15th February: SONGBIRD - Oasis

 

Saying that Oasis were never as good in the noughties as they were in the nineties is probably one of the least controversial musical opinions of all time. After absolute initial world domination, they slowly slipped further and further into self-parody, releasing songs that would get to #1 in an instant but never be remembered as much as anything they released between their glory days of 1994 to 1996. There was still the occasional good release during this decade though, 2002's 'Stop Crying Your Heart Out' and 2005's 'The Importance of Being Idle' probably standing out the most.

 

This is the fourth and final single from the Heathen Chemistry album and probably one of the shortest top 3 hits of the decade running to just over two minutes, as well as being the first Oasis song with no input from Noel Gallagher and completely written by brother Liam. It's brief, it's nicely listenable and it's over in an instant, even having a not-that-bad chart run for what is essentially a fanbase purchase (10 weeks top 75). Essentially there's not much to say about it as it's just a simple little ditty that's far too short to form any real opinions, so, erm...yeah, here's the video. Song starts about 30 secs in!

 

8th March: MOVE YOUR FEET - Junior Senior :wub: :wub:

 

...ok I apologise in advance as huge personal and nostalgic memories may affect my review of this song a lot, but screw it, THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST BEST BEST SONGS OF THE DECADE.

 

I cannot tell you how much I fell in love with this at the time. This was the age I finally caught on to the mp3 boom, using a program called 'WinMX' (now shut down) to download all my favourite songs. The first one was, I think, this, and I would BLAST it out of my computer speakers whenever there was no one in the house. Junior Senior were two guys from Denmark who scored a massive chartrun with this in the UK, peaking at #3 but hanging around the top 10 for nine(!) weeks. Bizarrely enough it wasn't that much of a worldwide hit and otherwise only really took off in their native Denmark (where it peaked at #4, one place lower than here!) but we just seemed to fall in love with both the song and its popular 8-bit pixel art video.

 

But what makes it just so brilliant? It's just simply yet impossibly catchy and wouldn't leave my head for about a year. Best bit? Those repeating two chords in the verses, not even needing any lyrics as they're just awesome in their own right. I'm really trying to think of some intelligent and complex way of analysing it, but I can't, as all that happens when I play the song is I get transported back to 14 year old me adoring every note and beat. Easily an absolute noughties classic and surely the type of the song that'll get nostalgically revived in years to come and shoot up the iTunes chart. Junior Senior had one more hit here with 'Rhythm Bandits' which I remember them performing on CD:UK, but as it only made #22 I guess they were destined for one-hit wonder status. I've listened to it three times in succession since I started writing this, it really is that epic, and to be honest makes me a little sad I have to move onto the next song otherwise I'd be playing it all night :P Video!

 

22nd March: BORN TO TRY - Delta Goodrem

 

2003 was definitely the year I turned from just a casual fan of music to a bit of a chart-watcher. I discovered James Masterton's commentaries on a website called 'dotmusic' and used to post in the BBC's Top of the Pops forum, both websites now long gone. By the end of 2004 I was lurking on a forum called 'CoolClarity' that some of you may have heard of (although never actually posted on it) followed by another two years of lurking here on Buzzjack before finally joining in 2008. And certainly this lady was getting praise from all over the boards, her self-written piano-led pop and ballad songs drawing huge fans here having first made it big in her home country of Australia. All five singles from her debut 'Innocent Eyes' made it to the top spot over there but here in the UK this was her biggest solo hit.

 

The one I really remember is the follow-up to this 'Lost Without You', but this is pretty nice too, not quite as good as LWY but a pleasant bit of pop balladry and the song that majorly kickstarted it for her both here and back home in Oz. Her career was almost brought to a horrible end when in July 2003 she was diagnosed with cancer, but thankfully it was successfully overcome and she remains recording to this day, still a huge star in Australia with multiple top 5 hits to her name but no appearances here since a Brian McFadden duet in 2005. Shame as she's a wonderful talent and deserves a bit more Brit recognition methinks.

 

22nd March: IN DA CLUB - 50 Cent

 

Note that this is the same date as Born to Try! Looks like the list I'm using has the dates from when they first entered the charts rather than the week they peaked. Here in the early noughties that's mostly corresponding with its chart peak anyway, but in this case it actually took five weeks to peak at #3 after entering at #4, dropping to #9 and then rising again. Bizarre. Anyway, no point rechecking all the peak weeks now so I'll just follow the list as normal.

 

Yep. Bet you thought this was a #1, huh? The first of surely one of the most overplayed songs we'll see this year (the other we'll get to in November), this was the kind of music preferred by my rap-loving brother, who'd spent most of the early noughties obsessed with Eminem and his gang. This in comparison was never my thing, but its sheer staying power in clubs to this day can't be ignored - that and for anyone who had one of those fancy non-monophonic mobile phones then (with colour screens!), this was a massively popular ringtone! Even just hearing the opening few seconds reminds me of dodgy text-this-number ringtone adverts you'd always see on music channels around this time, getting even worse in the Crazy Frog days. Seem to remember an irritatingly high-pitched female voice announcing "87140!!" in every ad-break, which at least has the number stuck in my head a decade later.

 

You'll notice I'm trying to avoid commenting on the song itself :P Well, for me it's just four minutes of nothing. A mildly catchy instrumental with 50 Cent meekly talking about how it's someone's birthday and you'll find him in 'da' club or something. The former for years would involve birthday parties pointing at said celebratory boy/girl in question and singing "GO SHORTY! IT'S YA BIRTHDAY" at them although I've noticed in the last few years this has fizzled out a bit, even when it's playing in clubs, perhaps because it's been a bit too overdone for people to bother anymore. When I hear it in a club (which is still pretty much every bloody night) it's drink-buying/toilet-using time. And yet Junior Senior never gets played anymore. Dammit DJs!!

 

Posting the video almost seems a bit pointless, but in case you've either never heard it before or really have a burning desire to hear it for the 500th time, here it is :D

 

That was me praising Delta all over those boards, I probably joined these boards to find the latest Delta chart info and I certainly looned over her on Cool Clarity :lol:

29th March: BEING NOBODY - Richard X vs. Liberty X

 

Well, fair play to the so-called "flopstars", they'd done it. They'd beaten their winning rivals to the longetivity crown and indeed would be much more part of the early noughties pop landscape than HearSay ever were. For those wondering what the hell I'm on about, Liberty X were the group formed out of the five Popstars 'almosts' who didn't quite get through to making the winning lineup that would become HearSay two years earlier. HearSay had one huge debut single and then split up a year later. Liberty X carried on for longer before a spectacular fizzle out around 2006-7 and then much later becoming another group reforming for ITV2's recent Big Reunion show...although dare I say that they never really ever released anything as popular as this again? The period from 'Just a Little' up to this song I would call their true peak of fame, they'd go on to have a few more top 10 hits but nothing I can think of really lasting in people's minds. Perhaps there's a few fans of things like 'Everybody Cries' and 'Song 4 Lovers' around but by then they seemed a bit yesterday's news tbh.

 

Not being that familiar with the concept of a 'mashup' at the time, I was confused as to why this was called 'Being Nobody' when they're clearly singing 'Ain't Nobody' and what some bloke called Richard X had to do with it. Not only was I unaware that it was a cover of a Chaka Khan song (hey, I was fourteen! And pre-youtube! Gimme a break) but it had been medleyed with parts of 'Being Boiled' by the Human League from the early 80s. I'd already made this mistake the previous year when I remember absolutely loving Sugababes's 'Freak Like Me' (also produced by Mr X), having no knowledge at all of either Gary Numan or Adina Howard and just hearing it as an awesome and up-to-date new song, despite said 'up-to-date' sound actually being a sample of something from 1979. 'Being Nobody' though, it's most definitely not on the brilliance scale of Freak Like Me and instead simply a nice reworking of an old classic, if nothing amazing. Come to think of it half of their hits were novelty cover versions like this, weren't they? 'Just a Little' is really the only major classic they ever released in my book...

 

5th April: TONIGHT/MISS YOU NIGHTS - Westlife

 

Oh, really? Do I have to? Sigh.

 

Actually to be fair there is the very occasional Westlife song I'll happily listen to a few seconds of before changing the station, and at least by now they're out of their #1-with-every-release era that would make a chart toppers review of the early noughties immensely irritating. The CD single cover of this is hilarious, proudly boasting both "INCLUDES BONUS TRACK + THE AMAZING VIDEO" and "ALSO INCLUDES BRILLIANT MISS YOU NIGHTS", this being the era when the concept of a 'double-A side' actually meant something before downloads killed them off. CD2 also included an "exclusive band poster" to shift some more sales.

 

Oh god and the lead track's 4:43 as well. Ok, here we go...oh I actually remember a bit of it too, if just the repetition of the words "tonight" and not the rest of the song. Very much not one of their most-remembered hits now, if you've heard almost any Westlife song you'll know exactly what territory we're in with this, the ballad-by-numbers they kept churning out right until their 2012 split, this at least having some electric guitar in the middle to perk things up a bit. And are we gonna get a keychange? Yep, just as I'm writing, BOOM, and the moment on TOTP where they'd always get up from their stools and the screaming teenage girls would go mental. Nicely arranged and produced, but if you're looking for something new, yeah no not this one. Westlife songs I like? Well, 'World Of Our Own' is pretty fun, and I'm probably even one of the few people who have a soft spot for forgotten #1 'Fool Again' too.

 

The 'double' of the double A-side? 'Miss You Nights' is an unneeded Cliff Richard cover that's bizarrely drenched in sleigh bells and general festive sparkle despite the single being released in April. The album it came from (their first greatest hits) was at least released just before Christmas though, so that explains it. Can I move on yet? :P

 

 

3rd May: DON'T LET GO - David Sneddon

 

With ITV's Pop Idol having flooded the charts with its contestants the previous year, the BBC decide to do their own version and call it Fame Academy, which had a few differences from Pop Idol - notably that the contestants were called "students" and allowed to write their own material - but in general followed a similar talent show formula. Mr Sneddon was the winner and his first release, 'Stop Living The Lie' sneaked in two weeks at #1 at the start of the year. That was followed by runner up Sinéad Quinn getting to #2 with the somewhat brilliant 'I Can't Break Down' which I really quite enjoyed at the time (and listening back now it's as awesome as ever), not even realising she was from the show. Both of these songs were self-penned by the contestants which makes a change from picking any old ballad from the shelf and releasing it as a debut.

 

Fair play to David Sneddon for not completely sinking without trace and getting this second top 3 hit out of things, also self-penned and although I could easily put my sneery "Talent shows are crap" hat on, with a song like this I can't really bring myself to do so - while it's nothing particularly memorable and just falls into the Average bin for me, it really isn't that bad and is another of those songs that will play on the radio and just happily float through your head while never truly sticking. He enjoys a fairly successful career as a songwriter to this day. And for other Fame Academy contestants? Keep reading!

 

No video I'm afraid, most of the youtube uploads are live performances. Here's some audio!

 

10th May: THE LONG GOODBYE - Ronan Keating

 

It's a bit surprising to remember that Ronan was at one point a teen star selling to his own age generation, a far cry from the later years of being an easy-listening Mother's Day present. This sees him in the slow transition between the two, although his last really well-known hit (2002's #1 'If Tomorrow Never Comes') has already long-gone and by now we're into fanbase-buying territory. In 2004 he'd release a compilation called "10 Years of Hits", at least one of my friends at the time joking the final word had the letters in the wrong order.

 

At over four minutes, 'long' is definitely the word here, a cover of a US country track released by some guys called Brooks & Dunn two years earlier although co-written by Ronan himself, released here as the final single from his 'Destination' album. It is, for the third release in a row, a mildly decent ballad if nothing brilliant, which is really starting to make me pine for some high-energy again and giving me nightmares that the #3 spot has become the Ballad Spot for the forseeable future. Surely not...

 

17th May: TAKE YOUR SHOES OFF - The Cheeky Girls :lol:

 

...ok ok I've changed my mind, I've changed my mind! Bring back the ballads!!

 

No, let's be fair, if enough people really did buy this to debut at #3 I'd best review it sensibly. As mentioned earlier 'The Cheeky Song' was the surprise novelty hit of Christmas 2002 and I have some fun nostalgic memories of me and all my friends singing "We are the Cheeky Girls! You are the Cheeky Boys!" and vice versa to each other early on in 2003. Indeed many who heard it probably just assumed they would join a long line of festive one-hit wonders and disappear as quickly as they'd arrived.

 

Nope, they genuinely had a hell of a lot of hits, not just here but all over the world(!), causing much head-scratching bafflement as what is essentially a one-joke act (They're cheeky! They're girls! They're the Cheeky Girls!!) gave so much pleasure to so many. Here then is their second hit and perhaps the most embarrassing youtube search I've ever undertaken.

 

It's, erm...actually not completely awful and sounds incredibly late 90s to the point where you think they're just singing over an old Aqua song or something similar. For 2003 it couldn't be further away than the current pop scene if it tried, and my embarrassing slight enjoyment of it is mostly because it provides me with memories of the late 90s pop scene that by now had almost completely fizzled out. Indeed I'd rather listen to this than another Westlife ballad or dull R&B number.

 

Had it come out in about 1998-99 I'd have absolutely loved it. By 2003 I'm looking at my TV in bemusement and saying "Buh?" a few times. Here in 2013? Taken as the ridiculous nonsense it is, it's more amusing than annoying. Now if they went on to get another top 3 hit, that really would be silly...

 

7th June: I KNOW WHAT YOU WANT - Busta Rhymes & Mariah Carey feat. The Flipmode Squad

 

I liked All I Want For Christmas Is You before it was cool. There was genuinely a time, probably from about 1995 to 2002-ish when it could be seen as a bit of an underrated track that wasn't anywhere near as played as much as the Slade/Wizzard/Band Aid/etc dominators, along with The Pogues. It was the noughties when both AIWFCIY and 'Fairytale of New York' really ramped up their popularities and became the top-level festive smashes they are today, 'Fairytale' because of Kirsty MacColl's sad death and AIWFCIY perhaps because of the film 'Love Actually' (released later this year) bringing it back into fashion.

 

Anyway, having played said festive Mariah song a ton over Christmas 2002, unable to find a decent mp3 so having to record the video off Magic TV (god the pre-youtube days were primitive!), I was very happy to see that almost a decade on from that she was still able to have hits in the chart, if only just as a guest spot, particularly as her career wasn't entirely at its peak at this point having had only one top 3 appearance since 1997 - and that was only because she guested on a Westlife track doing a terrible cover of Against All Odds. You've probably seen in this thread that I'm not the biggest R&B fan, but sometimes a track of the genre has enough melody and genuine likeability about it for me to enjoy it, happily this was the case here. Absolutely crammed with hooks (the chorus is gonna be stuck in my head all day again now) and a nice blissful chilled listen, one of those songs they still to this day play in the club at the end of the night and everyone gets a chance to get off with their latest acquisitions. Until the lights go up and a ton of burly security guards ruin the mood and kick you out, of course. Ahem.

 

Mariah would get a career resurgence of sorts in 2005 when 'We Belong Together' became one of the closest near-misses to #1 ever, the same year Mr Rhymes finally got a chart-topping appearance of his own as the token rapper on 'Don't Cha' by the Pussycat Dolls.

 

21st June: FIGHTER - Christina Aguilera

 

Those who've been following this thread right since I started things a few weeks back at January 2000 will remember that I was a big Christina fan at the turn of the century. So imagine my horror when, in 2002, I see the video for 'Dirrty' for the first time. What the hell is she doing?! You don't need these outrageous gimmicks!! And the song was a bit of a noisy mess too, causing me to instantly go off her and wonder what on earth was happening to music. Then came 'Beautiful' which admittedly was a much better song but still being annoyed with her for the previous I wasn't quite convinced instantly that she still had it. By the time of 'Fighter', though, she'd won me back over.

 

This is one of those that's a huge joy to hear again as I loved it a decade ago and I've never heard it since except for music channel shows where they play all her songs in succession. For one, she looked awesome and the video was epic. Two, she was doing a rock song! Ok listening back it's more pop-rock (god knows what Wikipedia are talking about when they call it "hard rock") but by now my guitar phase had begun and I played this in conjuction with Evanescence's 'Bring Me To Life', White Stripes's 'Seven Nation Army' and, er, Electric Six's 'Gay Bar' constantly that summer, amassing my first major mp3 collection. Was great to see her back on form and I never tire of that awesome staccato breakdown in the middle, great underrated track.

 

28th June: NO LETTING GO - Wayne Wonder

 

Summer 2003 was hot. Before the last couple of years of summer after summer being a disappointing series of wet and windy floods, things were a bit more unpredictable. I remember the constant searing heat as temperatures would constantly pass the 30 degree barrier, and then on the 10th August came the hottest day in UK HISTORY, when South East England reached an insane 38.5(!!!) celsius. I was in Devon at the time where the cool sea air made things a bit more bearable at least but I definitely remember those very warm days and still hope we'll get a summer like that again. Come on, Mr Blue Sky, why do you have to hide away for so long?

 

With all the doors and windows of the house open and the music channels playing, this song simply could not have been released at a more perfect time. It was the longest day of the year today but for the most part has been irritatingly cloudy and wet, even so just hearing this again takes me back to the 2003 heatwave and bright skies instantly. I'm tempted to suggest that the hot weather that year was responsible for the brief reggae boom we had at the time, but in fact it had already started before the sun arrived and instead just seems to be a case of good timing, if not at least helping their chart positions. It used the legendary 'Diwali Riddim' that half of these songs shared, such as Sean Paul's 'Get Busy' and Lumidee's ludicrously titled 'Never Leave You (Uh Oooh, Uh Oooh)'. While not directly related, Kevin Lyttle's 'Turn Me On' also tied in nicely later that year.

 

Fantastic bit of summery sunshine perfect for iPod chilling when those rare heatwaves arrive. Ignore the weird other song at the start of this video and skip to about 25 seconds in :)

 

Edited July 1, 201312 yr by BillyH

5th July: WE JUST BE DREAMIN' - Blazin' Squad

 

Oh god, I really shouldn't like this but I do :P Another one that reminds me of (very) hot summer days, I even remember the TOTP performance of this with one of them basically just goin' "Yo! Blazin' Squad! Top of the Pops!" durin' the song. I don't know why this and nothin' else appealed to me, I guess I just liked the chorus melody and again, the weather at the time helped a lot.

 

And I really do mean that. This could have gone so horribly, horribly wrong and backfired had the summer not quite been on our side, as essentially the whole thing is the Squad going on about how hot it is and how awesome the summer sun is etc, so much so to the point where I even wondered if it was frantically recorded and rush-released to cash in on the heatwave but nope, it really does seem to have been an incredibly lucky gamble on their part as the song and video were recorded earlier that Spring. So yeah I liked it, but no way would I ever admit it at the time - I only saw them as appealin' to teenage girls and I remember being a bit embarrassed that I quite enjoyed this one and only song of theirs :P . Almost forgotten now and maybe not one to go alon'side the more credible Wayne Wonder on your summer playlist, it's a fun guilty pleasure and makes me even more nostalgic for that year's scorcher of a summer!

 

(and yes, I'm aware I've replaced a lot of the Gs with apostrophes in this entry. It's a Blazin' Squad homage, don't worry :P )

 

19th July: FEEL GOOD TIME - Pink feat. William Orbit

 

And yet another summery song!! Blah blah heatwave blah blah 38 degrees etc, you know the story by now :P Dare I say it but I've never been a massive Pink fan, not much else except the admittedly legendary 'Just Like a Pill' has appealed to me although her recent 'Just Give me a Reason' I quite enjoy.

 

In fact this isn't quite as summery as I remember, perhaps again it's the heat messing with my memories but the video does at least have a ton of surfers on a beach in it. Produced by William Orbit it was used in the film 'Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle[/b], and I remember wanting to like it but it just having something missing for me to really love it. A decade on, a similar story, it's a nice listen but I wouldn't put it up there with the greats. JLAP has it all, a nicely melancholic opening and a massive singalong chorus and in general a slice of pop-rock perfection. This just feels a bit watered down in comparison, as do most of her songs when being compared to her best. When she really hits it though, man can she pull out a tune!

 

Updates might slow down a little in the next few days as some work deadlines get a bit too close for comfort, but there's lots of excellent #3 from 2003-4 to come :)

Fighter is definitely Christina's second best single ever, the first if course being the mighty Hurt

2nd August: MAYBE TOMORROW - Stereophonics

 

A band who've been around for absolutely donkeys years, getting their first hits at the tail-end of Britpop in 1997 but I only became aware of them from about 2001's 'Have A Nice Day' onwards, so it's the early to mid noughties I associate them with. They're a band I feel like I know far too few of their songs as I should, the only ones I could really hum you are HAND (ha!), their future #1 'Dakota', and this one, along with their 'Handbags and Gladrags' cover thanks to knowing the song from The Office.

 

It's a nice bit of chilled-out downtempo post-Britpop, a sound gradually being replaced in the charts by more upbeat indie at the time (it was around now when 'I Believe In A Thing Called Love' came out and all hell broke loose), but this just doesn't do anything for me. It all seems a bit too dull, too safe, just this kind of weird wispy cloud that floats around without doing any harm but not sticking, along with a few #3s we've heard in the past. Definitely not one of their best and I'd much rather listen to one of the songs I've already mentioned (particularly Dakota, what a track!) but if you're in a downbeat, introspective mood I guess it's worth a listen.

 

Song starts in the below video at 1 minute in. Don't you wish music videos sometimes would cut the moody intros and jump straight to the song?

 

9th August: SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL - Robbie Williams

 

At the beginning of August 2003, Robbie Williams played three huge gigs in Knebworth which sold out in less than eight hours. Today that's perhaps pretty standard for a high-profile artist or festival, but back then it was a massive record breaker. Indeed his entire tour that summer sold insane amounts, and Robbie really was top of the absolute A-list of British music stars. Never mind that America never really caught onto him, in the UK he was almost the epitome of pop royalty. Had, after one of his shows that year, you walked up to him and said "Hey Robbie, enjoy it while it lasts cus you're gonna release a terrible flop rap album in three years and then grudgingly go back to a reformed Take That!" he'd have had no doubt had you arrested for blasphemy.

 

Here we are, then, in Robbie's...well maybe not quite Golden Age, that was about 1997-2002 ('Angels' to 'Feel'), but still a very strong Silver Age which perhaps never saw him release anything truly as long lasting as his earlier solo years but would still hit the high chart spots with ease. This to be fair is probably one of the best things he's done in the last ten years, a great bit of retro Guy Chambers-penned catchiness that may never end up being in the most-remembered box of Robbie tracks but it's a lot better than some of his songs (*cough*Rudebox*cough*).

 

Credit also to the video which for its day was pretty groundbreaking, a complilation of an 'interactive' talent show shown on MTV that summer where pressing the red button on Sky Digital brought up a ton of bonus videos and you could vote for the winner online, different endings being filmed depending on who won. The version on youtube has no reference to any of this to the point where it just looks like a cleverly made fake, but said 'Manufactured Miracles' show did genuinely exist on digital TV for a few days. Not that I ever saw or have any memories of it, but there you go...

 

16th August: HOORAY HOORAY (IT'S A CHEEKY HOLIDAY) - Cheeky Girls

 

No, seriously. They genuinely managed three top 3 hits and indeed remained a regular presense in the charts for another year or so. 'Take Your Shoes Off' I at least had vague memories of, this I can't recollect at all, so another embarrassing youtube search is undertaken...

 

As expected it's a rewritten cover of the Boney M song which later formed the basis for Alexandra Burke's 2010 #1 'Start Without You'. I'm not even sure anyone involved in making this song expected it to actually be a hit as even the Girls themselves sound a little unsure of themselves as they sing it. Perhaps, again, helped by the weather, their fanbase(!!) helped them up to terrifyingly near the number 1 spot once more. Unlike Take Your Shoes Off which had a bizarrely enjoyable charm to it, this one really deserves to be in the forgotten top 3 hit wasteland it's been in basically since release.

 

You actually want to hear it?! Ok then :P