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BuzzJack Music Forum _ UK Charts _ Below-average years for chart music

Posted by: BillyH Sep 26 2014, 12:17 AM

I've seen a few "Best years for music" thread, and the usual happens - someone will say "2014 because One Direction is teh awesome!!11", someone else will call them an idiot and talk about how wonderful 1981 was, someone else will call them an idiot and go into a huge essay about the classics of 1927, big argument, eventual group understanding that everyone's tastes are subjective and every year has good and bad music, etc etc, until someone starts the same thread subject a few weeks later and it all kicks off again tongue.gif

So I thought I'd flip it round and ask what years people think were actually less good than others. As with best years it is of course completely subjective and someone's absolute musical pinnacle will be someone else's worst, but could be interesting either way. Here are some of mine and if you feel like recommending me some good songs in any of these years, then please feel free - let's try that with as many as we can!

First off, 1985 is the weakest year of that decade for me. You've got the synthpop brilliance of 1981-82 and a lot of 1983, and everything from 1987 onwards is golden all the way through, but looking at the biggest-sellers of '85 there's less there than any other years - it seems to be a lot of rock ballads and Band Aid bandwagon-jumping charity singles. To be fair, Jennifer Rush's 'The Power Of Love' is one of the best power ballads EVER MADE and you've also got You Spin Me Round, There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart) and a bit of a guilty pleasure with Baltimora's 'Tarzan Boy', but otherwise little I've heard from '85 interests me and this is from someone who, while not born at the time, did catch the repeat of that year's Christmas Top of the Pops when Channel 5 showed it a few years back. 1986 isn't the best either but it has the Pet Shop Boys, Erasure and New Order's 'Bizarre Love Triangle' as strong foundations.

Next is 1992. Again there are some good songs up there with the best of the 80s - 'Stay', 'Out of Space', and the ahead-of-its-time dance pounder that is Fellix's 'Don't You Want Me'. Otherwise it's dull ballads, a ton of old re-issued songs and the year rave music, having absolutely owned the second half of 1991, turned into something of a joke with the likes of Sesame Street, Tetris and Super Mario cash-ins. I suppose there's still Acen's Trip II The Moon, Praga Khan's Injected With A Poison etc, but there's more classics in late 1991 than there is for the whole of '92. 1993 isn't massively better but there's a ton of good Eurodance, the album 'Very' by the PSBs and the (extremely) early stirrings of Britpop.

For the noughties, 2005. I would have said 2004 for a while but that's just looking at the number #1s, otherwise some of the best tracks of the decade can be found lower down the 2004 charts. Not so much for 2005 which saw a stale pop scene past its sell-by-date, the worst dance music's probably ever been in its loop-a-sample-for-three-minutes phase, leaving some admittedly brilliant indie-rock but even that's not as good as the two years either side. Oh, and the Crazy Frog. Barely anything released in 2005 I would say was among the best of the noughties, maybe Erasure's 'Breathe' and the whole of Pendulum's 'Hold Your Colour' album. 2006 is better, 2007 not quite as much but there's some great stuff at the end of that year.

What are some of your least favourite years for chart music? Bearing in mind if anyone mentions 1999 (my favourite chart year ever) expect a huge list from me tongue.gif

Posted by: AcerBen Sep 26 2014, 05:05 PM

I agree with all those. 1992 especially. Pop music was dead and the dance music that was around wasn't as good as what came before or afterwards. 1993 as great though.

Posted by: Ultraviolence1989 Sep 26 2014, 05:40 PM

2010
Telephone, starry eyed and on a mission I think are the only 3 songs I still regularly listen to from that year
Many weak songs, bieber becoming big, terrible rap songs, Tinie Tempah being hailed as amazing by everyone, forgettable number 1's, that hideous Bruno mars track (if billionaire was 2010 then 2 hideous BM tracks) and just so much more

Posted by: Liаm Sep 26 2014, 05:47 PM

I loves 2005! So many amazing songs from then, Since U Been Gone, We Belong Together, Crazy Chick, Only U, Biology, Hung Up etc. etc, etc. 2004 would be up there for me I think, there are a few amazing songs but not many... This year would genuinely be up there too when we look at mainstream chart music, there's way too much deep house and subdued dance crap around.

Posted by: Euphorique Sep 26 2014, 10:23 PM

2005 was the absolute worst, followed by 2007.

Posted by: gooddelta Sep 26 2014, 10:43 PM

During 2003 I felt like I was falling out of love with music. Looking back I realise that I was just going through a transition phase from dance nut to having a much broader taste. I was sort of forced into it because of how dire dance was during the mid 00s. Looking back on 2003 I'm much more appreciative of obviously classic songs that I never had any time for back then but I would still struggle to pick more than five non Delta Goodrem songs that I LOVED.

2008 was pretty poor for me too personally, and the charts were a boring mess. This year has been very good for me overall, with some fantastic albums (two of my favourites of the decade so far from Sheppard and The Common Linnets), but chart music has been the least to my taste than in any year of the past 20. In my current personal chart top 15 there's not a single song in it that's charted in the UK...

Posted by: N-S Sep 27 2014, 10:13 AM

From the 90's: 1992
From the 2000's: 2006
From the 2010's: 2010

Posted by: slowdown73 Sep 27 2014, 10:26 AM

The urban era during the mid noughty's was a pretty much non-event for me but the last few years has seen my interest in new music decline considerably.

Posted by: gooddelta Sep 27 2014, 10:35 AM

2010 gets too much stick - off the top of my head Alors On Danse, White Light Moment, The Flood, What's My Name, Satellite, All The Lovers, Keep On Walking and Green Light (not even sorry, it's a fantastic club song) were all 10/10 moments. Granted a couple of those weren't released in the UK

Posted by: Ultraviolence1989 Sep 27 2014, 10:37 AM

QUOTE(gooddelta @ Sep 27 2014, 11:35 AM) *
2010 gets too much stick - off the top of my head Alors On Danse, White Light Moment, The Flood, What's My Name, Satellite, All The Lovers, Keep On Walking and Green Light (not even sorry, it's a fantastic club song) were all 10/10 moments. Granted a couple of those weren't released in the UK


I knew I was missing a song- all the lovers is number 4 of 2010 songs I still listen to
Green light is pretty bad however Good Times is amazing

EDIT: And promise this- that's 5

Posted by: mr_aly Sep 27 2014, 12:19 PM

2008 for me was a bit of a slog as a chart music follower, the charts were so stagnant that listening to the chart show every week was almost painful and I really feel music in general was more uninspiring that year.

Posted by: ScottyEm Sep 27 2014, 01:56 PM

2008. I might aswell lived under a rock - I listened to mostly 80s music that year because there was sod all I liked at the time... Thank god things are much better now!

Posted by: Doctor Blind Sep 27 2014, 06:03 PM

Everyone criticises 2007 and in particular 2008 for being slow on the chart, but if you look at chart entries in the Top 75 - the nadir was actually in 2009 with just 433 unique songs. However, the quality of chart music in 2009 was much better and there was a dramatic increase in No. 1 debuts from just 11 in 2008 to a more business-as-usual 22 in 2009. Therefore people tend to forgive it for being even more bereft of hit singles.

I'd agree with 1992 being cited. 2005 was absolutely shocking from January until around October, after which there was a massive upswing in the quality of chart music. Of course, music sitting just outside the charts in 2005 makes that year probably one of my favourites since being on this planet for exciting/new music.

Posted by: gooddelta Sep 27 2014, 06:09 PM

It wasn't down to the lack of new entries to the top 75 that made 2008 a chore (presumably a large chunk of them missed the top 40 so were never 'heard'), rather the fact that the majority of songs filtered down the chart at a pace of 1 to 2 places every week, which was incredibly dull to witness.

Posted by: Doctor Blind Sep 27 2014, 06:18 PM

QUOTE(gooddelta @ Sep 27 2014, 07:09 PM) *
It wasn't down to the lack of new entries to the top 75 that made 2008 a chore (presumably a large chunk of them missed the top 40 so were never 'heard'), rather the fact that the majority of songs filtered down the chart at a pace of 1 to 2 places every week, which was incredibly dull to witness.


The average chart run of 10.82 weeks also peaked in 2009 so I think it was the slower year. Of course average chart run went on to re-peak at 12.67 weeks in 2012 and looks increasingly likely to be beaten again this year after the introduction of streaming.

Posted by: MyKindOfLove Sep 27 2014, 06:34 PM

1980s: 1988 - is a bit hit and miss for me.
1990s: 1992 - just a non-event of a year.
2000s: 2002 - The year of the cover version, the start of the "urban" domination.
2010s: 2013/2014 - aside from a few gems in either year, both years have been very poor,

Posted by: gooddelta Sep 27 2014, 06:39 PM

QUOTE(Doctor Blind @ Sep 27 2014, 07:18 PM) *
The average chart run of 10.82 weeks also peaked in 2009 so I think it was the slower year. Of course average chart run went on to re-peak at 12.67 weeks in 2012 and looks increasingly likely to be beaten again this year after the introduction of streaming.


Interesting. I guess songs in 2009 had slightly more erratic chart runs, even though they hung around longer.

All I remember about most of the big 2008 chart hits is 1-1-1-1-2-3-5-6-7-8-10-12-13-14-14-18 (cue everyone on BJ calling anything of four places or more a 'big drop') etc...

Posted by: SKOB Sep 27 2014, 06:46 PM

2007 is very hit and miss, 2008 is much better and 2009 again a bit weaker (minus the Gaga domination)

Those are the weakest of 00s I'd say. From the 90s I have to say 1992 like almost everybody else.

Posted by: Chez Wombat Sep 27 2014, 06:46 PM

2007 was, for me, very poor. Far too slow number 1s wise (I can appreciate Rihanna's achievement/the song more but it wasn't half tedious to listen to at the time) and generally far too much landfill stuff from EVERY genre that has aged terribly. 2008 was a similar story (though Coldplay did get a number 1 so I look upon it with fondness).

2010 also, as has been mentioned, basically the year that invented the non number 1 and a lot of my favourites have aged awfully. 2013 as well was very average charts-wise, though I may just be thinking that because I was forced to listen to a lot of the years biggest hits via commercial radio in my work over and over which made me detest some of them. But I did find a lot of better stuff outside of the charts that year.

2005 gets far too much stick, that and 2006 were two of my favourite years for music - the last truly great years for alternative/indie rock (before 2007 sad.gif)

Posted by: Supercell Sep 28 2014, 02:12 PM

I can't comment on the 90's so much as i only remember from 96 onwards and they were all fab in my opinion, there was something for everyone and there was a real mix mash of all types of music, although cheesy pop dominated towards the end and most the really huge songs actually spent several weeks at no.1. Something that just doesn't happen anymore.

From the 2000's it has to be 2007, followed by 2002. I had really got into the Indie music scene the year before and in 2007 we were left with rap/urban domination and very little else. 2003 had a similar theme but I found the urban scene then a lot more better and funky plus there was some brilliant punk rock, rock music around as well. The Umbrella's 10 week stint annoyed the hell out of me as well.

2008 I actually liked as there was a bit more variety and despite the charts being slow it was nice to actually see the chart reflect what was actually popular at the time, there wasn't very many fluky no.1s that year which was great.

Of the 2010's it has to be this year although 2012 wasn't great. This year has been very boring and predictable for the charts with it being more about who can get the most pre-orders rather than whats actually popular but combined with quite a poor music scene its just made the year terrible I feel.

If I was to pick the best years from the 00's and '10's then it would have to be; 2006 and 2011. Both brilliant years.

Posted by: Ultraviolence1989 Sep 28 2014, 03:00 PM

2008 is actually my 2nd favourite year in music ever

Posted by: Riser Sep 28 2014, 07:49 PM

QUOTE(Supercell @ Sep 28 2014, 10:12 AM) *
2008 I actually liked as there was a bit more variety and despite the charts being slow it was nice to actually see the chart reflect what was actually popular at the time, there wasn't very many fluky no.1s that year which was great.
I completely agree with this. For those very reasons 2008 is in my top two for chart years (much like Ultraviolence). I don't feel like I've followed the charts long enough to answer this properly but I prefer variety in the charts and dislike constant turnover at #1, so a below-average year for me would have too little of the former and too much of the latter. So I'd probably count 2014 under that criteria, below-average for me but still good enough to listen and follow!

Posted by: Jester Sep 28 2014, 07:50 PM

2005 is head and shoulders above 2004. 2004 was one if the worst years for singles ever IMO...

Posted by: Jester Sep 28 2014, 07:52 PM

For me: 1992, 2004, 2010...

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