#1132
Shout ft. Dizzee Rascal & James Corden, 'Shout For England'
2010
PRO: This song samples that cool-as-fuck piano bit from Blackstreet's 'No Diggety'. Dizzee Rascal is an endearing presence. The song shoehorns the chorus of 'Shout' by Tears For Fears out of absolutely NOWHERE. The lyrics address and attack the comfort in nostalgia. All fair enough.
CON: James Corden is on it singing 'come and have a go if you think you're hard enough'.
(1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHq3vy_7cJQ
#289
Elvis Presley, 'The Wonder of You'
1970
"You know who likes Elvis, son? Thick people." For years I disliked Elvis. Oddly, this was not really based on anything other than the wilful transliteration of my own parents' hatred into personal prejudice. Essentially, they both hate large, dark-haired crooners: Robbie Williams, Dean Martin, and Tom Jones are both on the extensive hitlist of my parents' musical taste. But they're wrong. Elvis had a wonderful voice. And more than having a wonderful voice, he brought rock'n'roll to the demographic with the most money. He didn't invent sex, as has been claimed by earnest critics, but he did help people realise that the feelings inside themselves, the baser emotions, were just as valid as the noble courtesan mode that pre-50s romance is depicted as. We could even argue that Elvis begat latter extreme acts such as Throbbing Gristle and Whitehouse in the way he helped knock down psychic barriers to expression.
This song, a cover of a 1959 hit by Ray Peterson, is fairly schmaltzy stuff from Vegas Elvis.
(3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyrQqmc5UT8
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| You can tell he's crazy by his anachronistic biker gear! Wacky! |
#1012
Crazy Frog, 'Axel F'
2005
Oh how did I forget that ringtones became chart-eligible? Man didn't society have a laugh about that? Hahahaha. This is a remix of Harold Faltermeyer's 'Axel F' with the sound of a cartoon frog making 'engine revving' noises over it. On one hand you could say that it is bound to no cohesive history and eschews easy narrativity: the decisions and economies of taste and distinction created over 5000 years of artistic development are disregarded and the putative explosion of joy is condensed into 3 minutes of nonsense. On the other hand you could blow a raspberry on a dog's stomach and make a more edifying sound.
(1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k85mRPqvMbE
#232
Sandie Shaw, 'Puppet on a String'
1967
Morrissey may still listen to this song on 78rpm on a daily basis but all these ears can hear is a committe-written factory line shoehorning of 'that hippy thing that the kids are doing' into an inoffensive and bland pop song with a maddeningly jaunty melody.
(3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrs8CgpH980
#1044
McFly, 'Star Girl'
2006
In theory I don't mind McFly: they're cute, they write harmony-laden guitar songs that, if you're being wilfully ignorant, could be said to sound a bit like Teenage Fanclub. This song, however, is a little over-written and eager to pile on the saccharine "moments", as if they're afraid that the melody isn't strong or unique enough - which it isn't. It has been heard in every Beatles knock-off from the Monkees to The Crescent. The hi-def production is audio monosodium glutamate, trying to give the impression of taste from bland ingredients.
(3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w2_3-iYhOU
#524
Paul Young, 'Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home)'
1983
Fretless bass nightmares overtake me! Also I've never seen a picture of Paul Young in a hat. Possibly because he's laid it at home before popping out to the studio to mangle a perfectly fine Marvin Gaye song with the kind of music that used to overlay the BBC2 close when it would just be Ceefax for 4 hours.
(2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju_a2-Pve4g&ob
#1026
Arctic Monkeys, 'When The Sun Goes Down'
2006
The vaunting of Alex Turner's lyrical genius in EVERY FUCKING QUARTER is incredibly misplaced and I shall submit this song to the jury.
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| Just something the internet made earlier |
"I wonder what went wrong / so that she had to roam the streets / she dunt do major credit cards / I doubt she does receipts." Do you get it? She's a sex worker. They wrapped that fact up in the first two lines, so the next two are just a bit of swollens glans lad banter. 'I doubt she does receipts' is such a contrived lyric too, trying desperately to rhyme with streets whilst being a major chronicler of our life and times. He repeats this contrivance twice in the next verse: "And what a scummy man / just give him half a chance / I bet he'll rob you if he can / can see it in his eyes / yeah, that he's got a driving ban / amongst some other offences." You can see in his eyes that he has a driving ban? Even trained policemen have to radio back to HQ for this kind of info, but Supercop Turner can just fucking SEE poor driving in the eyes of the common pimp.
And how do we know he's a pimp? "And I've seen him with girls of the night / and he told Roxanne to put on her red light / they're all infected but he'll be alright / 'cause he's a scumbag, don't you know." That reference to The Police is sheer cringe. Not just because it's 'hey guyzz I'm totally going to reference this old song that also talks about prostitution and reward the audience for the intelligence' in the way a total Uncut writer would masturbate for HOURS over, but in the way it hands down from The Police to Arctic Monkeys the same kind of 'white male observer flaneur antihero' trope in songwriting.
However, the tune isn't too bad. Get past the embarrassing opening slow verses and it buzzes along happily and riffily as gay as anything. Is this the most recent guitar band whose guitars actually sound like guitars song that got to #1? I'm going to guess that it is.
(5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBbk9IjRdO0
#379
Art Garfunkel, 'I Only Have Eyes For You'
1975
Sometimes, in my darker days, I imagine this song as Garfunkel's twisted revenge fantasy on Paul Simon. Chasing him down the road with his own eyes gouged out screaming I ONLY HAVE EYES FOR YOU. Opening a butcher's shop in Simon's neighbourhood, and when Simon comes in, Garfunkel gives him only eyes and screams I ONLY HAVE EYES FOR YOU!
Except it's a jazz standard given an adult-contemporary read by a man with a lovely voice shorn of its natural home i.e. on Paul Simon's songs.
(4)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yrl3T8MaX8E
#787
Run DMC/Jason Nevins, 'It's Like That'
1998
Essentially a beefed-up Ibiza version of the original and nothing more. Except that the original is FUCKING BRILLIANT, 10/10 kind of stuff, any change is taking away from it.
(7)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLGWQfK-6DY&ob
#505
Irene Cara, 'Fame'
1982
Moroder-does-Abba. Songwriting meets technology. Substance suppressed by style's gigantic strides: though realistically inseparable from the film and video featuring lithe young things dancing here and there, the audio alone suggests 'montage' better than Team America's 'montage' song ever did. Fretless bass though. Also not very good.
(4)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1xO7RwTV4k
#1150
The X Factor Finalists, 'Heroes'
2010
This project may as well end now if we're just going to openly dismiss Simon Cowell and his reality show underlings. They exist and are a part of the pop landscape as much as The Buggles, Aretha, Lieutenant Pigeon et. al. This is a cover of the David Bowie song featuring about a dozen forgettable names and voices who made the final of that year's star search format. Also the song serves the charity Help For Heroes: branding, synergy, KPI in quarter 3, all of those images that make music so potent. Obligatory key change! Melismatic singing! Video of soliders being brave! No questioning why the government can't fund their aftercare if they can fund sending them off to LITERALLY MURDER PEOPLE.
(1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHsCGoZst-w
#784
Celine Dion, 'My Heart Will Go On'
1998
Unstoppable big-budget market forces in action. One of the biggest films of all time. One of the biggest voices of all time. One of the biggest ships of all time. One of the biggest icebergs of all time. The result is one of the biggest yawns of all time. Schmaltz ballad complete with gentle flutes and strings.
(2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmbw8OycJrE
#579
Berlin, 'Take My Breath Away'
1986
Another huge film tie-in. Just replace the flutes and strings with synthesized strings. Formulaic.
(2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_6x3EW3FC0
#866
Ronan Keating, 'Life Is A Rollercoaster'
1999
From that bizarre episode in pop music when the guy from The New Radicals was considered THEE POP SONGWRITER OF THE ETERNAL NOW. Ronan, freshly divested of his anodyne chums in Boyzone, gets asinine up in this unthreatening mid-tempo number. The song is kind of well-written. Imagine it played a bit heavier, looser, and faster by a great pop group like Teenage Fanclub or Guided By Voices and it'd probably be a good b-side. Personality and production are key though, and this song lacks either.
(3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsN5MtKtWcg
#831
Ronan Keating, 'When You Say Nothing At All'
2000
I thoroughly detest this song. The sneaky hellgate between the adult-contemporary market of Europe and US mainstream country needs to be abolished with nuclear weapons. This song goes deep, way to deep for me to expose on this blog: it has been at the centre of personal embarrassment and exposure ON TOP of already hating the song before said incident went down. A song so heinous and awful that it ruins my day and makes me grumpy and unfair to songs that may follow.
(1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuJrEBtmM1Q
#131
Danny Williams, 'Moon River'
1961
Phew. This is one of my favourite songs of all time - not necessarily this version, which is heavy on the strings and vibrato. The Andy Williams version is a little better. The swelling optimism, the wanderlust for the joy of the wander, the ambiguity of the relationship of the central characters are all supporting players in this song and its contentment. The lead actor is the repetition of the chord sequence underneath the lyrics "we're after the same rainbow's end / is waiting round the bend / my huckleberry friend." This is one of the great pop musical techniques; when a fantastic song and its essence can be condensed within the song to a phrase or a mantra or a re-iteration of a melody or sequence within it. Nearly perfect.
(9)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkyDYbMUPj4
#526
UB40, 'Red Red Wine'
1983
UB40 had moved past their credible phase by this moment and this song remains the finest distillation of their 'popular era' animus. It is competent and memorable and understated in the pop reggae department, which is not to lavish it with indelible praise, though not to damn it forever. The watery synth sounds are a curious joy.
(5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXt56MB-3vc&ob
#1030
Chico, 'It's Chico Time'
2006
Chico was an X Factor contestant that bridged the gap between entertaining lunatic, Mediterranean waiter with ideas above his station, and endearing presence. 'It's Chico time' was his gimmick of sorts: his claim being that the time that it is now is the time that belongs to Chico and as the man named Chico it is also a time with Chico as its emblem. His personality kept him in the contest when his voice would have otherwise had him exit. "You can get delirious when you take life too serious" was his grammatically troublesome but ideologically decent catchphrase. In this spirit, I hope he remembers this manifesto when reading the mark for the song.
(3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_-isKzt4O4&ob
#872
Madonna, 'Music'
2000
Madonna, since Bedtime Stories, has put out an endless stream of crap. Before then, she was practically untouchable. So what gives? We'll return to this subject on later Madonna singles. This song represents the apex of her collaborative era with French nonentity Mirwais, who would marry a mild inclination to glitch music with strident R&B synths and that weird absence of low-end that came to characterise crunk. This song sounds crummy and dated 12 years on.
(2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJO-SGeb7yE
#817
Britney Spears, 'Baby One More Time'
1999
I recently read Britney Spears described as 'what humanity did between Madonna and Lady Gaga'. It's an entertaining diss but it ignores the absolute planet-enslaving hugeness of this song. It was pop as pure phenomenon, easily the biggest song of the era in which it was released. Indie bands lined up to perform their sad reading of the emotional plight of the lyric, desperate to touch the hem of Spears' garments. Though released one year before Madonna's 'Music', it sounds fresh and wide-eyed where Madonna in 2000 sounds jaded and cynical. Formulaic? Yes. But that would be to miss the point. It transcended formula. It became such a qualified success of the power of branding and repackaging of formula, it made the formulaic seem a little bit cooler.
(4)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-u5WLJ9Yk4
#1189
DJ Fresh ft. Rita Ora, 'Hot Right Now'
2012
A jacked Amen break from Pendulum's cast offs and a laboured and pitch-corrected vocal does not even a remotely interesting song make.
(1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7OPZOBJZyI
#514
Men At Work, 'Down Under'
1983
FACT TIME. This was #1 when I was born. What else happened that week? Shergar was turned into dog food by the IRA. The first £1 coin was minted. It was a hell of a time. Men At Work are one of those unfortunate groups written off because their most famous song seems a bit novelty (see also: Dexys) when in fact there was some formidable songwriting backing the catchiness rather than a technological or thematic gimmick. It's a funny, confident song that mocks European ignorance and asserts a strong self-identity for an Australian music that was really throwing out some solid artists.
(7)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Lq7QzLdkSc
#965
Westlife, 'Mandy'
2003
Westlife are androids and not even in the cool way that Kraftwerk or Sarah Brightman are. Puppets programmed to sing in the key of the eternally banal. There's nothing accidentally amusing about them. They look like the substitutes' bench of a Championship football team. Their voices are cold and expressionless. Their songs are all in the same tempo range. Their dress sense is 'uninspirational salesman'. They are an empty office, a broken printer, a telephone order for more staples. Covering Barry Manilow is probably the most radical thing they ever did.
(1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ShlE-xobyw&ob
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| Westlife holding something more musically relevant than themselves |
#897
Geri Halliwell, 'It's Raining Men'
2001
People thought that at the beginning of the Spice Girls that Geri, with her braying Home Counties voice, Union Jack dress, and flame red hair was the most radical and therefore most feminist one of the Spice Girls. In reality she was the loudest and most annoying and the least talented after Posh, who at least knew her place. Halliwell was more like a cackling hen-night artist with a weirdly flat and not terribly pop-friendly voice. This cover of the Weather Girls' natty little number removes some of the innocence and adds in the raw sex vibe of an Ann Summers party.
(2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqXUpe3jlkA
#124
John Leyton, 'Johnny Remember Me'
1961
This could be the novelty of never having heard this one before but this one is brilliant. Leyton laments a dead girl and then an all-girl chorus sing 'Johnny...remember me!' in a deathly echo, ghostly. It's chilling. There is no charity or saccharine or sentiment in the beat and rhythm, which rattles along in a skeletal fashion. Leyton ramps up the tension and it never gets released, the distance between his verses and the ghostly cries closes and closes and the song fades out before any resolution...wow! This is an excellent song 1961! Well done all concerned!
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| John Leyton you don't remember me either |
Oh, I just had a look, it's a Joe Meek production. Of course! A genius!
(9)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e4JXwd7XMo
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