4TH MARCH- PUT YOUR RECORDS ON- Corinne Bailey Rae (1 wk)

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/92/Put_Your_Records_On.jpg

 

Another record that I know I'm supposed to love if I were a "true" muso, or certainly it seemed at the time, perhaps its release in March though sounding far too summery was just an odd step for me but it never jelled. Perhaps its that light reggae-ish lilt that gets my back up, though its delivered with far more credibility than the cod reggae of, say, Peter Andre, it is nevertheless just as hollow to my ears.

 

Truth is I find this kind of stuff kinda dull, a bit like Katie Melua with a more uptempo drummer, so I apologise if you're a fan but it's a no no from me, things are about to get a lot worse before they get better i warn you now!

 

Finally someone who agrees with me re Put Your Records On. Dull, Dull, Dull.

 

Run It on the other hand was one of my favourites of the time; I was 14 mind

Put Your Records On wasn't that bad, I don't know why there's so much hatred for the song on online forums. It's not brilliant though, I will admit.

So glad you are doing this era, it's when I started to get into the charts for the first time (I was about 10) although I do remember many of the songs before that, this is the first time from which I remember all of them. Listening to them now makes me realise how bad the charts were at the time, but I still can't help liking them because they represent my childhood. I have to say though, Put Your Records on was one of my favourite songs, and I have to say I still really like it! Anyway, looking forward to 2007-9 and hearing your opinions from that period :)

11TH MARCH- BEEP- Pussycat Dolls Featuring Will.i.am (1 wk)

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d9/Pussycat_Dolls_-_Beep.jpg

 

Ah the Pussycat Dolls! Let me start by saying that I loved "Don't Cha", a sassy piece of mid 00s pop that had just a slice of fun to it and was all rather enjoyable, then the slide happened, or as I like to call it, Scherzinger's quite evident push to be a solo star. Ths songs basically became nothing more than vehicle's to push her "sex appeal" with a string of gimmicky throwaway tunes that became increasingly generic (yes that word again).

 

"Beep" is of course co-written and co-performed by Will.i.am (with a large dollop from a sampled ELO hit "Evil Woman"), and is little more than extension of BEP's "My Humps" from 6 months before, a lot of this smackes of laziness though, no attempt to really write a song and by bleeping out the last word of the sentence then of course everything rhymes, the call and response between Will.i.am and Scherzinger is painfully one dimensional and by the end you are throughly convinced that there is absolutely no sexual attraction between the pair, or at least no attraction beyond the boardroom that thought it would be a good idea to pair these two up. Thoroughly unconvincing on every level.

 

 

1ST APRIL- NATURE'S LAW- Embrace (1 wk)

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/16/Embrace_Nature's_Law_7.jpg

 

Now this is much more like it, Embrace were a curious band, after some truly great records in the 97-98 period they suddenly seemed to run out of ideas and weren't really rejunvinated until Chris Martin gave them a helping hand with "Gravity" in 2004. Perhaps it was the rather inflated ego of Danny McNamara in the 90s (an equivalent of a 00s Johnny Borrell) that seemed to turn people off the band, or merely that they didn't have the talent of that other powerhouse of ego during the late 90s Oasis. At any rate "Nature's Law" is nothing outstanding and you've heard it all before I'm sure yet it is sung with a tenderness and a sincerity that genuinly does convince.

 

Indeed if you compare it to our previous entry it should be clear why this song is clearly superior, one is going through the motions, whilst with this track there is some genuine feeling and warmth here, and yes a little pathos in the lines. Perhaps some would describe this as "indie landfill" but it would be no bad thing to have more of this kind of stuff in the charts now, and yes I know I'm sounding old now.....

 

I absolutely adore Nature's Law but it's one of those songs that would sound better by a different artist. As Popjustice nicely summed up recently, 'it's like a rousing Take That classic with a stuck cow on vocals' :lol:

Nature's Law is fantastic, Beep is a bit of a blemish for the Pussycat Dolls as it's the only weak single from their fantastic first era (I don't count Wait a Minute as that wasn't a UK single)

"Nature's Law" is wonderful and really should have made #1 over "So Sick". I'd also imagine it irked them a little when "Patience" hit the top given the two are strikingly similar...

15TH APRIL-ONE- Mary J Blige & U2 (1 wk)

 

http://www.musicomh.com/music/videos/mary-j-blige.jpg

 

Written by U2 some 15 years before this, "One" was of course soon picked out by the press and fans as one of the standout tracks on "Achtung Baby" and dutifully became the group's third single in early 1992 making the top 10 with donations going to AIDS research. Taking inspiration from internal factors (the disagreements in the band over where the group was heading as Bono/ Edge wanted a more dance orientated direction) and external factors (the reunification of Germany post the Berlin wall) "One" is a genuine example of very clever songwriting, one of the factors which made U2 a massive band in the first place.

 

THIS however is utterly pointless. Invited to sing on stage in 2005 Mary J Blige doesn't disgrace herself vocally on the song but neither does she contribute much either and at the end it seems rather like the emotion has been stripped out of it- a quick comparison to the original should highlight this point only too clearly. The fragility of Bono's voice seems to be lacking, he appears to be singing to the stadium rather than to an individual, and Blige is little more than a foil in this relationship. They were still more than capable of getting sizeable hits on their own at this point which only makes this all the more baffling.

 

22ND APRIL- NO PROMISES- Shayne Ward (1 wk)

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a6/No_Promises_(Shayne_Ward_song)_cover.jpg

 

OK, there's no way to say this nicely so I'm just gonna come out with this- I rather like this song if not entirely for musical reasons :blush: . The original is by Bryan Rice, a danish popstar who released it in 2005 to quite reasonable success in his homeland, however it failed to make the transition outside of Denmark, Louis Walsh must have liked it and handed it to Ward to record for his second single. Of Course with Ward it's little more than showboating for his vocal range to evidence that we were all right to vote for him on "X Factor".

 

Ward turns in a competent performance and in a normal week in 2006 would have made No 1 but it ran into the juggernaut that was Gnarls Barkley so stood little chance. It won't change anyone's mind about whether or not you think reality shows ever find "real" stars but it's a pleasent enough song and not everything has to be thought provoking surely?

 

29TH APRIL- S.O.S- Rihanna (2 wks)

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/69/Sos0su.jpg

 

Proving that 2005's "Pon De Replay" was no fluke, Rihanna's career got going in the UK with this track, owing more than a small debt to "Tainted Love" in the process. Originally offered to Christina Milian for her third album she passed on it (as was soon to be dumped by Def Jam) and it was handed to Rihanna who turned it into a US No 1 single almost going all the way here. The problem with "S.O.S" is that any review becomes in essence a review of "Tainted Love" such is the track's dependency on the song, of course Rihanna smoulders her way through the track singing as suggestively as she can but can she really claim that she's doing something original here?

 

Well not really, but to charge her with that crime is to really miss the point of her ascendency, vocally she can sometimes sound nasal and quite weak, and OK she's passable here but she has a talent (or should that be her team has?) of picking the right song and choosing her singles, on the whole, quite wisely to fit what's going on musically at the time. She is, ultimately, a reminder of what makes a good "popstar" rather than a good "singer" and that's not always a bad thing....

 

13TH MAY- DANI CALIFORNIA- Red Hot Chili Peppers (1 wk)

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d6/Dani_california.gif

 

Well if you had my review of "By The Way" then you'll know my thoughts on RHCP, and I have to say that I like that song much better than I like this one. I shan't labour on my opinion of their merits but suffice it to say that feels like the treading of old water for the group. The narrative is at least moderately interesting following the tale of "Dani" who first appeared on 1999's "Californication" and again on "By The Way" with her death being the theme for this song.

 

It's not a BAD song per se, it just leaves me cold, and yes I'm aware of the irony of that given my praise of Shayne Ward some reviews ago...

 

Odd that out of those reviews U2, Mary J Blige and Red Hot Chilli Peppers are the more critically accepted acts yet Rihanna & Shayne's songs Pi** all over theirs

20TH MAY- CONTROL MYSELF- LL Cool J Featuring Jennifer Lopez (1 wk)

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/10/Control_Myself.jpg

 

hands up ho can recall this before you click the vid below? I confess I have no recollection of this at all! Appearently it has a helping hand from Afrika Bambaataa and Granmaster Flash though you'd be pushed to recall the samples, in short it seems a rather odd inclusion in this list purely because the last song on this series of threads that I had no memory of at all was probably back in 1981 or something. Perhaps I'd grown out of the charts for a bit but this seems completely forgettable like much of Lopez's output in the mid 00s, with low sales enabling "niche" records to gain artificially high positions in the chart.

 

It is, at heart, probably more of a thank you record, Lopez returning the favour to LL Cool J for guesting on her "All I Have" back in 2003 (which co-incidentally also reached No 2 here), but a more "generic" piece of mid 00s R N B you're unlikely to come across again.

 

27TH MAY- FROM PARIS TO BERLIN- Infernal (1 wk)

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/93/From_Paris_to_Berlin_-cd_single-.jpg

 

I apologise for this- wholeheartedly, but I LOVE THIS song! Tacky eurodisco had been missing from the charts for a while and this was a reminder of all things that school disco's etc should be about. Lyrically very.........simple, it was 100% earworm and was one of the songs that dominated the airwaves that summer thanks to its appropriation for the England football world cup "attempt" that year coupled with the viral campaign by Colin Murray and his dancing, which helped to spur the track into public conciousness.

 

It spent 11 weeks inside the top 10 (no small thing in 2006) as the song refused to die, the folow up (and only other hit from them) was a cover of Laura Branigan's 1984 hit "Self Control" which is perhaps better forgotten. Of course it's all disposable disco music but there is an art to making earworm tracks and whatever that is you can count this as an example.

 

Apols again!

 

Summer of 2006 :wub: Infernal, Rihanna, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, Lily Allen, The Killers, Nelly Furtardo, The Kooks, Shakira, The Feeling, Cascada, Snow Patrol, Cassie, Pussycat Dolls all released songs/albums that have amazing memories attatched to them . I always say 2004 is my favourite music year of the 00s but thinking about it now 2006 really wins it

Edited November 22, 201212 yr by justinthomas92

My mum would kill you for that review of One, Gezza :lol: I completely agree though, I don't mind Mary J Blige, it can't come close to the genuine sincerity and sadness of the original version.

 

 

My mum would kill you for that review of One, Gezza :lol: I completely agree though, I don't mind Mary J Blige, it can't come close to the genuine sincerity and sadness of the original version.

Exactly, mind you the original is genuinely great so perhaps she was always onto a loser? :D

29TH JULY- UNFAITHFUL- Rihanna (2 wks)

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/61/Unfaithful.jpg

 

Co-written by Ne-Yo and entitled "Murderer" this was Rihanna's third No 2 hit within a 12 month period during which she couldn't quite manage a chart topper. Notable for a shift in gear towards balladry that she hadn't attempted before (singles wise) it seems now to be viewed as one of her finer singles but I had always thought it was a song that laid bare her rather thin vocals. Ironically having viewed several "live" versions of this she actually delivers a better vocal live than in the studio where she seems to struggle to hold the notes and you wonder how it could have sounded in the hands of Dion, or Lewis.

 

Still in an era when the ballad rather seemed to be on its last legs (Lewis and a reformed Take That would rectify that by the year's end) perhaps it rather suffers for its subtlety in her cannon, but her nasal voice does grate overall.