The UK Top 40, 6/7/03

They fail, anyway – The Thrills are in at #3, with Beyonce still at number one. Oh well.

New entries outside the top 20: Foundation #40 (Some people that sound a bit like Flip & Fill give All Out Of Love a deeply unpleasant kicking); British Sea Power #36 (big fuck-off smiles from this quarter; everything you’ve heard about them is true, so long as it’s been complimentary – fair ‘nuff, this isn’t as good as (ah!) the original of Remember Me, but hell, why bother complaining? BSP in the top 40, which I honestly never believed I’d see, so I’m mega mega mega happy. Shine on you crazy lighthouse-preservationalists!); Michelle Branch #31 (Heart FM-friendly she-guitar-angst, but better than Amy Studt); and Mario #28 (deeply so-so R&B, by oddly deeply voiced teenage type, who unfortunately seems to want to sound very much like Usher…)

20) CHRISTINA AGUILERA – Fighter

Blahdiblah, was having crisis with some rogue curry, just caught the arse-end of this…look, it’s naff, we’ve learnt our lesson, fuck off.

19) SINEAD QUINN – What You Need Is (NEW ENTRY)

Ooh. Amazingly, it’s not too bad, rather Girls Aloud-y, she has a half-decent snarl on her, some very Sparks-style keyboards in the background… dear god, I like it. I am well pop, I am. It’s a bit like On A Rope, y’know. Chord change-y structure-y wise, sort of. Oh, I dunno about the technicalities, do I? But I know what I like, and I do like this, oh yes I do. Thumbs up.

18) AMY STUDT – Misfit

Why? Two weeks running she’s been shown as being cobblers in comparison to other British (well, OK, one of them’s Irish, but she got famous off the BBC, so y’know..), and she’s still lingering round like some kind of Hello Kitty-shaped fart. Bobbins.

17) JENNIFER ELLISON – Baby I Don’t Care

And yet, Studt is still better than this cack. Things may well get a lot worse before they get better… seven new entries still to come.

16) LISA-MARIE PRESLEY – Lights Out (NEW ENTRY)

Dear god, could she make her voice any more impenetrable? It’s all very Shania-country style, and the vocals really are thoroughly indecipherable, cos she’s singing, and there’s someone else singing as well, and the levels are all funny, and the whole thing just sounds rather like Sheryl Crow gargling lead. This isn’t a good thing, by the way.

15) ASHANTI – Rock Wit U (Aww Baby)

So the first six records in the top twenty are all by solo women. This might be a record. I have no idea. The vast majority have been shit, in any case. This continues that trend, depressingly.

14) PAUL VAN DYK – Nothing But You (NEW ENTRY)

Rather pleasant German-ness, with “ooh-eeeh-ooh” vocals going over something that sounds like a rather less cunty Jakatta record. Unnecessary drum interlude in the middle, which is very pissing. Surprising that it gets to #14, but all really lovely, floaty, fluffy, etc.

13) OCEAN COLOUR SCENE – I Just Need Myself (NEW ENTRY)

Back in 1995, they sounded like they were from 1967. Now it’s 2003, and their sound has moved on about… ooh, a week, maybe. But hell, you’ve gotta admire the persistence. This isn’t actually terrible or anything neither, but then again I have always tended to have a wee soft-spot for over-serious Britpop… not the Stereophonics though. They are cunts.

12) BLAZIN’ SQUAD – We Just Be Dreamin’

Which seamlessly applies to this too… Isn’t it nice how you can’t actually tell any of their voices apart, too? Ten of them, and they’re all exactly the same. I’d laugh if I weren’t weeping so hard at them having ever actually existed…

11) BUSTA RHYMES & MARIAH CAREY & THE FLIPMODE SQUAD – I Know What You Want

Finally leaving the top 10. Hizzay. And it’s a very big week for new releases next week, so it might even leave the top 20 altogether. Double hizzay. But for now, I’m having to listen to it again. Which is not a nice thing.

Roar into the ten, with four new entries left to come. Fuck it, Beyonce is so obviously number one it isn’t even funny…

10) DELTA GOODREM – Lost Without You

Twonky twonky plonky plonky poop-de-whoop. Still better than Jennifer Ellison and Amy Studt and Ashanti and Lisa Marie Presley and Christina Aguilera, mind.

9) XTM & DJ CHUCKY & ANNIA & THE VILE PAN-PIPE PLAYING HORDES OF SATAN – Fly On The Wings Of Love

This, however, isn’t.

8) MIS-TEEQ – Can’t Get It Back (NEW ENTRY)

Probably my favourite of theirs thus far, cos shouty woman has been restrained a bit. It’s rather odd, though, cos they seem deeply obsessed with holding onto a ring. Going for the hobbit audience? God knows… s’alright, though, which is quite a recommendation this week…

7) R KELLY – Ignition Remix

Gliding down the chart serenely, as befits this greatness. Let us admire R and his rotating head once more. Toot-toot, sir?

6) 50 CENT & NATE DOGG – 21 Questions (NEW ENTRY)

Rapper in ‘shit ballad’ shocker! Fiddy is stumbling with this, cso he’s going to be sensitive, and he’s going to do this by asking if his girl would still love him if he was poor. Which is a really rubbish idea. Particularly when he tries to adjust his flow for the mood, and sounds like he’s autocuing, and so Nate decides to follow suit. Yep, that’d be Nate “Regulate (with Warren G)” Dogg. Sad, so sad…

5) WAYNE WONDER – No Letting Go

Non-mover, and it’s getting nicer each week, yet still… there are some words that just do not work in pop songs, and ‘appreciate’ is one of them. Are you an insurance bloke or something, Mr Wonder?

4) S CLUB 8 – Fool No More (NEW ENTRY)

Dear god. British pop goes to the disco, lobs in some vocoder effects, and some horrid lyrics about ‘getting played’… and it works. Smashingly, in fact. Brillage – and no one will care cos it’s being performed by a bunch of 14 year olds. Oh well.

3) FAST FOOD ROCKERS – Fast Food Song

Are shite.

2) EVANESCENCE – Bring Me To Life

Oh well. I know it had to end sometime, but still… I am actually feeling a bit weepy. Damn it, damn me, damn them all, but Evanescence I do love thee so! It’s overblown, it’s pompous, it has horrid lyrics, but for four weeks me and them on the bus, as they get dissed by all the cool people and I wonder if my future goes any further than the Lombard Roundabout, and she and he went screaming and yelling all up in the place, pumping their fists cos, y’know, rock and stuff, and I smiled, yes I smiled and I sang along (silently, I’m not that daft, but maybe one day)… and here comes the tinkly bit for the last time. The decline starts here, XFM will quite gleefully bump them off the playlist and so will Radio 1, the second single gets nowhere… but we will always have this. And I will still smile. God bless you, Miss Amy Lee and your bearded chums. God bless you all.

1) BEYONCE KNOWLES – Crazy In Love (NEW ENTRY)

Now, understand that this single is quite good. That trumpeting loop is very nice, particularly when it supernovas in the chorus, the ‘ohoh ohoh ohohohoh’ bit also good, the “AH DON’T CAAAAAAAAAAAAARE” is very good. But. Where the soul? I mean, maybe I shouldn’t have watched TOTP and CD:UK last night, but she was on both of them, and they were both wanking themselves blind over this, as were Radio 1 when she was on Jo Whiley on Friday, and… it just isn’t worth that, is it? Yeah, so it’s OK, but it’s so oppressive somehow, she just walks everywhere with the blankest smile ever, being utterly nonplussed, and Jay Z’s bit is just plain fucking wank on a stick… where’s the heart? The love? Yes, she can sing, and the beat is chunky as all fuck, but this being treated as the resurrection and the light and such is just plain wrong. And it makes me rather sad, really.