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34: CHRIS MALINCHAK - SO GOOD TO ME (New Entry)

 

Peak: #2 (May 2013)

 

 

Until the Avicii adventures mentioned above, Summer 2013 was generally a stressed and trouble-filled time for a variety of reasons too boring to go here. What did perhaps help things was the heatwave month of July, the first real mega prolonged hot spell since 2006 and one where every day would wake up to cloudless, scorching sun. Unfortunately I didn't enjoy it as much as other years simply because my time was spent doing too much for too many people. No wonder I needed a holiday.

 

Listening to this song, everything felt ok. It would calm me down and rest my fevered mind, but then at the end of the year it turned out to soundtrack the winter very nicely indeed too - a song that worked in two different seasons! A relaxing and evocative house track better than most around and still sounds great now in its second winter.

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Oh go on then, it's been long enough so have one more for today:

 

33: JESSIE J FEAT B.O.B - PRICE TAG (Down 10)

 

Peak: #1 (February 2011)

 

 

Some artists seem to exist for one song and one song only, despite how hard they try. Indeed there's nothing else of Jessie J's discography I'd ever want to listen to except this, her one bit of genius and another one that's survived from the original list.

 

As I grow older, some songs that remind me of happier times can become harder to listen to in the future as a depressing sense of my own mortality surrounds me, but this was one I massively enjoyed both then at 22 and now at 26, a fantastic feel-good track at all ages. And a million seller, one of the only ones of the whole decade I actually like - but there's still more to come!

 

More later this week :)

All The Lovers is my favourite from your chart so far. I had short listed it for inclusion in my chart too. I remember slagging it off here when it was released. I love it now.
...and we're back. :)

 

Thanks to the two comments above and apologies for the sudden halt of this back in January. A combination of various life issues put hold to this and all other projects, but let's resume things with a triple bill of posts this evening. The list remains exactly how it stood when I compiled it back at the very end of the year, as tempted as I was to tinker with it!

 

Great to see this back, Billy, and please feel free to do finish it at your own pace - I'd enjoyed reading it up to the break and was just being selfish!

 

Can't say I share your pleasure, guilty or otherwise :P, for 'Trumpets' but I loooooove 'So Good To Me' and haven't heard it in ages. Interesting that you enjoyed it during the winter as I tend to avoid songs as inherently summery as it but it's definitely sounding great now that the sun's out. B-)

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32: SIGMA - NOBODY TO LOVE (New Entry)

 

Peak: #1 (April 2014)

 

 

...but not in the version it should have been and not the one on my iPod. This is one of the songs that soundtracked a two-week holiday to Australia in March 2014, and because it had yet to be officially released I resorted to copying the audio off iTunes. Drum & bass in general has dominated dance music this decade in a way that even back in the noughties would have been hard to believe, sadly the majority of it is massively inferior to any of the truly brilliant stuff released in the 1990s and most of all on Pendulum's 2005 'Hold Your Colour' masterpiece album. It's become identikit pop music with a weak, basic, unchanging 4/4 d&B loop over the top, something that makes me pine for the days of Adam F, Roni Size and early Pendulum which had much more invention and freedom to it.

 

Which is what this is too really, but what makes it better than anything else is the sample used, an immensely uplifting piano and vocals from Charlie Wilson - and perhaps best of all, a few "Ah-huh honey!"s from 1960s icon Brenda Lee. It started out as a simple mashup, and while I'm tempted to say it should have been released in the summer that perhaps wouldn't have been a good idea as by February it was already a huge Youtube hit and should have been released immediately. One problem - they couldn't clear the samples. The version released, as heard on radio, Now music compilations etc and everywhere since re-records it all with some bloke from One True Voice and generally doesn't sound as good, even the "Ah-huh honey!"s suffering as a result.

 

No matter. As I sat on Bondi Beach, with 35-degree sunshine pouring down on me, I turned on my iPod, listened to the original mashup and enjoyed four minutes of bliss.

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31: GROUPLOVE - TONGUE TIED (New Entry)

 

Peak: #84 (December 2011)

 

 

Eighty...*what*? How was this not a massive, world-conquering top ten hit?! Thankfully America and Australia saw sense and it was much bigger over there, maybe over here everyone simply assumed it was called 'Take Me To Your Best Friend's House' and tried and failed to find it on iTunes. Or maybe, being 2011, it wasn't produced by David Guetta so no one cared.

 

Perhaps it just sounded too noughties, too 2008 - you can imagine this played with in a DJ set with the likes of MGMT and Empire of the Sun, but by 2011 this sound was too out of fashion as everyone was firmly set in embracing synth pop/dance instead. It's a singalong *anthem* that deserves more than simply soundtracking an iPod Touch advert, this should have been big. Silly Britain.

 

Song starts in the video at 0:25.

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30: LANA DEL RAY VS CEDRIC GERVAIS- SUMMERTIME SADNESS (New Entry)

 

Peak: #4 (August 2013)

 

 

A 'Nobody To Love' of EDM, again a sound that by the time this came out I was fairly done with but when it's done *right* it elevates it well above the competition. It's a combination of not just the voice, but whether the backing supports it appropriately enough and both Lana and Ricky's brother Cedric (not really) achieve greatness here. I've seen it read before that the best dance hits are both euphoric and melancholic, and this is a pretty epic example of both working in harmony. Fun fact - the newest song that was featured at my 25th birthday party a month later, a Spotify playlist I still happily own to this day.

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...ah. Well. That was kind of a fail :P

 

I've just returned to the UK for a while after spending most of the last year in Australia, and I've found my original notes for this thread I wrote back in early 2015. I never got as far as the full list but I *did* write draft entries up to #11, which is still 19 more places than how far this thread got.

 

My music tastes are always changing and there's already songs in the list that I wouldn't rank so high today, but rather than try and rewrite the whole thing I'm gonna try finishing this off (again) as things stood this time a year and a half ago. Before I get to the top 10, I'll list a few 2015-16 songs that I've enjoyed since.

 

So (if anyone still cares, lol) let's flash back to New Year 2015, and - finally - #29 in my then-Decade top 50!

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29: SHOWTEK FEAT. WE ARE LOUD & SONNY WILSON - BOOYAH (New Entry)

 

Peak: #5 (November 2013)

 

 

I wonder if people will look back at the second half of 2013 as a bit of a golden era for dance music? More really great dance tracks got released then compared to any other part of the 2010s I can remember, and this joins Summertime Sadness as one of the ones that have made it here.

 

Mindless, frentic dance music which can't quite decide what genre it wants to be so it throws them all in at once, a dubstep/D&B/electro/techno/deep house fusion. The full mix and the radio edit are fairly differently structured, the radio edit with a completely new beginning (that I probably prefer) but the full mix with lots of extra sections in the middle that don't make the edit - my ideal mix would be the start of the radio edit leading into the rest of the full. Either way it's a track that piles on the energy and majorly throws you on first listen, perhaps too disjointed and heavy for some but in an age where most dance tracks start off promising but lead into disappointing, minimalist deep house "drops" this is hugely refreshing a listen.

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28: MAGIC - RUDE (New Entry)

 

Peak: #1 (August 2014)

 

 

Quite a recent one but sounded great in the few summery days we had this year (mostly in the Autumn) right up to that heatwave Halloween. Working out its position was a tricky one, it's not really sounding at its best in winter so whether I'm still playing it next summer - and the summer after - will determine if it lasts in this list.

 

It channels the spirit of acts of the past like The Police and contributes something breezy, melodic and, rare for 2014, an *actual proper chorus* instead of just endless riffs on the verses.

 

JUNE 2016 UPDATE: It's now "that summer after" and I still enjoy this, in fact I've barely played it since 2014 so it's lasting better than those I've overplayed since. Shame it's a cloudy grey-sky evening outside though...

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27: VANCE JOY - RIPTIDE (New Entry)

 

Peak: #10 (February 2014)

 

 

Another song that reminds me of Australia, a big 2013 hit over there which eventually peaked at a surprisingly low #10 here at the start of this year (2014). Again in today's connected age they couldn't really delay this until the following summer in a Coco Jamboo sort of way, shame as this doesn't fit the winter months at all and instead conjures up all blue skies and beaches. Plus a bizarre, almost meta video, which features a load of literal imagery and means I've no idea what Vance Joy even looks like.

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26: SWEDISH HOUSE MAFIA - ONE (Down 10)

 

Peak: #7 (August 2010)

 

 

Poor 2010's suffered in this update, particularly the upbeat dance tracks which have mostly left the chart. 'One' (no 'Your Name' in sight, original instrumental all the way thank you very much) has managed to survive by still retaining its simple but euphoric power almost half a decade on. Back in 2012 I thought this was slightly less good than Miami 2 Ibiza, but today it's this that wins.

 

Their biggest hit in reality belongs to their last and by far their worst ever song, unreleased at the time of the last list. Compared to this it's boring, commercial mainstream blandness, interchangeable from anything else but the kids liked singing "DON'T YOU WORRY DON'T YOU WORRY CHILD" at the school discos so it sold an undeserving ton.

 

JUNE 2016 UPDATE: Wow, I was quite harsh on 'Don't You Worry Child' there!! There is definitely a shift towards less dancey-tracks in this list compared to my 2012 one - it reflected the mood I was in at the time. This is still one hell of a tune though six years on.

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25: DISCLOSURE FEAT. SAM SMITH - LATCH (New Entry)

 

Peak: #11 (November 2012)

 

 

This was the first song I remember hearing that I thought was definitely, definitely going to be in a future update to my first list. And over two years later it's still sounding great enough to hit the halfway mark. Predating the deep house craze a little this sounded amazingly different to anything else at the time, using all the best bits of late 90s house and garage with fantastic vocals from some bloke called Sam Smith who'd go onto solo mainstream success with a load of songs much worse than this. I assumed 'Disclosure' was someone (or some people) in their 30s and around the same age as Chase & Status, maybe a DJ who'd been around for many years but only just now breaking through. My jaw dropped when learning it were a couple of late teens/young adults who were born after me, and suddenly I felt absolutely ancient!

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I'll try and (finally) reach the top 10 by the end of this week.

Proof that Sam Smith CAN be listenable. “Latch” only made #2 on my personal chart but it was a slow burner with 22 weeks and so comfortably makes my Top 100 of the decade-to-date.

 

The new album was (“Holdin On” aside) pretty disappointing. I hope that was just a temporary mis-step.

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24: THE VERONICAS - YOU RUIN ME (New Entry)

 

Peak: #8 (November 2014)

 

 

By the time this came out I was pretty certain at the general shape of my top 50, only for this and one other track to knock me for six in the closing weeks of 2014 and become very late additions.

 

An astounding ballad from the underrated Australian duo that if anything is too low, I just tend to be cautious with *very* recent hits as obviously anything new is going to sound much fresher than something from four years ago. Broken and exhausted by both relationship problems and extreme record label issues that resulted in an entire album being cancelled, they recorded this at 1:30 in the morning as a way of attempting to leave behind the troubles of the past. Brilliantly it ended up as a #1 hit in native Oz, and more surprisingly returned them to the top 10 over here, matching the #8 peak of 'Untouched' in 2009. Absolutely deserved and a great ending to a troubled few years for them.

 

JUNE 2016 UPDATE: Yep, time's been glorious to this and would easily still make the chart today, if indeed higher than the as-mentioned cautious #24 I put it here.

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23: THE VACCINES - IF YOU WANNA (Down 5)

 

Peak: #35 (April 2012)

 

 

Still as brilliant as when I first heard it on, of all things, the Top of the Pops 2011 Christmas special when it had charted outside the top 40 that year. Continued airplay and a 59p reduction finally got it in there early the next year, one of the extremely few rock tracks to do anything in the dance-heavy early 2010s. Also of note is 'A Lack of Understanding' from their album I found in a charity shop not only costing just a pound but actually autographed by the Vaccines themselves!

 

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22: EXAMPLE - KICKSTARTS (UP 1)

 

Peak: #3 (June 2010)

 

 

We have our first climber! Several tracks that made the first list but are now absent means that this, originally rated at #23 in 2012, moves up a place as like The Vaccines it's managed to retain its magic all these years later.

 

He may have gone onto greater commercial success with two #1 hits in 2011, both of which I loved at the time, but it's this initial first top 3 hit that will remain his masterpiece and a glorious summer 2010 anthem.

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21: LABRINTH - LET THE SUN SHINE (Down 7)

 

Peak: #3 (October 2010)

 

 

Maybe not one that will appear in everyone's decade top 50 - indeed this just misses out on top 20 - but, as in 2012's list, this sun-drenched guilty pleasure tunage remains fabulous to me to this day. As I listen to it now, even at wintertime, I want to propel it right to the top but having a quick sneak at the top 20 I realise it ain't gonna happen.

 

A supremely and annoyingly underrated summer anthem, one that I still fail to understand why on earth it was released in a cold October but #3 is good going even so. One to sit back on a heatwave of a day and pump it out the speakers.

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20: TRAIN - HEY SOUL SISTER (New Entry)

 

Peak: #18 (May 2010)

 

 

My eyes did a double take when I consulted the first list and found this absolutely nowhere to be seen. I then look at when it got added to my iTunes, and suddenly it made sense - not until an almost insultingly late June 2012, just as I was able to start compiling it.

 

Their second appearance in this chart after Drive By, and another 2010 song that's done a lot better than others I loved back then and remained brilliant to this day. Uplifting, summery, building throughout until those final 'Tonight's ring out and you're in heaven. Seeing that peak of just #18 hurts me dearly, although it made up for it with a massive chart run at the time.

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