Welcome to This week's best new pop song where I select just one great song to feature every week. Pop lovers are always hungry for a new sound so I sift through all the dross and hype to bring you one quality track every week. The weekly poll lets me know if I've hit the mark. The rules are pretty simple. Every week's pick has got to be:

GOOD the best song out whatever the genre, whoever the artist and with no industry influence allowed

NEW well, at least recent and certainly not something that's been sitting at the top of the charts for weeks. I'm not trying to be hot off the presses just current.

POP unashamedly commercial and crowd-pleasing, disposable and forgettable, it doesn't matter as long as it's a great tune that brightens your day.

NEW - This Week's Best New . . . Blog

The hardest thing about limiting this page to one song choice a week is all the ones that I don't mention so I started a blog to note down all the other pop songs and news that caught my ear, such as this week: Shouldn't the Black Eyed Peas be selling more records?  and This week's selection was Easy

My Job

Every week I add my top pick to the site, demoting last week's selection to the archives [see below]. I give it one of three ratings: most will get a "Nice tune!", a few might get a "Lovin' It!!" and once in a long while you might see an "Instant Classic!!!". Note my clever use of exclamation marks in the rating system.

I also include some places you can find your own top pop songs and a discussion of what makes perfect pop music (this last bit's a bit self-indulgent so it's stuffed at the bottom).

Your job

• Rate my choice
• Give me some ideas for next week
• Where else can I find new pop music? My weekly picks are very biased towards the US and UK scenes. What can you recommend in your country that's yet to break internationally?

"Secrets" by One Republic

A stadium-filling middle of the road rock song that I rated a nice tune but a record vote thought should have been voted higher.  Thanks to all the people who voted (even the guy who said it was sh*t) I really appreciate it.

"Mowgli's Road" by Marina and the Diamonds

An indie pop song with dark overtones and unusual vocals by the (gorgeous) lead singer but very listenable and fun at the same time. I awarded it "Nice Tune!" and am still playing it every day. Voters were split between thinking the same and some who thought it deserved even more.

"Nobody" by Wonder girls

Sexy South Korean girl group are attempting to storm the US charts with this English version of a song which was a huge hit back home. I found it jaunty and infectious with an amusing video and seem to have underrated it as a "Nice Tune!" because most voters thought it deserved better.

"Bad Romance" by Lady GaGa

I liked the chorus, clever lyric and Tarzan Boy chanting. Most agreed it was a good choice but some visitors felt I could have done better. Maybe too obvious a choice.

"This is who I am" by Vanessa Amorosi

Pop rock from Aussie singer-songwriter that I said would sell on the gimicky sounds featured. Voters agreed it was a Nice Tune!

"Dominos" by the Big Pink

I called this a "rangy anthem" and enthused about the irresistible chorus. Visitors thought my rating of "Nice Tune!" was over-generous and that I could do better.

"Fight for this Love" by Cheryl Cole

I fell for this smooth song after initially thinking it bland and formulaic - it's grown on the public too who agreed with my "Nice Tune!" award. I still think she's got too thin and should eat more biscuits.

"Sexy Chick" by David Guetta ft Akon

Rare that I say "lovin' it!!" about anything French but this is the rating I gave David's dance track which has a sublime moment of genius precisely 1m:26sec in. You lot liked it too but thought I was a bit generous with my exclamation marks.

September 29th Cheryl Cole - Fight for this love

September 22nd David Guetta/Akon - Sexy Chick

September 15th Paloma Faith - New york

September 8th Pixie Lott - Boys and Girls

September 1st Taio Cruz - Break Your Heart

I've always loved pop music and have never understood people who are dismissive of it or who ignore great songs because they don't fit into their favoured music genre. Of course I understand why people are snooty. Pop is mostly:

• formulaic, derivative and almost by definition unoriginal
• commercial and calculated without much artistic integrity
• packaged to sell with shallow, surface glamour - style over substance
• corny, re-hashed lyrics returning to the same old themes of love, sex and rejection
• obsessively youth- and looks-orientated

But despite or perhaps because of all these things, good pop songs deliver what you need day to day from music. A single song can lift your mood and a load of them in the background make boring jobs less boring. It's not that songs from other genres of music don't do these things it's just that when they do they're really pop songs anyway.

Sub-genres: pure and power

You could list dozens of pop classifications from dance to country, indie to pop rock but to me there are two main varieties of pop song:

PURE POP which is all about the sound. The beat and the melody of the best songs get in your head and make you want to hear them again and again (until you've played them too much).

POWER POP which draws an emotional response however fleeting or contrived.

Some examples:

Recent history - Pokerface by Lady GaGa ** I Kissed A Girl by Katy Perry (pure pop) You Raise me up by Josh Groban ** A Moment Like This by Leona Lewis (power pop)

Ancient history - Break my Stride by Mathew Wilder ** I Get Around by The Beach Boys (pure pop) Alone by Heart ** Against All Odds by Phil Collins (power pop)