The UK Top 40, 15/2/04

First new entry – Emma Bunton, #7. We don’t get anything played off that. The Red Hot Chilli Peppers must be up later.

Snow Patrol entered #3 last week, #5 this. Leann Rimes entered #2 last week, #4 this.

Franz Ferdinand are our second new entry at #3. Wes rings Alex Kapranos in Paris, and all the while he loops the opening five seconds of ‘Take Me Out’ underneath. It sounds fucking dreadful. But then we get ‘Take Me Out’ in full. Which is very nice indeed, because the singles chart today is going to be hideous. Whoomph, whoomph, whoomph, whoomph…

And the new album chart number 1 is Norah Jones. Shockah, or something. She’s never had a top 40 single, y’know. They play her new single. Radio 1 will probably playlist it so they can stay in touch, or something. It’ll be #3 for about a month, most likely, thus sort of making Norah the new Kelis, except not, obviously.

New Entries Outside The Top 20: The Rapture #38 (Sunnily gorgeous tune, sort of McAlmont & Butler meets Polyphonic Spree - that is to say, it sounds like the Beach Boys – also featuring crowd noises! The benchmark is set); Chingy #35 (him and Snoop Dogg and Ludacris, they are quite good with the women. They are also in a hotel. So now, they sex the women. Well done); The Poppyfields #28 (The Alarm return to celebrate their 25th anniversary under an assumed identity to fool the media, and it doesn’t quite work); The Stands #25 (The Worst Indie Record Ever – bunch of Scousers put together some nasal jangly dribble, and it’s in the top 30, and that’s just shite really); and Jagged Edge #21 (insatiably dull R&B boyband, who are either being sorry or being grateful. I am rather confused by this one, but I don’t really think it’s much cop either way).

And this week we have the top 10 DVD chart. It’s read out by James King. He’s like Wes, but from the Home Counties. I wish I could care what’s happening here – actually, no I don’t. Number 1 is Calendar Girls. Congratulations Calendar Girls. Now fuck off to Radio 4 or something.

THE UK TOP 20: LAST WEEK, I WAS GOING TO SEE THE SCISSOR SISTERS. THIS WEEK, I’M LISTENING TO RONAN KEATING. ARSE.

20) EMMA BUNTON – I’ll Be There

Great single, and the album’s even better, 12 (I think) slices of the ultimate in hyper-orchestrated radio-friendly light and fluffiness. Raido 1 will not playlist it, obviously.

19) UD PROJECT – Saturday Night (NEW ENTRY)

Do you remember Cappella? This is like them, but worse. This is also very like UD Project’s last single, but replacing the accordion noise with another bloke who sings like he’s treading water. It also has the whistle noise off the theme tune to ‘A Question Of Sport’.

18) SNOW PATROL – Run

I still like this, you know. Also liked by me was the single that entered at #38 last week – ‘Truck On’ by Simple Kid. It starts off sounding dead weedy and crap, but then unfold into a strangely massive chantalong chorus, and is very much worth your time. I need to note it down cos I’m trying to be proper in doing my favourite singles of the year thing this year. I’ll be very sick of it by about June, probably, but I like it now.

17) THE STROKES – Reptilia (NEW ENTRY)

Reasonable yet ever-so-slightly pointless single, better than ’12:51’ by virtue of Casablancas sounding like he’s got out of bed. And not having the keyboard noise, which was shit. Other than that, it’s rather average. But it is going to get very much worse.

16) BLAZIN’ SQUAD – Here 4 One

New at #6 last week, one of two whole new entries in the top 40. The other was Funeral For A Friend at #19. This one sounds sort of like DMX Juniors, Harrow Wing, very loud, clanging beat in the background, lots of shouting in the foreground. Their second-best single thus far, which isn’t actually knocking it cos ‘Flip Reverse’ was very good, and this is fair enough.

15) KATIE MELUA – The Closest Thing To Crazy

Remember this? It left the top 20 for a few weeks, then for no reason it came back up to #15 last week. It’s still here. It’s the new ‘Hey Ya!’ Ah fuck.

14) OZZY & KELLY OSBOURNE – Changes

You are now starting to catch my drift about how shit this chart is going to be, hmm? Then again, this went up three last week. It has now gone back down three. Still to come – Ronan Keating and Sam & Mark and The Stereophonics. Not all in the one record, but spread out over ten or so minutes of pain. Greet.

13) SEAN PAUL ft. SASHA – I’m Still In Love With You

Ah, thank you. Needed that.

12) SPEEDWAY – Can’t Turn Back (NEW ENTRY)

Remember them? They did the cover of the bootleg of the Strokes and Christina Aguilera, and it was rubbish. Here’s one of their own songs. Imagine… Busted, right, imagine Busted, but fronted by a really, really bored Sharleen Spiteri. Really bored, right, even more bored than on ‘Carnival Girl’. And it’s one of their ballads. And… this is terrible.

11) FERRY CORSTEN – Rock Your Body Rock (NEW ENTRY)

And after that, the antidote. Loud, fuzzy and warm BANGING. With a robot voice over the top. There’s this spiralling hook line drilling through the centre, not sure how to describe it… but this is ace, really. Not just in the context of following Speedway, but actually properly dead good. Not sure what to say other than that… great, though.

10) 2PLAY ft. RAGHAV & JUCXI – So Confused

This has been in the top 10 for at least a month. No-one has noticed. It has the same sense of emptiness as that UD Project song from earlier, a certain degree of flimsiness, but it’s better than the UD Project because Raghav can sing, and the piano line is corking. And the UD Project bloke can’t sing, and doesn’t have a piano line, and has a whistle instead, and is turds.

9) FATMAN SCOOP – It Takes Scoop (NEW ENTRY)

One trick pony, but quelle trick, eh? The original is a bit weak because the beat he pilfered last time was better than ‘It Takes Two’, but this remixed version features Fatman yelling over almost every single bit of it. Admittedly, he is only yelling “FATMAN SCOOP! RADIO ONE!”, but then he goes and yells something else, then something else, then something else, and then the chorus to It Takes Two, then Fatman again, then the random snatch – “Higher Baby… Gettin’ higher baby…” – which I know is from somewhere and I’ve forgotten where… this record makes no sense whatsoever, but in a massively entertaining way. God bless the man.

8) MICHELLE – All This Time

This can fuck off, obviously.

7) BOOGIE PIMPS – Somebody To Love

But this can hang around as long as it fancies.

6) OUTKAST – Hey Ya!

ARRGH ARRGH PAZZ & JOP ARRGH. Obviously. Which doesn’t stop this being amazing. Dunno why it would, mind. Probably wouldn’t, actually.

But now there’s the top five. It is going to be the worst thing ever.

5) THE STEREOPHONICS – Movie Star (NEW ENTRY)

The Stereophonics ‘go dance’. Yes, they have a synth. Well fucking done, Kelly. This is about ‘the cult of celebrity’, and how it’s ‘out of touch with the real people’. At one point Kelly yells “YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT IT’S LAAAAAHK, YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT IT’S LAAAAAHK,” just in case he’s being too subtle. If this song were an irritatingly over-used buzzword by people who call radio phone-ins, it would be ‘political correctness gone mad’. Fucking dreadful.

4) KELIS – Milkshake

A month at number 2, and this is the thanks she gets – shafted for Ronan Keating and Sam & Mark. Tssch. Being the best song in the top 5 is some kind of consolation though, because up next –

3) LMC vs. U2 – Take Me To The Clouds Above

Well, it’s the second-best song in this week’s top 5, actually.

2) RONAN KEATING – She Believes In Me (NEW ENTRY)

This, though… fuck me. Ronan releases his song for Valentine’s. It’s a cover of a song by Kenny Rogers. Ronan sings it in the manner of a man saying “I love my woman, because I’m great like that.” There’s tasteful strings. Tasteful piano. It lasts twenty billion times longer than it should, like all his horrid songs. “I told her I could change the world, with my songs, but I was wrong.” Yes, if we’d only listened to the thing he did with Lulu a bit harder, all the nastiness could have been avoided. Wanker.

1) SAM & MARK – With A Little Help From My Friends (NEW ENTRY)

It’s the people that came second and third in our version of ‘Pop Idol’ (the original and first). Sam was meant to win, but he didn’t. Mark wasn’t meant to get anywhere near coming second, but he did. So they lumped them together as a duo because they didn’t want Sam going off to another record company like Darius did, and they really didn’t fancy Mark as a solo artist. Hence ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’, because it’s COMPLETELY NATURAL to have them as a duo. To be fair, they do seem to have a fair bit of chemistry together and all that, but there’s a reason why Simon Cowell has them down as ‘the new Robson & Jerome’. It’s because they’re so indistinct as to be practically invisible. This is like Glenn Medeiros duetting with himself as produced by Craig McLachlan. The chorus is so flat it’s practically a spirit level, the whole song so utterly devoid of character or verve or anything… it’s better than ‘All This Time’, certainly, but we’re one and a half months into 2004 and Gary Jules is still the best number one of the year. Which is worrying.