Wot, no Morrissey?

As promised, here are my absolute definitive top 10 albums of the decade. I hope you will heartily agree with every single one of them. (You won't).

1. Girls Aloud, Tangled Up
2. Will Young, Keep On
3. Ladyhawke, Ladyhawke
4. Sugababes, Overloaded
5. Lady Gaga, The Fame
6. McFly, Radioactive (deluxe edition)
7. Dragonette, Galore
8. Kylie Minogue, Light Years
9. Scissor Sisters, Scissor Sisters
10. Amy Winehouse, Back to Black

Special mentions should also go to (in no particular order) Florence and the Machine, Take That, Kings of Leon and The Saturdays. And if a Robbie Williams album was released that contained all his best work, it would definitely be in my top 5 but unfortunately that album does not exist and the greatest hits just doesn't cut it.

I know the Girls Aloud one might be controversial - even among fellow Aloud fans, Tangled Up isn't generally considered their best - but I think it's the one that works best as an album. It's quirky and forward-thinking, it flows nicely, and it took me literally months to learn to love it but I'm glad I made the effort.

Sugababes' Overloaded won't be in anyone else's top 10 because it's a greatest hits-type compilation, but I don't play by the rules. The fact is, Sugababes are a singles act, and Overloaded is one of my most-frequently-played CDs, so stick that in your pipes and smoke it.

I'm not going to go through all ten and describe them to you (each album title in the list is an Amazon link if you want to know more) but I'd like to point out that 2000 to end-of-2009 was a GREAT decade for pop. There's been such variation: from retro 70s and 80s-style pop-rock (McFly) to futuristic crazywomen (Gaga, La Roux), from barnstorming camp (Kylie, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Dragonette) to sophisticated cleverness (Ladyhawke, Winehouse, Florence).

This begs the following questions: What will the pop landscape look like at the end of 2019? Will Madonna ever admit defeat? And how will we keep our iPod earphones in while we're bombing around on hoverboards?