Wake me up when September begins

Right, we've got things to do, let's get on with the first of them.

Three years ago we ran a feature throughout November by the name of Songs To Learn And Sing, wherein we invited bloggers, friends, countrymen to write on one topic: "the song you think everyone should hear". As you can see from that link, we tried to do it again the following May, where it was about as successful as all our other public appeals. But when it worked, my, did it work. Phonogram's Kieron Gillen produced a much linked to appraisal of Rhoda and the Special AKA's The Boiler. Emmy The Great mentioned her friend's unheard of new band Noah And The Whale. Tom and Gareth from Los Campesinos!, very early on in their hype, talked up Yo La Tengo and Bikini Kill respectively. And then there was recommendations for Sunset Rubdown and Madness and Toto and Esther Phillips and My Life Story and The Saints and Stereo Total and The Chills and Geneva and The Black Heart Procession and the New Pornographers and Jackie Lee and... you get the picture.

Well, this November we're giving over all thirty days to a new venture by the name of Noughties By Nature (clever wording, we know, cheers), in which we'll list the undisputed one hundred and eighty greatest songs of this decade just closing.

(Sidenote: we know what you're thinking, but those of you who follow our Twitter will know we first angled around for contributors a good six weeks ago, before Pitchfork's end of 00s roundelay began. So nerr.)

The main points:

- 30 days, 180 songs = six nominations a day (this doesn't mean you can only write about six, by the way, it means there'll be six posts a day, hopefully each by someone different every day)
- One song per artist, in list rather than countdown format
- A couple of paragraphs or whatever feels necessary, about each nomination, about why it's so great/important/inspirational/whatever. Don't be all Ian MacDonald about it
- A good number, hopefully, of volunteers to write them, as we can't do it all ourselves, plus hopefully a handful of guest one-offs

Which is where you come in. This is a democratic rundown, a collection for the people. Are you interested? Think of some songs to write about and let us know: email sweepingthenation@dsl.pipex.com, or drop off a message on Myspace or Twitter. Or just leave a comment. OK?