3. Dear God - XTC (1986)

ANDY Partridge is my favourite lyricist - he's sharp, clever, insightful, honest, funny. This song, despite his own reservations about it, is the ideal combination of all those factors. Questioning the existence of God in a less-than-four-minute pop song without being preachy seems impossible, but Partridge does it with stunning conciseness and passion. Musically it's suitably grand for such a topic, with its pensive acoustic guitar, pleading-yet-forceful melody, stirringly strident rhythm section and sweet-and-sour strings. But the deal-sealer is the words - a truly great lyric should make you think, and this does just that.

4. Pyramid Song - Radiohead (2001)

RADIOHEAD can be depressing at the best of times and this is one of their bleakest moments. It's also one of their most beautiful. What really got me the first time I heard this post-apocalyptic nursery rhyme - which stopped me dead while sweeping the warehouse floor at Target many years ago - was the way the piano sits with the melody. It's so odd and unwieldly at first but it all makes a weird shuffling hypnotic kind of sense by the midway stage when the drums come in. There's no real chorus, just a tragic resolving melody, an enticing eerieness, and a feeling that this is where art and popular music meet in one frighteningly pretty place at the end of the world.

5. Where Is My Mind? - Pixies (1988)

I WAS tempted to go with the jubulantly exciting Gigantic, but this Pixies number is equally as simple and possibly more effective. Black Francis' surreal non-sequiturs and reverbed background howl make for an unnerving ride, something backed by the song's absurd dynamics (the verse is quieter than the chorus!). But the kicker is that it's all such a disarmingly charming ode to insanity consisting of a modest chord structure, a lazy guitar line, a wonderfully wonky melody and a sound that's as raw and fresh today as it was 21 years ago.

6. Cherub Rock - Smashing Pumpkins (1993)

ARMED with about 40 over-dubbed guitars, some driving colourful drumming and Billy Corgan's idiosyncratic whine, the Pumpkins kickstarted Siamese Dream (and their short-lived halcyon days) with this ball-tearing grunge worker that sound like it was written for stadiums, not dingy alt-rock clubs. Corgan's lyrics are a kiss-off to the music industry delivered in part-angsty cry, part-purr, but the best bit is his guitar solo, where his guitar screams like its wounded. It's the best solo of the '90s.

7. Kashmir - Led Zeppelin (1975)

YES, Stairway To Heaven is awesome, but for me Kashmir is the peak of Led Zeppelin's awesomeness (although I nearly went for the proto-metal war cry of Immigrant Song). The lyrics are typically enjoyable-but-meaningless Robert Plant nonsense, but his voice goes to stratospheric places over the top of that driving Arabic rock drone. It's psychedelic symphonic rock that conjures up wide open spaces and is capped off musically by some typically stellar drum fills by John Bonham.

8. All Apologies - Nirvana (1993)

SMELLS Like Teen Spirit is the big one and that song did hit me like a ton of bricks as a wide-eyed 11-year-old watching Rage, but this one is more moving and a more fitting paeon to Kurt Cobain's immense talents. As the last proper song on their last proper album, All Apologies burns with a mixture of confusion, resignation, hope, humour, and anger. It's one of Kurt's finest melodies too, and that delicate two-string guitar figure is one of the nicest he ever wrote.

9. Psycho Killer - Talkings Heads (1977)

THE second verse of this song is one of my all time favourites: "You start a conversation, you can't even finish it/you're talking a lot, but you're not saying anything/when I have nothing to say, my lips are sealed/say something once, why say it again?''. It tends to come to mind often during talks with people who like the sound of their own voice. But there's more to it than David Byrne's insightful cynicism - the skittering/stuttering guitars, the oh-so-simple bass line and that yelping "aye-yi-yi-yi-yi'' make the hairs on my arms stand on end and salute Talking Heads.

10. Everlong - Foo Fighters (1997)

FOO Fighters first two albums are their best, hands down, but this high-paced rock-ballad (from their second record The Colour & The Shape) is the key showcase of Dave Grohl's many abilities. His drumming is superlative and fits the song's immaculate arrangement down to the ground. Great riffs and progressions fit together like a jigsaw, the whole thing sounds timeless, and Grohl sings his heart out.

And because I couldn't stop myself once I started, here are the ones that just missed the cut.

11. Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division

12. Sabotage - Beastie Boys

13. Epic - Faith No More

14. Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen

15. War Pigs - Black Sabbath