i am part 13 of the chart project and i would like to say hello

#11
Mantovani and His Orchestra, 'Moulin Rouge'
1953
If cinema has taught me a few things it's that Moulin Rouge is a place of sexual thrills and exploratory hallucinogenic weirdness in basques and stockings. And if cinema has taught that then it is therefore true, so why is Mr Mantovani attempting to insinuate that Moulin Rouge is actually a place of dreamy but ultimately quite staid intrumental orchestration featuring a Gitanes-smoking accordionist to replicate the feel of France on heroin? Why would he lie like that?

Seriously, why?
(4)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUF0Pf4ZAiw
  

#181
Supremes, 'Baby Love'
1964
Oh wow the lyric 'why you do me the way you do'! I thought that relative grammatical quandary was recent but here it is in 1964 on this totally amazing record by Diana Ross, Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson and written by the lawyers over at Holland-Dozier-Holland and musically backed by the irresistable Funk Brothers. There are only a few stories in pop but ultimately I think Goethe had it right when he said "everything has been thought of before. The problem is to think of it again" because there is, in reality, infinite mileage in the 'crummy boyfriend' lyric. A fine example of that thing we call 'humans doing music' all around.  
(9)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23UkIkwy5ZM
 

#597
Rick Astley, 'Never Gonna Give You Up'
1987
Newton-le-Willows is a town whose identity is based on confuson. A small town that sits in historic Lancashire whilst acting as a commuter town for the Greater Manchester workforce, though its proximity to St Helens (which identifies with Liverpool and Merseyside) and Warrington (which is at the northern gateway to Cheshire and her rolling fields and footballer homes) means that the burgh is eternally confused about its civic identity and position in the world.

The town proved too confused for its most single-minded native, one Mr. Rick Astley. He is NEVER going to give you up. He will NEVER let you down. No fingers in several pies for Astley. He knows what he likes. Music? Pop with an RnB lilt to showcase my voice please. Lyrics? Earnest and memorable. Style? Noir insurance salesman. Hair? Jet age. Who better to solve Newton-le-Willows existential geo-crisis? A man of such hard-headed direction - and diction - surely could weigh in at tables of international diplomacy, such is his statesmanlike appeal. But have the townspeople asked him to do anything other than switch on their Xmas lights? Have they fuck.

Also this song used to make Bill Hicks phenomenally irate because he doesn't understand music in a more relational and less hierarchical manner, the dead idiot.
(6)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

#259
Mary Hopkin, 'Those Were The Days'
1968
Quite a bold manouevre to render a Russian folk song in the Western pop idiom, but one that paid off given its featuring in this round-up, the dream of many a Welsh pop singer in the 1960s. Laced with folksy strings and lamentations in the verses before shifting into Full Cossack dancing mode in the choruses. An entertaining and enduring novelty, approaching almost 100 years of ubiquity.
(6)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KODZtjOIPg

#671
George Michael and Elton John, 'Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me'
1991
An element of mantle-handing in the pantheon of sophisticated UK popular music here as Michael updates John's 1974 hit; a ballad writ of despair and rejection that cleverly/annoyingly can appear as if an appeal to the listener's sense of charity: the pair originally duetted this at Live Aid and then renewed their musical association for this version which benefitted ten organisations in education, health, etc. As a song it doesn't press all the buttons, rather waiting gamely for the giant chorus of renewal and hope for everyone on earth to sing along. Status of sun: not gone down on either some 21 years later. A victory then.
(5)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsKqMNDoR4o

#1139
Flo Rida ft. David Guetta, 'Club Can't Handle Me'
2010
Inferring wildly I may be but I think that the title means "I am currently looking so physically excellent and feeling so jolly sprightly that other people in the night spot I will be visiting will be impressed, jealous and desiring of sex with me" rather than "I am quite literally in a state of being unable to be handled by a building that has no hands or perhaps a defunct UK pornographic magazine or a biscuit that was a staple of most children's lunchboxes in the 1990s". The song: dated and anemic dance fare untroubled by wit or anything to say.
(2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgM3r8xKfGE

#125
Shirley Bassey, 'Reach For The Stars' / 'Climb Ev'ry Mountain'
1961
As much as I find Ms. Bassey an entertaining and endearing presence in the world of light entertainment for over half a century, it is songs like these that make me feel uninspired. Side A is a treacly orchestrated ballad written by an Austrian. Side AA, culled from Sound of Music - famously taking place in Austria, is an orchestrated treacly ballad. Bassey gives it the Full Bassey on both; wonderful enunciation and clarity and control with no shortage of power. A technical masterclass, if little else.
(4)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJ1dSesX4tc


#861
Sonique, 'It Feels So Good'
2000
Coffee-table music: music exhibiting similar qualities to coffee-table books, works which gain their aura from recently hip phenomena but packaged as a sophisticated high-end mass appeal product designed not so much for the engagement with but the utilisation as a status symbol and signifier of cool; soon to be forgotten, artless, stilted, dated, contextualised incorrectly.
(3)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYW1YmfOHIM

#638
Band Aid II, 'Do They Know Its Christmas?'
1989
Maintaining this blog's policy of not rating singles conceived for charity here. Hard to believe that people bought this the second time around, though it does update the roster of singers and offer a light programmed drum machine.
(n/a)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_oz1-2mq14

#922
Gareth Gates, 'Unchained Melody'
2002
For two months in 2001 we, the British nation, were hooked on the Gareth Gates story. A nascent talent show - Pop Idol - had arrived to seek that one future unit shifter in chief in the wake of a successful group-search format named Popstars (which gave us Girls Aloud, lest we forget). Gareth Gates was the show's curio and star, if not the eventual winner: a boy in transition to manhood who could not articulate himself in speech owing to a particularly troubling stammer, but able to command articulation beyond the mere construct of words with his melancholic singing voice. It was gripping stuff with a very British ending: he became famous but saddled with piss-poor material (or, like this, songs we've heard a million times over and NEVER need to hear again), his affliction was fought, he had sex with many famous women before appearing in musical theatre. Whilst hardly the greatest triumph, it must be viewed by Gates as an ascent.
(4)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0EBj68dlak

#435
Gloria Gaynor, 'I Will Survive'
1979
Can I take this moment to apologise to my friend Jude for playing this at his wedding? So carried away was I on its promise of floor-trembling disco hi-hat and waves of soaring strings that I forgot all about its generally dour and post-relationship sentiment.

One of my earliest memories regards this song. My dad used to work in a care home and would organise the Xmas entertainment for the residents (usually himself singing a few ballads for the oldies). On a year which I, for some reason, attended (being some 65 years short of the mean age of the audience) they had two girls doing baton-twirling to this song. As a wee nipper desperate for attention I became so blindly annoyed that my parents and the old people were watching the girls with their amazing skills and not me with my adorable Will Sergeant fringe that I projected 18 years of piss and vinegar against this song and all baton-twirling related activities.
(8)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBR2G-iI3-I

#1112
JLS, 'Everybody In Love'
2009
Of all pop music from the point where I stopped paying close attention (let's say 2007 onward) I think that JLS are in my top three artists. And it's not because one of them has a tattoo of Peterborough Cathedral and another one takes time out to talk to young people forced into the position of caring for an aging or ill parent based on his own personal experiences, but entirely on merit. Sure, they're overstyled and edgeless and could rightly be accused of being a bit bland in the persona department. Regardless, whoever supplies them with material knows exactly what they're doing writing fat-free pop structures, as the group flip between unshowy unison vocalising and some crafty minor-key harmonies.
(7)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSryWcRD_tw

#178
Herman's Hermits, 'I'm Into Something Good'
1964
The human ability to recognise pattern and structure and intent and then replicate it in a multitude of languages is unparalleled, surely: no sooner was the pleasing template of good time rock music laid down by Muddy Waters and Chuck Berry and then later Buddy Holly and The Beatles that the entirety of contemporary pop music was trading on this currency alone. Memorable and derivative from nose to tail, though enjoyable.
(6)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxDh2sYQRpo


#529
Flying Pickets, 'Only You'
1983
By my estimation only two a capella songs have gone to #1 in the UK and they were both by bands publicly espousing hardline leftist views, making it a more successful genre for getting under the skin of the public consciousness than punk music. This, a cover of Yazoo's debut single, is an entertaining piece which expands the tightly wound electronics of the original into an expansive, ethereal ocean of melody and calm.
(7)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F139hh2LPz0

#478
Bucks Fizz, 'Making Your Mind Up'
1982
A song more about visual impact than musical: anybody who knows this song remembers the famous Eurovision-winning set piece where, upon singing the lyric "and if you wanna see some more", the two gents would rip off the skirt of the two females - who were thankfully wearing an extra skirt, which strikes me as wholly impractical on paper but a well-judged decision in practice. Up-tempo E-number pop that doesn't outstay any welcome but doesn't change the course of any history.
(6)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4-lKMGII_k

CHART PROJECT RETURNS FOR PART 12 THIS IS IT PART 12

#637
Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers, 'Let's Party'
1989
Can't remember if we've explained the Jive Bunny 'thing' but he was definitely a rabbit with a 'thing' and that 'thing' was that he was not actually a rabbit but two men, a father and son team no less, who made party fodder medleys out of existing records that for a period in 1989 were all the rage. Whatever your take on the art of sampling and its position upon a tentative venn diagram of art and crime, it's quite apparent that the Mastermixers were none-too-subtle exponents of this technique. This is the Xmas edition of their 'thing': sleigh bells coat everything, and every segue features stock oompah music sped up to a tempo ideal for sherry-fuelled merriment with your aunt.
(2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77JEC0CnSh4

#587
Mel & Kim, 'Respectable'
1987
Whilst not liking the majority of the Stock Aitken and Cough Spit Fuck Off Pete Waterman and their corpus of arid brutalist dayglo pop interrogation techniques, sometimes, akin to Clarice Starling in the denouement of Silence of the Lambs, they will happen blindly upon the trigger of their gun and aim it square at the psychopathic skin-farmer chasing them through the dark.

Arguably it's the personalities of Mel and Kim that sold this one as much as the remorseless and familiar musical underpinning; they were bright, relatable, unapologetic and fun in a pretty understated way. 'We're never gonna be respectable', they sing in untruth. Credit to the producers for that awesome mangling of the vocal for the main hook, they 'tay-tay-tay-t-t-t-t-tay-tay' though
(6)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykDsmAqExH8

#596
Michael Jackson, 'I Just Can't Stop Loving You'
1988
It's high time that I faced up to the 'man in the mirror' (lol guys) admitted to myself that Michael Jackson is not an artist that I have much time for. Certainly [redacted] plays its part but what am I supposed to do with a man who has - at best - four pretty cool songs that I hear more often that I hear artists that I'm really into simply because of their cultural saturation? The man was a purveyor of schmaltz outside of these songs, smooth risible schmaltz, which this song epitomises. As a sucker for sincerity in music (stupidly, you might counter) it gives me pause to hear the title lyric sung; given what we know of the man, whom, or what could he simply not prevent himself from loving? It's a chilling thought.
(3)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tai2j3dVSUQ


#237
Englebert Humperdinck, 'The Last Waltz'
1967
Leicester's finest crooner with half-truth song title (it is in 3/4). My uncle is a bit of a crooner, he loves songs like this: smooth orchestration and a restrained vocal that progressively becomes a bellow to give the impression of climbing the musical scale.
(3)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0fQHSqoD9Q

#67
Elvis Presley, 'Jailhouse Rock'
1958
If I had been alive in the 1950s I would have thanked the lord above for Elvis Presley. Of course in retrospect his songs lack the musical sophistication of Slade or the sexual suggestivity of a Rick Astley but he was a vindaloo in the age of meat and potatoes three times a day, a Maserati in an Asda carpark. This playful rockabilly number recasts a prison as the centrepiece for a sudden outbreak of musicality, inaccurately I'll wager, but nonetheless cute and antic.
(7)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gj0Rz-uP4Mk

#358
Sweet Sensation, 'Sweet Sad Dreamer'
1974
A new one on me and yet crushingly familiar; a British approximation of the Philly soul sound of the time. Problematically, the soul sound of the time was beginning to sound corny and anathema to the things that made soul & RnB so vital, making the full transition from the edgy youth clubs to the supermarket intercom, otherwise known as 'The Feargal Sharkey'.
(3)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=788BOtx_-Nw

#1019
Sugababes, 'Push The Button'
2005
It says in my manual that we're sort of supposed to like Sugababes but the rationale section is curiously absent so I'll have to guess my way through this review. It's pretty clear to me after reading back a few of my reviews that I have hang-ups about production, structure and vocals: this song just about meets likeability in all three aspects; it sounds like a demo (I like things that sound like anyone could have done it), it's tightly packaged and wound (no section sticks around long enough to become boring) and the vocal run in the bridge ('after waiting patiently for him to come and get it' is really well phrased and done in a way that pays attention to the momentum of the song, rather than the technical ability of the singer) is exemplary. However, it's by no means a total banger: the last time it was heard was at its original time of landing, and if 7 years pass until the next one I won't mind.
(7)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJDGcxAf9D8

#706
Tony Di Bart, 'The Real Thing'
1994
My mum, as a fairly constant smoker, used to get these free CDs as a reward for maintaining allegiance with one brand of self-murder, though to facilitate this exchange she had to cut out the front of the package and send them back to the manufacturer. What did the cig companies used to do with all those cig packet fronts? Stick them on the wall?

Anyway, this song was memorably on one of those CDs, nestled right next to 'Love City Groove' by Love City Groove from the album Love City Groove. The song has Di Bart warbling about his desire to mate with only one person only and if that person is unavailable or unwilling then he shall depart from the sphere of physical encounters forthwith. Entirely appropriately, he chooses to voice this kind of tense dramatical situationism over a light Korg M-1 house piano and a very mild break.
(4)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MI4apNznQ4U

#1013
2Pac ft. Elton John, 'Ghetto Gospel'
2005
Though I'd never be accused of being the world's biggest fan of Mr. Shakur, I certainly have a great deal of respect for i. his predicament as a sensitive man cast in the world of machismo, a role in which he possibly acquitted himself only too well ii. his acting iii. his prolific output that not even his untimely death could halt iv. the following lyric:

And since we all came from a woman
Got our name from a woman and our game from a woman
I wonder why we take from our women
Why we rape our women, do we hate our women?
I think it's time to kill for our women
Time to heal our women, be real to our women
And if we don't we'll have a race of babies
That will hate the ladies, that make the babies
And since a man can't make one
He has no right to tell a woman when and where to create one
So will the real men get up
I know you're fed up ladies, but keep your head up

which pretty much cuts through all the bullshit (counter: lyrics for 'Hell 4 A Hustler') and why when I read Pitchfork I'm incredibly disappointed when they're all like "check this Tyler guy out" and I do and hear "Punch your bitch in her mouth just for talkin' shit / You lurkin' bitch? Well, I see that shit / Once again I gotta punch a bitch in her shit / I'm icy bitch, don't look at my wrist / Because if you do, I might blind you bitch" - and okay this could be a character or a portrait of a scene - but the lack of self-reflexivity in the lyrics around it make me think 'oh okay this is just idiotic' and furthermore those words don't even scan.

So this song by 2Pac featuring a sample of Elton John from 1971 when his voice was a little more reedy and thin, but his melodic ability was at its height, is a nice reminder that Big Rap doesn't need to be Personally Troubling Rap even though it strays into Formulaic Rap, as Tupac pleads for the end of street violence and the futility of intra-community conflict.
(5)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4nLzG7fsRM

#823
Backstreet Boys, 'I Want It That Way'
1999
'Poptimism' is this douchey recent quasi-doctrine in which people (casual observation: those whose major musical concerns actually lie in left-field) can hold out hope and seek joy in the giddy thrills of the pop sphere generally pitched in opposition with rock that declares itself to be authentic (which is stupid and someone needs to have a word with rock music but only in the way that a teenager needs perspective to become adult). There's nothing wrong with that in a sense except for the insincerity of the applied intelliectualism: eclecticism isn't for everyone and nor should it be. There are no prizes for liking everything or only one thing. It's okay to not move on as much as it is to embrace the zeitgeist. Both 'rock' and 'pop' are real and fake and stupid and smart. Everything is permissible and it doesn't need a name.

That paragraph has sidetracked me somewhat. This is the most popular and famous song of the Backstreet Boys canon, a lilting pop-meets-RnBallad, all gently swung drum machines and dreamy harmonies and nonsense lyrics. It touches upon these unspoken universals of western pop music even when set aside from the sexual aspect of how boybands sell records: everything is invisible, you never sense the hands of construction within, the song as a canvas to project desire upon, nothing too specific to be sung. It's feintly charming and completely functional and shall outlast the group as it is built upon the very DNA of pop music.
(6)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fndeDfaWCg

die chart projekt 11: warum ist meine mind?

(patience wearing thin, will pick it up soon)

#321
Lieutenant Pigeon, 'Mouldy Old Dough'
1972
Of all songs that have gone to #1 I would like to wager that this is the song that is most unlikely to ever do so again. Of course, it is more-or-less a novelty song, and novelty songs are very much attached to their era in which they are considered a novelty. The 40 years that have elapsed since this song ascended the charts to now have stripped whatever comic corona was attached to this hit, leaving very much a wave of bafflement as to what exactly the joke was and at whom it was aimed.

The track begins innocuously enough with a military fife (or reedy instrument with similar soldiering qualities) and snare imitating a parade ground march, before a sidelong collapse into a long and slow boogie section that calls to mind Chas and Dave without the vocals, musicianship, or wit. The song just lurches aimlessly, its lyrics half-hearted ('take it away, dirty old man, moldy old dough'), plodding anemically back to the start and around again. The more it is heard, the more maddening it becomes because whatever the joke was has now been lost in time, leaving only a really weird and ramshackle piano-jam that would barely pass muster opening up for Status Quo. And yet in this amateurishness and half-arsedness, there is hope that this somehow represents a multi-faced universe chart wherein any old toss can climb above the scrapheap and plant its flag in the ground.
(2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy32skBSHs0

#805
Spacedust, 'Gym & Tonic'
1998
More Ibiza toss, we've covered what that means. Not worth dissection, the song just does not stand up at all.
(2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6RQbhNQ6ko

#766
Gary Barlow, 'Love Won't Wait'
1997
Gary Barlow gets lauded in these terms by the majority of critics: he might be a Tory and a bit of a dick but he can really write a song. Largely I have agreed with this analysis. However, reapproaching some of the early Take That numbers alongside this particularly cruddy number has granted the realisation that Barlow really does not (or at least did not) have any ear for sounds that are 'timeless'. His chords and melodies are often at worst perfunctory and at best enlivening. Even his lyrics scan from time to time. However, the production, a key element of how a song sounds (certainly the most underrated) is quite far from the mark: ugly muzak synths, scratchy thin funk guitar that even wine-bar bands would reject as being 'too Eurovision', and cold MIDI elements that tie this song squarely to 1998 forever.
(3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7kHpSTs0uo

#359
Ken Boothe, 'Everything I Own'
1974
A pleasant and unshowy rocksteady reggae song with melodies that clearly foreshadow the likes of Aswad and UB40. The instrumental break in the middle is notable and funny for building expectation toward a solo and then deciding against it.
(6)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5nzZy2LFE0

#25
Rosemary Clooney, 'This Ole House'
1954
A jaunty and thankfully upbeat number from the decade that slumbered longest.

OK, I wrote that sentence four days ago. Since then I have had a few things to do, but I honestly couldn't find much of interest to write. An analogy: I like to do a bit of running. Recently I decided to run from where I live in Wigan to a friend's house about 21 miles away in Manchester. I knew that beforehand it would be difficult but running is about long-term benefit and well-being, and I knew that afterward I would not regret it. During the run, after around only 6 miles, not only was I doubting the benefit of the run, but the whole pathway of life that had brought me to these kinds of decisions and actions. It was difficult and the rewards were not immediately apparent and I was tired and running out of motivational tactics, yet somehow I felt an invisible hand pushing me along, forcing me to finish.

So forgive me if I coast the next couple of miles and stop into the shops to get a drink because the next few songs are boring and I need to gather up my strength for a push. Did I mention that chart music isn't my thing yet?
(4)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nstn4Wscl1w

#545
Elaine Paige & Barbara Dickson, 'I Knew Him So Well'
1985
Sappy power-ballad with Vangelis synths and hideous over-singing. Is this from musical theatre? It sounds like the song a leading lady would sing as the leading man goes off to sail or something.
(2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeMk7B46xg8

#385
Four Seasons, 'December '63'
1976
Fucking hell I always thought this song was called 'Oh What A Night', putrid bilious arse-end of disco's rotting cocaine corpse. Every corpuscle and strand of DNA is screaming to turn this off.
(2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8QFNrTq9oo

#782
Usher, 'You Make Me Wanna'
1998
Usher is at his best when he sings R&B that is edged with melancholy, rather than attempting to work up a sex-lather on the dancefloor. This, his first hit, is one of the good kind of tracks, a tasteful sample of a minor-key acoustic guitar fluttering ambivalently, cutting through a mix of slightly over-sung backing vocals and generic beats. Hindsight does not scream 'a star is born' given better first efforts by many contemporaries, but heck, he's done it.
(5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQRzrnH6_HY

#406
Kenny Rogers, 'Lucille'
1977
Aside from being surprised when country songs get to #1, this song just provides a big mental blank like this: _____________________ _________________________________ _______________________________ _________________ ______________________ ________________ ______. Rogers' longevity is baffling. An unremarkable voice and an everyman charm have been the preserve of many a journeyman, so why the massive fame and the chicken restaurants?
(3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLKDFKRTdlo

#475
Joe Dolce Music Theatre, 'Shaddup You Face'
1981
Weird novelty hit from this Australian-based, American-born, Italian-acting guy - the music is all corny Sicilian restaurant and the lyrics are a bit silly and it's just a bit of fun, nothing to see here.

What's more interesting is that Dolce had a legitimate career as protest singer in Australia - singing a song called 'Boat People' about the treatement of Vietnamese migrants in Australia. I can't imagine he did it in this Dolmio-style waiter-voice, otherwise that would have been a mite insensitive. What journey set him sail on this path?
(4)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFacWGBJ_cs

The Chart Project Part X: like a new born baby it just happens every day

#1039
Beyonce ft. Jay-Z, 'Deja-Vu'
2006
OK so is this called 'Deja-Vu' because it has the same rhythm and guest-star as 'Crazy In Love'? Anyway, what I'd really like to talk about are my doubts about Beyonce and Jay-Z as the transformative presences in their chosen spheres of music (R&B pop and rap respectively).

What both seem to represent is a degree of taste with regard to sampling and a certain attention to contemporary, fashion-spread informed presentation, but musically and lyrically I'm yet to hear anything but a stream of slick danceable nonsense from either. Which is not to outright deride either - certainly everyone likes a bit of well-arranged fluff! A fun little song but no more fun than Slade, who did not appear on any covers of Vanity Fair.
(5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ9BWndKEgs

#850
Madonna, 'American Pie'
2000
A uncompelling nadir: a bland, demo-quality version of Don McLean's iconic hit. This purely gets by because it makes journalists point out that the ever-changeable Madonna, an AMERICAN ICON is covering an AMERICAN CLASSIC and thus recontextualising AMERICA AS A WHOLE. Journalists are scum.
(2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BIAi3Oo7To

#547
Philip Bailey & Phil Collins, 'Easy Lover'
1985
Woah I had NO IDEA this was a duet and spent a good portion of my pre-pubescence wondering how Collins made his voice go all high in the verses (and now I realise that at times there are two distinct voices singing, but so enamoured of Phil Collins was I as a youth I was CONVINCED that if anyone then Phil Fucking Collins could).

This is from the epicentre of Phil Collins' kingly phase and the reason that he is lauded so heavily by the R&B and urban pop fraternity in the US: it's a slick piece of danceable soul music with a bit of grit and no less than three killer hooks and a chorus written at the department of WE'VE COMPLETELY UNDERSTOOD HOW SONGS WORK. Marked down slightly for mid-80s misogyny.
(7)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4Slcrcbci0

#704
Take That, 'Everything Changes'
1994
My best friend as a yoof - his sister was the typical Take That fan. Her favourite was Mark Owen. Posters all over her room, all the records, all the separate versions of the singles, live bootlegs (of a mere pop band!), down to the Take That bedspread. I first heard this song in her room (for whatever reason) and I seem to recall disappointment. "It's Robbie's first lead vocal, it's not as good as the others is it?" said she. She was 9 and she had articulated the central strife at the core of Take That: that the most egotistical member was simply one of the lesser talents of the outfit. I was only 11 so my natural inclination was to say "THEY'RE ALL RUBBISH SAMANTHA" and then run out of her room and back to her brother who was furiously playing Treasure Island Dizzy. What I meant to do was sagely agree with her: it's not as good as many of their other singles, and has a similar kind of previously unnoticed muzak quality in the verses. Uptempo polite pop without 'edge', the type that nobody really makes anymore.
(3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzHIxigdlgQ&ob=av2e

#1011
Oasis, 'Lyla'
2005
Even as a 22-year old I hadn't quite realised that Oasis were a decade past their best and waited up one night for the C4 premiere of this video. After hearing this, a turgid mid-tempo caterwaul that strives to do nothing other than fulfil the empty signifiers of what Oasis THINK made them a good band (swagger, attitude, pastiche of the past) rather than actually writing the songs that made people give a fuck out of nothing at all, I effectively decided to shelve an entire part of my life. Britpop became a joke, the part of my past that I could hold up and lampoon for being so stupid to invest in this crap that, believe it or not, used to mean something to me and 10000s of people like me. Oasis post-1997 are nothing but a contemptuous joke and any pleasing sound they have made is pure rope-a-dope.
(1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQZQ5MHehes

#932
Darius, 'Colourblind'
2002
Pleasant memories of performing a cover of this in a shortlived (1 gig, performed whilst sat on a suitcase as my flight left that night) acoustic/electric duo notwithstanding, this is a bland little R&B/indie piece of radio makeweight. Darius was a comedy figure of the UK popscape in the early part of the 00s and his many misdemeanours fell into the category of the 'being pretentious and lacking self-awareness', which enabled the British public to sucker him into a greater hubristic dive when this single hinted at lasting success, only for the man to hit the scrapheap a year later.
(3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS4jg-Yv1XA

#454
The Jam, 'Going Underground' / 'Dreams of Children'
1980
"What song would you want played at your funeral?"
"Going Underground! HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHA!"
"But you're getting cremated."
"In that case Dreams Of Children! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
"We're not friends anymore."

I never really knew what Weller's politics were. They seemed too generally 'anti' - we don't trust politicians, we don't trust the media, we don't trust society, we don't trust modernity. Then what do you trust? What is there to grab hold of? These issues aside, The Jam offer two pieces of tightly-wound guitangst: the A-side famous and explosive, the AA-side perhaps a little more exploratory and fulfilling. 'You will choke on your dreams tonight' says the latter song, with a smile and a hope of a pleasant future in its heart.
(8)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE1ct5yEuVY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr-K2LJwG2M

#303
Diana Ross, 'I'm Still Waiting'
1971
Though initially ready to write this off as an overly-orchestrated melodrama, this song perhaps indicated a route that soul music never took; a softening into the dreamstate and the regretful. In many senses it's what's going on around Ross' commanding vocals that reward the most: the melancoholic backing vocals, the rousing drumwork, and the hallucinatory strings.
(5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1iAtoX9DKk

#418
Brotherhood of Man, 'Figaro'
1978
End-of-the-pier-in-the-very-late-season sub-Abba shite from the 70s. Complete with barely restrained 'funky' guitar. WHO COULD RESIST?
(2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk0MwkDZhKs

#416
Wings, 'Mull of Kintyre' / 'Girls School'
1977
The very first song I learned on the Spanish guitar I was bought for my 13th birthday was the 1977 Xmas #1 written by Paul McCartney and Denny Laine of Wings that can be found on this release's A-side. A relatively rarity in pop circles - it is a waltz (3/4 time) and contains HEAVY use of bagpipes, pleasantly reverbed. The chords of A, D, and E major if you want to play along at home. It is very simple and repetitive, growing more sentimental and sickly by every repetition. Though I learned it at age 13, I did not hear the song as Wings performed it until 21, and I contend that my scraped version was better, a triumph against the odds and weak calluses. The AA-side is, like Brotherhood of Man, sub-Abba and overly orchestrated rubbish.
(4)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqAAfDCIV3c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYhTye_A9H0

#1166
Lady Gaga, 'Bad Romance'
2009
For a time in 2009 I would ring people up (people that I needed to speak to) and before I said hello, I would utter the hook from this song down the phone into their astonished ears - 'RAH RAH UH AH OH'. At the time I took this as me mocking the popular entertainments of the day, but now I realise that this song was part of the inner aspect of my daily discourse to an unignorable degree. Given that recent pop, generally speaking, disgusts me with its lack of melodic and conceptual ambition and naked embrace of the grimier end of capitalism, I think that there's something to be admired in Lady Gaga even if it is not always her music. Naive this may be, I genuinely think that Gaga wants to be brilliant, that she wants to be considered as a real artist and wants as many people to engage with this art to its fullest extent. And its a fair ambition, and songs like these offer how it could go either way in the long term - a huge, homely, familiar hook, but also there's a tonne of flab in the song's centre, with its ambling chat about 'being a free bitch now'.
(6)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrO4YZeyl0I

#703
Doop, 'Doop'
1994
Sometimes I hope that this song was a satire on the simplicity in eliciting a reaction in the weirdness that was 90s Eurodance. Effectively nothing more than a big beat remix of a small section of a charleston track with a one word lyric ('doop'), this song used to drive people mad at the time, ensuring that Doop's slightly better follow-up ('Huckleberry Jam') did no business whatsoever, crash-landing as it did at #95.
(3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvLDm8821jQ

#353
George McCrae, 'Rock Your Baby'
1974
Written by Harry Casey of KC & The Sunshine Band and performed by George McCrae, a man of not inconsiderable talent himself, this is one of those 'best of the 70s' songs that has resulted in complete cultural resistance to that era. Attempting a listen now without prejudice is difficult, but focusing on the Booker T-ish organs and the vocals of McCrae help keep things sweet, especially if you ignore the slightly bland arrangement as I did not.
(4)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll0a1ZPI2cQ

#464
David Bowie, 'Ashes to Ashes'
1980
Bowie seems desperate to confess his prodigious drug-intake on this one. "Time and again I tell myself / I'll stay clean tonight / But the little green wheels are following me." That's just something I've realised in 2012 from reading the lyrics: from previous, unprompted listening, I simply thought it was a song which got by lyrically on its references to Bowie songs gone by (particularly 'Space Oddity'). So how did I miss the lyrics?

Well, by focusing on the excellent music. Songs like this are what convinces me that David Bowie and I could work out our long term differences: the light funk of the bass is heavily offset from the alien acid settings of the guitar and synth. There's also an excellent sense of occasion about the piece, transitioning from the confessional opening into the delusions in the bridge to the calm declamations in the chorus. And there's really nobody who sounds like this, is there? David Bowie's work stands alone, for better or worse, a lot of the time.
(9)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMThz7eQ6K0

#215
Rolling Stones, 'Paint It, Black'
1966 
Like 'Mull of Kintyre', this song was in my 'Teach Yourself Rock Guitar' book and yet I did not bother to listen to it until much later. My version was inferior, omitting all of the things that make this song so distinct, particularly the sitar, drums, rhythm, and timing. That said, I completely rule at Singstar on this song - those 'hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm' sections are in my two-note range. Were I a crap journalist I'd say this song marries the best of east and west - the microtonality of the sitar creates this unusual tension in the verses which allows the choruses to really fizz when the band opens up into a standard R'n'B (60s defintion)/rock style. Brian Jones was still alive and functional and the band had yet to become a Grotesque Rock Parody - thus making this as good as mainstream rock gets.
(9)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9DDpmyPZZA

THE CHART PROJECT PT. 7: let the world see what you have got / bring it all back to you

(slight quality drop-off near the end, blame the dreadful music)


#61
Lonnie Donegan, 'Puttin' On The Style' / 'Gamblin' Man'
1957
A big hoorah for the first double A-side of the countdown! An underrated but obviously troublesome format for mass comprehension. Side A is a rambunctious skiffle number, skiffle being an apparently European cousin of bluegrass. Side AA is also a ripping dandy of a Woody Guthrie cover done in the traditional skiffle style.

Both performances contain lots of energy: this is real age of railways stuff, the percussion rattles and scrapes and Donegan's syllables imitate the rumbling of trains bobbling up and down on the recently constructed tracks. Where many singles of the era now seem like museum pieces, both of these songs stand-up now just in terms of pure physicality.
(7)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW9KUeMaJRQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GynnhBUOHkg

#493
Shakin' Stevens, 'Oh Julie'
1982
The McDonalds Elvis continues with another 50s rock'n'roll exercise. To throw a spanner in the works, an accordion makes an appearance. You're fooling no one son.
(3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AtOcWOPT50

#966
Will Young, 'Leave Right Now'
2003
The joy felt when Will Young won Pop Idol, a star search format of yore, has not translated into a continued relationship with his music. 'Leave Right Now' is a ballad with a lyrical conceit about a pragmatic decision not to fall in love with a person which may prove problematic in the long term, which seems like a very modern and insincere thing to do. You can choose this? I suppose you can. 'I don't want to be in a relationship right now'. 'I don't see myself as the marrying type'. Life just happens, everyone, you're going to be mostly powerless to stop such forces.
(3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbrSLLv0AlA

#1003
Eminem, 'Like Toy Soldiers'
2005
I've never been unfortunate enough to have my best friend and childhood inspiration shot dead on a street corner and I sincerely hope that I never have to face that kind of problem. Eminem, or Marshall Mathers, is a human being and many of his songs do bring into focus the disparity between the front of the rapper and the background of the man - and often with no little humour and memorable music. But this song, this song is no good. It's maudlin and trivialising and it serves as a launchpad for Eminem to try and attack various bugbears once his lamenting is through. The 'beat' is all military snares and the interconnecting fluid of the sample is Martika's 'Toy Soldiers' and Eminem's dead friend is referred to as a 'soldier'...heavy-handed metaphors a speciality here.
(3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lexLAjh8fPA

#200
The Beatles, 'Help'
1965 
Taken from the soundtrack of the superior Beatles film. It is a Beatles song that we all know and love and well bloody done The Beatles.
(8)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s-F7ZmmGbY

#851
Chicane ft. Bryan Adams, 'Don't Give Up'
2000
Oh wow when Ibiza became so big that even rock magazines had to take notice. The process by which Bryan Adams' voice appears on this record must be an interesting story. I imagine it probably went a little something like this.
"Hi, this is Bryan."
"Oh, hi Bryan, Chicane here. I got the memo from your agent saying you were looking to cred up your image."
"That's right."
"OK. Well, I've got this total mid-set nonentity of a dance track. I propose putting a 96kbps MP3 recording of your voice on this track."
"That's just what I'm looking for. Thanks Chicane."
"Don't mention it Bry."
(2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNlrACY3--0

#97
Adam Faith, 'Poor Me' 
1960
The backing on this is quite spirited and moody: strings groaning up and down the scale like voices emerging from a haunted castle wall, pizzicato violins plucking like hair standing up on your neck, a band which clatters along remorselessly. The problem is the vocal and the lyric, which are just cheap Buddy Holly knock-offs and don't fit with the unusual rollercoaster ride written by one Mr. John 'James Bond' Barry. Shame.
(4)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rThWY6jsiJ4

#371
Windsor Davies and Don Estelle, 'Whispering Grass'
1975 
A song originally written in 1940 and made famous by the vocal harmony group The Ink Spots and re-released and performed in character by stars of the UK sitcom 'It Ain't Half Hot Mum', a japefest about the Burmese conditions of WW2. Don Estelle has a fine voice for imitating the range of the original, and the song is a fine enough remnant of pop eras alien to our own, evoking Dennis Potter more than dance party. However, what was the point in Windsor Davies even getting a credit on this? He literally speaks a couple of vaguely comic lines and gurns throughout the TV performances of it. Hilarious.
(5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rThWY6jsiJ4

#953
Tomcraft, 'Loneliness'
2003 
Ministry of Sound fodder with a refreshingly unfunky beat and deadpan vocal, though unlovable in its anonymity.
(3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QV8cOmsTdI

#673
Wet Wet Wet, 'Goodnight Girl'
1992  
Who else remembers when Wet Wet Wet were a legimately huge presence on the UK pop scene? I have two specific memories of the group, one which I shall save for their other, more famous #1 hit. The other is when the man 'being' Wet Wet Wet's Marti Pellow on Stars In Their Eyes actually won. Oh, and didn't Pellow go and get all 'rock star ego' and go off to do heroin like a proper musician even though he was just singing these breezy nothingy AOR pop songs? Weird. One striking thing about this song is the total absence of percussion. Once you get over the fact that the drums are going to come in, you wonder whether anything is going to happen other than these medieval-type harmonies and Poundland lyrics.
(3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_94Q4yt8Y4

#65
Harry Belafonte, 'Mary's Boy Child'
1957
Slow and dreary. Who IS it who keeps saying that the 1950s were better? To hear any of the decent music of the day you'd better have been damn well plugged into the underground or attending a musical conservatory in Paris or Munich or Moscow because it sure as HELL wasn't happening in the pop charts. Fair play to Boney M for kicking this song right up the arse.
(2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGQsy8pN48U

#99
Lonnie Donegan, 'My Old Man's A Dustman' 
1960
Cockney knees-up singalong by skiffle hero Donegan, the song punctuated with little jokes and asides to the audience, sort of reflective of the vaudeville beginnings of pop music rather the gleaming future it was heading toward. Still, MILES better than Belafonte. Sheesh. Wake that dude up.
(5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7GeZ3YmONw

#705
Prince, 'The Most Beautiful Girl In The World'
1994 
It is a truth universally known that Prince is a phenomenally talented human being who, since changing his name to a funny squiggle and then back again and then finding God in a fairly priority-altering manner, has had some difficulty in discerning between a good idea and a bad one. The name change occurred in 1993, so this song finds on the darker side of that line, in and amongst 10 minute guitar jams, fanclub-only albums declaring Abraham Lincoln to be a racist, and jazz albums whose songs all begin with the letter 'X'.

Fortunately, it is a good song. Soft and more in the arena of contemporary smooth soul, yes, but with those little sophisticated chord changes that Prince is semi-famous for (seriously: check any guitar tab of Prince songs, they contain chords that I have never ever heard of and when I do play them I think 'how could this chord be of any use to anybody? It sounds like the noise a dog makes when it whimpers.') and with a pretty cool and sincere sounding sentiment, ensuring that that year many non-verbal men had an audio shortcut to more sex than they had bargained for in this song.
(6)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uoo2KioueCQ

#328
Gilbert O'Sullivan, 'Get Down'
1973 
Everybody has a musical style which jangles their last nerve and I have to announce that mine is soft-rock/soft-disco/soft-boogie rock. This song falls headlong into all three categories, recalling Status Quo with free access to a Rhodes organ.
(3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdd7W-jP2GQ

#916
Blue, 'If You Come Back'
2001
There's just nothing here to be funny or snooty or clever about. Boring song that has dated terribly.
(2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG5guNz9AVU

#117
Floyd Cramer, 'On The Rebound'
1961
A cool little instrumental with a convincing bar-room atmosphere: barrelling piano, whipping violins, surfy rhythm section. Neat!
(6)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WHUbV2uFJY

#1117
Rage Against The Machine, 'Killing In The Name'
2009
Nominated by the people as the official anti-X Factor song, lest we forget. Buying this song was a symbol to Simon Cowell that his power can be subdued and that is why this song has entirely prevented Mr. Cowell from having any success since. Irony about RATM's major label status entirely withstanding.

This song and I go farther back, to the days where my friends and I would spend every other Friday in a local rock club as the golden hits of the rapcore/nu-metal era would be played until 4am. As a consequence not only have I heard this song 1000+ times, but every parallel world version of this song as written by Spineshank, Adema, Trust Co., Fear Factory, Puddle of Mudd, System of a Down, Limp Bizkit, POD, Everlast, Soil, Soilwork, Mudvayne, Amen, Alien Ant Farm, Incubus, Hed-Pe, Guano Apes, Static X, and countless other complete fucking berks who were just pointlessly angry about shit all.

OK, OK, so you might point out that Rage were a political band and therefore a little bit more conscious than the aforementioned berks and that they were attempting to shove a message into the machine in much the same way as I lauded White Town for. I'd disagree purely because the way the semiotics of teen rebellion and histrionics completely overwhelm the nobility of any potential message. This appearance at #1 might seem like a black eye on asinine pop forever, but check the charts and there's only one winner, and it isn't the people who shat themselves to buy this complete snorefest of a record.
(2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWXazVhlyxQ

#492
Bucks Fizz, 'Land Of Make Believe' 
1982
Faint italo traces in the bassline here that grant this song by dayglo Eurovision winners Bucks Fizz a degree of weird sensuality, at least before it piles on the ersatz Abba guitars and percussive mayhem. No idea what the verse about 'nesting in your garden' is all about though.
(5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sP_I2_E0C0

#212
Spencer Davis Group, 'Somebody Help Me'
1966
This Brummie pop-rock-soul combo fronted by Steve Winwood were pretty underrated: they churned out a few zeitgeist dancefloor shakers over their time and their songs stand the test of time. This song doesn't particularly do anything special but it sounds good doing it.
(6)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvQ-EjN8Rt0

#827
S Club 7, 'Bring It All Back'
1999
Maddeningly chirpy plastic pop for masochists and children.
(1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PUI3TMFvNA

THE CHART PROJECT PT. 3: The highs and lows

#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

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.

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

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!

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

The Chart Project: Part 1

Part one is only brief. Later editions will contain 10-50 reviews at a time.


#460.
Don McLean, 'Crying'
1984.
The least-known of Canadian crooner McLean's 'big three' is a cover of the timeless large-spectacled one known as Roy Orbison. For half of its duration it is doggedly faithful to the original, a forlorn lament in which the song's protagonist leaks discharge from his eyes without cessation. McLean later goes off-piste a little with swelling strings and a goofily-overblown falsetto remniscent of the excellent and goofily-overblown songs of Robin Gibb, whom I always felt was held back by his be-bearded siblings in the Brothers Gibb, or 'Bee Gees'. There is simply not enough palpable vocal quivering in music.
(6)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpQmrUxwiF8

#1009.
Tony Christie ft. Peter Kay, '(Is This The Way To) Amarillo?'
2005.

This is a joyful and sweet song. Christie was an excellent pop tenor of his era, which was much before the 2005 revival of this song for the UK charity Comic Relief. What it is not, however, is a comedy or 'novelty' song. This is the Peter Kay effect. His face, mugging along with various British celebrities, in accompaniment with this song has ensured an enduring legacy as novelty. Britain is now a visual culture, so the opening bars recall Kay (who does not perform on the record, only its promotional clip) and his gurning more than it does any anticipation of Christie's versatile performace. It seems churlish to quibble when this simple equation has raised money to aid domestic and internation charity projects though.
(4)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqLLDZvbG-U

#1180.
Olly Murs, 'Dance With Me Tonight'
2011.
This desequencing of the chronology does not allow me to talk about The Mark Ronson Effect with adequate recourse to its creeping malignancy over prior years. Essentially it is a re-tooling of the signifiers of Motown and soul music: energetic mid-tempos, sharp suits, tight structures, & universal-sounding lyrics – but with none of the substance: the history of societal oppression and the performers who spent years paying dues. The digitisation of this music led to it becoming ersatz and reduceable to a mere pop trope that is audio shorthand 'party time'.

Mr. Murs appeared on the UK star-search format 'X Factor'. His 'thing' was that he was a local everyman with a winning smile and cheerily awful dance. His role in this song is practically incidental.
(3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3EG4olrFjY&ob

#1154
Bruno Mars, 'Grenade'
2011.
This song is about a man with the biggest martyr complex possible. In the opening verse he establishes that the dramatic subject, an errant female companion, has left. The signs were there from the start. The first time they kissed, her eyes were open. "Why were they open?!" asks Mars, not unreasonably, though perhaps not establishing why obstructed ocular organisms equate with a more sincere kiss. From this low start, Mars establishes a lengthy list of things that he would do for this girl: e.g. catch the titular grenade, take a bullet through the brain, jump in front of a train - and in a chilling denouement to this chorus - she will NOT do the same.

Well, Bruno, I am guessing that is because she is a fairly reasonable person. It seems that she simply was not that into you in the first instance. It wouldn't be remiss to presume that from your desire to pursue high levels of risk that you were probably a bit high pressure to begin with, so she strung you along a bit, hoping that you would go on tour so she could move on with her life. Mars' piety is accompanied by a very generic formulaic hi-gloss pop gronk and his superlative proclaimations are made in a shrill and unappealing whinny.
(3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR6iYWJxHqs&ob


#72
Vic Damone, 'On The Street Where You Live'
1958

Who among us has not had that stomach full of butterflies in the knowledge that the object of our affections is even only POSSIBLY nearby? It is a strange and abstract feeling and often its representation in art falls short. "And oh! The towering feeling / just to know somehow you are near / the overpowering feeling / that any second you may suddenly appear!" The temptation to read this as a stalker's manifesto must be resisted as Damone manages to simultaneously convey the sense of wonder and sensational overload at the THOUGHT of this love and the clumsy dry-mouthed reality of the love's appearance. This is a daffy little number that calls to mind a young Scott Walker somehow transplanted into the fantasy segment of Mary Poppins.
(7)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNwlc8F7wOQ

ART IN MACRO COMPLETE BUYER'S GUIDES #1: The Fall.

Skip to around two minutes into the above video and the case for the cultural significance of The Fall is made; that the tastemaker of tastemakers, the spiritual cool uncle of music, should name the group as his favourite ever. Also fans: Frank Skinner, David 'Bumble' Lloyd, the members of any half-decent US group of the last 30 years, etc.

We're not here to question The Fall's position in the critical canon. Let us assume they are as unimpeachable as Shakespeare, Keats, or Philip Schofield. We're also not here to teach you in detail about the tumult and the firings or even use the word 'curmudgeonly': other people have written books on those subjects. And while we're here, don't buy Mark E. Smith's "auto"-biography. It's one of the worst books ever ghosted.

The problem is: what to buy? No band can cough up thirty records (not mention endless compilations, bootlegs, sessions, and live albums) and not have a stinker amongst them and The Fall are no exception. We at AIM are industry leaders in objectivity and championing the consumer and are subsequently not afraid of any challenge. So here it is: every Fall record in 50 words.

LIVE AT THE WITCH TRIALS ****
Step Forward, 1979
Angry dock clerk Mark E. Smith adds the syllable '-uh' to every line. His drably-dressed friends make 'punk' music that only shares 20% of its DNA with punk (energy, attitude) but little else: they've heard Beefheart, some German stuff. Cheap keyboards, curious rants: soon to be left behind. Excellent though.
Key lyric: “We are The Fall. Northern white crap that talks back.”
Killer track: Two Steps Back

DRAGNET ****
Step Forward, 1979
Looser. Weirder. At times impenetrable. Blackly humoured, proud to be slack, notes flubbed left and right. The amateurish performances and mix sound fantastic though – a happy accident of anti-technique and confident direction. Dragnet marks the debut of key member Steve Hanley, whose bass often sounds like an industrial accident.
Key lyric: “I don't sing. I just shout. All on one note.”
Killer track: Before The Moon Falls

GROTESQUE (AFTER THE GRAMME) ****1/2
Rough Trade, 1980
Weirder still. They now throw their own warped take on rockabilly into the mix (which they call 'country and northern'. Get it?). Hard to describe in mortal words, so I'll try something pretentious – like Bosch re-imagined by LS Lowry. Images of terror and anger softened with humour. Best one yet.
Key lyric: “You think you've got it bad with thin ties, miserable songs synthesized, or circles with A in the middle. Make joke records, hang out with Gary Bushell.”
Killer track: Container Drivers

The Fall, Nijmegen, 1981: (l-r) Steve Hanley, Mark E. Smith, Karl Burns, Marc Riley.

SLATES *****
Rough Trade, 1981
Six-track mini-album/EP that has a reasonably solid claim to being the greatest achievement of all mankind. That is not an exaggeration. 'Slates, Slags, Etc.' takes The Stooges' template and improves upon it by not giving into rock & roll cliché. The three Rs in full, mesmerising effect: repetition, repetition, repetition.
Key lyric: “Academic male slags ream off names of books and bands. Kill cultural interest in our land.”
Killer track: Leave The Capitol

HEX ENDUCTION HOUR ****1/2
Kamera, 1982
Two drummers! Nerve-jangler 'Hip Priest' would find its way into the denouement of Silence of the Lambs at writer Thomas Harris' request. Loose. Some spaces dense with conventional chord changes and others stark and open and minimal. Generally considered their best by the beard-stroking contingent. On some days I agree.
Key lyric: “Made with the highest British attention to the wrong detail.”
Killer track: Fortress/Deer Park

ROOM TO LIVE ***1/2
Kamera, 1982
Unpolished and spontaneous, this record sounds like the run-time is all the time it took to commit this to its finished entity. That results in some brilliantly unforeseeable moments where instruments clash unexpectedly, creating new sounds. It also results in some slightly indulgent moments where 'spartan' and 'boring' are interchangeable terms.
Key lyric: “The sweetest sound she had ever heard was the whinging and crying due to the recession.”
Killer track: Solicitor In Studio

PERVERTED BY LANGUAGE ****
Rough Trade, 1983
The last of the two drummer records, sadly. Some definitive rants and some crucial stuff that almost grooves conventionally ('I Feel Voxish') are interspersed with slow, percussive tracks that routinely shatter the eight minute mark. A disciplined effort with no languers. Who is that female singer on 'Hotel Bloedel' though...?
Key lyric: “The best firms advertise the least.”
Killer track: Smile

THE WONDERFUL AND FRIGHTENING WORLD OF... ****
Beggars Banquet, 1984
So, Mark married an American (Brix) who plays a jangly Rickenbacker like Peter Buck. She must be in the band, decides Mark. A drummer goes missing and sunshine breaks the clouds over Salford. The first brushes with pop, whilst Steve Hanley keeps it dour at the low end. A palate cleanser.
Key lyric: “Used table leg to club son-in-law.”
Killer track: No Bulbs

THIS NATION'S SAVING GRACE *****
Beggars Banquet, 1985
THE starting point. Every idea works. Every track hurts. In a way, their least coherent record – the sum of thousands of influences. The pop of Brix, the grinding of the band, the playful experimentation of Mark...this should be every high school year seven set listening for one whole year.
Key lyric: “Was over accountant's and on business, then I woke up and I decided to recommence my diary. Then I read Paula Yates On Vision Mopeds. Then I found out we were not going to Italy. Later Mam said “Those continentals are little monkeys”.”
Killer track: My New House



BEND SINISTER ***1/2
Beggars Banquet, 1986
The first record without any real difficulties for the listener: this is a band that thrives on chaos! Instead: same line-up, same producer, same label. None of these songs would make the record before – no surprise - but age shows it to be no mere facsimile of a successful effort. Underrated.
Key lyric: “I really think this computer thing is getting out of hand.”
Killer track: Riddler!

THE FRENZ EXPERIMENT ***
Beggars Banquet, 1987
All over the place. The opening trio sound transplanted from 1981, before giving way to a diabetes-inducing version of The Kinks' 'Victoria'. Side two (vinyl fans) drags due to their first real stinkers, some clock the ten-minute mark. Nobody signed up for happiness: The Frenz Experiment reeks of it.
Key lyric: “Diluted Jesuits pour out of mutual walkmans - from Elland Road to Venice Pensions and down the Autobahns.”
Killer track: Frenz

Brix Smith, 1988

I AM KURIOUS ORANJ ****
Beggars Banquet, 1988
A huge curveball: a ballet score! Admittedly for maverick choreographer Michael Clark, this record besmirches ballet more than it does the band. There's a perverse sense of 'let's the see the bastard dance to THIS' running throughout, challenging the band to experiment for the first time in three years. Great!
Key lyric: “I was very let down with the budget. I was expecting a one million quid handout. I was very disappointed. It was the government's fault.”
Killer track: Bad News Girl

EXTRICATE ***1/2
Cog Sinister, 1990
Lead single 'Telephone Thing' isn't really The Fall: it's Mark singing over a Coldcut song. One song tenderly laments the divorce of wife Brix, the rest actively celebrates the divorce of wife Brix. Angular and tightly-wound, with two covers of pioneering garage-rockers The Monks. Another underrated effort; no real lows.
Key lyric: “Does the Home Secretary have barest faintest inkling of what's going down?”
Killer track: Bill Is Dead

SHIFT-WORK **
Phonogram, 1991
Arguably the most nondescript Fall LP: forgotten by all but die-hard fans. Transition from guitars to synths, a sense of the band trying to compete rather than just be. Moving Steve Hanley onto acoustic bass is like telling Mozart to try his hand at funk drumming. Effort? Yes! Reward? Little.
Key lyric: “California has Disneyland. And Blackpool has a Funland. And Flanders had No Man's Land. This place idiot show bands.”
Killer track: High Tension Line

CODE: SELFISH **1/2
Phonogram, 1992
I'm an ass for criticising Smith for bringing techno into the band's sound: they were always concerned with amphetamine-influence music, being a bit speedy themselves. 'Free Range'/'Everything Hurtz' was an essential double A-side single: the rest is a decent grab of garage and pop recorded in a watery '90s style.
Key lyric: “Your brain is software. Your brain is Game Boy. It's filled with excrement.”
Killer track: Everything Hurtz

THE INFOTAINMENT SCAN ***
Permanent, 1993
Popular! They've finally cracked the top ten on the crest of the Madchester house revival by throwing in some bouncy Korg-M1 piano sounds amongst the choppy guitars, grunting bass, and bizarre covers of songs by novelty artists and reggae stars. Personal theory: Animal Collective's 'Fireworks' develops this album's 'Light/Fireworks'.
Key lyric: “At my feet, one who laughs at anything. And at my head, one that laughs at nothing. And I'm just in-between.”
Killer track: Service

MIDDLE CLASS REVOLT ***
Permanent, 1994
The house direction made them popular. Being The Fall, they bring back the guitars and turn the synths way down. Mark sounds fairly restrained throughout an album full of angry content: class discomfit, anti-student resentment, and a cover of Cambridge alumni Henry Cow's 'War'. At times on autopilot, often inspired.
Key lyric: “Heinz is guilty on the borders of your imagination.”
Killer track: M5 #1

CEREBRAL CAUSTIC ***
Permanent, 1995
Earns three stars for sheer gumption: turning their back on the dance zeitgesit and sticking two fingers back up at the prevalent Britpop taking over their city and country by playing repetitive garage rock. Oh yeah – his ex-wife is back on guitar, slightly ruining some songs with her 'singing'.
Key lyric: “We have Richard and Judy's bastard offspring - baseball cap reversed.”
Killer track: One Day

Craig Scanlon played guitar in The Fall from 1979 to 1995.

THE LIGHT USER SYNDROME ****
Jet, 1996
The keyboards and samples are back, but this time they're being used less forcefully. Lots of space in the mix: tracks like 'Hostile' and 'Oxymoron' are monolithic creatures, approaching remorselessly. A word can be used that is not often used in the presence of Smith and his pirate band: subtle.
Key lyric: “Don't ever follow the path of being hard and tough when your heart is soft.”
Killer track: Hostile

LEVITATE ***
Artful, 1997
The closest the band got to an out-and-out dance album (not counting Smith's Von Sudenfed project). Slightly maddening production (by Smith himself) means some tracks have real bite, where others have a slightly watercolour feel to them. The songwriting is mostly encouraging, considering their impending implosion. Currently out of print.
Key lyric: “I thought about my debts. He was talking about his house in the Lake District.”
Killer track: The Quartet of Doc Shanley

THE MARSHALL SUITE ***
Artful, 1999
Big fight in New York in 1998: Smith gets jailed and the the band leaves – including Steve Hanley. Features 'Touch Sensitive' (remember the VW advert with the 'hey hey hey' song? That.). Surprisingly manages to be decent in spite of losing THE GREATEST BASSIST EVER. MES = a fool.
Key lyric: “And in dreams I stumble towards you. Knees knocked, as you evaporate. Though I am teed up, I am in the next room with you always.”
Killer track: Birthday Song

THE UNUTTERABLE ***1/2
Eagle, 2000
In a word: frontloaded. The first nine tracks represents their strongest start to an album since 1985! The final six never do much, including a turgid pub-rocker that Smith doesn't even bother to sing. Smith's newest girlfriend is in the band: her keyboard sounds are all six years too late.
Key lyric: “I was in the realm of the essence of Tong.”
Killer track: Two Librans

ARE YOU ARE MISSING WINNER *1/2
Cog Sinister / Voiceprint, 2001
American fight #2 and now Smith's girlfriend is out of his life: so are the rest of the band. The new guys sound like they've had two days with no electricity to learn a sixties garage album. It shows, but without the charming amateurism. Hyper-indulgent, mostly nonsense. Best track: a cover.
Key lyric: “The editor bedraggled, stumbled, some hurt, some days with film crew.”
Killer track: Gotta See Jane

THE REAL NEW FALL LP (FORMERLY COUNTRY ON THE CLICK) ****1/2
Action, 2003
All killer, no filler. Where they pulled this one from after years of diminishing returns is beyond comprehension. Another new girlfriend (later to be wife) is on keyboards and she's really good! Feels like a sequel to This Nation's Saving Grace: accessible, but obviously made by a complete original. Exquisite.
Key lyric: “So I went fishing. A note from a fish said: 'Dear dope, if you wanna catch us you need a rod and a line. Signed the fish.'”
Killer track: Janet, Johnny + James.

Eleni Smith (née Poulou): keys since 2002

FALL HEADS ROLL **1/2
Slogan, 2005
Perhaps that low mark is related to the fact that I paid £16 to buy it and hated it. Subsequent re-appraisal: too many two- and three- chord 'rockers'. Mark seems to think the band were once a conventional garage band: they were always too weird for that. Beauty found within.
Key lyric: “People in Great Britain, please don't get me wrong.”
Killer track: Midnight In Aspen

REFORMATION POST TLC **
Slogan, 2007
ANOTHER fight in America: band leaves. Seriously Mark, just don't go! You always mess up! His support act learned the songs and then he flew them to sunny Stockport to record this. A genuinely unremarkable effort, if anything: still not convinced about the Fall = garage-pop thing. Strangely lauded elsewhere.
Key lyric: “I've seen POWs less hysterical than you.”
Killer track: Fall Sound

IMPERIAL WAX SOLVENT ***
Castle, 2008
STILL going with the garage-pop thing, though at least there are some firsts: the opening track flirts with jazz. The new Mrs. Smith continues her strong showing behind the keys, displaying at worst an up-to-date knowledge and at best, pushing some sloppier tracks into the thumbs-up zone! A good find.
Key lyric: “The spawn of J. "Loaded" Brown and L. Laverne: with the dept. of no name.”
Killer track: Alton Towers

YOUR FUTURE OUR CLUTTER ***1/2
Domino, 2010
Their dullest rhythm section to date. They sound like two blokes at jam night. Fortunately, Mark, Eleni, and the new guitarist are all in sparkling form. New guy plays like Duane Denison, all bent notes and menace. Though he drops back to please the boss, he secretly steals the show.
Key lyric: “She has lips like Fedde Le Grand.”
Killer track: Chino

BONUS MATERIAL