Category: Singles of 2004

41. Flamboyant – Pet Shop Boys

You live in a world of excess, where more is more and less is much less.
A day without fame is a waste, and a question of need is a question of taste.

Every actor needs an audience; every action is a performance.
It all takes courage, you know it.
Just crossing the street: well, it’s almost heroic.

So, yeah: what about Sleb-Bee-Bee-Three? Eh? Eh? Eh? Featuring Germaine “professional contrarian” Greer AND Brigitte “box of frogs” Nielson AND that walking advertisement for the “Just Say No” campaign, Bez out of the Happy Mondays? All my Christmasses have come at once!

As I said over at Peter’s: when it comes to the casting of these celebrity fandangos, the production companies are getting very good at widening their demographic nets. As La Street-Porter was to that recent shindig in the jungle, so La Greer will be to Sleb-Bee-Bee-Three, deftly hooking in the broadsheet set. Meanwhile, there’s male totty (oh dear God yes), female totty (although looking at the alleged totty in question, I realise I will never fully comprehend the complexities of heterosexual desire), a “refreshingly un-PC” (if we must) curmudgeon, and a rather terrified token teen. Oh, and the woman who used to do the voiceovers for that Ibiza programme.

It’s almost enough to make me wish I wasn’t disappearing to a remote cottage near the Yorkshire coast for the weekend, to help celebrate an old friend’s 40th birthday, along with a bunch of people we’ve known for years and don’t see nearly enough of. Talk about conflicting priorities!

42. My Heartbeat – Annie

Not actually released as a UK single until February or March of this year – but some promos and remixes are already out, which is good enough for me. Besides which, when this turns out to be the huge hit which it manifestly deserves to be, then I’ll be able to say, all nonchalant-like: Oh, that old thing? It was actually in my “best of 2004” list, actually actually I think you’ll find.

Just as Gwen Stefani may be the continuation of Madonna by other means (and my, what a heated debate you’ve been having about that one), so My Heartbeat is a continuation of Saint Etienne (and Dubstar) by other means. It soars, it glides, it bills and it coos. Dream-eh!

43. Whatever Happened To Corey Haim? – The Thrills

Whoda thunk it? Having been consistently beastly about The Thrills over the past couple of years (saw them before they were famous, and was distinctly unimpressed), I find myself having to eat my words. Coming on like a kind of soft-rockin’ West coast Electric Light Orchestra, Whatever Happened To Corey Haim conjures up images of cruising down the Pacific Coast Highway in a gleaming red soft-top, with the wind in my hair and my best boy by my side.

44. Para Llenarma De Ti – Ramon.

The 2004 Eurovision entry for Spain. If you live in Spain, then this may well be generic, over-familiar, run-of-the-mill stuff. However, if you’re an occasional visitor to Barcelona on business trips, and if this is the only piece of mainstream Spanish pop that you’re familiar with, then it will conjure up many happy associations. (Anyway, if this is typical of mainstream Spanish pop, then I for one want more of it.)

45. The Lighthouse – Ana Da Silva

In my early teens, or maybe slightly before, I had a dream which has stayed with me ever since. It was my birthday, and I had decided to hold… A Disco!

(Never actually having been to one, the very idea of a disco struck me as deeply thrilling, faintly erotic, and just about the most fun it was possible to have anywhere.)

To this end, I had hired a church hall, hung up some streamers, and put in some sexy orange lightbulbs for atmosphere. For the music, I had brought along my father’s stereo cassette player, and some tapes which I had made off the radio. All my friends had been invited, and I was really jolly excited.

Except that in the dream, all my friends turned out to be little old ladies. They sat themselves down in the moulded plastic stacking chairs which I had arranged around the hall, and smiled politely when I passed round the rich tea biscuits.

(I remember seeing myself do this, all dressed up smartly – a white shirt with a wide tie in shiny, plum-coloured polyester – with my side parting neatly combed and Brylcreemed.)

This wasn’t the party that I had expected. It wasn’t really moving and grooving. “So, isn’t anybody going to dance?” I exclaimed in exasperation, glancing nervously down the room.

One old lady (curly white hair, turquoise raincoat, thick horned-rim glasses) spoke up for the group.

“No, dear. Look, why don’t you switch the music off, turn the lights up a bit, and make us a nice cup of tea?”

“Ooh yes, cup of tea! Lovely!” The murmurs of appreciation rippled all along the line as, masking my disappointment, I toddled off to put the kettle on.

Thirty-odd years later, and I’m having a lovely time gaily discussing “crunk” and “glitch” and “microhouse”, as part of a hugely ambitious attempt to chronicle, in what I hope is impressively learned detail, my favourite ninety singles of the year. Oh, but won’t my readers be lapping this stuff up! After all, they’re a hip crowd.

For the first forty-odd posts, my readers maintain a mostly polite silence. But by the time I start explaining the finer points of “crunk” and “glitch”, I start to sense that I am losing them.

And then… this.

– Look dear, why don’t you put all the non-musical stuff in a different colour font, so that we can find it more easily?

– Or maybe he could make a different title box for his musical posts?

– What about categories? Now, they would come in handy. But coloured font would be lovely!

– Ooh, I know! Why don’t you count down your top 90 from 1984? There was some lovely music in 1984, and I don’t really listen to the wireless like I used to.

– Ooh yes, 1984! Lovely! Then could you do 1978 for us, dear?

– 1978, yes!

– Can I say “fag bangle”?

– No you can’t dear, it’s offensive.

– Well, I don’t think it’s…

– Cup of tea?

I don’t know. You try and carve out a niche for yourself as an incisive cultural commentator, and… and… well, it’s pearls before… no, I didn’t mean that. Ladies, come back! And gentlemen!

No, I’m not telling you about Ana Da Silva’s The Lighthouse.

Which might actually be a really really good record actually, but you’ll never know that, will you?

No, shan’t.

Cross now.

No, I don’t want a cup of tea.

An exhausted Blue Witch commented:

*sobs dramatically*

Look, look, look…

I can’t keep up, and when I do try to read, I don’t understand a word.

Any chance you could post non-2004 music posts (or paras in posts) in a different colour font, for the benefit of Witches who are rather keener on punk (of the first time round) and Springsteen than they are on the whatever the genre may be known as for the next 10 minutes that they have these days? 😉

(I may or may not be joking :))

Anything to oblige. For the benefit of BW, and any other ladies of a certain age whose musical tastes fossilised in the late 1970s, I have now marked – and will continue to mark – all post titles in the “Singles Of The Year” series containing significant portions of non-musical content with the handy acronym (NMC). For I am nothing if not eager to retain the largest readership possible please.

46. My Galileo – Alexandra & Konstantin

(Or, as the artists themselves pronounce it, Magga Lee Lay Low.)

I’m not a stay-at-home, and heady, is the quest and venture mode.
Road is there for me to tread it; all-dimensional road.

Last May, I had this to say about the debut Eurovision entry from plucky little Belarus:

Utterly, utterly demented – and yet, quite, quite brilliant – this comes on like a kind of Eurodisco barndance, with folksy “ethnic” touches, a flute player who appears to be listening to a completely different song altogether, and – best of all! – yodelling. Oh joy! With quite the most eccentric vocal performance of this, or indeed of any other Eurovision, this could either sweep the board or flop completely. One of my personal favourites.

Sadly, it flopped – being eliminated at the semi-final stage – but its unique semi-strangulated cadences still live on in my heart.

Now then. Still licking his wounds from being eliminated from my exciting “what’s going to be #1” contest, Chig was moved to comment as follows:

What I’d like to know is, is there a sealed copy of this list in a bank vault somewhere? Not that I’m bitter or anything, you understand, but what if – perish the thought – you haven’t actually decided what order the other tracks are going to be in yet? What if you were to be swayed by the promise of, say, sexual favours or a Busted album, or summat? To that end, I’m diverting a team of international observers from Kyiv to Nottingham.

A fair point… and to allay any suspicions of foul practice, I have enlisted my beloved K – a veritable paragon of probity – to pose for a picture, actually holding a copy of my favourite single of 2004.

When the result is revealed, so will the mystery question mark on the above photo. Now you can hardly fake something like that, can you? Case settled!

47. Yeah – Usher featuring Ludacris & Lil’ Jon

– Mike, what’s crunk?

Hang on, let me just check this is really happening. Firstly, K has acquired – of his own accord – a relatively esoteric piece of information about modern music. Secondly, he seems genuinely interested in building on this knowledge. This is almost unprecedented.

– It’s… it’s…

Christ, what is crunk when it’s at home, anyway? I’m skating on thin ice here. Oh, but what does he know; I’ll just busk it.

– …it’s a particularly raw and rudimentary new form of hip-hop, where the vocals are all dead gruff and rasping, and the lyrics are all about getting blasted and partying. It’s an amalgamation of “crazy” and “drunk”, you see: a sort of “portmanteau” word.

– Yes, that fits. Thank you. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure that it was a real genre.

– Sorry, but why on earth do you want to know?

– Oh, it’s just that Tom Wolfe mentions it in “I Am Charlotte Church” – sorry, sorry, “I Am Charlotte Simmons”. I keep saying that, don’t I? OK, how about a rapper called Doctor Dis?

– No, he’s made up…

I do perform this occasional service for K. Although he has no real interest in emergent musical sub-genres, he does like to know just enough to be able to slag them off convincingly. Just to show he’s still au courant. Which reminds me: I must fill him in on microhouse and glitch. (*)

Anyway. Usher’s Yeah – featuring crunk’s main man of the moment, the ubiquitous Lil’ Jon (**) – is the nearest approximation to the genre to have come my way in 2004. (Actually, I have a creeping suspicion that to true “crunkheadz” – yes, I have just made that word up – it’s probably a shockingly watered-down commercial cash-in, but no matter. I have long since ceased to aspire to purism.) It’s a tune which slightly annoyed me for most of the year – that repeated four-note squawk that runs all the way through can work like Chinese water torture – before suddenly flipping itself over and becoming really most enjoyable. It’s that wilful gonzoid dumbness, you see: once you stop fighting against it, it can actually become quite endearing. (See also The Ramones, and minimal hardcore techno.)

(*) As scratching is to vinyl, so “glitch” is to CDs. In other words: “glitch” is a sub-genre of electronic music which is deliberately designed to sound like the CD is on the blink. No, don’t laugh, some of it is actually quite good; primitive and intricate at the same time, and generally fairly desolate and melancholy. Not that I’m exactly drenching myself in the stuff, but, you know.

(**) All bona fide music critics are currently obliged to preface each mention of Lil’ Jon with the approved epithet “the ubiquitous”. Them’s the rules; I don’t make ’em.

48. First Of The Gang To Die – Morrissey

…meaning that Mozza now pulls ahead of Franz Ferdinand, Phoenix, Will Young and Jamelia as the first act – and who knows, maybe the only act – to place three singles on this list.

This also represents a rare showing for fortysomething pop stars; something which MissMish tartly commented upon earlier today when making her #1 prediction:

The last Tom Waits single.
Look I know it’s a hilarious choice but I just want to see Mike with something I’ve a) heard of or b) is from someone HIS OWN age.
“She said with a sniff”

To which I replied – hastily busking a suitably convincing self-justification, and inadvertantly Stumbling Upon A Great Truth:

A-hum! Morrissey is my age! Nick Cave is my age!

And… er… Morrissey is my age!

This is my thesis on pop, such as it is. There is a certain optimum time of life, when people tend to do pop particularly well. This is generally when they are young, and emotionally open/still learning, and economically/maritally unencumbered, and still naive enough to be idealistic, and with commonly shared experiences to draw on (as opposed to standard experiences of fame and success). Hence a lot of the best pop will always be made by young people.

Similarly, a lot of the best sport is played by young people – and yet we don’t say “go and watch some sportspeople of your own age”, do we?

However, my albums list is a lot more generationally varied.

As the final withering coup de grace, I should also point out that Tom Waits hasn’t released a UK single since 1999. So put that in yer cigarette holder and smoke it!

(Oh, I shouldn’t be so catty. Mish gave us some divine Roger & Gallet scented guest soaps for Christmas, you know. Not to mention lending us her cherished Bette Davis CD. It’s just that, well,some of us didn’t freeze our musical tastes in 1979, that’s all…)

49. The Show – Girls Aloud

Should have known, should have cared, should have hung around the kitchen in my underwear, acting like a lady; you should have made me.

Should have jumped a little higher, should have fluttered my mascara like a butterfly, instead of being lazy; it would have saved me.

No, me neither. Maybe we need an answer record?

Should have run for the hills, should have flushed away her stash of happy pills; she’s such a head case, I need some Me Space.

(OK, so it might need some more work. I am open to collaborations.)

As someone said not long ago: the least interesting thing about Girls Aloud is… Girls Aloud. Unless you a) fancy them, or b) aspire to be them – neither of which apply in my case, I hasten to assure you. No; what makes Girls Aloud so fantastic is the skewed, anything-goes creative genius of Brian “Xenomania” Higgins, whose work I’ve been tracking ever since his 1997 handbag house remix of Katrina & The Waves’ Love Shine A Light added light and laughter to my world. Indeed Girls Aloud only ever go wrong when they turn their hands to soppy ballad cover versions. (Unfortunately, this is also when they get Number One singles, but then what do the general public know, huh?)

Paul – of fellow Nottingham blog 1000 Shades Of Grey – you now take over the lead position in my exciting competition. If nobody else’s guesses show up in the remainder of this list, then that triple mix CD set could be yours.

(Well, you never know. Stranger things have happened.)

Already listed:
#49 The Show – Girls Aloud (Paul) · #64 Take Your Mama – Scissor Sisters (Chig) · #85 Matinee – Franz Ferdinand (timothy)

Not (yet?) listed:
Tits On The Radio – Scissor Sisters (Todd) · Babycakes – 3 Of A Kind (dave) · Filthy/Gorgeous – Scissor Sisters (asta) · Heartbeats – The Knife (Swish David) · I Believe In You – Kylie Minogue (Joe) · Girls (rex the dog mix) – The Prodigy (Waitrose David) · Toxic – Britney Spears (Angus) ·Love Machine – Girls Aloud (Alan) · Trick Me – Kelis (Ben)

50. Everybody Deserves To Be F***ed – Sex In Dallas

So you’re at the bar, and this French dude asks your name, buys you a gin and tonic, seems cool, fancies himself, but then who are you to judge, but then he’s straight into this coked-up monologue, or whatever else he’s on, who can say, about how it’s your time, it’s everybody’s time, it’s your turn, ‘cos we’re living in a time where, you know, everybody needs to be free, so just f***ing free yourself yeah, ‘cos everybody deserves to be f***ed, and there’s this blaring techno music all around you, with a buzzing punk-rock guitar coming out of somewhere, you don’t know where, and the lights, and the gin, and the French dude going on and on and on, and you’re smiling and nodding and finishing his sentences, and giving him a cigarette, and he’s off again, pointing at the dancefloor, all those people, all alone, he wants it, she wants it, you and i should, you know, everybody deserves to be, to be, to be f***ed?

With charmers like him, who needs Rohypnol.

51. Thank You – Jamelia

Let’s remind ourselves of what the Troubled Diva Pop Panel said about this last March, shall we?

52. Everything Is Everything – Phoenix

The things I do possess / Sometimes they own me too.

No idea what you’re talking about, mes braves.

53. You Can’t Hurry Love – The Concretes

A single which I always link with The Delays Long Time Coming (#58 below), because a) they’re both neatly turned little pieces of traditionally styled pop/rock, b) I discovered both of them via cover-mounted CDs on the front of Word magazine, and c) I know – and need to know – absolutely nothing about either act. (Except that The Concretes are Swedish, and The Delays aren’t.)

However, You Can’t Hurry Love edges ahead of Long Time Coming because of its Jesus & Mary Chain/Creation Records woozy fuzz, and the garage punk Farfisa organ sound, and the way that the tambourines and the handclaps work together just so, and the surging brass, and the overall sense of exultant looseness.

54. For Lovers – Wolfman featuring Peter Doherty.

I saw The Libertines nearly three years ago at The Social. Despite only playing a thirty minute set, they were young and hungry and focussed and energised and incandescent and quite, quite fantastic – particularly that star-in-the-making singer with the pudding-bowl haircut. A couple of months later, their first single came out. It was OK, but not a patch on what I’d seen live. I loyally bought the next couple of singles, but quickly lost interest. Too straight-up “classic” rock & roll for my tastes, with even the rough edges sounding too orthodox, in a way that just didn’t appeal.

The ongoing Libertines soap-opera of the last couple of years – bust-ups, burglaries, jail sentences, smack-n-crack habits, missed shows, riots and recriminations – has alternately bored and depressed me, souring the memory of all that eager promise and raw talent. It reached some sort of nadir halfway through 2004, when the NME voted Pete Doherty – by now an emaciated, wasted, hopelessly addicted f**k-up of a man – as the “coolest person in rock”. Call me a clucking old fogey, but what sort of message does that kind of witless lionisation send out?

In the midst of all this, For Lovers therefore came as something of a revelation: an achingly tender ballad, full of longing and regret, which put me in mind of the sort of thing that Richard Ashcroft used to be capable of. It also reminded me, briefly, of the talent behind the f**k-up.

55. Hot Like We – Ce’cile

Now, if I were a snarky music journo with a 10-word limit on his (cough) “capsule review”, I could say something suitably smart-arse at this juncture: Hot like we? Cold as sick, more like! (Ker-ching! Next record!) Because, let’s face it: to the passing listener, it is rather an unfortunate simile.

However, I can’t actually say anything of the sort, as Hot Like We is one scorching piece of poop: catchy-as-hell Jamaican dancehall, and hey kids, we can all relax and enjoy it with a clear conscience, because Ce’cile has publicly spoken out against homophobia in the genre!

Reminder: I’m running a competition based on this list, in which you can win a copy of my Best Of 2004 triple mix CD by successfully guessing which single is my #1 favourite of the year. One guess only per person, please. Note that if no-one comes up with the correct guess, then the prize goes to the person whose guess has ranked the most highly.

Here’s how things are looking so far:

Already listed:
#64 Take Your Mama – Scissor Sisters (Chig) · #85 Matinee – Franz Ferdinand (timothy)

Not (yet?) listed:
Tits On The Radio – Scissor Sisters (Todd) · Babycakes – 3 Of A Kind (dave) · Filthy/Gorgeous – Scissor Sisters (asta) · Heartbeats – The Knife (Swish David) · I Believe In You – Kylie Minogue (Joe) · Girls (rex the dog mix) – The Prodigy (Waitrose David) · Toxic – Britney Spears (Angus) ·Love Machine – Girls Aloud (Alan) · The Show – Girls Aloud (Paul) · Trick Me – Kelis (Ben)

Disqualified, because they were mentioned in the 2003 list:
Laura – Scissor Sisters (Nigel) · Comfortably Numb – Scissor Sisters (David)
(Note to Nigel and David: because I’m feeling relaxed and lenient, I’m going to let you both try again.)

You can leave your guess in any of the comments boxes – up to and including the #2 entry, whenever it appears.

56. 5 Colours In Her Hair – McFly

…and its a warm Welcome Back! to all of you who read Troubled Diva in the office. (Deny it all you like, but those surging stats don’t lie.) Nice Christmas? Mmm, yes, mine was quiet too. Yes, it snowed where we were as well; wasn’t it lovely? Oh yes, some super presents, thank you for asking.

From my sister the heroic and selfless aid worker (hey, someone in this family has to save the world), who lugged it all the way back from the Sudan: a massive traditional sword, at least three feet long, housed in an intricate leather sheath-n-strap combo, which will look wonderfully baronial when hanging on the pillar opposite the fireplace in the cottage (all we need now are the suit of armour and the mounted stag’s head). Plus a pair of pink washing-up gloves with voluminous floral cuffs, just to redress the testosterone balance.

From K, as well as the usual clutch of world music CDs (in current order of preference: Tinawiren, Mbilia Bel, Souad Massi, Lhasa, Amparanoia), a deeply groovy portable record turntable – as recommended by Elisabeth, whose DJ boyfriend carts his round the second-hand stores in order to review potential purchases. Ideal for setting up on the kitchen table in the cottage, so as to work through the stacks and stacks of 7″ singles from the late James Hamilton‘s collection which we’ve stashed in the garage. (Straight away, I hit a rich seam of amazing import soul singles from around 1971, some of which I’ll be burning and posting in the next few weeks.)

But I digress. If you’re newly back, then you might find yourself a little swamped by the current “project” on this blog: a complete annotated list of my favourite 90 singles of 2004. So, if you’re one of those feckless fair-weather friends who doesn’t even come here particularly for the music in the first place, and you’re thinking that you might just skip the whole lot, and besides, he’ll never know… can I just point you to one recent post, which isn’t really about music in the first place? Because it’s one of those rare posts which I actually put a bit of forethought, time and effort into, and I’d hate for it to get buried in the rush.

Onto the wee ladddies of McFly, then. Now, whilst fully accepting that 5 Colours In Her Hair – an astonishingly, nay, suspiciously savvy and proficient record for such a youthful band – could all too easily be the work of a bunch of fortysomething session men, I have to say that I really don’t give a flying f**k one way or another. After all, did such petty concerns make The Monkees’ I’m A Believer a lesser record? Did they bollocks. And yes, I do see 5 Colours In Her Hair as being part of the same lineage, complete with its tight little beat-group “doo doo doos”, its Woolworths-cheapo 60s guitar twangs, its punky-pop Jags-meets-Lemonheads-meets-Green-Day fizz, its pleasingly teenage lyrical concerns, and that swoonsomely sweet Beatles-esque harmony on the final chord.

Like their compatriots The Busted (not to mention the please not to be mentioned in the same breath if you have any respect Serious Artistes which comprise The Keane), some members of McFly have been plucked straight from that traditional white-hot crucible of rock ‘n roll, the English public school system. Indeed, the son of one of K’s business partners actually went to school with one of them. Oh, the excitement!

(Aside: this was the year that, thanks to parental connections, I started having serious chats about music with teenage boys all over again, and discovered that they weren’t that much different from the chats I used to have when I was a teenage boy myself. In fact – and K has also commented on this, with a certain resigned curl in his voice – I do seem to be able to relate worryingly well to teenage boys in general. At least the posh ones who go to Good Schools, that is. In fact, considering what an utter social f**k-up I was at that age, I’m slightly concerned that I get on with them better now then I ever did back then. Talk about arrested development. On the other hand, there’s nothing more cringeworthy than the trendy teacher who claims to get on better with “the kids” – sorry, “young adults” – then the staff, is there? I need to watch out for that.)

57. Trendy Discotheque – Pay TV

We are glamorous girls, but also very smart. We think the poor are boring; they can’t afford to party at the… Trendy! Discotheque!

Tart, sharp, and oh so werry werry arch, Pay TV – a bunch of Swedish conceptual art pranksters slumming it for a laff – are the 2004 winners of the Vanilla Ninja prize for Best Eurovision National Finals Song Which Failed To Qualify. Melodifestivalen: once again, I salute your magnificence.

58= Long Time Coming – The Delays
58= Johnny Cash – Sons & Daughters

I know absolutely nothing about The Delays, except that this is a sturdy piece of lilting power-pop of the classic school, which puts me in mind of The Tourists, The Pretenders, The Bangles and their ilk.

Meanwhile, Sons & Daughters sneak in at the last minute (i.e. after I started publishing this list) with an almost forgotten single which displays their roughly hewn gothic-country-rockabilly sound to full effect. Another great live act, as well; do try and catch them if you get the chance.

59. Let Me Kiss You – Morrissey

In a curious marketing strategy, Nancy Sinatra’s Morrissey-endorsed cover version of the same song was released as a UK single on the same day. While Nancy floundered outside the Top 40, Morrissey soared into the Top 10, with a song that – even by his own idiosyncratic standards – really can only be done true justice by its author; its characteristic cadences (“think of someone/you PHYS-ically admi-hire“) sound just plain wrong in the hands of Frank’s little girl, for all her latter-day hipsterdom.

(Note: If Nancy had done the sensible thing and released her swoonsome Jarvis Cocker collaboration Don’t Let Him Change Your Mind as a single, then it would certainly have been Top 30 in this list, and maybe even elsewhere.)