The UK Top 40, 17/8/03

New entries outside the 20: The Bluetones #40 (They go electro with so-so results, but it’s nice to see they’re still hanging around); QFX #36 (because the Scots can do shitty house music too, y’know); Soda Club #31 (Horrid Northern house made even worse by the vocals of Andrea Anatola, who shows wanton disregard for being in tune, in time, or just being any good at all. Still, ten years ago this would’ve been top 10, so perhaps I should be grateful…); LeAnn Rimes #27 (soul-destroyingly awful ‘country-rock’, probably adored by Steve Wright. Neko Case, she say “No”:
);
P Diddy & Kelis #25 (Mr Diddy goes electro - yet another thing he has in common with The Bluetones); and Kings Of Leon #23 (joyless hairy gits form rock band and do rubbish song about brothel – no, honestly, never saw that one coming…).

But now, down to the serious business – the twenty!

20) EVANESCENCE – Bring Me To Life

Oh man. Well, I knew the day would come eventually. It’s almost inevitable that this will leave the top twenty next week, then, and Wes won’t have to play it anymore, and so he most likely won’t play it any more, and so the writing out of history shall commence in earnest, and we can all pretend to like Kings Of Leon instead. Bollocks to ‘em all. They’ve got another single out in September, but it will never erase this glory. Godspeed you Amy, Ben, and the other types. We’ll never forget you…

19) DAVID SNEDDON – Best Of Order (NEW ENTRY)

Oh dear. Now, for those who are not aware, El Snedhead won the BBC’s Fame Academy show, beating Sinead Quinn and Lemar Obika. This despite the fact that he was really dull and generally rubbish, and Sinead and Lemar are actually a bit smashing. Now, Sinead has gone on to release one of the best singles of this year, in the shape of ‘What You Need Is’, and next week Lemar will also release one of the best singles of this year, in the shape of ‘Dance (With U)’. This, on the other hand, is like Robbie Williams at his most rubbish, an ‘uptempo rock number’ about Sned’s struggle to make people realise how talented and great he is. Sned, you are rubbish. Go home.

18) BENNY BENASSI – Satisfaction

Poo-te-weet…

17) JASON NEVINS & HOLLY JAMES – I’m In Heaven

… poo-te-woot. Holly James used to be in deeply rubbish All Saints/Mis-Teeq/Eternal rip-off Tymes 4, by the way. This may still be a career low, however.

16) XTM, DJ CHUCKY, ANNIA – Suck My Panpipe, Feel My Vineyard

This is the lowest this song has ever been in the chart, you know. The highest it’s been is number seven. In total, it’s been on the chart for about twelve weeks. Things just don’t get much wronger…

15) KORN – Did My Time (NEW ENTRY)

What is it with rubbish vocals this week? It all grinds along in the back, but upfront Jonathan Davis is growling almost exactly like Kevin The Teenager. And his lyrics “I am the one who chose my paaaaaaaaaaath... I did my taaaaaaaaaaaaaaahm…” It’s the metal David Sneddon. (N.B. I did actually quite like the Sned’s last single. I am not sure why.)

14) ROBBIE WILLIAMS – Something Beautiful

Actually, the Sned really does want to be Robbie Williams, doesn’t he? Back to back, those two singles do sound quite similar, all about the being famous and the effort and stuff, and being sort of “Hey! Guitars! Whoo!” Except Sned isn’t as good as this. Which really is quite an achievement.

13) DANIEL BEDINGFIELD – Never Gonna Leave Your Side

Incidentally, I didn’t mean to be quite so dismissive to the Benny Benassi song earlier. Just it gets a bit tricky finding stuff to say about it after a few weeks. Much like this song, in fact. Someone just hire the bugger to do the theme for A Major Motion Picture, Nominated For Seven Academy Awards Including Best Film, Best Director And Best Supporting Actress already.

I’ve just remembered this used to be a #1 single. How?

12) BEYONCE – Crazy In Love

So did this, except this is rather more plausible. Do you remember when this was the new thing? Seems like years ago now… crikey. 20 year olds should not be allowed to feel this ancient. Particularly not when they get ID’d at the bloody Notting Hill Arts Centre, for christ’s sakes. Free gig, about ten people in there, and they’re asking for ID. Bloody hell…

I’m gonna put Dubstar on in a second. Have you forgotten how great Stars is?

11) STACIE ORRICO – Stuck (NEW ENTRY)

Ooh. Interesting. Threatens to go a bit LeAnn Rimes every now and then… but avoids it with quite stunning skillsiness. Random stabs of harmonica in the background, along with random guitar strummery, something that sounds like an electric squeezebox, the chorus and the verses judder about, her voice dips and peaks everywhere… this is very good indeed.

Except she’s 16, isn’t she. She’s got to number 11, I came second in The University Of North London Schools Creative Writing Competition once. Not quite the same thing, really.

Grr. Here’s the top ten.

10) R KELLY – Snake (NEW ENTRY)

Now, one of the major joys of Ignition (Remix) was the way in which it never over-did anything. This time, however, Mr Kelly wishes to make it abundantly clear that he is going to GIVE YOU HIS LOVING. HOT. SLOW. STICKY. AND AAAAAAAAALLL. NIIIIIIIGHT. LAWWWWNG. He has his bits of desert music in the background, over which he does his vocals in the smoothie style, then suddenly it cuts, and now he MISTUH LUVVUH LUVVUH. You and he are “LIKE TWO GORILLAS IN THE JUNGLE – MAKING LURRRRRRRRRRVE.” Mad, bad, and dangerous to know. Top tune though.

9) CHEEKY GIRLS – Hooray Hooray (It’s A Cheeky Holiday)

Also, writing the R Kelly entry took my mind off this for its entire duration. There really is nowt the man cannot do.

8) RICHARD X ft. KELIS – Finest Dreams (NEW ENTRY)

My, but Kelis is having quite the mini-career revival this week. First she gets to tell P Diddy that he has fulfilled all her dreams, now she collaborates with bootlegger turned mildly famous person Richard X, the feller that was sort of responsible for The Sugababes’ version of Freak Like Me. And it’s quite good. All very retro-electro, bit like Ladytron except a) less good and b) successful.

7) PHARELL FT. JAY-Z – Frontin’

I should note that I misquoted Jay-Z last week. He calls Pharell ‘Fo’ Real’ because he is the truth, as opposed to merely being one who brings the truth. Jay-Z also refers to himself as ‘Young’, again. Nice to know someone else is just as paranoid as me.

6) MARK OWEN – Four Minute Warning

Wes harshly points out that the song only lasts three minutes twenty-seven. Yes, Wes. Particularly when you talk all over it like the prick that you are, eh?

5) LUMIDEE – Never Leave You (Uh Ohh)

To be fair to him, though, Wes doesn’t seem to be playing the remix of this that features Busta Rhymes and Fabolous, which presumably would be like this, but not as good. In fact, no, it’ll have Fabolous on it, so it’ll be a fair bit worse than that…

4) JAIMESON – Complete (NEW ENTRY)

Hmm. This is the kind of music that has a strange tendency to be liked by dull people – fusing drum and bass, garage, and funky guitar licks to create a laid-back summer classic… oh shit, I’ve just turned into Jo Whiley. Ugh. Filthy! On your rug!

3) BUSTED – Sleeping With The Light On (NEW ENTRY)

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!! Oh, I’m just ever so slightly over the moon about this one! One solid month rotating between special appearances on The Saturday Show and CD:UK! At the same time managing to appear on more or less every other telly show ever! Getting interviewed for SERIOUS articles in SERIOUS newspapers about how SERIOUS you are! And, most of all, that FUCKING GODAWFUL LIVE SESSION BULLSHIT you pulled on the top 40 last week!

AND YOU ONLY GOT TO NUMBER THREE! YOU COULDN’T EVEN BEAT ULTRABEAT!

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2) ULTRABEAT – Pretty Green Eyes

Still not actually that much good – but they beat Busted! This is truly their hour – well, sort of, because really, this is the hour of:

1) BLU CANTRELL & SEAN PAUL – Breathe

Oh man. Oh man, oh man, oh man. Today, and today only, this is the greatest record ever. Blu & Sean are now well and truly up there with R Kelly (and, arguably, Daniel Bedingfield, but he is rubbish) as upsetters of the UK media’s attempts to try and shoehorn certain records into the top of the charts. It’s moments like this that do truly make the chart a great thing, because when the chart is predictable, it is not really that much fun. Seeing Beyonce get to number one, for instance, was not that enjoyable because it had been so clearly telegraphed that it was going to happen, the whole thing arranged with military precision to make absolutely god-damn certain that Crazy In Love would be number one. But Blu & Sean… well, in terms of pre-release build-up on telly and radio, this is the least likely number one of the year. Unlike pretty much every other number one this year, this song has never appeared on the Radio 1 playlist, the playlist of the only national FM pop music station. Neither Blu nor Sean have come over to promote this single. The only publicity it has really got outside of radio play (on stations other than Radio 1) was when the Sun got a bit excited that Blu used to do the porn, a bit. And this week, the media had them set up as the cannon fodder. This was meant to be the week that Busted strode triumphantly to number one. They were slightly ahead in the midweeks to start with, but then the CD:UK Saturday chart had Blu & Sean back at number one, with Busted at 2. What followed, however, made this week’s chart particularly special. Normally what CD:UK do is they rundown the singles from 10 through to 2, then either show the video of the #1 single or the #1 act performing their single. However, this week they ran down the singles from 10 through to 1, and announced that unfortunately, Blu Cantrell wasn’t available to perform her single, so Busted had ‘agreed to step in’ and perform their song instead. As opposed to showing the video for Breathe, like CD:UK had done for the past two weeks.

When Wes reveals that Busted are only number three, he plays the live version of their song as recorded EXCLUSIVELY for The Official Chart Show With Wes, because this is the only chart show that is BIG ENOUGH to get Busted to play live for it. Hi! He’s Wes!

There can rarely have been a hollower concession of defeat.

Perhaps I’m overstating all this. But this is just beautiful. The Busted machine thought there was a formula to getting to number one. They thought they had it all sewn up, and then they decided to sew it up even tighter to make doubly sure.

They were wrong.

And that is why I love the UK Top 40. Thank you.