89 - 25/09/2006 Lily Allen - LDN

Chart Run: 01-01-02-02-02-11-23-28-32-34 (10 weeks)

Getting to a song which spent more than a solitary week at the top again, and it's Lily Allen with her second hit, LDN. Her first two singles were the reverse for me in as in the UK as it was following up #6 hit Smile, which was always nice enough but even at the time I loved LDN a lot more - it had been hanging around for a while as one of the new wave of MySpace acts, and was great fun and well written, a good tale of noughties London. I was certainly pleased she got the UK success she did in 2006, it was great to see her at the top of the UK chart. LDN had a quite bizarre chart run for me, with five weeks in the top 2 before dropping straight out of the top 10 and lasting just five further weeks in total! There were some very busy weeks for releases coming up which contributed to big falls, and as I'd been listening to it long before its actual release it wouldn't have had the longevity it perhaps deserved.

I've gone through phases with Lily Allen - I liked her first couple of albums but went off them both relatively quickly, only going back to certain songs now, but have definitely enjoyed some of her latter work too, though that's No Shame much more than last years album. LDN is still a pretty good song that I enjoy, but it does feel very 2006! Looking at Lily's chart history, I do think she has been under-charted with her best songs generally - Alfie (#12) and The Fear (#14) seem criminally low peaks, and they'd be the two of hers I'd go back to most, with Back To The Start probably rounding off a top 3.

2026 Rating: 7/10
Songs kept from #1: McAlmont & Butler - Speed, Jet - Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

Both of these songs rose to the #2 spot, in their fifth and third charting week respectively, after entering lower down which was becoming a bit more common but still quite rare by this stage. McAlmont & Butler were an occasional project between Suede's Bernard Butler and singer David McAlmont, whose 90s hit Yes I was a big fan of. I enjoyed Speed for a while but not something I've returned to often. After loving Jet's debut album I had high hopes for a return, but it's widely regarded as an awful album, and whilst I wouldn't go as far as some criticism I definitely consider it to be a huge comedown in quality, which wasn't unusual for bands of this era releasing a second album. Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is is fine, but got nothing on earlier singles - I certainly don't rate either of these tracks anywhere near as high now.

Two other highlights released within this fortnight were The Pipettes follow-up Judy (#4) and a hidden gem amongst the indie landfill for a band who had some minor success (3 top 40s all in the 30s), Happy As Annie by Larrikin Love (#15), a song of that era I've gone on to enjoy a lot over the years and still play regularly.

90 - 09/10/2006 TV On The Radio - Wolf Like Me

Chart Run: 35-24-12-06-04-01-01-01-07-17-24-30-29-31-36-40-39-38-40 (19 weeks)

In an era of held-back releases we find a first genuine slow-burning climber, presenting a run that would look fairly typical now, although the swift fall down the chart is somewhat less common and a product of still going by a release schedule which have loads of excellent songs released in the same week. TV On The Radio were a brand new discovery for me at the end of summer that year, their second album Return To Cookie Mountain and single Wolf Like Me were both released in July. I first heard of them through previous single I Was a Love which is fine, but I wasn't overly bothered by it. Wolf Like Me, however, was something much more special. I charted it as soon as I heard it and it grew on me over the next few weeks to hit the top, a phenomenal anthemic indie-rock song. They've gone on to become a band I enjoy a lot, and each of the three albums of theirs that followed produced one fairly big hit for me.

TV On The Radio aren't a band I still listen to loads, but they have half a dozen or so brilliant songs that I absolutely love to hear every now and again, and Wolf Like Me is one of those - 20 years on it still sounds incredibly fresh and stands out amongst other indie-rock music of the time.

2026 Rating: 9/10

LDN was #2 in each of the three weeks it was at #1. It was a relatively quiet period for releases, Scott Matthews - Elusive climbed back to #3 for two of these weeks before a re-release of The Rifles - Peace and Quiet charted there in its final week at the top, a good song but nothing special or standout for the bands of the time. The Holloways - Generator, The Knife - Like a Pen, and Jamie T - If You Got The Money were the three standouts from these three weeks, though none of them would reach higher than #9. A mammoth 29 songs would enter the chart over the next fortnight, so plenty to discuss on the next entry,

30/10/2006 Bodyrox feat. Luciana - Yeah Yeah

Chart Run: 01-01-01-04-04-06-04-04-06-09-13-16-17-28-31 (15 weeks)

Time for another big UK hit now, as we move to Yeah Yeah by electro house duo Bodyrox, with vocals provided from Luciana. It is also of course the D. Ramirez edit which became popular and which I also loved. For a brief period this type of song was a popular and familiar sound, I put it in the same bracket as the likes of Mason - Exceeder and Fedde Le Grande - Put Your Hands Up For Detroit, which climbed to the UK #1 in the week Yeah Yeah was #2. Whilst I liked most of this type of track to some extent, Yeah Yeah was comfortably the standout of them for me, largely down to the bolshy, shouty vocal provided by Luciana which elevated it from a good song to a great one. It was certainly something I loved being such a big hit.

I definitely don't like this as much as I did back in 2006, but it's definitely nice to hear whenever I do, Luciana's vocal still definitely elevating it.

2026 Rating: 8/10

Songs kept from #1: Air Traffic - Never Even Told Me Her Name, The Good, The Bad & The Queen - Herculean, Snow Patrol feat. Martha Wainwright - Set The Fire To The Third Bar

A trio of excellent songs kept off the top here. Air Traffic were a short lived indie pop band who had a few good singles in 2006-7, Never Even Told Me Her Name the one of these I'd still listen to most and got a long 13 week stint in the top 10 as it bounced up and down within it until the end of January. The Good, The Bad & The Queen were a Damon Albarn fronted 'supergroup' made up of various successful musicians and released a self-titled album I loved for a time in 2007, Herculean was the standout of this but all of the singles from it made the top 10. Finally, the best of the three and one of the songs of 2006 I still listen to the most, Set The Fire To The Third Bar by Snow Patrol with Martha Wainwright as a guest vocalist. It's the song of Snow Patrol's I'd now call a career highlight, a phenomenal beautiful duet by both vocalists - it's the one of this trio I'd now change, especially as Yeah Yeah already had a fortnight at the top.

It was a huge week for releases when Yeah Yeah entered, with it being one of were 18 new entries in the chart, and there were 15 that made the UK top 40 (though a couple were already in there from downloads only prior to their 'official' release), the main highlight (although took a while to get going for me) is Gossip - Standing In The Way of Control. A lot of mine were fairly small indie bands following up previous songs I'd liked - The Sunshine Underground, Young Knives, Peter, Bjorn & John - or ones which were just starting and would have more success, for me and in the UK, later on - The Horrors, Panic! At The Disco, Klaxons. In the latter fortnight Beyonce got her biggest hit (so far) with Irreplaceable, and CSS, a very 2006/7 indie disco band, got their first hit with Alala.

Haven't thought of 'Yeah Yeah' for a long while! Still good but I think it hasn't aged as well as 'Put Your Heads Up For Detroit' (that one I still remember every now and then).

Edited 16 hours ago16 hr by AllStarBySmashMouth