The UK Top 40, 31-10-04

And amazingly, the response is positive. Which is nice of them.

‘People’s Tenor’ (or it may be baritone. Or bass. I don’t honestly know) Russell Watson has a new album at #10. Placebo’s greatest best of super-hits singles compilation is number 8. Nothing is played. Hello Dom. Sir Cliff is #7. The Best Of Def Leppard is new at #6.

Entirely necessarily, ‘This Love’ is played to commemorate all-new-no-fun-Spin-Doctors Maroon 5 being at #4 for the 73rd week in a row. It’s not as good as The Beautiful South’s cover of ‘Don’t Stop Moving’, but it is light years ahead of their version of ‘Ciao!’ Though I don’t imagine Maroon 5’s version of ‘Ciao!’ would be any better, to be honest.

Robbie is still number one. ‘Rock DJ’ is played. I switch to the iPod instead, just to check once more… yep, if Paul Heaton knows his onions (you can never be too sure with that man), this is Single Of The Year. Or possibly Next Year. Whichever.

The Scissor Sisters are LIVE AT MAIDA VALE NOT ON HIT40UK OR THE SMASH HITS CHART. For the first time in history, this doesn’t piss me off.

New Entries Outside The Top 20: Snow Patrol #39 (The Patrollers go all mid-tempo. Again. Not much cop, really); The Others #36 (THEY’VE PLAYED A GIG ON A TUBE TRAIN! And this sounds like Northern Uproar but less memorable); Bloc Party #26 (more like it: nice ‘n’ frantic post-punk new-wave soary-soary – indie, yeah, about the long and the short of it – not the revolution (or, indeed, The Futureheads), but very nice as it goes); and Tina Turner #25 (I’ve never liked Tina Turner, and this doesn’t really change anything. All edges or whatever sanded right down, just the occasional croak or grumble or something. Disheartening).

THE UK TOP 20: THEIR VERSION OF ‘DON’T FEAR THE REAPER’ IS ALSO BRILLIANT

20) RACHEL STEVENS – More, More, More

I’d forgotten this existed. It continues to not be very good.

19) GRAHAM COXON – Freakin’ Out/All Over Me (NEW ENTRY)

Wes, being ultimate gatekeeper of the charts, would obviously remember this being the first 7” only single to chart since the re-released version of ‘In The City’ by The Jam. But no, it wasn’t playlisted by Radio 1 back then, so this is ‘new to the top 40 at number nineteen’… and it’s still quite good, but it’d be so much better if it was about half the length. It’s Graham in punkish mood. It’s a bit like ‘Song 2’ but less rubbish (i.e. no Albarn) and twice as long. It doesn’t half outstay its welcome, mind.

18) ROOSTER – Come Get Some

We drew 2-2 away with Arsenal yesterday! Would’ve won were it not for Robin van Persie scoring in the 90th minute, which means we’re still 18th in the table, but still: TWO-GOAL RORY DELAP!

http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/Images/04_05/MatchAction/Arsenal_Away/DelapCeleb1_lg.jpg

The BBC site has five pictures from the game. None are of Southampton players.

17) ROBBIE WILLIAMS – Radio

OK, this is half-decent. I just need to be stuck in a room full of people singing along to it. Then I can start hating on it again.

16) KINGS OF LEON – The Bucket (NEW ENTRY)

Good grief. I am quite probably living in a city where I will spend most of my time surrounded by people convinced that this is some kind of genius. No, it’s like The Libertines gone… I was gonna say hillbilly, but it isn’t that at all, cos that would imply this has some kind of energy or something to it, but no, this is fucking pap, empty smooth ‘rock’ or something, but with vocal twang delivered by some bloke who… why bother, really? Why? The Observer Music Monthly reckons this album’s perfect. The Observer Music Monthly can fuck off. It’s called Aha Shake Heartbreak. How can it possibly be not terrible? No, this is drivel that makes Snow Patrol sound exciting or dynamic or something. I call bullshit.

15) DEPECHE MODE – Enjoy The Silence ‘04

The whooshing noises are a ton better this week, possibly because it’s sandwiched between that shit and…

14) GOLDIE LOOKIN’ CHAIN – Your Mother’s Got A Penis (NEW ENTRY)

When detached from everything else about them… I don’t mind this, actually. The beat is really quite decent electro-blip, the lyrics are all toilet-humour stuff and not actually funny, but it is a bit disconcerting how catchy they are too. Undecided, yes… which probably means I secretly quite like this. However, when they start talking and do their whole ‘indie Jar-Jar Binks shit’, that is where THE LINE IS DRAWN.

13) DEEP DISH – Flashdance

BAUM, Baum, baummm…

12) THE NOISE NEXT DOOR – Lock Up Your Daughter (NEW ENTRY)

Dear God, there’s some shit this week, and this might just be the top of the pile. In Britain, there are two Saturday morning children’s television shows of note. One is Dick & Dom In Da Bungalow, which sees formerly mediocre kids telly presenters Richard McCourt and Dominic Wood gleefully forgetting how to be slick and professional and just fucking about for two hours, ignoring more or less every rule of modern children’s television – of light entertainment in general, to be honest – and being quite possibly the most revolutionary show on mainstream television today. The other one is Ministry Of Mayhem which is presented by three identically tedious professional children’s television presenters and is pretty much indistinguishable from every other Saturday morning kids TV programme of the past fuck-knows-how-many years. This lot here, they’re the ‘house band’. They have some generic witless lyrics about “I’m going to get it on with your daughter!!!” as the backing (quite possibly ripped wholesale off ‘Crashed The Wedding’ or ‘Thunderbirds Are Go’ or something) chunders along pointlessly while the singer gurns about up the front equally pointlessly… and yet somehow, it sounds like they’ve never been introduced to each other. Fucking wretched.

(William Swygart has not watched television at all in the past six weeks, but wishes to assure his readership that, no matter what, Ministry Of Mayhem will always be dreck)

11) DANZEL – Pump It Up (NEW ENTRY)

After which, some generic mid-nineties sounding Belgian housey-techno is such a blessed relief you wouldn’t believe. Crowd noises sound like they’ve been done by an actual crowd, possibly in the Birmingham Academy 2, which is a nice touch.

‘Dogs Don’t Kill People, Wabbitz Do’, Chris Moyles’ hilarious parody of the Goldie Lookin’ Chains, is your new download #1. Whoop.

10) R KELLY – Happy People/U Saved Me

And instantly, everything is right with the world again.

9) THE LIBERTINES – Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads? (NEW ENTRY)

Slightly – very – tuneless sprawly ham-fisted jam-punk-indie, but nothing like as interesting as that sounds. Insessential, but that does mean it’s in a completely different league to The Kings Of Leon.

8) DUNCAN JAMES & KEEDIE – I Believe My Heart

And instantly, everything FUCKING SUCKS. Mrs D, Mrs I, Mrs R-G-Y, Mrs S, Mrs H-I-T…

7) DANNII MINOGUE & FLOWER POWER – You Won’t Forget About Me (NEW ENTRY)

Hmm, Hi-NRG. In a good way. The vocal is all breathy stuff, sounds like a hybrid of ‘Groovejet’ and that Mantronix tune from last summer, which is a good thing. A little indistinct, like most of Dannnnnniiiiiii’s stuff, but it’s very sweet. Hopefully it will hang around so I can make more useful comments about it.

6) KELIS & ANDRE 3000 – Millionaire

That beat is well and truly something, is it not? And her speaking voice at the start is EXACTLY like Kimya Dawson’s! Seriously! Specifically on ‘These Burgers’. But quite possibly on other things too.

5) KHIA – My Neck, My Back (Lick It)

Month in the top 5 now? Cool.

4) JAY SEAN – Stolen (NEW ENTRY)

Ooh, someone’s thrown some money at him… and as is becoming a tradition with songs that are NEW AT NUMBER FOUR, I’ve totally forgotten what it sounds like, beyond ‘quite expensive’. No, no memory of this at all.

3) DANIEL BEDINGFIELD – Nothing Hurts Like Love (NEW ENTRY)

And he’s back! And this ISN’T off his debut album! But it IS him being ludicrous, once again, the instrumentation overblown, Daniel sounding like he’s about to collapse out of grief… it’s not as much fun as he can be, but it’s fairly decent. More next week, because…

2) ERIC PRYDZ – Call On Me

Finally, that ‘something else’ I was talking about last week has come along to be #1 instead. So, what bolt from the blue is this? Well…

1) JA RULE ft. R KELLY & ASHANTI – Wonderful (NEW ENTRY)

… yeh. The beat, the beat is nice, ticking along and sheeny and stuff, R Kelly doesn’t quite put his feet that wrong here, but no, it’s Ja whining. Again. WOULD YOU STILL LOVE HIM IF HE WAS NOT WORLD FAMOUS RAP TYPE JA RULE? Ashanti appears, quite possibly out of contractual obligation. This has now got me thinking that ‘Ride Wit U’ by Joe was a work of genius. Actually, it may well have been. That chorus was a steamroller, at least by comparison to this. As number ones go, this is better than ‘My Place’. But other than that… nah, no thanks.