Behind closed doors, I finalized my Top 25 for 2007 tonight.

It's the third year for such a countdown on ryanwelton.com, but this time we'll take each song one by one for the next month. And, unlike the two years I've done this before, I kept a journal of songs I heard throughout the year and consulted a list of 2007 singles.

Seriously: I spent about five hours putting this list together and listening to each song. My criteria are pretty easy:

1. It has to be well crafted. Great hook. Great words.

Because we're talking about songs and not albums here, I'm not so much interested in production music unless it's out-of-this-world good. And, there were 2 songs I'd label as production hits to make my list.

2. Did the song make a mark on 2007 pop culture?

I'd say there are four or five songs on this list with a specific mark on the year in pop culture, and one song is possibly the most relevant pop culture song, for a given year, in our lifetime. Well, if you're 37.

3. I had to love it.

There isn't a song on this list, which I'll detail over the next month, that I wouldn't put on a 2007 end-of-year mix CD. What's weird about 2007 is that, to me, the singles were way better than the albums. However, this was probably the best year for pop singles in the past decade.

Overall, 16 of the spots are taken up by women. I still say women are releasing vastly superior music than men. Why? Most men are in rap, country or rock, all of which -- right now -- are inferior genres to pop. Each genre has it's day, and right now it really is pop's.

Five of the spots went to country artists.

Five artists have two songs on this countdown.

Two of the tunes have rap in them, but only one of them could even be considered rap.

Six songs emanate from artists who got their start on reality shows.

One of the songs, I assure you, we'll all despise in 10 years.

One of the songs, in the Top 10, 95 percent of you will never have heard.

Most folks would consider only two of the songs in this countdown to be "rock." I'd label about eight of them as that.

One of the artists in the Top 25 this year is the Bob Dylan of this generation.

One of the artists very well could be dead by the time I finish the countdown.

Think you know who's who? Jot your thoughts in my comments list or add your own Top 25 for the year. It gets underway Tuesday night, so look for No. 25 on Wednesday morning.