By all accounts the film is complete travesty as is the fact that  they didn't just use the theme music from the original TV series. Ignoring that, this is quite an accomplished slice of power-pop from the thinking pre-pubescent's boy-band.

From a time when High School gun massacres were the sort of thing you could write pop songs about. Mr Geldof was obviously very pleased with himself for this but I didn't think it was clever then and it just sounds embarrassing now. 

For all the critical acclaim this is one of those tracks (and the same is true of the album as a whole) that you really don't want to hear more than once. You wait all that time for a successful  British rap song and  when comes along you realise why it took so long.  

Unlike the Boomtown Rats, the Police have finally acquired a bit of credibility  (that doesn't of course apply to solo Sting with his tantric sex nonsense). Perhaps if they'd sung about guns instead of girls their white-boy reggae wouldn't have provoked quite so much opprobrium from certain quarters.   

A decent dance record gatecrashing the top of the chart. What is this, 1998 or something ? (However I'd recommend that you try and get hold of it in its original form rather than this 'radio-friendly' version).

To be honest what we really, really wanted was to forget we'd ever heard this. 

Pop trivia fact : The Dooleys are the largest UK family act to hit the charts. 

More lumbering, unimaginative dross from Eminem's side project. How come this can do so well when there are so many superior hip hop offerings out there.

A classic Costello-penned rocker, top tune, great lyrics from a time when those qualities carried some weight. An effortlessly easy vistory.

Former S-Clubber goes off in an electro direction and the results are actually not that shabby.  Lacks a bit of oomph but 6 out of 10 for effort 

The sound of the Swedish fab four treading water. A couple of album-fillers lumped together as a double A-side.  Two misses for the price of one.

A phat beat (as they say) but the rap sounds like the worst bits of several other recent records stuck together. Which it might well be for all I know.

 A truly gorgeous slice of lovers rock. Sounds just as good a quarter of a century later. If you can't adore this you're past redemption pal.

A man who can do no wrong at the moment even when he produces soppy nonsense like this. Smoulders like damp J-cloth. Barry White must be spinning like a top. 

Ridiculous undoubtedly but you have to admire the way that Gary Numan has surfed the waves of terminal uncoolness and landed safely on the shores of respectability.  

Now this is a bizarre one. Perhaps someone can explain how this differs from any number of failed Eurovision entries from the last few years, none of which have had a frog in a blender's chance of making the charts. 

Laughably touted at the time as the forerunners of a US-style New Wave but disappeared faster than a Club Rep's dignity. This solitary UK hit was at least good enough not to be confused with a Eurovison song.

After the surprising funkiness of 'Toxic' this is a disappointing venture into Celine Dion territory. Not that it matters though - a recording of a colonic irrigation would still have won this match-up.

Aaaaargh !

A typically polished noughties production job but the song lacks a bite. Give it a few months and you won't have a clue who did it or when.

From the Mael brothers' second coming as European disco futurists.  If you're in the right mood it still sounds fantastic. If not it sounds like two cats fighting in a wheelie-bin.