20th March: BABY I LOVE U - Jennifer Lopez

 

The queen of #3s couldn't resist making one more appearance here, it seems. She continues to release tracks to this day, including some chart-toppers, but she's only got to #3 once since this and that was guesting on will.i.am/Mick Jagger(!)'s 'THE' early in 2012. It's also from the same album that brought us 'Jenny from the Block' way back in 2002, so by the time this was released the song was two years old and indeed did nothing in most countries except here, even charting at an underwhelming #72 back in the States.

 

I remember the video pretty well which was played a lot on music channels and is just a close-up of her face for four minutes, but not the song, essentially just her singing the praises of then-boyfriend Ben Affleck (they'd break up a few months later). Simple, inoffensive, probably spoke to a lot of people feeling about the same about their respective relationships but does nothing for me. Call me cold but it's like one of those tracks they bung on at the end of one of the Now That's What I Call Music discs, not memorable or big enough a hit to go anywhere else. As we've seen earlier in this thread, she's released, and would go on to release better.

 

27th March: YOUR GAME - Will Young

 

Will's done pretty well to get the long chart career he's achieved, although in the last six years or so it's more just the occasional lead single that charts high and the rest is just quietly ignored. From his 2002 Pop Idol win to 2006, though, he was a chart megastar, and here we see him comfortably in the middle of that era still reeling from the incredible worldwide success of 'Leave Right Now' late the previous year, which seemed to catch a few by surprise as to how unexpectedly well it did.

 

Follow-up time then, another video I remember seeing a lot on music channels around this time and moves into slightly more upbeat territory after LRY's balladry, starting by going for a sort of acid jazz type of sound. It begins pretty subtly but has a bit more bite to it than what first appears, eventually growing into a big choral number. There's one really brilliant bit and that's the "I keep wasting your time on your game" line, which is epic and the rest of it never quite matches or hits those heights. What it is though is a grower, and even on my second listen I'm enjoying it a little more.

 

I really enjoy the West End/CGI hybrid video too, matching the growth of the song by starting with what seems to be something pretty low-budget and ending up being very far from it!

 

3rd April: LEFT OUTSIDE ALONE - Anastacia

 

A huge hit which can be ranked alongside the likes of In Da Club and Hey Ya as a "Wait, wasn't that a number 1?!" surprise. Indeed here we have the seventh(!!) biggest seller of the year, the only one not a #1 in the YTD top 12 though the continuing download sales of 'Mr Brightside' by The Killers in the 9 years since (which only reached #10!) probably puts it higher by now.

 

I'd enjoyed 'All Out of Love' back in 2000 and this is perhaps the other song she's most remembered for, indeed it's probably the biggest. From the moment she sings the first few lines of the song you know you're about to hear something special, although perhaps a different type of special that than the opening suggests as rather than the 'Bring Me to Life' style operatic rock her voice initially seems to hint at, we instead go into a poppier, growlier yet still fantastic direction. It's difficult to know what else to say as everyone's probably heard this a million times now, so I'll just state the obvious - it's pop perfection. A fantastic mid-noughties gem that like Hey Ya suffers from almost all its audience downloading it for free on mp3 instead of actually buying it so its sales of 275,000 are very much misrepresentive of its popularity. I haven't heard this in so long that I can't stop playing it!

 

The video, in case you're wondering, isn't actually shot in London despite the presence of a similar but not quite identical London Underground sign, and is actually somewhere in California.

 

10th April: SLOW JAMZ - Twista feat. Kanye West & Jamie Foxx

 

The once "fastest rapper in the world" had been around for years, breaking the Guinness World Record for said fact back in 1992 but finally got his first major hit a decade later, a #1 in the States and doing pretty well here too. Also notable as one of the first appearances for Mr Kanye West as this was released at the same time as 'Through the Wire' here, both going top 10.

 

This song relies on a simple gimmick, a chillout R&B track starting with some slow singing from Foxx and West (best line "She got a light-skinned friend that looks like Michael Jackson. She got a dark-skinned friend that looks like...Michael Jackson") before some woman, literally in the middle of the song, says "Do it faster!". Kanye replies "I can't...but I know someone who can!" and Twista appears and slightly blows everyone's minds with his 500mph delivery. It's a simple gimmick but it's an awesome moment, lifting the song into a slightly higher level it otherwise would be and while overall it still isn't something I'd play regularly, it was much more fun a listen than I'd first assumed.

 

More soon and without spoiling too much, the next #3 is all kinds of awesome :dance:

17th April: IN THE SHADOWS - The Rasmus

 

Told you so! So I've already mentioned my lurking days on the forum CoolClarity, and I remember seemingly half the forum being nuts about these guys, a Finnish rock group that have had a massive amount of hits in their home country from 1996 to present day but very, very briefly looked like conquring the rest of Europe when this went top 6 almost everywhere. Thankfully the UK followed suit and indeed had a couple more hits here (#15, #43 and #50) but it's fair to say nothing ever came close to this.

 

Why? Because it's just utterly brilliant, that's why :D Coming in just at the right time as everything went indie, it's a pounding rock track with a huge amount of sing-along melody to be enormously appealing, anyone who doesn't have at least one of the hooks stuck in their head after the first listen is made of steel. I've always been a fan of Scandinavian pop and I'm pleased to see that the same part of the world is just as brill with the rock genre too.

 

And if you're a fan of unexpected European smashes, we've got another coming up in a few entries time!

 

1st May: THIS LOVE - Maroon 5

 

It's Troublemaker by Olly Murs! Go on, compare the choruses, they're terrifyingly similar sounding :P

 

Turn on a radio in 2004 - and, indeed, since about August 2011 onwards - and you won't be able to escape Maroon 5, their melodic and easy-going pop-rock perfect for the medium. Until a certain irritating track two years ago sold about ten million copies and became by far their biggest seller, it was this along with She Will Be Loved that was perhaps their best known song and boy was it overplayed, if not quite on the scale of what was to come.

 

As you've probably gathered from the last paragraph, I'm not a fan of Moves Like Jagger. In fact I've kinda despised it from the moment I heard it, a song seemingly made for cheesy discos and naff Christmas/wedding parties and when I hear him go "I've got the mooo-oooo-oooves like Jagger" I slightly want to punch him. You could say the same for this but instead I enjoy it much more, no annoying whistling or namechecking gimmicks here, just an excellent pop track with enough melody, quirkiness and likeability to tick all the boxes.

 

Note that certain sections of the video might be a little NSFW, although a lot of it's blocked by a massive 'SUBSCRIBE TO YOUTUBE/VEVO NOW' banner anyway. Was certainly a bit of an eye-opening viewing as a fifteen year old...

 

15th May: SINGLE - Natasha Bedingfield

 

I am very surprised to see this. Call me absolutely stupid but I was convinced her first release was 'These Words', it's certainly the first I remember. But nope, somehow this #3 from earlier in the year passed me by, the sister of Daniel Bedingfield who'd had a ton of hits in 2001-2003 ranging from poppy garage to drippy balladry. Now it was Natasha's turn in what would be an excellent couple of years for her before the interest dried up by 2008.

 

I don't remember this at all! Seems to have been what's called a 'soft launch', not choosing the obvious breakthrough single (ha) straight away and instead going for a smaller top 10 hit before really bringing out the big guns. The Saturdays did it in 2008 with 'If This is Love' being followed by 'Up', ditto Jessie J with 'Do It Like a Dude' being released before 'Price Tag'. With its chorus hook of "This is my current single status" you wonder if she's predicting Facebook a couple of years early (I know it had already launched by now but only to American university students) but nope, just a turn of phrase. It's...very dull, to be honest, and I'm baffled as to how it went top 3 as it seems completely forgotten now and perhaps just did so on the Bedingfield name. 'These Words' would make her a star if just a very brief one.

 

 

22nd May: IRISH BLOOD, ENGLISH HEART - Morrissey

 

Yes, Morrissey. In 2004, not 1994 or even 1984. Only in tiny sales climates such as this could someone like the lead singer from The Smiths get his first top 3 hit...well, ever, not a single one of his Smiths songs nor any of his solo releases had ever achieved it before and he'd do it once more in 2006 with You Have Killed Me. What also helped - and it kills me to say this as half of my bloody friends were there YESTERDAY - is that this was the year he headlined Glastonbury, a festival I've been trying for years to get a ticket for but have been faced with crashing websites and disappointment each time. Next year, I say. Every year. Maybe 2014 if a miracle happens, or more likely someone I know actually organises the mass ticket-buying for once :P

 

Radio 1 didn't even bother playlisting this when it came out, so it was thanks to XFM who did and gave many people their first listen of the track. Sales were also perhaps helped by the very political lyric "The English are sick to death of LABOUR! And TORIES!" which isn't often something you hear in a chart hit. It's ok if a little short at 2:37, problem is when I hear I think of his follow-up to this that really was a slice of brilliance. 'First of the Gang to Die' is an absolutely cracking gem, peaking at #6 a couple of months later and is perhaps one of the most gloriously melodic rock tracks I've ever heard, certainly of the noughties, and feels like a 90s Britpop hit released about ten years too late. I'm of the wrong generation to remember him from his Smiths days and there's a ton of his songs I've still yet to hear, but from these I feel I'm in for a treat.

 

Single, This Love and In The Shadows are all 2004 classics IMO :wub: Really don't see why 2004 gets so much hate, it's one of my favourite years for music ever

22nd November: HEY YA! - OutKast

 

...but not quite yet. On said 22nd November, this in fact debuted at number 6, dropping steadily down to number 22 by the end of the year. Then, in early 2004, something quite remarkable happened. Just as what had happened to Toploader's 'Dancing in the Moonlight' a few years earlier, the song was majorly rediscovered in the New Year lull and it eventually climbed up to reach the #3 spot, spending practically the entire winter season in the top 10 and only dropping from the charts in the Spring. It seemed to appeal way beyond your average chart-buying audience to the point where everyone - mum, dad, Grandma, dog etc knows it, and had it not spent its chart run in the critically low sales climate we then existed in, would have surely easily cleared a million sales.

 

I briefly really enjoyed it. But man did it get overplayed quickly and to this day I find it a bit annoying, there's a lot better songs out there from this time I'd have much preferred to be widely remembered today. Listening to it now, the first time I've properly done so in ages, I can definitely hear its charms. The "shake it like a Polaroid picture" bit always irked me a bit as I never actually used to do that, I'd just take the photo and just leave it on a flat surface and watch it gradually form in front of my eyes. Amazing to think that there's a generation of teenagers around today that will find the very idea of a 'Polaroid picture' incredibly bizarre and baffling! "Touch it like an Instagram filter" doesn't quite work as well :P

 

Was I the only one to believe the computer trickery of the video and not realise that every one of these guys are all Andre 3000? So naive...

 

 

I know you actually added "dog" as a joke but it's really strange that whenever 'Hey Ya' has come on the radio over the years, my dog howls to the chorus EVERY TIME and clearly tries to keep in tune (but failing :lol:). It's the only song that my dog has attempted to sing to. :lol:

 

Also, you're not alone with the video. When I was younger and was watching the video, I thought each member was a different person. :lol:

Left Outside Alone and This Love - both fab. :wub:

Oops, life and scorching weather put a brief halt to this :blush: No probs, will catch up by posting a bumper six #3s now and hopefully finish off 2004 (and the thread!) in a few days!

 

29th May: HOTEL - Cassidy feat. R Kelly

 

Forgotten R&B one hit wonder that isn't once of the worst we've heard, perhaps because of the Latin guitar running throughout giving things a bit of melody for once.

 

...wow, I'm really struggling to say anything else about this one :/ Cassidy had one more hit later that year when 'Get No Better' reached #24, later served eight months in jail for involuntary manslaughter and apparently is about to release a book about the experience. R Kelly is R Kelly, and is perhaps responsible for most of the sales of this track. He'd only ever have more top 3 hit again and that was on perhaps one of the most forgotten #1s of all time, Ja Rule's 'Wonderful' released a few months later.

 

Can we move on now?

 

12th June: INSANIA - Peter Andre

 

Talk about a comeback. The highs and lows of Peter Andre's career is such a gripping story I'm surprised it hasn't been turned into a movie, or at least a BBC4 drama-documentary. My initial memories of him are synonymous with the words "Peter Andre" being followed by a deafening scream of teenage girls every time, so was the mere mention of his name on TV enough to send them in a frenzy. Then he disappeared for a bit and seemed destined to forever belong in the 1990s, until, out of nowhere, 'I'm a Celebrity' happened and his much publicised "romance" with Jordan lead to a re-release of his most famous hit Mysterious Girl (#2 in 1996), which finally reached the top eight years later and is now a million-seller. Similar then I guess to 'Let's Get Ready to Rhumble's success this year except this wasn't even a download purchase, everyone genuinely bought the CD single all over again to get it back in the charts.

 

Except this time the story goes on a bit. During his time in the jungle, he penned a new song 'Insania' about his ongoing reality TV experience, and duly East West Records had him record an album in time for the summer with this as a new single from it. With Peter and Jordan still huge media favourites following their televisual meet, success was pretty much assured and thanks to constant ITV2 update shows about his life would go on to have a few more hits in the charts over the next few years. In 2010 he got an unexpectedly massive crowd packed into a tiny little tent he was performing in at the V Festival, which for a old-school pop star in his late 30s is fairly impressive.

 

The song's terrible, of course, but there's something both then and now that's weirdly appealing to it. Maybe just looking at his grinning gleeful face in the video, loving every second of being back in the spotlight, even the constant "Duhh duh duh duh doo, duhh duh duh duh doo" vocal hook somehow working when it really shouldn't. It'll never be up there with Mysterious Girl which is somewhat destined to be a retro classic until the end of time, but I did enjoy my three-minute listen of it just now.

 

19th June: DRAGOSTEA DIN TEI - O-Zone

 

Oh yes indeed :D Essentially the mid-noughties equivalent of Gangnam Style and one of the last international novelty hits from the pre-youtube age, I think this is one of those where you'll always remember when and where you were when you first heard it. Me? Flicking through the music channels that summer, coming across this and staring in bemused amazement at the television screen.

 

O-Zone are perhaps the biggest worldwide export to ever come out of tiny Moldova, an Eastern European country that only very recently became an independent state, part of the USSR for years until declaring independence in the early 1990s. Admittedly the guys who formed the pop group then later moved to Romania, who were in somewhat of a pop boom with the massive success of the Cheeky Girls(!) and it was there that this song was first a hit, topping the charts for four weeks in 2003. Then all hell broke loose, the rest of Europe found it and eventually it made its way here. Inexplicably, yet brilliantly, we loved it and it became the first song sung entirely in Romanian to go top 3 in this country.

 

It really is bizarre hearing this in the context of every #3 we've heard so far as this sounds more outdated than almost all of them, belonging right back in the 90s and indeed seemed hilariously out of step even at the time, but that just helped its novelty value. As did the simple fact that it is catchy as hell, even knowing absolutely no Romanian whatsoever like most of the country do it's an awesome singalong bit of cheese, especially the "Mai a hee! Mai a haa!" bit that incredibly ended up on a Rihanna song years later (when I first heard it I honestly thought "JESUS CHRIST SHE'S COVERING O-ZONE" but sadly not). And before anyone mentions the famous Gary Brolsma video (a teenager lip-syncing to the song and doing a silly dance which became an online hit), that was actually made about six months later, although it brought the song to the attention of the United States.

 

At the time, getting increasingly tired of the dull R&B and talent show songs dominating the 2004 charts, I thought this was one of the best things I'd heard in ages. And again its sales are vastly lower than you'd think thanks to the mid-noughties low sales climate. Possibly a million-seller if released today?

 

17th July: THAT'S ALL RIGHT - Elvis Presley

 

...although I think the "outdated" award probably goes to this. Here we have a song from 1954, the first single Mr Presley ever recorded and some argue it's the first ever rock-and-roll record. 50 years on it gets a re-issue, and unlike other Elvis hits in the 21st century such as 'A Little Less Conversation' topping the chart in 2002 and 'Rubberneckin' reaching #5 in 2003, this isn't a modern up to date remix, it's the original recording preserved on CD single form for the first time. Amusingly it even ended up on Hits 59 between The Calling and The Corrs.

 

Reviewing this is an incredibly odd experience :P My musical knowledge starts to get hazy pre-about 1980, so 1954 feels like absolute ancient history, before my parents were even born and when my Grandma was only 14. It's also the shortest song yet at 1 minute 57 seconds, beating even 'Songbird' by Oasis last year. Call me a young whippersnapper but the massive rock and roll revolution of the 1950s always seems very odd and quaint to my ears, being born in 1988 I've always lived in a world of manufactured pop music, heavy metal rock and groundbreaking electronic dance music and even songs released the week I was born would be alien to the listening ears of 30 years earlier. So said "rock and roll" music has to me always been very chilled-out, pleasantly listenable old music, never giving me anything near more than about 2 out of 10 on the excitement scale. Seeing how HUGE the scene was in the mid-50s, how much it horrified the older generation and thrilled my Grandparents teenage years is very, very funny. But then so is Beatlemania in the 60s and acid house in the late 80s, both seem very quaint in comparison to what was to come. Only the punk revolution in the late 70s I can kinda see the point of, as at any age I can see why the likes of the Sex Pistols would cause such a stir.

 

Apparently this sounded so exciting in 1954 that one disc jockey played it 14 times and got over 40 telephone calls, which is hilarious. It's a nice listen but is so far in the past that although I appreciate Presley's talent, it's way before my time and musical tastes to ever reach the thrill of what 1954 listeners must have thought. Mildly catchy, but neither rocks or rolls using the definitions I'm familiar with today.

 

The success of this presumably gave them an idea to carry things on, leading to the somewhat horrific situation in 2005 when all of Elvis's #1 singles were re-released one week after each other. Wouldn't normally be a problem except the reissues came at the lowest ever point for the singles chart with sales next to nothing, meaning said re-issues ended up becoming several number 1s and many top 3s too. This included the 1,000th number 1, which ended up being a re-issue of one from 50 years earlier and caused many snobby people to go "Ha ha, that proves current music's crap then if Elvis is #1" and in general made a bit of a mockery of things. Thankfully I won't be reviewing 2005 as while this is a fun novelty, trying to write about more singles from the 1950s might end up being somewhat of a challenge!

 

28th August: GUNS DON'T KILL PEOPLE, RAPPERS DO - Goldie Looking Chain

 

We can look at Europe sometimes and the crazy songs those wacky foreigners make (Eurovision I'm looking at you). To a lesser extent we can look at the chart toppers in the United States, mostly those similar to ours but with a few notable differences - 'Baby Got Back' by Sir Mix-a-Lot spending five weeks there in 1992 but missing top 40 here, and the remarkable run in 2009 when the Black Eyed Peas remained on top for almost the entire year.

 

Then you have things like this, which anyone living outside the UK would be in absolute stunned disbelief as to what the hell this was and what it was doing top 3. Goldie Looking Chain were a comedy Welsh rap band(!) who today would perhaps just be Youtube stars but back then somehow got a record deal, getting six top 40 hits of which this was the only one to go top 10. What perhaps got it so high was that along with being a general pisstake of rap music, there was something oddly catchy about it too and just about works as both a fun song and a comedy sketch, if not one I'd listen to regularly. I used to frequent an IRC chatroom at the time which had a bot that when you'd say "Guns!" it would instantly reply with "Rappers!", such was the fun we had in the pre-Facebook web era.

 

Both this and 3 of a Kind's 'Babycakes' (released around the same time and getting to #1) perhaps also tied in with the whole concept of "Chav" culture becoming a mainstream word this year, previously known under a huge variety of names depending on where you lived but it was the middle of 2004 that one word began dominating above all. I've always been a bit uncomfortable with the idea of chav-mocking, indeed even the word seems a bit offensive and just feels like well-off rich people having a go at those in poorer areas. The GLC at least are clearly just in it for laughs rather than anything particularly malicious and it's more a case of laughing at their (deliberately) silly Welsh accents trying to rap. Later parodied further still by Chris Moyles with the name "Dogs Don't Kill People Wabbitz Do" which sold about 10 copies to top the new-fangled 'download chart', whatever that is...

 

4th September: DUMB - The 411

 

Very very briefly popular British R&B group who got two top 5 hits this year of which this was their biggest. I don't think I massively remember it but I'm really enjoying it, sounding similar to a ton of other tracks that have come before - in particular the chorus is so Mya's 'Case of the Ex' (#3 in 2001, go back a few pages!) it hurts a little, weirdly you could even sing the chorus of Gangsta's Paradise over the top and it would still fit. But is by far one of the catchiest #3s we've heard all year and an excellent slice of forgotten pop, so much so that I'm playing it again the moment it finishes. 2:48 is short by single standards but is brief enough to not overstay its welcome. Love it!!

 

I'm not a fan of Dragostea Din Tei at all but love the fact that a Romanian language song went top 3 in the UK :D I actually far prefer what T.I. and Rihanna did with it. Going back a bit to Morrissey, First Of The Gang To Die was indeed excellent, if that had been the lead single then it would have no doubt been a #2/3 hit instead of a #6.

Ok, plan is to write and post three a day for the next three days and then we're finished! Exciting times :lol:

 

11th September: SUNSHINE - Twista

 

The speedy rapper we've already seen in 'Slow Jamz' returns, sampling the class 'Lovely Day' by Bill Withers. Unlike Slow Jamz this did nothing in America nor much elsewhere in the world, but the UK loved it enough to send it top 3. Which I can't really understand as 2004, let alone September, wasn't much of a sunshine-filled year especially when compared to the scorching 2003.

 

For a rap remake of Lovely Day it's pretty much what you expect, very generic mid-00s R&B which is ok if you like the sound but as you've probably gathered it's not my favourite genre so despite typing this in this seemingly unstoppable heatwave of a month, it leaves me weirdly cold.