Beyonce tops the album chart. Mega surprises there.
New Entries – The Cosmic Rough Riders #34 (reasonable jangle, horrendous vocodering); Yeah Yeah Yeahs #29 (half-decent post-punk-esque stuff); The Flaming Lips #28 (dull-arsed ‘psychedelic’ wobble); Panjabi MC #25 (fuck-aye aceness bhangra hip-hop boy-girl duet splice-me-up, should have been much higher than this…); Foo Fighters #21 (naff-o-la).
Shania, S-Club, Dannii, Justin all leave the twenty (sweetnizz), 50 Cent is still #22…
20) DJ SAMMY – Sunlight
Hmm. Nice enough, but removed from the context of being surrounded by UTTER FUCKING TURD it’s a bit flimsy. Lots of crap still to come though (wild guess is Amy Studt’s up next), so give us fifteen minutes or so and I’ll be longing for this one…
19) SIOBHAN DONAGHY – Overrated (NEW ENTRY)
Hmm. Well, I got the gender right anyway. And I was nearly gonna say “Hey, it’s not like they’re any different…” but they are. The production is quite weird on this, random quiet bits, very strange sort of ‘rainy seaside’ aura in the back, if you can understand that. Decent voice, you can see where it’s aiming for, bit Massive Attack-y… hmm. I do wish I’d heard it before, y’know, cos I think it’s rather good. Odd choice for a career-launching single, but none the worse for it. Can’t make out the lyrics though. I fear that might be a good thing.
18) THE DARKNESS – Growing On Me
Ooh, two weeks in the top twenty… they’ve arrived, haven’t they? And they’re re-releasing I Believe In A Thing Called Love for their next single, which will be very, very huge. Cos it’s brilliant, and this is just alright.
17) MOLOKO – Forever More (NEW ENTRY)
Crikey, we’re awash with odd choices for singles this week… it’s a bit disco, electro, and it’s got Roisin Murphy’s vocals coming in and out everywhere. It’s quite good, but… well, what is it playing at exactly? Hmm. The “anybody could love me” bit is rather nice, in any case.
16) SCOOTER – The Night (NEW ENTRY)
“RUMBLE IN THE JUNGLE!!!” Well, it’s a Scooter single, him shouting, her going all vocoder-style... But hey! Piano House Breakdown! The tears well up in my eyes! It’s like K-Klass, Altern-8, all that lot, have come back and are dancing in my brain! Tony Dortie presenting Top Of The Pops! Carter USM twatting Philip Schofield! This Is GREAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT! Oh god, I think I’ve just got the point of Scooter. I’m doing the old mouth-wide-open-grin, this might be my favourite top 20 ever…
15) CHRISTINA AGUILERA – Fighter
Cuss. Once again, The Man holds me down.
14) AMY STUDT – Misfit
Another thing Amy Studt reminds me of – the eldest sister from former CBBC sit‘com’ The Wild House. She really sounds like she’s quite proud of having a song with the word ARSE in it. Hmm. Siobhan Donaghy is much, much better than this.
13) GARY NUMAN vs. RICO – Crazier
Not bad, oddly. Sounds rather like Bowie when he was good. But without any hook or stuff. Just him sounding like a rather weird old man. OK, I’m back on the liking this week, then.
12) TOMMI – Like What (NEW ENTRY)
Oh well, so much for the happiness. This would appear to be a song about the under-18’s night experience. Let’s all step up in the club with our homies and go upside they head with a bottle of Tizer. There’s some decent electric bits for the backing, then it goes to piss when the vocals cut in. Some girls that are fresh out of Hertfordshire go “What! What! What!” in the background, like they are really stressss-inggg about GCSE Biology courssse-worrrk or something. It’s not bad so much as really depressing…
11) JENNIFER ELLISON – Baby I Don’t Care
This, though, is bad, depressing and several other nasty adjectives. Yep, those seven or eight records were quite the false dawn, it’s all gonna go shit in the end, and Blazin’ Squad will be number one and it WILL NOT BE FAIR. Bastards.
Here comes your ten…
10) ASHANTI – Rock Wit U (Awww Baby)
Wonderfully gratifying sight this week – two whole columns of cut-price Irv Gotti & The Inc. albums in the Virgin sale. But their singles still sell. And no-one can work out why. Ashanti… why? This single… why? Three minutes of solid nothing, and not in the avant-experimental-jazz-noise-or-otherwise sense neither…
9) METALLICA – St. Anger (NEW ENTRY)
Hmm. Metal, quiet bits go strummy-strum, loud bits go BRRNRRNRR-BRRNRRNRR, and it’s quite good. I was a bit distracted during it, though, cos I’m hunting down information about Darlington’s old ground for my brother’s Maths coursework. But yes, quite good.
8) XTM & DJ CHUCKY PRESENT ANNIA – Fly On The Wings Of Love
Shit but still going up the chart. I hate this country.
7) BUSTA RHYMES, MARIAH CAREY AND THE FLIPMODE SQUAD – I Know What You Want
Also rubbish, also going up the chart, but even more of a bastard to type.
6) DELTA GOODREM – Lost Without You
Right, I AM PAYING ATTENTION THIS WEEK. FOCUS, WILL. FO-CUSSSSSS. Yeah, it’s rubbish. Very predictable piano’d-up power balladry, sounds like it wants to be Shania Twain. Precisely what kind of aspiration is that for a young woman to have? It’s bearable, but nothing more.
5) WAYNE WONDER – No Letting Go
As predicted, liking it more this week. But the drums and the vocals feel a bit incongruous, somehow, like they weren’t quite made for each other. Still, least I’m not confusing it with Sean Paul now, ta to those who straightened me out on that.
4) R KELLY – Ignition (Remix)
Still great. Even if he did inflict B2K on us.
3) BLAZIN’ SQUAD – We Just Be Dreamin’
Hooray! They aren’t number one! But no! They still suck majorly! I do NOT want the image of them eating strawberries off girls’ navels! And you remember how they were meant to be dead hard and stuff? Why are all their songs ballads? Rubbish. And there’s too many of them. And none of them have any personality. And their name is crap. And this sounds it’s trying to rip off Ignition (Remix), and it fails and is rubbish. And it has that crap ‘let’s do acapella’ ending that rubbish pop records tend to have where the backing goes down and the vocals are on their own and go echo-ey. Bollocks.
2) FAST FOOD ROCKERS – Fast Food Song
YESS-AH! HAIL TO THE ‘SCENCE, MOTHERFUCKERRRRRRRRR!!! Or – hooray, this shit didn’t get to number one after all! I still have to listen to it, though. Which is less good. But hey, the forces of good win out after all. Go the forces of good. Cos we ROKKKK, innit?
1) EVANESCENCE – Bring Me To Life
I have got a whole article in me about the greatness of this. Christian O’Connell hates it, says it’s like U2 meets The Corrs. He Is A Foo’. Dimwit lyrics, but utterly lovably so. The ‘steam valve effect’ on the end of the second verse. The male-female zig-zag vocalising, the bit where she sings it all rising-and-dipping quietly in the chorus, then rises at the end of the chorus, the bloke graaahhhhhhing, the way it doesn’t really end or fade, but sort of fizzles off with the tinkling… I have to sit down and think about it, but this and R Kelly have made the last couple of months so much nicer, and I gotta love ’em for that.
― William Bloody Swygart (mrswygart), Sunday, 29 June 2003 16:57 (twenty-two years ago)