It is time. I'm going to let go of my pre-formed prejudices. I'll stop mouthing off to avoid hearing that which I don't want to.

I'm going to listen to pop music. I've realised that there's things that I need to know. One of those things is what makes a song popular. What makes people like it? Beyond the payola (sorry. Old prejudice dies hard), what gets a song played?

I need to learn about hooks. I don't want to, but I need to. You must understand that this is for my own art. I need to learn how to write songs which are catchy. I won't abuse the powers, however. At the very least, I don't plan to do so. Overloading a song with hooks can be disasterous, and I just want to be able to write good or memorable songs, rather than just hoping that a song is that way.

My own music collection means alot to me. There is alot of stuff there that I don't particularly listen to, and some stuff that I really dislike. It's there, however, because it came with something that I don't detest. It also keeps a nice dynamic. The music that I do like, however, really does reach out to me. It usually gives me that little shiver along the spine. Not always, as it depends heavily on my mood, but when it's there, there is no other sound I would rather hear, no other feeling I would rather feel, etc. etc. and so forth.

The problem (and the wonder) with my music collection, however, is that it is almost completely devoid of 'pop' songs. A couple have creeped in through this, that, or the other, but for the most part is clean. There are maybe 100 songs of approximately 6000 that I wouldn't normally listen to. I think that that's a pretty good ratio.

So I'm asking for your help here. I need a list of pop songs to listen to, and to study. Now there are a couple of provisos here.

• Songs from the 90, only. I've never been impressed with pop-songs from before the 90s, and I don't feel that anything has had a decent hook since about the year 2000 (give or take a year or two).
• No rap/hip hop. I've never been impressed with this, and their hooks just aren't the type of ones I'm looking for. I'm not about to call it talentless crap, as I'm in a punk band, and can totally see the irony of my doing so. I'll just say that I don't particularly like it, and most of it repulses me. I find it to be faux-violent immature crap, but that's just me.
• Give me actual song names. I don't want to be aquiring entire Back-street boys albums if there are only one or two songs with decent hooks. Also, don't be afraid to admit to knowing a song name. Knowing the name doen't mean you like it. Your indie cred is safe.

Anyway, if you would like to leave a suggestion for me, you can either hit me up on the Forum (you need to be logged in), or you can This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .