I really don't like Mariah Carey (or Ballads, to be honest) but there's something brilliant about We Belong Together

I do like Speed of Sound, but it is amongst the weaker Coldplay songs, maybe because the lyrics feel so bizarre and it feels like its just made for stadiums rather than having emotional connection in comparison to some of their others (not that I dislike it at all). If it was between that & Fix You to lose to Crazy Frog, I'd take that :P

 

I agree that X&Y was a great album even if it got a lot of stick. Although I would argue that Viva La Vida was quite an impressive new direction for them and Mylo Xyloto showed they can still make a good stadium anthem.

Edited October 6, 201212 yr by Hoopoe

6TH AUGUST- BAD DAY- Daniel Powter (3 wks)

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3e/Bad_Day_single.jpg

 

So it's late summer 2005 and if you were anywhere near a radio then the two songs you would have heard every 10 minutes would be this and "You're Beautiful" incidentally the track that held this off the top. "Bad Day" had already been a 5 wk US No 1 hit and a hit all over europe thanks to its use in a coke advert by the time it made it to our shores, perhaps it was one of those tracks that came back with the tourists that year? Anyway we were clearly loving men with ballads pouring their hearts out that summer and Powter spent 3 wks in the runner up position waiting for our hatred of James Blunt to reach boiling point (which it would but not until long after the threat from him had long since subsided).

 

Listening to it now with the benefit of some years between us, "Bad Day" is passable enough, a rather touching video about love panning out in the end despite all the stresses of the working life and a suitably cheery and warm vocal all communicated with a catchy enough tune to get us in the mood for the day. At the time though deeply annoying and wearing very thin by the time September came around. Powter sells it with enough conviction to be believable ad it's hard to get angry at its anodyne qualities now especially given some of what is come before the end of 05....

 

3RD SEPTEMBER- PON DE REPLAY- Rihanna (2 wks)

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6a/Pon_de_Replay.jpg

 

Translated as "Play it again" from Bajan Creole this was one of the tracks that Rihanna recorded for her demo tape to flog her to record companies. Now I have to confess that I never thought much to Rihanna back in the day, a conversion of sorts never happened until the greatness that is "Disturbia" in 2008, up to that point I considered her a popstar who relied on a judicious use of samples and little clothing in videos. Even now some of the live performances reveal a paper thin vocal which is quite nasal in delivery but despite myself some the tunes are damn catchy!

 

"Pon De Replay" was catchy, but in a bad way, never a song that I loved or liked for that matter it seemed to really aimed at an altogether different demographic. This isn't the first time that it had happened, I dare say "Teletubbies say Eh-Oh" wasn't aimed at a 21 yr old me (though I was a student at the time so maybe) but what I mean is that it was around this time that I started to become really aware that the charts were now being marketed at people younger than me! That didn't stop me enjoying it or participating in it but it's kind of like your best friend gets other best friends and wants to spend time "all together"- it's rather weird and I hope that made sense otherwise I'm coming across kinda freaky now, but in 2005 and at the age of 29 it seemed that I was yesterday's chart news.

 

None of this I can blame on Rihanna, it has nothing to do with the above revelation, more that it is just coincided, "Pon De Replay" is aimed at that new kid on the block with the flash moves and the disposible income to have all the latest gadgets, I hate him and now Rihanna appears to be flirting with him....

 

Weird that as you started to feel distanced from the chart I began to get really into them. I was 13 when Pon De Replay came out and I really liked it but Rihanna's done a lot better

Weird that as you started to feel distanced from the chart I began to get really into them. I was 13 when Pon De Replay came out and I really liked it but Rihanna's done a lot better

:lol: I was 12 when I got into them so it all fits together (mind you that was 1988! :o )

24TH SEPTEMBER- WE BE BURNIN- Sean Paul (1 wk)

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e7/Webeburnin.jpg

 

If there is a downside to noughties music, and there undoubtedly is, it's an over reliance on the lowest denominator, the quick gimmick over the sturdy tune, it's part of the explanation as to why single sales dropped off, though of course the transfer to downloads helped considerably with this. Sean Paul is sadly a reflection of this, in 2003 the guy was ubiquitous, seemingly popping up on every other top 10 hit to the point of saturation. Come 2005 we'd had a break but here he was back with a new album and his biggest solo hit ad a sensitive plea to legalising marijuana (in it's original form) before a "radio" version was produced altering references and making it appear about women.

 

The problem with this track is that all sounds very 2003 still, that break doesn't seem to have inspired him into any new musical avenues. Ok the album hosted a veritable who's who of RNB (very much flavour of the month in the mid 00s) but his choice of lead single was interesting as it illustrates perhaps a lack of his conviction, best to stick with what people know. He's not the first to suffer this fate and he won't be the last but it convinced enough people he had no other string to his bow so that the next album (2009's "Imperial Blaze") was a damp squib here barely scraping the top 40, perhaps the rise of electro pop helped to dull his star.

 

The point here is that much of the music of the mid 00s only played on, rather than challenged, musical stereotypes and cliches of its respective genre (this went for indie as much as reggae) as this is a prime example of that laziness, with music this predicitable you have to ask what was the point?

 

1ST OCTOBER- GOLD DIGGER- Kanye West Ft Jamie Foxx (1 wk)

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/62/Gold_Digger.jpg

 

I've never felt the need to admire either the man nor the music of Kanye West on the basis that he clearly has enough admiration for both of his own to need anymore from me. A few parts of his earlier cannon mildly interested me ("Diamonds from Sierra Leone" being an example), and I also know that "Gold digger" is one of his more critically admired pieces and it has many fans, a ,judicious use of Ray Charles's "I Got A Woman" certainly makes it distinctive and there is some merit in the charge often laid at West's door, namely that the success or otherwise of his tracks depends on which sample he uses.

 

Neither do I claim that the man isn't talented, he clearly is, but the strength of his music is also its downfall, namely that it is so infused with the cult of his own personality that the two become inseparable. There is nothing unscripted going on here, West clearly analyses his every move with a cold calculating hand designed to generate the publicity to fill that ego, and occasionally he does do the job, it just comes at a high price and a price too high for me personally.

 

Two terrible, terrible songs there. 2004 and 2005 were all about the Albums chart as what was at the top of the singles chart was 98% of time utter crap.

Interesting review of "Gold Digger". I still love it but a lot of his pre-2010 singles for me sound a little straightforward, even flimsy compared to what has followed and GD is one of them for me. "Jesus Walks" on the other hand is genius.

I loved Charlotte Church's brief flirtation with pop music, 'Crazy Chick' was a wicked song if a little overplayed. I still think her finest moment from that 'Tissues & Issues' album was 'Even God' (renamed to 'Even God Can't Change The Past' for it's single release) and it's a shame that one didn't reach top 10, it was a beautiful song that nodded to her past while moving her forward.

Your thoughts on Kanye West sum up mine perfectly. I can respect him as a musician and some of his songs have been good (Gold Digger included actually), but I just don't see what makes him as God-like as he's made out to be...

Edited October 23, 201212 yr by Hoopoe

15TH OCTOBER- TRIPPING- Robbie Williams (2 wks)

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/55/RobbieWilliams-Tripping.jpg

 

As Neil Tennant pointed out in the early 90s every act has their "imperial phase" where everything they release, good or not, seems effortlessly successful and Williams's imperial phase had lasted longer than most (98-02) but come 2005 his star was already diminishing and the commercially awful (for him) "Rudebox" period was just around the corner. All that's for the future and in late 05 Robbie was back, still self assured and to give some credit slightly less formulaic, the undoubtedly clever songwriting of Chambers being pushed aside for a new sound with a helping hand from faded 80s popstar Stephen Duffy, one of the founding members of Duran Duran.

 

Perhaps then it should come as little surprise how 80s "Tripping" sounds! I was racking my brains trying to pinpoint exactly which songs I can hear in the track, it's like Eddy Grant meets Men At Work and Madness which may be no bad thing but "tripping" in trying to be everything ends up being a slightly damp squib. The greatness that it appears to have is just the glories of the acts that it borrows so heavily from, and for all that it's rather charmless and perfunctory and Williams's persona, once so affable and charming, here grates with passive acceptance of his self perceived greatness.

 

"Tripping" maybe a departure in style, and the singles from "Rudebox" (with the exception of the title track) may be unwarranted failures, "Lovelight" and "She's Madonna" are amongst his best IMO, there was a reason why all that happened and hubris was that reason and Williams 04-05 was a prime example of that!

 

10TH DECEMBER- LET THERE BE LOVE- Oasis (1 wk)

 

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Oh you're still going are you? "Let There Be Love" topped off what was a very successful 2005 for the band who had just scored two No 1 singles on the trot, one of them entirely deserved if only for its blatent Kinks rip off. Anyway the kinks done it was back to apeing to the Beatles with this track which sounds like......well an Oasis ballad by numbers really. It isn't bad as records go but this is autopilot Oasis with feeling taken out, it plods along without really reaching a climax and says goodbye.

 

In truth they should have said goodbye around 2002 and perhaps they'd evoke fonder memories in me but too many years making the same record can't really be applauded (hear that U2) and much like Williams, the halycon days of racking up No 1 hits were behind them now. Listen to this an compare it to anything from the first two albums and you'll see just how much they lost the appetite and drive that made them big, of course fame and money does dull the creative zest and it happens to all the greats, but the sadness isn't lessened by that.

 

It'll come as no surprise that I'm about to enthusiastically defend "Let There Be Love".

 

The song sounds completely gorgeous to me, you could swap it with something like "Cast No Shadow" on Morning Glory and the perception of the two songs would be reversed - LTBL would be a seminal album track and CNS would be a safe retread of former glories.

 

I think it's difficult for bands at that stage in their career when so many have already dismissed them as bloated and unmotivated, it necessitates a change in direction as ploughing the same path - however successfully - isn't going to change anyone's opinion of them. Some may alter their style completely unconvincingly (hello Korn!) but if you're still knocking out good tunes then I know I wouldn't change. It can grate if the quality drops (hello Limp Bizkit!) but I never thought it did with Oasis, singles-wise at least.

It'll come as no surprise that I'm about to enthusiastically defend "Let There Be Love".

 

The song sounds completely gorgeous to me, you could swap it with something like "Cast No Shadow" on Morning Glory and the perception of the two songs would be reversed - LTBL would be a seminal album track and CNS would be a safe retread of former glories.

 

I think it's difficult for bands at that stage in their career when so many have already dismissed them as bloated and unmotivated, it necessitates a change in direction as ploughing the same path - however successfully - isn't going to change anyone's opinion of them. Some may alter their style completely unconvincingly (hello Korn!) but if you're still knocking out good tunes then I know I wouldn't change. It can grate if the quality drops (hello Limp Bizkit!) but I never thought it did with Oasis, singles-wise at least.

Whilst I agree you have a point in so much as "if it ain't broke then don't fix it" but I think age may be a factor here in respect of DM and WTSMG which were very "Uni" times for me and perhaps music becomes compartmentalised in people's head, so whilst my life has moved on it seems they are still turning out the same records which may explain my opinion on them. Personally I would hold up both "Lord Don't Slow Me Down" and "Who Feels Love" as two 00s singles of theirs which are exceptionally poor.

 

As I say LTBL isn't a bad record, but it sounds tired to me, and as you say all bands who have been around for a while do get to that stage, perhaps they had greater heights to fall from? :(

Whilst I agree you have a point in so much as "if it ain't broke then don't fix it" but I think age may be a factor here in respect of DM and WTSMG were very "Uni" times for me and perhaps music becomes compartmentalised in people's head, so whilst my life has moved on it seems they are still turning out the same records which may explain my opinion on them. Personally I would hold up both "Lord Don't Slow Me Down" and "Who Feels Love" as two 00s singles of theirs which are exceptionally poor.

 

As I say LTBL isn't a bad record, but it sounds tired to me, and as you say all bands who have been around for a while do get to that stage, perhaps they had greater heights to fall from? :(

 

True, and given that the songs from both of their first two albums (plus all the hallowed b-sides) were written in a single purple patch it's even more the case. Given I grew up with scant knowledge of "Definitely Maybe" and got into them after "Don't Believe The Truth" maybe I can be more impartial about their career (except for "Morning Glory", which I grew up with and still think to be as good an album as any this country has produced).

 

"Who Feels Love?" is extremely weak, half of its parent album is as well. The singles were picked terribly though, check out "Gas Panic!" and "Where Did It All Go Wrong?" for what SHOULD have been released 2nd and 3rd.

24TH DECEMBER- WHEN YOU TELL ME THAT YOU LOVE ME- Westlife & Diana Ross (1 wk)

 

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You'll already have a view of Westlife I'm sure and this record will only confirm what those thoughts are/ were. A completely pointless cover version of a record that I found too saccharine back in 1991 let alone in 2005, a more than competent vocal performance by both parts but really all life and emotion has been stripped from this to leave a cold shell doing nothing but ensuring that they shifted a lot of copies of "Face To Face" over the Christmas period.

 

With the advent of "X Factor" the Christmas No 1 spot was a foregone conclusion during the mid 00s which naturally meant that a new Westlife single had to be put out a week before Xmas now obviously with an X Factor performance to bolster sales, and after the overwhelming success of their previous single "You Raise Me Up" Westlife might reasonably have expected another No 1 but I have to admit to rather enjoying the spectacle of Nizlopi defeat them in the dying weeks of the year. Make no mistake this is AWFUL, purely because no thought has gone into it and Ms Ross quite frankly I'm appauled you allowed this to happen!

 

So that's 2005 done- 4 to go!!

11TH FEBRUARY 2006- RUN IT- Chris Brown Featurign Juelz Santana (1 wk)

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fa/Chris_Brown_-_Run_It_single_cover.jpg

 

Ah little Chris Brown starts us off in 2006, long before he turned into the Rihanna bashing anti-christ, here he is at the tender age of 16 with the best song Usher never released (read that as you will). Indeed it bears a somewhat uncanny resemblance to the aforementioned rapper's "Yeah!" from two years prior, perhaps a testament to the overwhelming influence that his "Confessions" album had on R N B of the time.

 

Nothing spectacular to see and hear in all honestly, with a passable enough tune, but it suffers from much of what the mid noughties suffered from, a long procession of ultimately rather forgettable songs that got this high due to low sales which allowed "less mainstream" genre's to aquire a far greater presence than perhaps their true "popularity" would warrant. Maybe this is however over-analysing the issue, we were where we were in 2006 and so a promising if unremarkable beginning for Mr Brown before the s**t hit the proverbial.