80. Teitur, The Singer (2009)

Thank God – after weeks of disappointment, a new record that I've picked out of the bulging Rogers postbag that I love, love, love. Paul Lester at The Guardian (hello, Paul) reckons he sounds like Frank Spencer. He does NOT, Paul. He sounds wonderful, and this song is a sliver of gorgeousness.

79. New Kids On The Block, I'll Be Loving You Forever (1989)

Firstly, a disclaimer. I am 30 years old. I was born in 1978, and got to that strange stage of life that we call adolescence around 1988 to 1989. While those of you ten years older than me were wearing neon overalls and necking fistfulls of whatever-knows-what, I was sitting in my room, writing in my diary, the walls behind me absolutely bloody plastered with posters of Jordan, Joe, Jon, Donnie and Danny.

Last night, I went to see New Kids On The Block – or The Block, as they amusingly like to call themselves these days – in London's roomy O2. I am working on a big project about boy bands, and this was to be the first leg on my "journey".

I had a problem, however. My cynicism. Having endured some old songs by the band I used to love at a hen night last year, I knew their songs were largely terrible. Now, I was going to destroy my primary-coloured, Smash Hits-fuelled dreams by seeing them live, and then all my excitement for anything at all in the future, ever, would puff away forever.

So I don't know if it was the enthusiasm of my friend Lucy, who came to the gig with me, or whether it had something to do with succumbing the persuasive power of being in a stadium with 80,000 screaming women, but something strange happened. I loved every bloody moment. And when they played this song, the song I used to swoon over as a crimped-haired eleven-year-old, I blubbed. Like a girl.

78. Lord Tanamo and The Skatalites, I'm In The Mood For Ska (1965)

The first dance at Bryan and Anna's wedding – the blissfully happy couple had a routine and everything. Enough to make this cynic's hard heart melt like butter, it was.

77. Billy Idol, White Wedding (1982)

My lovely friend Bryan is marrying his very lovely missus, Anna, this afternoon in Woburn. I am reading in the wedding. I intend to arrive on the back of Billy's motorbike. I haven't told them yet, but I'm sure they won't mind.

76. Modern English, I Melt With You (1982)

I heard this coming booming out of a car stereo in Hackney today. Quite an unusual thing to happen, that. I was reminded how much New Order's Temptation, released the same year, reminds me of it, and how it always puts a spring in my step regardless. And indeed it did.

75. Franz Ferdinand, Ulysses (2009)

I don't care if people go, ooh, this is their new sound or, ooh, no-it's-not, it's their old sound all over again for the fuggin' third time. I don't care. This song rocks and Alex Kapranos' sexy voice still makes me go hakjfghskjfhgfkjhkjk. Which is foreign for swoony.

74. Sam Cooke, A Change Is Gonna Come (1964)

I wanted to avoid the obligatory fromage-filled Obama post, but I just heard this on Radio 2, and I nearly fell over. Less with the emotion of the day – although I'd sure as anything like to be in Washington DC now and not in a rather cold Hackney – but by Sam Cooke's voice. God damn it, Jesus Christ, and a thousand hallelujahs: Sam Cooke is the GREATEST SINGER OF ALL TIME, you hear, and if you argue with me, then you're just WRONG.