SIMON REYNOLDS DISCUSSES CURRENT DANCE MUSIC IN TODAY'S NY TIMES

maybe post, vangelis and hammer could team up a la G3 (Vai, Satriani and Malmsteen) or the 3 Tenors.

The last big instrumental pop-trance hit I think was Darude's "Sandstorm," and even that song, ubiquitous as it was, only went to #83.

x-post I thought they cracked it for a week! usher had to take a shit or something.

I certainly bemoan this. There's really no reason why "The Reason" (no pun intended) shouldn't have gone to #1 except that it happened to co-incide with Usher's monster Spring of 2004. It depresses me beyond belief to know that Nickelback could possibly have the last rock #1 in history.

Linkin Park, U2, Green Day, most of the usual suspects.

1) Evanescence "Fallen"
2) Sheryl Crow "The Very Best Of..."
3) Maroon 5 "Songs About Jane"
4) No Doubt "The Singles"
5) Blink 182 "s/t"
6) Hoobastank "The Reason"
7) Nickelback "The Long Road"
8) Linkin Park "Meteora"
9) Sarah McLachlan "Afterglow"
10) Switchfoot "The Beautiful Letdown"

That's anything that could reasonably be qualified as rock music, not counting Prince, country music, and Norah Jones.

This is a good point. I can think of a couple exceptions ("Busy Child," "Battleflag," "The Rockaeflla Skank") but for the most part this is very true--a good deal of The Prodigy's appeal was "OMG LOOK AT HOW SCARY THE DUDE IS IN THE VIDEO," and "Praise You" and "Weapon of Choice" would most likely have gone nowhere without those great Jonze videos.

#7, I think. The only crunk #1s have been crunk-n-bs like "Goodies" and "Yeah".

haha, nope but maybe Tim McGraw or Gretchen Wilson counts on Chuck time.

Faint didn't even crack the pop charts. "In The End" went to #2, I don't know what held it off.

otherwise "hey ya"'s probably the last rock #1, unless that nickelback bill's talking about it more recent

If you count "Hey Ya," then yeah. I can't bring myself to do that.

Didn't "Get Low" make it in the top ten?

#2. Heartbreaker.

Nah, rock bands will still fluke into having #1 hits from time to time. If Clay Aiken can score a fluke #1, then so can bands like Hoobastank or Maroon 5.

x-post.

It's possible, obviously, but the fact that it hasn't happened in three years is pretty discouraging. When songs as ubiquitous as "The Reason" (so ubiquitous that everyone automatically assumes it went to #1) can't even make it, what can?

Although Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" is looking somewhat promsiing--it'd be a bizarre #1, but it's really shooting up the charts at the moment. Jumped three to #8 this week.

hahaha full circle!

Wasn't that one of the most often celebrated things in 'dance' music of the kind SR refers to? The importance of the abstract 'instrumental' aspect.

The fact that without the language constraints the music could potentially connect with, and unite people so much more easily? Of course the drugs played a significant role, but I still think it's an important point rarely mentioned enough.

That so much of dance music is re-discovering black 'street' beats is just as much a product of the fact that so many producers are excelling in this area these days (why not steal when it's so good) as it is of recognising that there's something of a racial separation opening up in dance music that needs to be bridged to restore that utopian, inclusive balance.

'Urban'? why not just call it Race music and have done with it? What a hideous genre label and so incredibly incorrect in trying to assign some kind of 'Realness' (another loaded term) to everyone from teenage millionaires like Ashanti to poor white kids from Detroit like Eminem.

I'm not going to add anything else because I really wouldn't be able to argue coherently on here as an obviously alienated hip-hop-ophobe most of the time. But I do feel it's worth touching on.

I wonder what the last non-ballad rock song was to crack the top ten.

Jet didn't get near the top ten, DJDee.

"Jump, Jive an' Wail" went to #94. The rest didn't do shit.

I'd count that, yeah, but that's still three years ago. Has there been nothing since?

It must be pretty low, since those two Bright Eyes singles didn't even crack the Top 100.