Jay-Z – “The Takeover”
Joe M says:
The Jay-Z attack on Nas in ‘Takeover’ is a masterpiece because he acknowledges that Illmatic was a great album, and even that another unspecified Nas album was insert equivocal hand-wav[…]

THE WEE PAPA GIRL RAPPERS: Wee Rule
Is it lame to like a song because it has Wee in the title. Of course not. Luckily, that is not the real reason why Wee Rule, well, rules. Though my description of why Wee Rules rules is partially about the idea of […]

Smiley Culture – “Police Officer”
It has been 20 years since this simple song was released and about a dozen since I fell for it, playing it on a dare in an 80s disco. I have listened to it well over a hundred times, and I’m n[…]

Urban Cookie Collective – “The Key: The Secret”
Kat of General Khaki writes:
Verses? Let’s face it, they’re rubbish, aren’t they? The artist blabbers on because they are not concise enough to get the gist across wi[…]

Art Garfunkel- “Bright Eyes”
There are two songs in the world which are guaranteed to make me cry: Ordinary World by Duran Duran, and Bright Eyes. One is about what it is like not being a pop star any more, something I should find difficu[…]

Shystie – “Woman’s World”
Alex Macpherson writes:
She was meant to be the female Dizzee, the girl who would feminise grime enough for the charts and the broadsheets alike while still holding down the scene’s realness. In[…]

Depeche Mode – “Just Can’t Get Enough”
Depeche Mode are a curious lot in that they’ve made a lot of entertaining singles in which you can plainly see the seeds of their future complete awfulness: for much of the band&#82[…]

Culture Beat – “Mr Vain”
There is an argument, one I hope to elucidate in the following, that Culture Beat are exactly that. The rhythm of our Western Culture in 1993: the thud of the backing of this song is merely the underpinning […]

Kim Wilde – “Cambodia”
Mark S says:
Writing a chart-song with this title in 1981 – Year Zero was 1978, as punky types (=me) liked boringly to remind everyone – sets some kind of dunderhead record, you’d think, for […]

Public Enemy – “Fight The Power”
Steve M says:
Clearly I picked this because I was worried there wouldn’t be enough rockist rap in the list. I still think this is their best and most succinct single, although I know the genera[…]