The UK Top Ten.

What songs are currently the most popular among our friends across the pond this week? Let's have a look.

10. Girls Aloud "The Promise" - My five favorite ladies are enjoying yet another week in the top ten. The gods are favoring them right now.

9. Akon "Right Now (Nah Nah)" - Not even the Britons are immune to festering garbage like this.

8. X Factor Finalists "Hero" - Refer to the comments I made about the number 9 song.

7. Britney Spears "Womanizer" - Not as big of a hit over here as it was on our home turf. Then again, Britney wasn't wandering around London bald and without panties all last year, so maybe they just don't care.

6. Alesha Dixon "The Boy Does Nothing" - Considering it's a Xenomania track, a.k.a. pop meisters that are responsible for all of Girls Aloud's music (in other words- absolute genius), "The Boy Does Nothing" is possibly one of this year's most irritating singles.

5. Katy Perry "Hot 'N Cold" - Yawn. Not particularly interesting.

4. The Killers "Human" - You could say this song is doing slightly better in the UK than it did on our shores.

3. Beyonce "If I Were A Boy" - I'm still failing to understand the magnetic forces that the world's charts seem to have to Beyonce songs. How in the hell can this cow routinely deliver bad music and still land herself bigger hits each time?

2. T.I. featuring Rihanna "Live Your Life" - "Mai A Hee" is certainly no work of art, that's for sure. But why botch up that song's amazing Euro-trashiness for some ghetto low-rida anthem? And how many times can we listen to Rihanna singing through Autotune? I mean, honestly.

1. Take That "Greatest Day" - Their comeback isn't stopping, apparently. Robbie Williams must be loving this.

Despite the presence of Beyonce and Akon, overall I'd say the UK Top 10 is far more agreeable than anything that reaches the top of America's charts. But we'll discuss that on Thursday when the Billboard charts are announced.

Flashback alert.

Morrissey might scoff at the fact that someone like me - who lumps electronic, pre-fab European pop music among his favorite things to listen to - also enjoys The Smiths to a large degree. But I can't help it if they're amazing. If you ask people what their favorite Smiths song is, the majority of them would probably say "How Soon Is Now?" (or "Asleep", if you're a character in The Perks of Being A Wallflower), but for me, "This Charming Man" takes the cake. Morrissey himself said that writing the song was about eschewing many of the standards of mainstream gay culture back in the 1980s (which still exists in many forms today); he sought something that was more refined and sophisticated than the crude, macho facades of bears or leather daddies or other such aspects of homo-ism. Everything from the lush, brisk feel of the guitars to the intriguing story of a veiled flirtation between a young man stuck on a hill with his bicycle and the gentleman who offers him a lift in his luxurious car. It's a beautiful song, sharply contrasting to the decadance and synthesized assembly line music of the 1980s.

Anyway, enough of my attempts at refined babbling. Play the video if you want to hear "This Charming Man".

Tell you what...

If the Yeah Yeah Yeahs don't get on and release a new album already, trouble is coming their way.

Just saying...

Greetings, mortals.

Welcome, one and all, to Mp3's and Cookies. My little music blog. Here I'll be covering whatever happens to tickle my fancy in the good ol' world of tunes. Remain seated please, and keep all hands and arms inside.

I listen to everything from top 40 to indie to electronica to alternative to a bit of jazz, a bit of rock en Español to a bit of classical. Anything, really, except rap, r&b, and country. Or the Trinity of Terror, as I like to call it.

I could list the bands/artists that I will often be discussing in favorable words with, but that might take too long. So how about I list some of the bands/artists that I'll occassionally discuss that won't be finding much love and affection from my keypad -

Beyonce
Christina Aguilera
Lily Allen
Nickleback (isn't it a law by now that everyone should hate this band?)
Akon
Pretty much anything categorized under the aforementioned Trinity of Terror

There we go. Seems like we're getting off on the right foot here. Anyway, happy reading music fans. Feel free to leave your comments. If you agree with my tastes and my ramblings, then kudos to you. You get a cookie (along with that mp3). If you disagree with my tastes and my ramblings, then...toss off. I don't care in the least.