jimwatts

'Pure And Simple' has a lot of talent show dross that followed in the wake of its huge opening sales to answer for, which might be forgivable if the song had been halfway decent itself, but it doesn't hit the mark for me. 'Gotta Get Thru This' came out too late to make an impact on my top 40 of 2001 as posted on page 4, but I do (really) like it - I just prefer his next #1 in 2002. Strange that 'Murder On The Dancefloor' had 4 spells at #2 in 3 different years, but was only held off by 2 different #1s.

I saw John Denver had low scores from a lot of voters so I'm not surprised he's out - the song's become one of my favourites after a few road trips over the years, though I'm not too familiar with his discography on the whole.

Great to see DJ_Dave enter! Some less surprising but good new entries higher up too.

There is, although like many songs in the chart, it appears set to climb as a result of others falling (Ozzy/Black Sabbath, Oasis and stuff now on ACR) with little to replace them, so hopefully its climb is more a reflection of that and its own streams are still in decline...

and 'Beautiful Things' has been Top 40 for 4.5*10^7 of them

Double Kaci - what were the odds!? Had to admire that a song could climb into the Top 10 in its second week in 2002, but ITILY really wasn't a great cover, so that first.

Switching to 'Mesmerize', Buzzjack predictably voting out hip hop early on, but these tracks weren't near the best it had to offer at the time.

Switching to Keane, great final 4 though - kudos to The Noisettes for surviving this far after being tied with Empire Of The Sun before their final vote to leave in 8th.

'World In Motion' is the best football song not to have returned to the Top 20 multiple times (a wonder that it's only returned to the Top 40 once, and that in 2010) - John Barnes' rap and New Order getting a #1 from it are great bonuses. 'The Only One I Know' is really good too. I appreciate the Elton double-A and 'It Must Have Been Love' without being a huge fan of either, but those are interesting backstories on both.

1994 wasn't quite that long ago!

'Manchild' looks certain to be heading to ACR, with 'Dior' and 'Blessings' going too unless there's been a sizeable drop in the market.

'What Took You So Long' was my tba at #29 on the previous page, so my 11th favourite #1 of the year at the time - pretty similar to here, though I'd definitely rate it above its two immediate predecessors at the #1 spot which are still to come.

'Crazy Train' improves on its original #49 peak even here!

I found an old notebook where I'd put my own top 40 hits of 2001 at (or near) the end of the year. Some of the positions have changed a lot (for example The Strokes - Hard To Explain which is now my favourite 2001 hit was at a lowly #22 then), however quite a few UK #1s appeared, including some of those already out in the bottom half of this countdown - my positions then given below: #7 tba #10 Eternity #12 tba #15 Angel #16 tba #17 tba #18 Do You Really Like It? #19 tba #20 Hey Baby #25 The Way To Your Love #29 tba Fortunately more of these (the tba ones) are in the top half of this countdown than the bottom half, just about! I'd only stand by the first three of these now, 'Eternity' was quite resonant for me then, but I still think it's one of Robbie's best and most sincerely performed songs. 'Angel' was certainly too high - it shouldn't have been above the tba at 16, 17 & 19 - and the other three already revealed were perhaps in guilty pleasure territory even then, however I do remember 2001 being a year when I started to appreciate more of the big pop music of the time again after feeling like it had become a bit generic and calculated in the year or so before.

It's not just an annual contest though...