This time last year I was wondering if there would ever be a good no.1 again, and there wasn’t until Sugababes released Push The Button, one of only 2 good no.1s of the whole year (the other being Madonna’s Hung Up). In the 3 and a half months of this year there have already been 2 good no.1s (Madonna & Gnarls Barkley)out of 8, so a quarter – things are looking up. And best of all is this week’s top 3 – Gnarls Barkley, Rihanna and Infernal, 3 songs which have all featured in my ‘Top of the Poptastic!’ lists, and 2 are even in my top 6 songs of the year so far, a chart which covers releases from all over the world. They are actually my 3rd and 4th fave songs released in the UK. There don’t seem to be as many ace songs released overall so far this year, but the ones we’ve had have done fairly well, at least gaining critical acclaim (eg. Delays, The Research) or plentiful TV/radio play (All American Rejects, Protocol). There have been extremely few pure pop songs released, however, which is a worrying trend but hopefully with the poptasticness of the current top 3, others will be encouraged to ‘go pop’. There have been other encouraging signs as well, for example the very positive reaction to Voodoo Child by Rogue Traders when it was played on Radio 1 this morning (and no-one even mentioned the singer being Izzy from Neighbours, which I’m sure will make loads more people buy it cos she seems to be a very popular character) and the new Europa division of Universal, a section of the label set aside for releasing hits from Europe, the first success being Infernal.