To compile this #NowPop40 list, I've reviewed the track list of all 114 main-series Now! albums (so no Now! Dance, Now! Yearbook, Now! Eurovision, Now! Frothy Jazz...).

Refreshed my memory of many great songs, especially from the early part of this century. Selected one track from each release, and amended the results until I have one track per lead performer.

And then picked one nomination from each set of three albums. Roughly one song per year.

The #NowPop40 list will be roughly chronological, but - like on the actual Now! albums - I've twiddled the order especially on the double days. You'll see what happens.

As usual, this is an incredibly female-dominated list: 31 tracks are predominantly women's voices.

#NowPop40 begins with Now! 1, from 1983.

Kirsty MacColl wrote it, Tracey Ullman covered it, the video features a cameo from Paul McCartney. It's the wistful accidental-flat note in the chorus, it's the shoo-wop 60s throwback sound, it's the lavish production.

#TraceyUllman #KirstyMacColl

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pZSUADlHUQ

From the opening call, the opening riff, it leaps out of the radio and demands to be heard.

The song was turned down by Bryan Ferry and Sir Billy Idol - and six times by Simple Minds.

Forever associated with "The Breakfast Club", part of the cultural canon and an easy 1985 reference point.

Does bombast detract from the song's fretful doubts, how the Club was a one-day wonder?

#NowPop40 #SimpleMinds #TheBreakfastClub
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdqoNKCCt7A

Every third day, there's a double selection. Today, two summery hits, full of sunshine and brightness.

From 1986, Owen Paul and his marvellous muscular arms. "I don't care if being with you is meaningless, and ridiculous", it's great to be in someone's company.

#NowPop40 #OwenPaul #SummerSongs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGDuOw64R9M

And from 2000, the ultimate in feelgood anthems. Janet, Peter, Colin, George, Pam, Barbara, and Jack bring the party bus to town, brightening up otherwise dull days.

#NowPop40 #SClub7 #SClub #SummerSongs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVzJIrpharU

Jellybean was the first superstar remixer: famous for twiddling knobs and pushing buttons, while other people did the singing. He had four top 20 hits in six months, and then vanished.

Elisa Fiorillo is a vocalist with tremendous power and range, she went on to be a backing vocalist for Prince and Savage Garden.

Here's a Top of the Pops appearance.

#NowPop40 #Jellybean #ElisaFiorillo #TOTP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaYsfCs1FZw

A regular on the early Now! albums, #KimWilde was on the final rise of her rollercoaster career. In July 1988, she opened for Michael Jackson at Wembley Stadium, gave a birthday cake to Glenn Medeiros, and had this absolutely perfect pop song.

The mystery of the verse, the build that *something* is happening, and then the release of the chorus. "You came! And turned my life around!" It's literally all she can sing about!

#NowPop40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZbysVjni1A

#BelindaCarlisle, songwriters Rick Nowels and Ellen Shipley, always a fizzing combination.

This single, from her under-rated "Runaway Horses" album, is all about couples who are apart right now. Leave a light on, in the hope and expectation we'll be back together again.

A performance from the Letterman show.

#NowPop40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHfdMkKCqCo

So you're #EllieGoulding, you've split from dj Greg James, and done the moping-about album. What next? This.

"Burn" is hope and optimism, lighting the flame so it can be seen from afar. As far as Belinda's crush? Further, all the way to the heavens.

From 2013's "Halcyon Days", an interview and performance from ABC (Disney)'s "Good Morning Viewers".

#NowPop40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJqTsnxHF2A

Everyone of a certain age has a copy of Annie Lennox's "Diva". We may not have played it since the Blair era, and it's probably in a box in the spare room, but we have it.

Why? In the song, Annie feels out where she is in life: meaning emerges through finding evidence and considering it. Won the #IvorNovelloAward for song of the year, and ensured #AnnieLennox was respected for solo work.

#NowPop40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St8Ks10JCcQ

Lisa Loeb (the singer) had one massive hit, from the "Reality Bites" soundtrack. She lived across the street from actor Ethan Hawke, gave a cassette of her song, and the rest is hit-story.

"Tails" and "Firecracker" are wonderful albums to snuggle under a duvet on a chill autumn night, and Lisa's still touring. Wonder if she'll ever do a show with Lisa Loeb (Dutch cabaret artist)?

#NowPop40 #LisaLoeb
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1rGZTwzS_s

Every queer of a certain age has a copy of "Ingénue" on their shelf. Combining queer lyrics with a middle-of-the-road sound, lang fills an album with heartbreak and yearning, the love that dare not be spoken.

"Constant craving" ends the album, drawing together the threads, melding the internal and external conflict into something she can live with.

#NowPop40 #kdlang
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-oOWSJ0tGw

Every queer of a certain age has a copy of "Bat Out of Hell II" on their shelf. It's the theatrics, darlings.

Meat and Jim are pompous and grandiose and always with a twinkle in their eye. Here is a whole opera in twelve minutes, far more appealing than The Ring Cycle.

Every generation needs a larger-than-life cartoon hero, and in 1993 it was Mr. Loaf - or Mr. Blobby.

#NowPop40 #MeatLoaf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X_ViIPA-Gc

Guitarist Bernard Butler left Suede, gone home, and listened to lots of Dusty Springfield. Her spirit seeped into this uplifting song, sung by David McAlmont.

It's a massive eff-you to the negative folk in life, those who would drag us down. What could McAlmont and Butler be thinking of?

The song's since been adopted as a liberation tune by those changing their life.

#NowPop40 #McAlmontButler #PrideSongs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyrnjJ-sMEE

Who dares sample Madonna? Dance producers The Tamperer took the hook from "Material girl" and made a tune all fa-fa-fa-fabulous, dahlings.

#NowPop40 #TheTemperer #Maya #Madonna

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFNcBB3nZok

A mellow #NowPop40 pair for a hot lunchtime.

#RobertMiles' piano house is augmented by #MariaNaylor's soaring, ethereal vocals. It's a dreamy song, magic all around and in the video.

Wonder if it caught the ear of #Madonna, her '98 album "Frozen" had similar piano-dream-house moments almost as good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtyiRvB5vCo

The breakthrough single from "Be Not Nobody" is a plaintive piano tune, all about an unrequited crush from #VanessaCarlton's days at Juillard.

The song's turned into Vanessa's pension plan, ubiquitous and never stale. It's an emotion we can all relate to, and a tune we can all hum on first listen - yet still get something on the thousandth time through.

#NowPop40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwkej79U3ek

The #NowPop40 #Uncool50 section begins with *the* greatest emo ballad of all time.

Ednaswap wrote the song, they were a post-grunge band who found a home in tired/regretful/annoyed songs from the heart. Basically, emo before anyone had invented emo.

In the video, #NatalieImbruglia holds it together while living the lyric, all while filming the video. It's all very meta-textual.

The song still sounds fresh and vital.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSZBIs0gs0E

#NowPop40 meets #Uncool50's Eleven Points.

Through all their incarnations, the Sugababes were pop gold. For me, this is their crowning moment of awesome, written by Cathy Dennis but Dr Luke.

For the video, the girl gang spend an evening on the South Bank, while some fit bloke makes a beeline for them.

For the song, it's fizz and crackle and buzz and tension and intensity, and it all resolves in the most glorious keychange of joy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPo8XJgoqmE

#NowPop40 hits early 1999, with the greatest generational anthem of the era. The boomers are put in their cage, GenX and GenY run the roost now.

Gregg Alexander had made many records that nobody heard; #NewRadicals have the sound of a generation that wasn't being heard.

And still isn't.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DL7-CKirWZE

#NowPop40 hits early 1999, with the greatest pop video of the era. Britney has a dream, a little bit of innocence, a little bit of sass.

Came out of the radio like a rocket: a song to hum and sing and be heard again. Max Martin had the soundtrack for the next few years. #BritneySpears had our ears for three minutes, our hearts for much longer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-u5WLJ9Yk4

Into the #NowPop40 new century with a cocky look-at-me rap.

Eve gets respect because she's damned good at what she does, and is joined by superfan Gwen "solo career coming soon" Stefani.

The video is integral to the song's success, #Eve and #GwenStefani crash a high-society ball, get carted off to prison, and bailed out. All in a night's work!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt88GMJmVk0

Andre 3000 and Big Boi had been around for ten years before their commercial high-point. Plenty to love in their deep catalogue.

This massive hit song was a commentary on relationships and the social pressures to be in one. All couched in an upbeat soul-funk groove.

The video features Mr. 3000 in all the lead roles, perhaps an homage to Diana Ross's "Chain reaction" clip.

#NowPop40 #Outkast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWgvGjAhvIw

A pair of one-hit wonders on today's #NowPop40.

Sinéad Quinn was the runner-up on Fame Academy series 1, beaten by David Sneddon. Her solo career was one-and-a-half hit singles in early 2003; this was the half.

What happened to #SinéadQuinn? Brief spin in musical theatre, plays rockabilly tunes, and works with learning disabled folks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjruQdfVhws

#NowPop40 has pop-soul from 2008, dripping with irony and pretend solipsism. The duo were producer Adam Pallin and vocalist Imani Coppola, whose "Legend of a cowgirl" wasn't compiled onto Now!.

#LittleJackie sounded like Motown, had attitude and style -- and vanished as quickly as they'd arisen. Four albums, just this one big hit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=129pN3dobGM

The piano! The choir! The gentle melancholia in F-minor!

#Embrace had been around for a decade before this 2006 hit, which briefly threatened Coldplay-style ubiquity, but prefers to hide its brilliance in the shadows. Fashionable critics were sniffy, which is the usual mark of a good song.

#NowPop40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o3uLrKduS0

A trip to the Hard Rock Café in Glasgow was not my choice. The dining room's full of memorabilia from rock stars - Annie Lennox's outfit, shorts worn by Angus Young from AC/DC, #AmyMacDonald's guitar.

"Who?" asked my cow-orker, who doesn't listen to enough modern troubadours singing about her drunken nights on the town.

Curious, because said cow-orker ended up so drunk he couldn't get into a taxi at midnight.

#NowPop40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puZAGRkf6xc

In another place, @nonoxcol notes that a lot of #NowPop40 people have nominated Tears For Fears from Now! 16.

This thread stands by my pick of Belinda Carlisle's "Leave a light on". Wistful hope appeals a lot more than overblown nostalgia.

Two of Swindon's finest on #NowPop40.

Drawn to the nightclub to gawk, to gape, to see her ex and their new beau eating each others' faces off.

#Robyn is in her element - 2005's "Be mine" went "You had your arm around whatsername, she had on that scarf I gave you". Here, the mope is endless, there is no optimism, only crushing grind.

2010 in a nutshell, then.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcNo07Xp8aQ

"I live my day as if it was the last, live my day as if there was no past"

Bright and breezy, handclaps and fun. #ZaraLarsson leaves her loser ex behind and goes off on her own terms.

Zara won Got Talent in 2012, "Uncover" was the international breakthrough, but ignored on these shores because .gb tastemakers are useless.
#NowPop40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9q0ktbQEn4

It's June 22nd.

Five years ago today, young Roza's heart was broken. The guy she thought was forever turned out to be just another guy. You know.

Through hard work, inspiration, perspiration, and a well-timed promo campaign, a song about that emotional wave became a massive hit.

Five nights ago, young Rosa sung about that heartbreak to thousands of fans in Toronto's famous Blue Jays Stadium.

#RosaLinn: still on the way up. Yay!

#NowPop40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UbwQ8yYQ3s

120bpm is the metronome of pop: fast enough to be an excited heart, slow enough to be sustainable for hours. "Call me maybe", 120bpm in G major throughout.

Absolutely ubiquitous in early 2012, the tale of #CarlyRaeJepsen being whooshed off her feet has a glorious internal dissonance - non-rhyming couplets to end the verses? Clever!

#NowPop40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWNaR-rxAic