The UK Top 20, 15/6/03

As is traditional, it’s the album chart first. They play Busted’s new single. It is wank. The tall one (with the eyebrows) really, really cannot sing. Radiohead are number one by a mile. Annie Lennox is new at three. I can’t be arsed remembering owt else about it.

Anyway – new entries – Violent Delight #38 (like Idlewild’s early days, but worse), Jamelia featuring Rah Digga #37 (hyped up as being a really important comeback for British R&B. Naturally, it dies on its arse), Lemonescent #31 (rubbish girl group, very popular in Scotland and nowhere else), AFI #22 (cack pop-punk, as done by some Goths what have disappointingly not named themselves after the American Film Institute after all), and Darius at #21 (rubbish singer-songwriterising).

And now – theeeeeee twenty!

20) 50 CENT – In Da Club

And so in the week in which Junior Senior finally depart the top 40, it only seems right that this almost drops out of the top 20. Hell, at this rate he might even have left the top 40 by Christmas…

19) BIG BROVAZ – Favourite Things

Least Favourite Things About This Song, #3: the way in which “crazy ‘bout Bentleys” was written with the world’s most irritatingly deliberate use of an apostrophe for purposes of ‘hardness’.

18) EMMA BUNTON – Free Me

And it doesn’t get much better here, so Least Favourite Things About Favourite Things By Big Brovaz #4: the way in which you can’t actually tell any of the male or female vocalists apart except for by gender (you see, the women ‘sing’ and the men ‘rap’ because rapping is an unsuitable profession for a lady. Northern State would eat them alive, obviously).

17) THE THRILLS – Big Sur (NEW ENTRY)

Irish jangling summery indie-pop types that I really quite like. The singer is crap, but the tambourines and the banjo bits and the organs are really great, and yeah, their other two singles are much better (search in particular One Horse Town), and they’re getting pushed to student radio like buggery, and their album is probably gonna be quite dull, and my mum could probably come up with a better band name than The Thrills, but I really quite like this…

I’m on my own on this, aren’t I? Sigh…

16) ELECTRIC SIX – Gay Bar

They were well cool on TOTP. The ‘radio edit’ bit isn’t as good as when he goes “nu-cle-ah WHARR!” on the proper version, but then again, not much is. Excluding the bit where he goes “GAYYYYYYYYYY BARRRRRRRRR!”, obviously.

15) LINKIN PARK – Faint (NEW ENTRY)

Opens a bit like Let Forever Be, but then they bring in their RAWK POW-AH and it goes even further to wank. Thing is, why do I hate these but think the Evanescence single is the coolies? Ah yes. Mike Shinoda. See, Evanescence’s lyrics are beautiful cack (e.g. “My spirit’s sleeping somewhere cold”), but Mike Shinoda’s lyrics are just pathetic cack (“I designed this rhyme to remind…” whatever it was he designed it to remind him. Don’t forget the bacon? Fuck knows). Then there’s the fact that Chester Bennington cannot scream, Shinoda has the flow of a council tax assessor, they don’t have strings, they don’t have candles, they don’t go “SAYYYYYYYYYYYYYVE MEH!”… ugh. Pish.

14) JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE – Rock Your Body

Still average. Better than his next single, though, which they played earlier on the albums rundown. Features him trying to reintroduce This Is What She’s Like-esque spoken word adlibs to pop, which is admirable, but the thing is, he is not Dexy’s. He has not been down Bearwood. He does not see the scum from Notting Hill and Moh-zzzleee. He shouts out to the fellers and the ladies and asks them to sing along with him. It is called Senorita, and it is rubbish. This… is slightly better. Not much, though.

13) SHANIA TWAIN – Forever And For Always

One of those singles that takes the ‘o’ and the ‘r’ right out of ‘country’. Quite possibly has sampled thigh-slaps. And it goes on forever. Possibly as a self-referencing nod to its name. Oh, irony is a cruel mistress indeed.

12) XTM & DJ CHUCKY FEATURING ANNIA – Fly On The Wings Of Love

This may be worse than Shania. It’s shorter, though. Hmm. It’s a tricky one to decide…

11) JENNIFER LOPEZ – I’m Glad (NEW ENTRY)

This is a fucking shit run of singles up in here. It sounds very much like most of her other singles. It’s a bit of a ‘slow’, ‘sensual’ number, because it doesn’t go very quickly and it could really do with ending long before it does. It seems to have cascading electro-harp bits, which are nice. But it’s very dull. She is glad that she has her man, and stuff. Whoo.

Toppe Tenne up next. It can only get better. I hope. Five new entries. Cross those fingers.

10) B2K – Girlfriend (NEW ENTRY)

Well, this is a bit of a cockpunching, then. Apparently they had to go and do a remix, because otherwise it just wouldn’t be right. How nice of them. Anyhoo. Mediocre Boyz II Men wannabes get superimposed over what sounds like a wussier version of the beat to In Da Club. Some bloke is shouting over the top. I do not know why. They continually exhort people to get out of their cars and jeeps and party in the streets. Twits. Destined to vanish. Please.

9) S CLUB – Say Goodbye/Love Ain’t Gonna Wait For You

They were on Top Of The Pops this week, cos they didn’t get to number one, and such they’re going to ensure that this godawful ballad toss is going to take fucking ages to get out of the chart because S Club are bastards bastards bastards bastards bastards.

8) DJ SAMMY – Sunrise (NEW ENTRY)

His first non-cover-version single. Better than his version of Boys of Summer, not as good as his version of Heaven. Compared to what’s gone before him this week, though, it’s a bloody masterpiece. And Sean Paul’s next, innee?

7) SEAN PAUL – Get Busy

I am god of predict, oh yes I am. And I’m happy now, cos this is still top, and as such things must be getting better, surely. Yes, there’s still three new entries, which are mostly quite shit, and there’s still Busta and Mariah … well, this is still ace anyway. Kiss his bass.

6) AMY STUDT – Misfit (NEW ENTRY)

Avril Lavigne goes to either Eastbourne or Bournemouth, I can’t remember which. You see, because looks are superficial, and… sorry, no, I’m bored with it already. Produced in the ‘Pete Waterman at Pebble Mill’ style, so for all its angst this may as well be Kym Marsh. Perhaps that is subversive in some way that is far too great for me to work out. Anyway. Not Black Box Recorder, get to the back of the queue.

5) DANNII MINOGUE – Don’t Wanna Lose This Feeling (NEW ENTRY)

Still not Kylie. She tries. She ends up sounding like a slightly more high-maintenance version of Lisa Scott-Lee. Never mind, eh.

4) BUSTA RHYMES, MARIAH CAREY, SOME OTHER PEOPLE – I Know What You Want

Precisely when was it Mariah Carey became a good idea? Ah well. The way one of the guest types uses ‘sex’ as a verb is quite amusing, I suppose. Who the hell is the shouty woman, by the way? Is it Rah Digga? She’s making Eve seem bearable, anyhow. Oh well. Evanescence are seeming really appealing right now.

3) CHRISTINA AGUILERA – Fighter (NEW ENTRY)

Now, you may not remember Queen Of The Night. It was the second single off The Bodyguard soundtrack, and as such everyone tends to forget about it by comparison to I-heee-eyyyyyyyyye Will Always Love You. Well, it sounded very, very like this. Except with Whitney Houston going “Look! Look! Vocal range! Look!”, as opposed to Christina Aguilera going “Grunty grunty growly growl FIE-DUH!” And it was rubbish. This, too, is rubbish. But better than Durrrr-deh.

2) R KELLY – Ignition (Remix)

And so, after all the silliness, the godawful attempts at ‘disco’, ‘power ballad’, ‘country’, ‘angst’, and whatever the fuck B2K think they’re playing at… it all comes back to these two again. R is still drunk, and this is still floaty light, like Quavers, and really nice, also like Quavers. Unlike Quavers, it has not yet had an Amiga game based on it. But it’s coming, somehow I can just feel it… Sensible Soccer: R Kelly Special Edition, or something.

1) EVANESCENCE – Bring Me To Life

Speedball 2 – Evanescence Special Edition, perhaps. This is more than classic enough to merit it. I’ve actually now started listening out for it on the radio. This song make Richard Bacon seem worth enduring, just so I can do my whole ‘Dark Lord Wants Me For A Sunbeam’ grin on the bus back from work when the chorus tears up…. Mega lovely. SAYYYYYYVE MEH! Again. Feel the love, people…