I never expected from her).

33. Aqua - My Mamma Said
I love the unexpected morbid turn from these guys - Lene's solo career seems to have benefited them after all. It could do without Rene on it though, as ever.

34. September – Until I Die
With a face like a bleached anus, this Swedish beauty released my favourite song of hers and it was pulled back with needless caution. Whenever these Scandinavian pop princesses score a hit, meddling record companies fritter it all away with delays and fun-sapping remixes. Such a shame as this could be any amazing dance song from 1993-2008 at least.

35. Ciara - Work
This should have been a Mel B song, but I still remember almost losing my balance on the treadmill when I first saw Ciara's helicopter weave-spinning.

36. Kate Ryan - Babacar
She's a crossdresser between Kelly Llorenna on a hen night and Sarah Whatmore turning to prostitution, but less dignified, and her latest flop was well worth the humiliation for die-hard europop fans and tragic gays with no sense of self alike.

37. Dragonette - Fixin The Thrill
Like Marcella Detroit on E, Garbage on valium, or Cyndi on a believable comeback crusade.

38. Elize - I Can Be A Bitch
The trashiest song since No Way No Way, 'shouldn't have met me on vodka night' is the most brainlessly hilarious lyric of 2009 hands-face-and-pants-all-down. Love stings, literally, and Elizee makes what could be merely trashy, frightening and disturbing into something even more tacky and amazing.

39. Girls Aloud - I'm Not The Anal Kind
Stale, stoic, self=pitying, brittle and masochistic - exactly my cup of tea then, but it's too polite to really be an absolute classic despite Sarah singing on her best behaviour. And choking-on-poo vocals Cheryl can just fuck off singing on top of all Nadine's lines - this would probably be in my top 5 if it were a Nadine solo song, or a duet with Nicola. They all look like frozen whore-corpses in the video - Cheryl's gaunt racist face looks more dead than Michael Jackson circa 2007.

40. Square featuring Siobhan Donaghy – Styfling

‘I find it so crippling…’ – you just can’t compare her to what became of the Suga’s.

41. Paula Abdul - I'm Just Hear For The Meds
I always suspected Kylie's Put The Needle On It rip-off could benefit from a pill-happy reality TV judge, and boy was I right: Paula really thought things through, performing on American Idol with as much consentration as her medication would allow.

42. Beyonce - Sweet Dreams
Bless her for trying, Bejesus Christ, this skidmark turd-rate Diana Ross is still at it, this time with a When Doves Cry rip-off or should I say weave-off - she has nothing, I repeat NOTHING, that is truly her own except those thighs, which she probably stole from a dinosaur museum anyway. The ultimate evil bitch of rnb picked up on the 'turn the lights on' mantra littered all through Michelle's superior debut-pop album and no one batted an eyelid. She's just lucky this was good or else I'd need to jump off this fence at some point.

43. Bananarama - Love Comes
Finally, a cougar anthem about spunk - a Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair for 2009.

44. Agnes - I Need You Now
The Cahill remix echo's the gorgeous piano from Divine Inspiration's The Way, but Agnes' ballad could only be improved so far despite her best efforts to have sex with a native American in the video. We’ve all been there.

45. Britney - If U Seek Amy
The largely kiddish but decent Circus album used the same template as her self-titled third, which meant consistently perky pop songs. Contrived, catchy or just a bit boring, this wasn't the hit it might have been had it been chosen as single #2 or even just released with a half-decent video. Britney for the sake of Britney.

46. Cyndi Lauper - Girls Set Your Heart
Cyndi seals her finest album in over a decade with a timely reminder of her little known 80s gem. This classless remix generated the finest close-ups the singer has experienced since True Colours - the frustration of being a Cyndi fan...

47. Sally Shapiro - Love In July
Dreamy pop with Sally's milk-leaking vocals thinly stirring waves: the ghostly 'I promise to stay around' is limper than Jay-Z watching Beyonce get undressed but actually boasts a hook more lingering than Cheryl Cole hitting a black woman refusing to buy her album.

48. Gala - Tough Love
She might have divorced herself from the misconception that she was only a dance artist, but this love-in-ruins ruefully turgid guitar mess actually grew on me like a fungus of hic-upping spasms.

49. Siobhan Fahey - It's A Trip
The ex-Nana's turtle-head vocals never sounded more atrociously sardonic and being completely free from any chance of having a top 40 hit, they showcase the track's ferociously deadpan energy of which she could never convey with her old band.

50. Ysa Ferrer – Last Zoom

YsaI’ve not properly gave her a chance, but this electronic single was convincingly dark and sly – imgagine if S.O.A.P were a MILF.

51. Lady GaGa - Eh Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)

Dripping with synths like Jenna Jamieson walking back to her dressing room, this was Gaga’s golden moment of 2009 when a little gem popped out of her bulge and into my iPod. With the looks of a tennis player, I can't get enough of the video where she bears an uncanny resemblance to Eddie Falco.

52. La Toya - Home
She'll cure AIDS one day and this brings her one step closer with a rousing chorus tinged with dollar signs that will make any sufferer with their faces decaying off feel that much better that someone...
SOMEWHERE...
SOMEHOW...
actually cares enough about her own career to make a difference.

53. Whitney - I Didn't Know My Own Strength
I think she just needs more fibre, less spliff. She'll give herself piles if she's not careful.

54. Britney - Radar

Her blow-up doll 'persona' of the Holly Vallance tribute album Blackout is still her best argument for pop perfection, and this run-of-the-mill melody is a bit like being raped - whether you enjoy it or not is besides the point, it's the experience that counts.

56. Alesha Dixon - Breathe Slow (Cahill Remix)
With-not-without remix, this became one of 2009's biggest surprises - I don't like this peanut-head-with-a-weave-stuck-on-a-giraffe-neck wannabe Sabrina as much as the next indifferent homosexual music fan, and yet this is lush, with scintilating dance production droplets. The perfect peeing-on-a-pregancy-test (or wall outside a club) anthem.

57. Whitney Houston - I Look To You
It's brave of Whitney to huff and puff through a ballad whilst singing 'when melodies are gone'.

58. Tina Cousins - Sex On Fire
Presumably she just really needs to trim her bush, the silly cougar obviously wants the whole fire brigade on her - 'untangle me boys, whooooooooaaaah, my sex is on fire!'

59. Bloc Party

60. Lady Gaga - LoveGame
With the Sugababes recording About A Girl, in retrospect listening to this song it becomes apparant that Gaga had to enhance her own sound as this is now the RedOne blueprint. The video hatched some great images, but Gaga doesn't have the unwavering video command of Madonna, Annie Lennox, vintage Deee-Lite's Lady Kier or Siouxsie Sioux quite just yet here (just look at how akwardly exected her subway lifts are).

61. Black Eyed Peas - I Gotta Feeling

62. Taio Cruz - Break Your Vagina
You know what they say about black guys: what doesn't kill you, stretches you instead - the physical CD came with a free ice-pack, crutches or wheelchair depending on the damage Taio did whilst 'breaking your heart' *wink wink*. Cheryl Cole was all set to record this until she found out Taio wasn't her body guard.

63. Lady Gaga - Paparazzi
Gwen Stefani ballad with an over-hyped-but-got-the-right-idea video starring my favourite True Blood cast member.

64. Miley Cyrus - Party in the USA
I don't know what is wrong with me, but I love this - it kind of celebrates taking the piss out of her.

65. Alexandra Burke - Bad Boys
A likeable Gloria Estefan tribute that I hope one day the Cuban refuggee diva shall return to - Burke is just a nose job and a dance beat away from being the new Lonnie Gordon. The album is solid but has few surprises and difficult to take in one sitting.

66. Royksopp feat. Robyn - Robot
I could do without Robyn on this, it's a stunning song that does not require someone famous to front it - it would have in fact benefit with a faceless singer to give it more personality. Oh wait..

67. Mariah Carey - Obsessed
Like pus oozing from Britney's blackheads from her Blackout era, this is basically double penetration of Migrate.

68. La Roux - Bulletproof
Completely ripping off Gina G's Next To You - next she'll turn out to be ginger and look like a man and not be able to sing live...

69. Alcazar - Stay The Night
Stomping europop steroids - the crashing drums and girl-group backing vocal ammunition are hi-impact and highly glamorous. One of pop's most reliable forces.

70. Pet Shop Boys - Love Etc
So amazing they had a cheap perfume named after it with notes of sandalwood, vanilla, jasmin and lilly of the valley.

71. Jenny Wilson - The Wooden Chair
I didn't see this one coming, think PJ Harvey meets Mary J. Satisfyingly strange.

72. Christina Milian - Us Against the World
Sombre re-evaluating lyrics - the American Keisha gets to grips with not recording Umbrella with satisfying self-pity ('no one could ever take that away'). Beautiful.

73. Velvet - Come Into The Night
Purging forward with her second thatbaywatchdancesong sounding single: the starlit chorus is just sensational.

74. Enrique Iglesias ft. Ciara - Taking Back My Love
For someone so gorgeous I never quite understand why he is so assexual and wet-sounding, but his pop outings are always a cut above and Ciara does her best to sound interested.

75. Brooke Hogan - Ruff Me Up
Gurrl, just cover yourself in lube and strut into your local gym if that's what you're after.

76. Danny - All On You
On the face if you're offering.

77. Velvet - Chemistry
Over the wrong side of 'looking older than 40', Velvet's never going to be a big name - this could be anyone, it's just lucky that the elements (which drown out all interest in who is singing it) are pretty addictive, and she lacks the image to transcend the identified drawbacks.

78. Kaci - Crazy Possessive

Think Britney’s Womanizer meets Britney’s Womanizer and ending up sounding like a Saturday’s Up rip-off instead.

79. The Bravery - Slow Poison

I hadn’t paid any notice of these guys since buying their debut album until She Wolf – whilst not as epic as Unconditional, I still love the despairing vocals and tormented disposition.

80. Alcazar – From Brazil With Love

More of a formulation of attitude and glamour-gestures via innuendo and gasping vocals, Alcazar are reliably amazing at what they do.

81. Amber – I Don’t Believe In Hate

More like a Kate Bush Aerial track than her exuberant Europop fluff from the 90s, remixes reliably resuscitate the baffled.

82. Ashley Tisdale – Crank It Up

Hilary Duff watch your back, gurrl.

83. A1 - Take You Home
Yes and I'll have 3 of you please, or 4 with the lights off if you really insist, that is to say, rape me.

84. Rihanna – Russian Roulette
When she finally gets her humiliation out of her system and releases worthy material to follow-up Umbrella, then I'm sure I'll be less impatient with this cloying ballad that sounds like a surly Lauryn Hill from Sister Act 2 changing the lyrics to a Whitney song in oder to appear cool. It's just not convincing enough beyond mere concept.

85. Jordin Sparks - SOS (Let The Music Play)
The anti-abortion jesus freak might look like a rugby player after a sex change, but struck bronze with this trashy tribute to Shannon.

86. Soft Toy Emergency – Critical

They flopped so hard even wikipedia tried to erase their existence. A shallow Portobello-esque stomper that was championed by Madonna’s BFF Jo Whiley.

87. Leona Lewis - Happy
Camel-toe face (well she looks like a waxed vagina to me) was back hijacking Beyonce's Halo sound with another top 50 smash - she won't clean up any awards with this one, but her nostrils will need to clean up a lot more shit unless she gets more daring material (even the Jason Nevins remix was limper than Jay-Z helping Beyonce squeeze into a size 22 leotard).

88. Annie Lennox – Shining Light
I reluctantly include this, simply because it is cheap kareoke music - and yet it is still the best melody she has sung solo on since Something So Right.

89. Cheryl Cole - Fight For This Love
She's no racist, okay? She only beat up 'that fucking black bitch' because she was drunk, okay? This is the sound of a million underground Geordies being brainwashed to vote for Jaw and buy me album or just shoplift it if you can, alreeeeet? I like the synths and won't apologise, but her constipated vocals are about as sexy as having your head flushed in a toilet, most likely by Cheryl if you happen to be: a) black, and b) a toilet attendant. Don't say she didn't warn you - 'singing's outta the question'.

90. Booty Luv - Say It
UK's two-woman answer to Velvet.

91. Alphabeat - The Spell
Rather disappointing not to come out with something as high-kicking as Fascination, this is more of a wet fart in comparison. Wear a sanitary towel and dance the night away.

92. siobhan - wifey
This eyeball-prickingly dire trance track always makes me scoff, but I still love Siob's introductory Deborah Cox cover and enjoy her durability regardless of AATW's chav stench being all over this jam.

93. Blazin’ Squad – Let’s Start Again
We can all start again, just book a room in a Travelodge and pack plenty of poppers.

94. Frankmusik – Better Off As Two
His songs could go further with a vadge on the mic, but for his jawline alone I can't begrudge this being nothing short of quite good actually.

95. Martin Solveig feat. Dragonette - Boys & Girls

96. Freemasons ft. Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Heartbreak Make Me a Dancer
With crowsfeet more engraved than the forrows on the palm of my hand, her effortless glamour continued to baffle disdainful UK music buyers, scraping a minor hit whilst scraping laughter lines onto her face with a garden rake to 'get the I-found-out-about-moisturiser-a-bit-too-late-but-God-do-I-love-the-make-up London look' as her Rimmel ad campaigns has her say.

97. Tiesto – Escape Me

I’d definitely fuck this guy for tracks – the sound I hope Jessica Sutta shall strive for if I don’t get their first.