It’s been a busy year in pop, and WAPS has been delighted to guide you through it!

Looking back over our articles prompted us to compile a rundown of 2009’s best pop songs – you know, because there really aren’t enough lists flying around at the moment…and with this in mind, we whittled a shortlist of almost 200 tracks down to 50. There were arguments, believe us, but here they are.

We hope you’ll agree that our selection represents the year in pop rather well, and we apologise if your favourite song or artist fell by the wayside. The list is presented in alphabetical order by artist because we think each track is equally important (not very scientific, but there you go.)

Finally, to celebrate our Top 50, Nokia Music have generously supplied us with two vouchers – worth 50 songs each! – which we are giving away to two lucky readers (one per winner). If you’re a winner you could download our entire Top 50 from the Nokia music store – or 50 entirely different tracks, the choice is yours!

To be in with a chance of winning*, all you have to do is leave a comment telling us your favourite track of 2009 and why you love it. The winners will be selected at random.

* Nokia Music Store is only supported on PC with Internet Explorer. Prize draw open only to UK residents. Competition closes at 31st December 2009. Terms and conditions apply.

	Alexandra Burke ft Flo Rida – Bad Boys With the public behind her and celebrity backing from Beyonce, X Factor 2008 winner Alexandra Burke couldn’t go wrong with her first ‘proper’ single, ‘Bad Boys’ -and yet for some curious reason Flo Rida was roped in for a cameo. If you’re reading, Flo, she’s not called Alexander. Mispronunciation-issues aside, ‘Bad Boys’ was a pop song you couldn’t help but bounce along to. Swanky video, too.
	Alphabeat – The Spell Exuberant Danish pop group Alphabeat bounced back from label limbo with their strongest single to date. ‘The Spell‘ was an irresistible take on early 90s dance acts such as Black Box and Snap, but sadly failed to translate into mega chart succes
	Beyonce – Halo Although ‘Halo‘ pretty much marked the point that Ryan ‘One Republic’ Tedder’s sound became overly familiar to the world and his wife, nobody minded because the sound was coming from Beyonce. Emotional pop of the highest order.
	Beyonce – Sweet Dreams A ferocious slab of electropop that showed Beyonce – sorry Sasha Fierce – at her most deadly. Ms Knowles stole the show with her rendition of this single at the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards.
	Black Eyed Peas – Boom Boom Pow WAPS declared BEP’s ‘Boom Boom Pow‘ almost unlistenable the first time round, yet by the end of the summer it was rarely off our ipods. A bizarre dancefest of epic proportions that kickstarted six months of world domination from the Peas.
	Britney Spears – 3 An odd year for Britney – her ‘Circus’ tour ran to 97 dates and made millions, while its star released a series of increasingly lackluster singles that she failed to promote. ‘3‘ was the only new one, and was intended to showcase her frankly unnecessary ‘Singles Collection’. The pervy ode to threesomes divided fans, but WAPS loved it.
	Calvin Harris – I’m Not Alone Scottish producer/electro-bod Calvin Harris was unavoidable in 2009, and unfortunately so were his vocals – but his refusal to hire a guest vocalist didn’t stop ‘I’m Not Alone’ from storming to the top. His mega-wacky Jedward stage-invasion, however, may yet become his defining career moment. D’oh.
	Cheryl Cole – Fight For This Love What is there to say about Cheryl Cole that you haven’t heard already? How about: ‘Fight For This Love‘ is actually brilliant and deserved to be a number one smash. It also resulted in one of the best X Factor performances of the year. Shame her album’s a bit ropey, but hasn’t she got lovely hair?

(more…)

OneRepublic

Ryan Tedder has taken time out from producing powerful, drum-heavy tracks for the likes of Kelly Clarkson and Leona Lewis to record some powerful, drum-heavy tracks with his own band: OneRepublic. And yes, the lack of a space is intentional. Have a listen to this preview of the band’s brand new single ‘All The Right Moves’ and let us know what you think – if you can make a decision based on a poorly edited 30 second clip, that is.

‘All the Right Moves’ is taken from their second album ‘Waking Up’, released on November 17th.

The Joseph Khan-directed video for Kelly Clarkson’s ‘Already Gone’ has arrived, and things are really ‘kicking off’ with this ballad, let us tell you.

According to Kelly, she wrote the song with One Republic’s Ryan Tedder, who went off and secretly gave Beyonce a very similar track (‘Halo‘) which ended up being released before Kelly’s ‘All I Ever Wanted’ album came out. Kelly was so peeved that she begged her label to remove ‘Already Gone’ from her album, and has now revealed – perhaps unsurprisingly – that she really didn’t want it to be a single. On top of all this, Khan has intimated via Twitter that he is not happy with the video but that he had to step back and let Team Kelly edit it however they saw fit. Meanwhile, Tedder denies any wrongdoing but is, we suspect, probably quite pissed off about the whole thing.

We never thought the songs were all that similar, to be honest, but at least this is some much-needed publicity for Kelly, whose ‘All I Ever Wanted’ seems to be struggling somewhat.

Kelly Clarkson’s new single ‘I Do Not Hook Up’ doesn’t seem to be taking off in quite the same way ‘My Life Would Suck…’ did, but we still love it. Here she is, performing the track on Australia’s Rove show.

Is it wrong that we think the presenter is quite hot??