A list of my favourite pop music tracks from each iTune category - I don't waste my Sundays!

Four things convinced me to fritter away Sunday afternoon on the singularly pointless task of choosing my favourite (not necessarily the best) song in each of my self-created iTunes categories: (a) the Telegraph is running a two-part "500 Must-Have Music Tracks" this weekend, which got me pondering, (2) Whispering Bob Harris was on Desert Island Discs this morning, and I found myself singing along to most of his picks, (3) I spent most of last week writing articles for an actual print magazine, which, given the slothfulness of my normal existence, was surprisingly like hard work, and (4) I needed a mindless reward for having recently completed a week-long wheat exclusion diet, and having subsequently started a lactose-exclusion one (don't ask).

If you love Sixties US pop music, you’re a fan of drummer Hal Blaine – whether you’ve heard of him or not

No, honestly - Hal Blaine was so brilliant, so versatile and so ubiquitous, I guarantee that you know and love dozens of the records he played on. Elvis, the Beach Boys, Mamas and Papas, The Byrds, Frank Sinatra, Simon & Garfunkel, Sam Cooke, anything produced by Phil Spector, Johnny Rivers, Roy Orbison, Johnny Rivers, some Love tracks, Richard Harris (okay – that’s stretching it!)… well, you get the idea. He was everywhere!

Not just singing pullovers with adenoids and ear-ache – my all-time favourite acoustic folk performances

So farewell then, Earl Scruggs - the greatest darned banjo-picker of 'em all

Stand by to be utterly amazed by the astonishing Sleepy Man Banjo Boys

Skiffle and Rockabilly - what did they put in the water in 1954?