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 PART SIX: tonight's the night! let's give it up!

#601
Pet Shop Boys, 'Always On My Mind'
1987 
Can a song be considered a 'standard' if it was written post-1960? You don't need to answer that. If it is possible, then this song surely is a candidate. Originally a country song written in 1972 and made famous by Vegas Elvis, the song crops up at irregular intervals to remind us about an unspoken universality of pop music values. Whether performed in a low croon like Elvis, in a country fashion like Willie Nelson, or in a brash arena electropop style as featured on this particular version, the song is the star. Perhaps it could be argued that the flashy nightclub treatment is at odds with the flickering regret of the lyric, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's a more modern reading than the old whiskey-soaked slow versions: the music says 'here I am in my life which has continued apace because this is the modern world and it doesn't stop for heartache' whilst the lyric says 'I am hurt' with a middle 8 that just SMACKS you between the eyes.
(8)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2aMaMkDwTA

#483
Shakin' Stevens, 'Green Door'
1981 
Shakin' Stevens is as near to a graverobber as pop has seen. Elvis was not long since dead when Shakey emerged with quiff, lip curl, similar dress sense, and music all 50s R'n'R pastiche. Imagine that in a couple of years time there is a pop star whose thing is to just jump back to the beginning of Michael Jackson's career, looking like Michael Jackson, performing songs that sound eerily similar to Jackson's early output, and that for a brief moment this whole phenomenon gets by without any kind of questioning. Not a terrible song though.
(5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqQasoWm7Kg

#274
Rolling Stones, 'Honky Tonk Women'
1969 
The more blustery and bluesy the Stones got, the less interested I became. That said, they're a good two or three years from being completely unbearable here, all the while establishing the template that would see bands like Free and AC/DC develop 40 year careers: low-slung Keef riff guitar, bass enters in the chorus to give the song a WHAM into second gear, songs about women and they no good way. It's the stuff that goes on just outside the rock band template that make this song a little more interesting: the percussion that sounds like banging biros on paintcans, and the sax player who sounds deeply troubled by a potential embolism.
(6)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Kve_N8rmmQ

#757
White Town, 'Your Woman'
1997
Pop is, effectively, the artform of the the absolute majority. It is the North Korea that marginalises all dissenters for everything except the wealth that they can extract from it. It is the Borg that assimilates anything useful to its collective whilst disregarding the rest. And this majority artform is strictly controlled by a small ruling class of shareholders and directors and producers and songwriters, effectively social elites, who appease their own gods of wealth by pressing their ear to the railroad of human desire for entertainment, converting this sincere and fervent lust into money.

The experimental cannot compete or expect to overturn this because it operates with an economy of quality and a distinction of taste. 'This thing is right and that thing is wrong.' People don't like rules that they cannot easily understand. People do not like to be tricked. So pop music and popular cinema and popular journalism are the modes of communication that most people are familiar with.

So, how best to interrupt this communication or to change the message which it communicates on a daily basis? To get inside the machine. To visit North Korea. Not to marginalise it or laugh at it, but to operate from within. To sincerely appreciate the inherent beauty of the form without getting the messiness of the message into the bloodstream. And that is what Jyoti Mishra, aka White Town, has done so successfully.

'Your Woman' may reverse or even blur the gender roles of the typical love song (Mishra sings from the perspective of a woman to an errant non-gender specified partner) but he does not 'subvert' as has often been claimed. Subversion indicates derailment of common intent: this flip puts the message into the mouth of the machine - gender play is normal, gay is normal, Marxist is normal. The sleeping operator at the wheel of the machine sees the queues of people lining up to buy this sentiment and assumes that the machine is working correctly. A quiet conversation later reveals what the problem was and one week later the song is deposed of its #1 spot by a cheese-making wanker and his mates.

I've been Gilles Deleuze and my book 'Listening To Pop Music With Felix Guattari' is available in all good stores.
(10)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIQWt3oMids

#55
Frankie Vaughan, 'The Garden of Eden'
1957
They had some great singers in the 1950s but by golly by gee did they love to pile on the orchestration and saccharine. This one starts of all happy and spartan and just doing its thing mixing Jesus and sexy woman metaphors and soon becomes this gigantic Sands Casino stomper with the half-expectation that an elephant will come out juggling on a unicycle as 5000 strippers mount 5000 poles attached to 5000 motorbikes jumping through 5000 hoops of fire.
(3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toIJ3Lls7jw

#846
Britney Spears, 'Born To Make You Happy'
2000
Lyrically troubling. Like Mr. Vaughan, sex and Jesus metaphors are mixed. Was she born to make God happy, or some jerk boyfriend? It's deliberately ambiguous. 'If only you were here tonight.' 'I don't know how to live without your love.' Either way, as far as giving a generation of girls some notion of self-determination and individual identity, it's a complete Shiva The Destroyer. Girls as servile, humanity as forever penitent, unable to reverse the decisions of history. Fuck that. Fuck this song. It is a really bad song, I'm not just cross at some words here.
(1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy5cKX4jBkQ

#533
Lionel Richie, 'Hello'
1984
The music video for this ballad has become a bit of a joke, where Lionel plays an arts teacher helping kids express themselves to the extent that a blind girl makes a fairly accurate-if-chunky sculpted bust of Richie's tightly coiffed barnet. Step away from that video (the way I didn't manage to) and listen. Richie has always been a very good writer of adult-orientated music for many a year, with a fine voice that never becomes overwrought or over-burdened with a show-off desire.

Obviously when you're operating in a year when you have Black Flag destroying the country and Frankie Goes To Hollywood desperate to turn everybody in the UK gay it's quite easy to skip over the subtler aspects of how pop songwriting can be quietly transformative at a more reflective and intuitive level - at his best this is Richie's gift. 'Hello. Is it me you're looking for?' is an easy punchline for the boldness of the gambit - but what if it is? It could change your life.
(6)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_ILDFp5DGA

#1069
Estelle ft. Kanye West, 'American Boy'
2008
Hey a fairly recent pop song that doesn't make me want to throw up all of innards into an ocean of discontent. Estelle plays the street-hardened wiseacre with the turned head toward the flashy American superstar making a play toward her. It's quite easy to see this as straight-up and cut from real life given the relative status of the performers and though the sentiment is never really more than the future projections caused by a serious romatic headrush, the gaiety of the melody and the straight-forward beat allow the performer's actual personalities to emerge. A minor victory.
(6)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ic5vxw3eijY

#1015
McFly, 'I'll Be OK'
2005
One of McFly's better efforts: a sunny guitar pop anthem that definitely recalls a sunnier and better-looking Teenage Fanclub. I realise I'm pulling a comedy thing by mentioning the hitless Teenage Fanclub every five minutes but there's obviously going to be some correlation when your DNA is 1960s guitar pop with harmonies. A tidy 3 minutes in which the earth is not shattered nor built anew but nonetheless a pleasant ride.
(6)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yle1YEjmGf0

#1102
Black-Eyed Peas, 'I Gotta Feeling'
2009
My friend Brendan (I think) once said to me: "are the Black-Eyed Peas the group that get the most reward for the least effort?" I still think about this very economically inclined question all of the time because it has some implications for a possible direction for music. There is no doubting that the music of the Black-Eyed Peas since their entry into the world of enormo-fame is incredibly simplistic: 'Boom Boom Pow', 'My Humps', 'Where Is The Love?' and this are all built on very very simplistic musical elements that could be repeated by the pre-lingual (e.g. babies).

And it is not like they are incapable of writing more complex fare: Will.i.am wrote John Legend's 'Ordinary People', so there's evidently some desire to be more base, more simple, less inclined to make the effort, because clearly it has been decided that ease of imitation is far more important than innovation (these are not necessarily criticisms, by the way, just points). This song is now ubiquitous. It is played before many different kinds of occasion where fun is expected to grease the wheel of social interaction because as the song hopes/promises 'tonight's gonna be a good night'. Now every occasion will have its triumphant song of expectation. 'I expect this will be a good piss'. 'The show you'll watch will be great'. When songs start to instruct and bully rather than hint, I am immediately suspicious. (exception to rule: 'Rise Above').
(1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSD4vsh1zDA

THE CHART PROJECT PT. 5: The rain goes on (on on and on again)

#580
Europe, 'The Final Countdown'
1986 
I shan't bother transcribing them but the lyrics for this song are complete nonsense. To be fair to Europe, English is not their first language. It is their third, behind Swedish and Keyboard-led Soft Rockish. It's a chirpy enough entrance theme for sports teams but at best it is an okay but quite mundane piece of stadium 'rock' (in inverted commas because it doesn't really rock at all) which ambiguously deals themes of relationships and space travel.
(4)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jK-NcRmVcw

#183
The Beatles, 'I Feel Fine'
1964
A confident and freewheeling number from a band transitioning from the clubs and 'beat combos' and toward something more original and satisfying. George Harrison's chummy lead line chugs along underneath a snappy and brief pop song. COME ON THIS IS THE BEATLES WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?
(7)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlpMs_R3P6U

#1138
Ne-Yo, 'Beautiful Monster'
2010
It certainly wasn't force of personality that won Ne-Yo the #1 spot. This, from the strange moment when US R&B popsters were borrowing very heavily from long-established trends in French house and German techno (via Ayia Napa & Ibiza) - all filter sweeps, arpeggios, four to the floor where the beat sub-divides to indicate transition into the 'epic' portion of the song. It's a competent production but completely lacking in any form of lovability or expression. It just happens, it doesn't offend, it gets by, it will do, it will progress a scene or two.
(4)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2J2dwFVZHsY

#1157
Adele, 'Someone Like You'
2011 
A song has officially happened to the Great British Public if my mum knows it. I have told her this. I said "you're a barometer for whether something is widely known." I don't think she knew what I meant but it wasn't a dig. She largely ignores music. Never listens to the radio. Her CD collection totals 30, all music she liked before I was even born. My father, a musician by trade for 45 years now, doesn't particular seem to like music much at all. Artists my parents and I share as 'likes': Roxy Music and The Beatles. She dislikes much of what I listen to and refuses to listen to the band I have played in for nearly half a decade. It's cool though, I don't particularly want to help her play Gardens of Time on Facebook.

However. Adele has happened in my parents' household. In a big way. 21 was purchased, quickly followed by 19. The lounge stereo has long been mere facade, the wiring faulty and neglected, so a new CD player was purchased merely to facilitate the listening-to of Adele's work. My mother goes out once a week with her friends: her 'getting ready music' is Adele. She prefers the stompier songs such as 'Set Fire To The Rain' and 'Rolling In The Deep' but I secretly think that she likes this song the most.

And to be fair, it is the least oblique and most direct song of the Adele singles to date. The song deals with the regrets that linger long after a relationship has ended. A universal sentiment. A universal chord sequence indicating sorrow and melancholy and the crepescule of hope. A performance containing the universal signifiers of an emotional and professional performance: starting small and personal, becoming large and inevitably universal.

And therein lies the problem: there's nothing unique about it. It is simply an execution of a well-stitched together pattern of long-established tropes. In its desire to touch the heart of everyone with a scintilla of emotional regret it fails to have any kind of likability or individual charm. It wants to touch so many hearts that it compromises on any sonic indicators of regret, musical moments where real pangs of panic and sorrow rise up and accompany the supposed sentiment. Undoubtedly Adele is a technically excellent singer but technically excellent singers are often the singers that don't understand that the emotional centre could be located in the vulnerability of the 'wrong' note or the untidy phrase.
(4)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwuLj33YyPk

#820
Mr. Oizo, 'Flat Beat'
1999 
To some 'Flat Beat' was a very mono-level piece of music that did nothing but repeat a sub-bass WHOOMP over an 808 beat. That's unfair. A closer listen reveals that there are Reichian flourishes, tiny counterpoints that pull the beat sideways and recast the monolithic low-end against jittering synth bleeps that play in the spaces created by unforgiving uniformity. It's also quite fun despite all that muso-wank I just wrote!
(6)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kv6Ewqx3PMs

#468
Barbra Streisand, 'Woman In Love'
1980
"Life is a moment in space / When the dream is gone." This is just a mess. 'Life is a moment in space'. Mixing the values of time and dimensionality in the opening line puts the listener on very shaky epistemological ground vis-a-vis dealing with the complexities of quantum theory. 'When the dream is gone'. Is Streisand arguing for solipsism despite previously arguing a quite dense quantum argument in the opening line? Yet the remainder of the lyric wants nothing to do with this bold opening gambit, leaving the listener flailing in their armoury with little other than pseudo-science and caterwauled balladeering.
(2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ppc_dT-J5E

#204
Ken Dodd, 'Tears'
1965 
Ken Dodd is famous in the UK for being a hard-working stand-up comedian who performs marathon sets of over 4 hours in length, during which it has been known for the ambulance to make repeated trips to the venue of the performance to cart out audience members who have collapsed either from fatigue or sincere bouts of laughter fitting. He is also quite famous for having issues with the tax man. He is far less famous for his smooth orchestrated balladeering, which at least shows a side of the man rarely seen: professional, suave, technically competent, and not terribly amusing.
(4)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vg6gD2ZJuss

#394
Abba, 'Dancing Queen'
1976
Man, you know what is totally shit? When people go on about 'guilty pleasures' in music. That is totally bullcrap man! What is basically says is 'I know that those old white guys with the tweed elbow patches know more about music so the music they like is 'better' but I put this on because it's like the musical equivalent of a can of Irn Bru'. No! Taste is totally totally subjective! So when I say something horrible like 'Matt Cardle is a subhuman' I am just trying to be entertaining and start a conversation because that's how ideas are passed between people. So don't take it personally. Unless you're a propagater of this 'guilty pleasure' nonsense, then you should go and EAT SHIT.

Joke! See previous paragraph! Anyway. Routinely shoved into the guilty pleasure pool are Abba. Why? Because they're not a proper rock band and had a keen sensibility toward fun and the mass ear? And? They knew how to write songs and repeatedly proved this over their long and storied career. They also knew how to perform the songs and also how to do all of the above without appearing like gigantic awful jackasses. Where 'Waterloo' bashed the door down and said 'here we are!' with bright lights and zero restraint, 'Dancing Queen' is more sensuous and luxurious. It also features another key feature of music that is great (for the first in this series, please read the entry for 'Moon River'): the double chorus! Realistically the 'you are the dancing queen / feel the beat of the tambourine' is enough for most bands, but the Ulvaeus/Andersson combo cannot RESIST the 'you can dance! / you can jive' section, sending the tune stratospheric. This is songwriting, ladies and gentlemen! It is a real artform and if you can do and perform it appropriately then world can still be yours!
(9)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFrGuyw1V8s

#115
Elvis Presley, 'Wooden Heart'
1961
A funny little rinky-dink quasi-oompah number from post-army Elvis, who sings some of the original German folk song's lyrics in a Swabian dialect quite accurately to this ear. A curio if anything, one to sate the thirst of a crowd deprived of the icon that made them realise that within their loins was FIRE.
(5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7XZwDMS0G0

#819
B*Witched, 'Blame It On The Weatherman' 
1999
Is this the last vestige of innocence in adult boy/girl groups? Aside from some mild cleavage, there is nothing overtly sexualised about the group, even in a latent sense. One of them holds a dog lovingly. They look like happy, normal people, pleased to be singing a sweeping little acoustic-pop ditty with light Eurovision style orchestration. Everything since this single in the non-instrument playing pop idiom has quite literally been rubbing genitals in the face of the listener.
(4)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LXUsQNzSL4

THE CHART PROJECT PART 4: No matter what they tell us, I know what I believe

#715
Rednex, 'Cotton-Eye Joe'
1995
The first CD I ever bought with my own money was ON A DANCE TIP VOL 3 because it had that 'Reach Up' by Perfecto All Starz on it which to my mind has lessened with age. Looking through the tracklist of said CD now there are some songs I remember fondly ('Let Me Be Your Fantasy'' by Baby D, 'Run Away' by MC Sars & The Real McCoy) and songs I don't even remember despite this being the ONLY CD I OWNED FOR A YEAR.

Rednex

Regardless, Danish country-techno tossers Rednex are the worst thing on here, on a record brimming with mediocrity. Sadly, everytime I think of Rednex I cannot help but remember their follow-up single 'Old Pop In An Oak' and it gets stuck in my head for weeks at a time. Formative years? Yes, but only of regrets.
(2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tIMGBI6oYA

#24
Vera Lynn, 'My Son My Son'
1954
Is it possible to to criticise Vera Lynn without it appearing that you're engaging in a calculated effort to egregiously insult the dead of WW2? That might sound harsh but in my mind at least, Dame Vera is inextricably linked with wartime propaganda and practically doesn't exist outside of this arguably more important paradigm. That said, I have heard this weepie before. Our primary school did a project where we had to ask the old people at the tea dances in the cricket club across the road about the war (see!) and this song was played and all of the olds broke off to have a dance and a smooch to this. So, what does this song remind me of? It reminds me of being 9 and watching old people kissing whilst sipping orange Kia-Ora.
(3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BTeKk36-Ys

#1120
Owl City, 'Fireflies'
2010
So when this came out the world of indie, in its desire to not enjoy music anymore and merely just POSSESS it and possess the greatest memories of it and possess the largest quantity of records regardless of quality (LOLOLOL @ Animal Collective), rose up to decry this song for kind of borrowing the aesthetic of mid-00s indie-glitchpop group The Postal Service. Well, so fucking what? Is that the best/worst you could say? Were they that good? Maybe it does bear some similarities to the sonic hallmarks of The Postal Service, and I suppose the lyrics bear Ben Gibbard's forking turn-of-phrase, and the video looks a lot like 'The District Sleeps Tonight', and yeah he does sing a little similarly and the song pays off in much the same way as 'Such Great Heights' oh wait actually this is just total plagiarism and I insulted indie people for no good reason. OH WELL.
(3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psuRGfAaju4

#264
Fleetwood Mac, 'Albatross'
1969
INSTRUMENTAL ROCK IN THE HOUSE. This is from the era before Fleetwood Mac got good and added women to the band and started GOING THEIR OWN WAY etc. I jest slightly. This is a very uncharacteristic kind of track to get to #1 in the singles chart, a mark of being seriously popular in an era where you had to actually get off your arse and go and buy the thing. This song is heat haze, a mirage, a ship bobbing, divested of its crew mid-ocean, calm, but lost. Three guitarists all playing very carefully, a drummer just happy to add melancholy waves of cymbal and tippety-tap drums. It goes nowhere, but that's probably the point. It is a summary of placidity and of ache.
(6)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Viqr6KHwJjc

"Are you SURE we're watching The Dirty Dozen?"

#367
Telly Savalas, 'If'
1975
File under WTF. Telly Savalas as singer? Not quite. This is pure spoken-word. Savalas' chocolatey-rich voice just SPEAKING calmly about a girl he loves with some generic 70s soft orchestrated rock underneath. There's nothing really remarkable about it once the novelty of fucking KOJAK SPEAKING A LOVE SONG RIGHT IN YOUR ASTONISHED FACE wears off.
(3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J94-_w9ARX0

#1152
Matt Cardle, 'When We Collide'
2010
Indie fans rose up in horror when X Factor 2010 winner not only covered Biffy Clyro but did them the ultimate grave injustice of changing the name of the song from 'Many of Horror' to 'When We Collide'. I'm afraid I'm going to have to give this straight down the barrel to Biffy Clyro fans out there and I mean you no disrespect as human beings: the band that you love is a pile of shit.

Matt Cardle: the chef's choice

Your correspondant saw them at the Leeds Festival in 2001 and even though back then they were supposed to be 'alt-rock', there was obviously a band struggling not to write incredibly chintzy arms-aloft prog-indie desperate to emerge. And then they did. And this song was the natural conclusion of that transformation. So do NOT act surprised, tearful Biffy fan, that the X Factor machine has chewed this DREADFUL and UTTERLY MEANINGLESS song up and spat it out like something out of Ghost In The Shell because that is all it deserves. Matt Cardle is clownshoes, a mock-rock puppet, and this song is probably still beneath him.
(2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Hri715W56I&ob

#960
Black-Eyed Peas, 'Where Is The Love?'
2003
The Black-Eyed Peas were formerly a decent conscious hip-hop crew with no hits. You can hear the DNA of this in the first verse. It is quickly overwhelmed by the pseudo-ecstatic melancholy of the tune and Fergie's choruses. Banal. They're now absolutely humongous.
(2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpYeekQkAdcg

#944
Eminem, 'Lose Yourself'
2002
"If you had just one shot to seize everything, just one moment, would you capture it or let it slip?" This is the false dichotomy that Eminem offers in his latent support for an American dystopic reality. There is one dream and one chance, there is nothing else and you should "not miss your chance to blow." Perhaps in some instances this is true but at the advantageous end of Western capitalism is there really only one opportunity?

Of course in support of an accompanying film (8 Mile) in which the dramatic capital bound up in this version of life is exploited as Eminem's shadow self realises his one shot and is catapulted into fame. Except for the beginning of the film, which neatly depicts the character failing, ie. another opportunity. The denouement of the film presents opportunity #2. It also fast-forwards over the bits where the young Em attended school, developed linguistic skill, formed early relationships, had his ideologies tested - moments in themselves transformative and laden with opportunity. Perhaps I might be overanalysing this manifestly rubbish rap-as-triumph song to a degree unwarranted but I cannot help feel that the millions reading this will change their minds about capitalism.
(2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97wFqZPmYn8

#531
Frankie Goes To Hollywood, 'Relax'
1984
The first of the greatest triumvirate of singles to open a career. How much of the song was down to Frankie and how much was down to Trevor Horn and the bassline provided by Norman Watt-Roy is a question for a different kind of article. Some say that pop is about "moments" and the way those moments seem to characterise the spirit of the age. If that is the case, then Holly Johnson's ebullient grunting "UHHHH!", followed by the camera cutting away to him riding on the back of a leather-clad pile of men using a tie as a choke chain, then that would basically indicate that humanity peaked in 1984 and we've been on a downward spiral ever since.

I'm sure it has been written about like this before, but Frankie were great because it ultimately boiled down to politics. Sure, the pop moment in isolation is pretty good, but one Frankie is worth 1000 Britney Spears simply because there was something greater at stake. Liverpudlian gay socialists living under the open homophobia that would lead to Section 28, under the watchful eye of southern Conservatives. Their next two singles were more transparently political. This was the holding the fire to square society's feet: banned by Radio 1, telling the press they would make Duran Duran 'lick the shit off their shoes'. The band claim it was just about sex but the sex we're having reflects the age we're having sex in. That it all seemed so dirty to so many was surely a sign that they were doing it right.
(9)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPLrXFw76Qg

#869
Robbie Williams, 'Rock DJ'
2000
I'm 17. I work in a supermarket for £3 an hour. I stack shelves every Saturday whilst my friends are off out and partying and playing sport. The supermarket is not signed up with an official publishing house to broadcast music so the only tape we are allowed to play is one sent out by HQ featuring versions of current hits sung by a man with long grey hair and the melodies changed a little bit so they're not exactly the same. This song was the first one on the tape. This song, therefore, is me putting out the endless pallettes of bread onto the shelves, before walking 30 yards away and having a local come up to me and ask where the bread is.
(1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylcuscJ6jQQ

#1055
Timbaland/Nelly Furtado/Justin Timberlake, 'Give It To Me'
2007
This one passed me by. I'm guessing this is from that Timbaland & guests record that had all kinds of shitty collaborations such as Timbaland & The Hives together at last? Timbaland is a pretty decent producer - there's always some subtle complexity within the rhythm section ('Get UR Freak On', for instance). The lyrics here are totally pointless - let it be stated ANY song that goes on about being 'in the club' will automatically lose points. That said, this song bubbles along prettily and the melodic shift into the choruses has a notable heft to it, though the guests are phoning it in.
(5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgoiSJ23cSc

#632
Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers, 'Swing The Mood'
1989
A strange concept behind Jive Bunny. A really crudely-animated cartoon rabbit would feature in stock footage videos for medleys of old jazz and swing standards. In a way it was a way of visualising songs that didn't have the opportunity to make it to MTV, but in reality who was screaming out for this in 1989? Peter Hook told me personally that Manchester was the happening thing then. What a dick.
(2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc9Mdt6hjaE

#300
Dawn, 'Knock Three Times'
1971
The kind of soft-rock orchestral production that calls into mind the colour brown and velour flares and deep pile carpets. Fodder for Smooth FM. I did hear a cover version of this by Kato Kaelin, who was a witness at the OJ Simpson trial, who allegedly heard Simpson 'knocking' three times, which I suppose is worth a chuckle. AT THE EXPENSE OF TWO DEAD INNOCENTS. SHAME ON YOU.
(2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7Jvsbcxunc

#53
Guy Mitchell, 'Singing The Blues'
1957
Last time Mitchell was reviewed in these pages, he was all about the colour red. Now he's got the second part of his 'own ALL the primary colours' partwork and ready to move on in the world. In-keeping with the theme, this is a very blue-eyed rendition of a country song complete with gallstone inducing whistled melody which prevents this otherwise decent song from being listened to ever again.
(4)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vubJL1BbBn8

#606
Pet Shop Boys, 'Heart'
1988
From the Pet Shop Boys' run of excellent singles. Chris Lowe (synth) opts for the rarely-used 'human voice' keyboard setting, Neil Tennant does that dry, nearly-spoken Neil Tennant thing. This probably suffers by dint of being released amongst a glut of excellent and memorable song -  there's enough here to provide ballast for 100 lesser bands to sail along for 5 years on. The middle 8 is pretty funny, just a robotic voice repeating the word "BEAT", deconstructing the word HEARTBEAT from inside, playfully ironising the criticism regarding synth music having no heart. Very arch, very PSB, very good.
(7)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K19j1aeREw

from the video of 'Heart'

#138
Ray Charles, 'I Can't Stop Loving You'
1962 
Unless I'm very much mistaken, this is from the Ray Charles country album and subsequently re-released as an A-side having previously appeared as a B-side in the late 1950s. Ray Charles is a very difficult person to dislike and I shan't even try. All I am going to say is that I really don't like Ray Charles' country exercises and am going to pass on any further critique.
(4)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFeB7zTGesk

#896
S Club 7, 'Don't Stop Movin'' 
2001
Another song whose title can be thought of as a North Korean governmental punishment. DO NOT STOP MOVING. YOU, IN SECTION C OF THE CITY OF CRUSHED DREAMS, YOU HAVE STOPPED MOVING. COMMENCE MOVEMENT OR FACE THE TOTAL CONTROL ZONE. Thinking of it in these terms help forget that it is a soft-disco pop atrocity that people of my age still dance to in clubs at the weekend without a shred of dignty to their collective name.
(2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2q3FJTFgtk

#731
Michael Jackson, 'Earth Song'
1995
"What about killing fields? / Is there a time?" Just as much time as you have to commodify misery and preach at us you miserable SHIT. CAN SOMEONE WAVE THEIR ARSE AT HIM PLEASE? "Earth Song" was accompanied by a lavish music video shot on four geographical regions." AND I BET YOU FLEW TO EACH AND EVERY SINGLE ONE. What a massive pompous arse.
(1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAi3VTSdTxU

#1025
Shayne Ward, 'That's My Goal'
2005
Conveyor-belt balladeering from X Factor winner Ward who would be flushed down the dumper by an uncaring and fickle audience desperate to anoint a new spiritual king every time they turn on the TV.
(2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhHY3sA8G-0

#380
David Bowie, 'Space Oddity'
1975
1975? I always wondered why in the video he performed it as Aladdin Sane even though the song was released in 1969. Somewhere along the line it was re-released for reasons best known to people at the time, presumably it fit with the aesthetic that Bowie was touring with and needed some material to pad out the gimmick. Something I only just noticed about this song is the dual vocals performed by Bowie at sections, one voice a fairly standard reading of the lyric, the other quite tense and paranoid.

This must be one of the weirdest songs in our general western collective consciousness, right? If someone is having a scattish day and generally forgetting things, it's not uncommon for 'normal' people to say 'ground control to Major Tom' as if to say 'wake up, get with it'. Nobody really writes songs like this anymore, do they? Songs that are just weird and unique and yet there's a chance your mum might like them. Strange. Maybe all the ideas have been used up.
(7)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYMCLz5PQVw

#290
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, 'Tears of a Clown'
1970
Poor Smokey, always crying. We tracked the tracks of his tears to here. Soul is on its way out, funk and disco are on their way in, but Smokey won't go down without a fight. His rich, keening voice is the star here, no mean feat given the stellar song-writing and backing band. It's always a pleasure to listen to such excellent songs but less so to write about them given the ubiquity of writing about them on the open market. After all, which critic doesn't like Smokey? Probably a jobless one. Go on, critics, call Smokey Robinson a talentless wanker and try and keep your job. I dare you.
(8)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2kxlZDOHeQ

#196
Sandie Shaw, 'Long Live Love'
1965
MUCH better than 'Puppet On A String'. Take a look at the video too. Cult popstar potential, never smiling even during a jaunty TV performance that 100000s of girls would have self-mutilated for a like opportunity.

(5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=118RJuRTzU0

#552
Sister Sledge, 'Frankie'
1985
Now this is bad music. It sounds like a Sesame Street backing track fronted by Sister Sledge. There is no power behind it at all and everything about it - the production, the melody, the sentiment, the lyric, the perfomances - is completely insipid. So unremarkable. How did this get to #1? It must have been tied in with a cereal promotion or something like that. Ugh.
(1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Tl-c_puzbM

#701
D:Ream, 'Things Can Only Get Better'
1994
Two very good reasons to hate this song. i. It was the song that Labour played at their 1997 election victory. This would not be so bad in itself had that so-called socialist government not gone into two illegal wars and killed thousands of innocent people. The song is indelibly linked to that celebration and those wars are literally two steps away from this song. ii. Dr. Brian Cox, TV scientist, is often referred to as some kind of 'rock and roll scientist' because he's got a mop-top haircut and played keyboard in D:Ream. That's KEYBOARD. The wimpiest instrument. In D:REAM. The wimpiest band. That isn't rock and roll. If there's a dude in his lab who is all 'yeah, I hate music', then that guy is more rock and roll.

Objectively the song is a bit annoying but it's just a sweet love song bit of fluff, totally meaningless.
(3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl-ai9HuR60

#798
Boyzone, 'No Matter What'
1998
Tempting to read this as a Nazi manifesto: "No matter what they tell us / no matter what they do / no matter what they teach us / what we believe is true." The omission of what it actually is that Boyzone believe and devote 12 verses to defending is canny. In fact, it's apposite. Boyzone believe in nothing. Not in a Nietzschean way, but in a way that offers banality as a standard to aspire to. So when nasty critics kick them with their mean-spirited and accurate barbs about the band's ineffectuality at raising passion in anyone, they simply rise above, much as Henry Rollins did. Rollins rose above banality in the name of art. Boyzone rise above art in the name of banality. They are the twin towers of constant diametric opposition.

Also: why does the song open with Stephen Gately breathing the nonsense lyric 'chicki-chee-ha-ha?' It has been a source of bafflement for 14 years.
(1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eul_Vt6SZY

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

LIVE! Stewart Lee.

Stewart Lee
The Lowry, 29th April 2012

The comedian Stewart Lee is a comedian that I like the comedy of TIMING IN COMEDY IS ESSENTIAL and I think that his comedy is an interesting mix of structure and timing and bitterness but he absolutely does not tell jokes TIMING. He will repeat pieces of information and mock the implied cultural logic of other comedians and will repeat pieces of information and mock the implied cultural logic of other comedians will repeat pieces of information and mock the implied cultural logic of other comedians but do you see how when I did it (TIMING!) then it was really boring and you got annoyed? He does it and 95% of people will still get bored but the other 5% will laugh. All of that 5% are in the house tonight and repetition is another thing his comedy uses.

As a quasi-Marxist who will probably look like the collapsed remnant of several pop stars of my era I will not mention that Stewart Lee looks like Gene Vincent on crisps that is ardently political as well. Stewart Lee is subtly arguing a leftist point of view and I fully expect or even demand given a certain level of beer that his next show be called STEWART LEE'S COLLECTIVISED FARMING CO-OPERATIVE or STEWART LEE'S FIVE YEAR PLAN or perhaps even STEWART LEE WILL DEFEND THE MOTHERLAND WITH RECOURSE TO DIDACTIC AND EXPLOSIVE CINEMATIC TECHNIQUES THAT ACTUALLY MOST REGULAR CITIZENS WILL FAIL TO UNDERSTAND. The last would work best because it is truer. Reptition! Timing!

What does he hate? He says: other comedians named Russell, the dilapidation and homegeneity of the UK high street, Twitter, you, some people who insult him on the internet, the audience he has accrued in the wake of being a more famous comedian of comedy in the last 10 years where his comedic comedy-style comic parody with words as well has been on the television. In reality and according to the fundamental(ist???????) logic of the comedy stylings of the comedian Stewart Lee he does not hate anyone, even the business man in his suit and tie (a reference bordering on oblique very much in keeping with the Stewart Lee phenomenon sweeping up and down UK pubs and clubs) because he wants society to be made of carpet remnants. Hence his show title: CARPET REMNANT WORLD. Timing?

Where are the jokes asks the 95%? Stewart Lee he no Bernard Manning of the racism. Bernard was timing in human form. Stewart eats up time like a hungry clock. Bernard would say 'jokes up your mother-in-law's bum'. Stewart would say 'no jokes'. Jokes are beneath him and beyond him. He cannot tell a joke to save his life. His body, sick from operations, will not allow him to tell a joke. That is why his crowd and I love him. He loves people and loves comedy by hating people and telling no jokes with timing. Timing. Timing. And repetition. And structure. And cadence. And repetition. And hate. And timing. And love. And love. And love. And love. And love. And a man with a mind made out of those hole reinforcers you can buy for ring-binding. And repetition.

The Chart Project Pt. 2: do the things that lovers do!

#724
Take That, 'Never Forget'
1995
The further we are away from this song, we realise that it was much less universal and more straight autobiography. 'We're still so young but we hope for more.' They would all go on to new projects: solo careers, DJing, acting in Channel 4's 'Killer Net'. 'We're not invincible', they also sing, Robbie Williams' foot half out of the door. 'Safe from the arms of disappointment for so long'. All the members would come to understand this cruel mistress in the coming decades before their reunion.

This, the penultimate #1 of Take That Mk 1, contains a chorus that is instant, uplifting, and fairly undeniable. However, around the edges it is a little rougher than memory allows for. The lyrics are mostly hubristic, anticipating a simple step between various aspects of gargantuan fame as if it were merely a matter of self-belief. Pomp-rock musical-theatre maestro Jim Steinman mans production: presumably being responsible for the alarmingly chintzy child choir intro and outro, as well as a general tenor only raised a couple of notches above 'muzak'.
(5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoO_1FFr56k&ob


#397
Showaddywaddy, 'Under The Moon Of Love'
1976
Every April, my mother's workplace sit down and decide where they would like to spend their Xmas dinner together. In April. You did read that correctly. They used to favour the former home of the Salford City Reds rugby club (The Willows) for their dinner + star combos. Sometimes it would be an Elvis act. Sometimes it was EDWIN FUCKING STARR (!). Often it was Showaddywaddy. A high-energy and melodic septet with catchy songs, their multi-coloured outfits, jokes + music shtick continues to delight audiences even in 2012, long after The Willows was condemned to rubble.

Sadly, and crucially, they were not very good at all. At a molecular level, this song mixes soul, doo-wop, and even a feint hint of rockabilly, but with such saccharine and mono-level abandon that it sounds like a stuck record after a mere 8 bars. Second listenings, though preferable for this project, were simply not possible.
(3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N01Ki81lGew

#541
Jim Diamond, 'I Should Have Known Better'
1984
The first song that I had no prior knowledge of before this countdown. Though this is a sentiment ("I am hurt from this ill-fated relationship and possibly I am at fault") and a series of chords that we have all heard before, nothing about this song screams 'I AM A NUMBER ONE SINGLE FROM THE MID 1980s'. It is relatively understated and produced against the fads of the day. Diamond's vocals propel the song through the emotional waters, the song serene but for an occasional fretless bass flutter. Not bad.
(5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af3G2cfYayY

#6
Guy Mitchell, 'She Wears Red Feathers'
1953
We're still pre-Elvis and rock'n'roll and Bill Haley and we're in post-war austerity, just about. A flash of underwear above the waistline can still shame a gentleman to his social disgrace. Here, Mitchell sings a quaint ditty about funny old colonialism where a London banker seduces an island girl who wears the eponymous red feathers and a 'hooly-hooly' skirt. It's pretty lame, though it manages to raise a smile by dint of its oldness and naive outlook. If you watch a lot of old films, you will have heard this a million times: I had never heard it before this project, yet it feels predictable, all camp entendres and censor-baiting eyebrows.
(4)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zqzvc7iyDg

#381
Billy Connolly, 'D.I.V.O.R.C.E.'
1975
The famous comedian parodies Tammy Wynette. This is just average Jongleur's opening act material. Is this the first comedy routine to get to #1?
(3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzZzGxReXmo

#1068
Duffy, 'Mercy'
2008
Remember what I said about Olly Murs and The Mark Ronson Effect wherein 'soul music revival' is just shorthand for 'having classic values'? I didn't use those exact words but that is more or less what I meant. Anyway, this song is a bit like that. Duffy has a pleasant enough voice but the masochistic edge to the lyric sours things a little.
(3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7ZEVA5dy-Y&ob

#9
Frankie Laine, 'I Believe'
1953.
A smoochy, weepy, schmaltzy number from an era that had not yet had sex beyond the missionary position and were still only getting dial-up at 48 baud. The shadow of God looms large over this song ("I believe that someone in the great somewhere hears every word") - effectively a pop idiom version of Cecil F. Alexander's 'All Things Bright & Beautiful'. It is brief, making its point before disappearing. If only it were the only time it would appear on the chart...
(4)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDMYMbj8_4A

#504
Captain Sensible, 'Happy Talk'
1982
A cover version of a song from South Pacific by a member of The Damned that didn't even sing not only doesn't sound like #1 material: it doesn't even sound terribly appealing. It would be tempting to call this song 'ironic' and 'subversive', given that Sensible was a figurehead of 'punk', in all of its perceived nihilism and depravity and that the song remains a solid place within the established canon of 'old people'.

In reality, Sensible was quite given to mass appeal and music that reached beyond the parameters of the punk sandbox, into colourful material with a wider purview: being the resident musician on ITV kids' show Top Banana and re-recording the Big Break theme tune. Backing group Dolly Mixture keep the melody strict whilst Sensible's bare-bones drum-machine and untrained vocals lend a song damaged by the seachange in youth freedom a playful, heartfelt edge.
(6)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF2ImyQjzyc

#348
ABBA, 'Waterloo'
1974
Is this the greatest entrance to the public consciousness in the history of all music? Nobody really knows what the first instance of knowing about The Beatles or The Stones was; they were written about and they were heard of by hipsters here and there and then a year later everybody knew both bands. Abba's insertion into mass-mind is definite, placeable, quantifiable. It is Brighton, 1974. The event is Eurovision. Agnetha and Anna-Frid stride forward with the ease of two girls approaching an Ibiza bar in an evening. "My my! At Waterloo Napoleon did surrender!", they sing, with easy confidence in the direction of the metaphor. The blonde one is in a sapphire-blue satin pant-suit with silver space boots. The curly brown-haired one has stolen all of the beads from the pensioners at the sea-front. They sing in unison rather than harmony, doubling the power behind the melody.

Up to this point Eurovision had been part of a British self-belief building programme that confirmed one third of a holy trifecta of national superiority: those Europeans can't do food, humour, or music like we Brits. But our stand-up comedians were inveterate racists, our food was spiceless and bland, and now our music was being shown up for the joyless plodfest it had become - and in our own backyard! Is it any coincidence that we would enter the European Economic Council that very year? For this to work, you have to assume that Sweden were also in it as well, which they were not.

The songwriting is peerless here. Has any band before or since announced themselves so strongly as being richly talented in all the marketable departments whilst seeming so natural and lovable into the bargain? I think not. 'Waterloo' is a masterpiece, and yet it is not even the best Abba song.
(8)


#1062
Sean Kingston, 'Beautiful Girls'
2007
When I first heard this, I thought it was a joke. I could not take my focus from the 'suicidal, suicidal' part of the refrain. It is a serious song, sampling a butchered version of 'Stand By Me' by Ben E. King. Kingston does not believe that relationships with women can work because beautiful women make him want to kill himself. THIS WAS A NUMBER ONE SONG FOR WEEKS. And yet people consider rock 'depressing'????
(2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrTz5xjmso4&ob


#628
Gerry Marsden, Paul McCartney, Holly Johnson, & The Christians, 'Ferry Across The Mersey'
1989.
A charity single for the Hillsbrough disaster. I can't rate this really. It's not a great version of the song, that's all I can say, but for a good cause.
(n/a)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fV-oyZP-0o8

#789
All Saints, 'Under The Bridge' / 'Lady Marmalade'
1998
By the release of this double-A single, All Saints were riding the crest of a wave that would last until their sixth single ('Pure Shores'). Established as a multi-national, multi-ethnic, and allegedly 'better at feminism' version of Spice Girls (e.g. they only exposed cleavage rather than leg as well), their debut and follow-up singles grabbed the commercial ear well. They would later marry idle rich rock stars and cough out an unbroken stream of unmitigated filth (the film Honest, the Appleton record) whilst compounding the notion that females in bands can't get along by, well, not getting along. Both sides of this single are covers, the A-side trumping the AA-side insofar as it is marginally less pointless. Some dated 'scratching' effect that cancels out half of the original guitar riff ensures 'Under The Bridge' doesn't blindly follow the Chili Peppers' version: 'Lady Marmalade' anticipates the Aguilera/Mya version to come by hamming up the hen party cacklefest elements to the highest level of the dial.
(3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bzKO8kNUhI / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm_3MXb5ClI

#908
Bob The Builder, 'Mambo #5
2001
You can't really insult charity or childrens' songs without appearing like a gigantic killjoy. They're not competing in the same way. A #1 chart placing is a like a 'best trier' award. However, we can still reflect the song and its quality in the mark that we give it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XerLpcnkVVk
(2)

#919
Enrique Iglesias, 'Hero'
2002

A ubiquitous pop hit of the era of my own personal anti-pop virulence. A power-ballad laden with cliches and platitudes. As a formula exercise, it does everything machinic perfection: the first chorus rises up, gives way a moment of silence before ushering in the first snare hit. The building blocks are simple and familiar, but stitched together with such gossamer thread that we can't see the invisible manipulative hand of pop familiarity lulling us into acquiescence. Pop as anaesthetic, a theme I feel that will develop throughout this project, I expect.
(2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koJlIGDImiU&ob

#565
Billy Ocean, 'When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going'
1986
You have disembarked the aeroplane at the Carribbean airport and you are feeling that warm Sargassan breeze kissing your neck and some employed local lady who is nonetheless doing a very good job of looking pleased to see you greets you by name and wishes you a pleasant holiday. Your partner squeezes your hand and tells you that this will be the best 3 weeks of your life. This song emerges from the airport and you smile and look forward to your first beer on the beach.
(6)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6Aj0sInq5A