As is customary around these times, the next few weeks here will be home to a step through some of my favourite songs of the year. They're in no particular order, except for the 24th, which will talk about the best thing I've heard all year (and it's probably not going to be much of a surprise, really. A clue: see the entry after this one). Entries may have downloads, they may not; it all depends, really.

So, let's begin!

Lily Allen — LDN

Tommy McCook & The Supersonics — Reggae Merengue

Despite there being lots of reasons to dislike Allen (celebrity nepotism, fawning press, another use of 'MySpace' to discover an artist who, surprise!, was already signed to EMI), I just can't do it. Not when she calls out the NME for dropping her and Beth Gossip from the cover for Muse, slags off part of her own album which was foisted on her by the record label, and well, for songs like LDN. Based around a horn sample from the linked track above, LDN's cheery sounds belies the rather depressing lyric of a trip through modern London. It's rather spiffy. The single lacks the rather sad image of the video with Lily wandering around a grey London in her red dress, but it's still rather splendid.

And yes, I can forgive her for the "Tesco" / "al fresco" line. But only just.