RabbitFurCoat

25 - 12/01/2004 Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out Chart Run: 01-01-02-02-01-02-02-03-04-05-06-09-13-17-20-25-31-40 (18 weeks) Ah, the great wave of indie begins. At the beginning of 2004 this was all over the radio, and became a big hit, reaching #3 in the UK and setting others up for similar success over the course of the rest of 2004. There was no question it was going to the top for me, and 8 weeks in the top 3 shows how much I loved it. I bought their debut album on release and loved it, full of excellent songs and incredibly varied. Take Me Out has remained a huge favourite song of mine. The opening riff and minute long intro is still incredible, before it belts into the catchy sing-a-long hit. I still have to rank it as one of my favourite songs of this type and era, just utterly superb. Franz Ferdinand in general were great too, whilst not hitting the heights of their debut album the rest of their output has remained at least solid with some decent singles on, including this years most recent album, and Alex Kapranos is good to listen to talk, just an excellent band and entry all round. They deserve to have one of the most well regarded songs of the era. 2025 Rating: 10/10 Its three weeks at the top were ahead of previous number ones, so nothing immediately kept off. Maroon 5 - Harder To Breathe and The Strokes - Reptilia were the highest other entries over these weeks.

24 - 05/01/2004 Basement Jaxx feat. Lisa Kekuala 'Good Luck' Chart Run 01-02-02-04-06-07-10-10-12-14-15-18-21-26-34-39 (16 weeks) Released in the first week of 2004, it was a fresh look at the top following the usual post-Christmas chart lull. Basement Jaxx had probably been the mainstream dance act I'd enjoyed the most in the few years previous to this, so was no particular shock their next release would enter at the top, with a vocal I loved provided by US singer Lisa Kekaula. Despite being a reasonably sized UK hit it was released again in the summer and ended up having a slightly worse peak and chart run. I still think they have an excellent collection of singles, and this is definitely one of them. It's not my favourite Basement Jaxx song, but it still sounds great. 2025 Rating: 8/10 Hey Ya! stuck at #2, but there were a few entries towards the top, with UK top 3 hits Boogie Pimps - Somebody To Love and Kelis - Milkshake both reaching my top 10.

+30 Ben Howard - Nica Libres at Dusk 29 Robyn - Honey 28 Christine and the Queens - Doesn't matter 27 Sigrid - Strangers 26 George Ezra - Paradise 25 Let's Eat Grandma - Falling Into Me 24 Metric - Risk 23 1975 - TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME 22 1975 - It's Not Living (If It's Not With You) 21 SOPHIE - Immaterial 20 Janelle Monáe - Make Me Feel 19 Twenty One Pilots - My Blood 18 Billie Eilish - When the Party's Over 17 Freya Ridings – Lost Without You 16 George Ezra – Shotgun 15 Twenty One Pilots - Jumpsuit 14 1975 - Love It If We Made It 13 Arctic Monkeys - Four Out of Five 12 Calvin Harris & Sam Smith - Promises 11 CHVRCHES (feat. Wednesday Campanella) - Out of My Head 10 MJ Cole & Freya Ridings - Waking Up 9 Eminem (feat. Ed Sheran) - River 8 Charli XCX & Troye Sivan - 1999 7 Marshmello & Bastille - Happier 6 Calvin Harris & Dua Lipa - One Kiss 5 Virtual Self - Ghost Voices 4 Ariana Grande - No Tears Left To Cry 3 Muse - Something Human 2 Rita Ora - Let You Love Me 1 Rudimental (feat. Jess Glynne, Macklemore & Dan Caplen) - These Days

As I said on my thread on 2003, a really poor selection here - nothing outrageously placed here. As far as novelty charity covers go I don't mind Spirit In The Sky (but that's faint praise if ever there was some) and I've always had a soft spot for Be Faithful though can't argue that objectively it's poor.

2023 Rank and Review 23 songs which took in a big range of quality. A trio of my all time favourites to a few that I wouldn't be bothered if I never heard again, but that's probably to be expected given we're going back 22 years to the year I turned 14, with mostly decent stuff in between - 16/23 are good and I still enjoy which is a solid enough ratio. What I've realised is that 2003 was far from a vintage year for music, it's not like there were loads of songs that I charted in the top 10 that I was loving where I think it's a shame I wasn't talking about those instead, popular sounds of the early part of the decade were losing their way, and the wave of indie that'd take over not quite yet hitting. The list of UK number ones is as 'meh' as you can get (although it is definitely better than '04), with only Crazy in Love holding any real fondness for me now. It strikes me as there being a lack of variety in this list, the vast majority being male-fronted indie/rock, but am not too surprised and that doesn't change anytime soon, and whilst their were excellent albums released in '03 that went on to become big favourites of mine (Elbow - Cast of Thousands, The Knife - Deep Cuts and the Ben Gibbard fronted duo of Death Cab for Cutie - Transatlanticism and The Postal Service - Give Up), that just wasn't music that a 14 year old in 2003 was ever likely to hear. Anyway, here's how I'd rank the 23 songs: The Libertines - Don't Look Back Into The Sun Outkast - Hey Ya! Blur - Out of Time Coldplay - Clocks Foo Fighters - Times Like These The Chemical Brothers feat. The Flaming Lips - The Golden Path The Coral - Bill McCai Foo Fighters - Low The White Stripes - 7 Nation Army Linkin Park - Numb Jane's Addiction - Just Because Lemon Jelly - Nice Weather For Ducks Junior Senior - Move Your Feet Muse - Hysteria The Strokes - 12:51 The Darkness - Christmas Time (Don't Let The Bells End) Metallica - St. Anger Good Charlotte - Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous The Thrills - Big Sur Red Hot Chili Peppers - Fortune Faded Funeral For a Friend - Juneau Stereophonics - Madame Helga Lostprophets - Burn Burn Thanks to everyone who's been reading and interacting with this for the past month, I have enjoyed doing it and nice to see others thoughts. I shall start with 2004 tomorrow, which somewhat shockingly begins with a song sung by an actual woman!

23 - 22/12/2003 Outkast - Hey Ya! Chart Run: 10-08-05-05-03-02-01-01-02-05-07-10-12-11-13-14-16-15-16-20-24-29-35-40 (24 weeks) A rarity in the first few years of a song which took a few weeks to peak at the top. In the UK chart it would gradually fall over the Christmas period before climbing back up and re-peaking well into 2024, but for me it was something I'd barely heard before release and I kept enjoying more and more before it hit the top. Looking back I'm surprised it overtook The Darkness before Christmas, but I did love it. I ended up buying Speakerboxx/The Love Below album, but couldn't ever really get into either of them. It went on to become one of the biggest and well known hits of the decade and deservedly so. It's not something I've ever got bored of and can't see ever happening. It's always sounded great and still does, one of the songs of the decade. Ending 2023 on a high. 2025 Rating: 10/10 Unsurprisingly, it didn't hold anything off the top, with the three previous number one singles taking up the other spots in the top 3 across this fortnight.

I don't even need to look at what else is there when I see Rockstar.

Great that Sainz stayed on the podium. Lando a little unlucky but it's still more his own fault that, he was down there in the first place due to a mistake in quali, going backwards at the start and backwards at the restart. A missed opportunity. Can either of them deal with the pressure? Not the forgone conclusion it looked with 50 points for Max.

22 - 15/12/2003 The Darkness - Christmas Time (Don't Let The Bells End) Chart Run: 01-02-06-23-34-39 (6 weeks) The UK chart was a big battle at the time, but for me there was only going to be one winner. A pair of number two singles and an album I enjoyed a lot, a Christmas song by The Darkness was always likely to be something I was into and I thought it was fab. Big and bold, it was everything Christmas songs of the past seemed to be. A shame it didn't manage to top the UK chart too. It's gone on to be a Christmas staple of mine, not one of the ones I play the most but always something I put on. Aside from this, not really a band I listen to now - very much of their time. 2025 Rating: 7/10 Songs Kept From #1: ?? - ?? The song at number two had spent the previous 6 weeks climbing up the top 10 and it didn't stop there so I won't reveal now. At #3 it was another of the excellent big releases of the time aiming for the Xmas number one, Proper Crimbo of course!

21 - 01/12/2003 Muse - Hysteria Chart Run: 01-01-04-03-02-05-06-10-13-16-18-21-23-24-26-28-33-37-40 (19 weeks) Entering a place higher than they managed with the album's lead single, Hysteria remains Muse's only song to go right to the top. It felt like they were absolutely huge at this time, and Radio 1 were certainly all over them. This would have been my favourite December release in the run up to Christmas. Whilst I still think Hysteria is a good song, it isn't one of my go-to Muse singles now. They're another band who I perhaps haven't liked as much as I might have done, a couple of albums I really enjoyed with largely the odd tracks from others I enjoyed. From this album, Butterflies & Hurricanes has gone on to be the song of theirs I love most, joining Newborn and Map of the Problematique in my top 3 of theirs, but significant underperformances in my chart at the time! 2025 Rating: 7/10 The Coral remained runner-up to this in both of its weeks at the top, big names of the time charted in the lower end of my top 10 in Black Eyed Peas, Nelly Furtado and Evanescence but the top of the chart remained largely static until the big battle...

I think all the four By The Way singles would have been top 3 for me in 02/03, but yes after that precious little. Think Dark Necessities is the most recent song of theirs I've given any significant listening to, but didn't chart it.

30 Wolf Alice - Don't Delete The Kisses 29 alt-J+ - 3WW 28 London Grammar - Rooting For You 27 Lorde - Green Light 26 Bicep - Glue 25 Wolf Alice - Visions Of A Life 24 War On Drugs - Strangest Thing 23 Arcade Fire - Everything Now 22 LCD Soundsystem - Oh Baby 21 Lorde - Homemade Dynamite 20 Lorde - Perfect Places 19 Jamiroquai - Automaton 18 London Grammar - Big Picture 17 alt-J - Adeline 16 Coldplay - Hypnotised 15 Stormzy - Big For Your Boots 14 Ed Sheeran - Shape Of You 13 Little Mix - Touch 12 Imagine Dragons – Believer 11 MGMT - Little Dark Age 10 Big Thief - Mary 9 P!nk - What About Us 8 Ed Sheeran - Castle on the Hill 7 Carly Rae Jepsen - Cut To The Feeling 6 St. Vincent - Masseduction 5 Dua Lipa - New Rules 4 Harry Styles - Sign of the Times 3 Imagine Dragons – Thunder

Delighted at how well Playing Classics has done so far, was quietly confident of a decent showing.

20 - 24/11/2003 The Coral- Bill McCai Chart Run: 01-02-02-05-06-08-10-09-13-14-15-21-27-31-36 (15 weeks) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOOgUuNPS9I The Coral's jangly indie-pop was a big sound of the first half of the noughties. Whilst they had bigger and more well-known hits with the likes of Dreaming of You and Pass It On, Bill McCai was always the one which I enjoyed the most, and it's hard to imagine that a more upbeat song detailing a person's life who ends up killing themselves exists. RIP Bill. Along with Dreaming of You, Bill McCai will always be my go-to Coral song, it's a song that has always been able to make me smile with its excellent telling of a story. A couple of smaller hits followed in 2005 before 2025 Rating: 9/10 As the big acts began to release before Christmas, this was one of six new entries in the top 11. The new UK number one Will Young - Leave Right Now, and Dizzee Rascal - Jus a Rascal the pick of the others,

Moving swiftly on... 19 - 10/11/2003 Red Hot Chili Peppers - Fortune Faded Chart Run: 01-01-02-03-04-06-07-03-04-04-06-07-07-09-11-12-15-18-21-25-28-34-38 (23 weeks) This was definitely my peak time for enjoying RHCP. I'd loved a lot of By The Way the year before and then as 2003 ended they released a comprehensive best of, which I was all over. Fortune Faded was the lead and it was both a song and album I listened to a lot. Over the years they've gradually become a band I've cared less about, and they're not really a band I listen to much now at all. They still have a fair number of songs that I am fond of, but Fortune Faded isn't one of them. 2025 Rating: 5/10 Songs kept from #1: The Cooper Temple Clause - Blind Pilots It was a busy couple of weeks in the top 10 with new entries aplenty; Basement Jaxx and Dizzee Rascal - Lucky Star and The White Stripes - The Hardest Button being two songs I still listen to now, along with another which went on to climb to the top later. Blind Pilots, however, would have been a much better #1 single, it's a song from this era I still listen to regularly, The Cooper Temple Clause were maybe around a bit too early to have been much bigger but this was their 4th of 5 top 40 hits in the UK (plus a pair of #41s)