Recently in Song of the Day Category

Today sees the release of a new Best Of collection from Nick Lowe, which is as good a reason as any to feature him in Song of the Day.

Quiet Please...The Best of Nick Lowe contains 49 songs and I dare say at least 40 of them will be fairly splendid.

What's So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding was originally released by Lowe's band Brinsley Schwartz in 1974 before becoming something of a hit for Elvis Costello - whose first few albums were produced by Lowe - in 1979.

It was also recorded by Curtis Stigers in 1992 in what I can only imagine is a fairly awful version but which - through being on The Bodyguard soundtrack, one of the biggest selling albums of all time - has effectively become Nick Lowe's pension plan.

Once In A Lifetime is a brilliant song that you probably think just cannot be improved upon.

I would have agreed until I saw Kermit the Frog doing a splendid David Byrne impression on the same song - behold the genius...

If ever a song deserved the description "if you don't like this, you don't like music", it is surely I Want To Hold Your Hand by the Beatles.

It is 144 seconds of pure pop genius with the bit in the chorus where their voices go in opposite directions being particularly wonderful. I sang it to my baby son this morning and the "ha-ha--ha-ha-hand" bit at the end absolutely cracked him up.

Fans of utter trivia will be thrilled to learn that it was written in the basement of Jane Asher's mother's house, I'm sure. It was Number One for five weeks.

I can still remember the bloke in the next room to me in my university halls of residence getting really excited when he heard that members of the Smiths, New Order and the Pet Shop Boys had formed a group.

"It will be as good as all three bands," he said - and he was wrong.

Well, he was mostly wrong. Electronic weren't as good as any of the members' original bands but they were pretty decent and their debut single - Getting Away With It - is a belter that any of those groups could be proud of.

Neko Case is a country singer who used to be in the band the New Pornographers (a very bad name for a band, I think) and then recorded under the name Neko Case and Her Boyfriends (which, as band names go, is very good).

Her new album Middle Cyclone is released this week and if contains anything as good as this - Hold On, Hold On, from 2006 - it will be rather excellent.

There are lots of people I could have picked to complete Stiff Records week - Elvis Costello, Madness, Nick Lowe, The Pogues, Ian Dury and the Blockheads.

But some of those have already featured in GP's Song of the Day and the others soon will anyway, so I've gone for someone a bit more obscure who shows the depth of the talent that there was on Stiff.

Rachel Sweet was a teenager from Akron, Ohio when she signed to Stiff and had a 1978 hit with B-A-B-Y. She is probably the only person on the label to have a minor role in the American sitcom Seinfeld (as George Costanza's cousin) and was also executive producer of the film Legally Blonde.

To prove the point I made on Monday about Kirsty Maccoll, here is They Don't Know: a song by Kirsty that because a big hit in Britain and America for Tracey Ullman.

Ullman signed for Stiff Records in 1983 and released a number of decent singles including They Don't Know, Breakaway (a version of the 1964 Irma Thomas song) and My Guy (a version of the Madness song My Girl).

Already a TV star in Britain, she went on to become even more famous with her own show in the US, and it is now the law in at least 48 states to say that her programme was the first place to feature The Simpsons.

Probably signed by Stiff to be the female Madness, the Belle Stars had a number three hit in 1983 with the rather splendid Sign of the Times.

Like yesterday's pick, it's one of those songs I probably hadn't heard in 20 years until my brother bought me a four CD boxset of Stiff Records singles. Good to hear it again, though...

Brilliant Mind by Furniture got to Number 21 in 1986 and is the second in our week of Stiff Records Songs of the Day.

Despite having that slight pompousness that blighted so many 80s bands, it's rather a top tune, especially if you associate it - as I do - with its use in the first series of Trigger Happy TV.

Some of Furniture went on to become dance act Transglobal Underground, while singer Jim Irvin is a well-known music journalist.

The first of a week dedicated to great singles from Stiff Records is Kirsty Maccoll's version of the Billy Bragg song A New England.

Complete with an extra verse that Bragg wrote specially for Maccoll, A New England reached the Top Ten in 1985 and is rather spiffy. Since Maccoll's sad death in 2000, Bragg has sung the "Kirsty verse" as a tribute to her.

Kirsty Maccoll is best known for cover versions - this and the Kinks' Days - for being a backing singer on countless records and for her duet with The Pogues, Fairytale of New York.