With just one month to go Drake still tops the leaderboard. With the Christmas song takeover of the Top 40 that will no doubt happen in December it's looking highly likely Drake will be top come the end of the year. A notable addition to the leaderboard is Ed Sheeran who would have probably been topping it had he no forced the change in rules to the charts.
The rap count has dwindled this month with the total for the year now being 95/229 or 41%.
Time for our penultimate trip back to 1996:
We've now reached the 40th act to have both a number 1 and a number 40 to their name. This was the Top 40 debut for the group and was once a debut hits question on Popmaster so either this record isn't that obscure or it was a really harsh question.
The Wonder Stuff are perhaps more regarded as an early 90s group than an 80s one. What surprises me though is how few people I know actually remember The Wonder Stuff. They had a number one with "Dizzy" with Vic Reeves and had what I consider well known hits with "The Size Of A Cow" and "Welcome To The Cheap Seats" which both made the Top 10.
This record was the only Top 40 hit from their debut album "The Eight Legged Groove Machine". They were one of the 3 big groups of the era from Stourbridge, a small town in the West Midlands. The other 2 were Pop Will Eat Itself and Ned's Atomic Dustbin.
Here's my weekly look at the Top 30 from 30 years ago. The plan is for these posts to go out at 17:30 on a Sunday.
Here is the Top 40 in full.
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Having a best of compilation to me means one of two things. Either things are going so well that enough people are willing to buy an album they don't really need to complete the collection or there isn't enough decent new material to put on the compilation so you release a best of to keep the momentum going.
The title "Best of Bonkers" was a little misleading though as it would imply every tune that appears on it has appeared on previous Bonkers albums, but they haven't. I guess it's a bit like a bands greatest hits album which includes a couple of unreleased tracks to give the incentive to buy it to those who already own all the albums.
The majority of tracks on the Hixxy and Recon mix hadn't appeared on any previous Bonkers albums. Some of the tracks also date back to before Bonkers existed. All of the tracks on there are from the 20th century.
As a result this is actually a pretty good mix. What's perhaps a little surprising is that the second half of the mix is predominantly Dutch. We've had records from Holland appearing on many of the previous Bonkers album but perhaps not in that sort of quantity.
Joining Sharkey on his mix and making his Bonkers debut is Druid. He was one of the DJs who went down the trancecore/freeform route in the 90s. He also wrote "Bonkers Anthem" with Sharkey, which appears on this mix.
As this is a best of though it's not strictly a freeform set with the opening track being "Toytown". It's a bit of a surprise to see it in the Sharkey mix rather than the Hixxy one, but then it was written by Hixxy and Sharkey.
Without looking back through all the Bonkers track listings, it looks like the bulk of the other tunes previously appeared in Sharkey mixes.
Finally we have a Scott Brown mix which sees him on his own again. As a result we get a mix of mostly Scott Brown records, all of which appeared in previous Scott Brown mixes.
What became apparent was that this Bonkers album was marking the end of an era because the next Bonkers to come out was called "Bonkers 17: Rebooted". A bit strange given it came out the same year, but I'll take a look into how exactly it was rebooted next week.
Best Song: Snoop Dogg ft Charlie Wilson & Justin Timberlake - Signs
One of my interests outside of music is tennis. I first drove to Wimbledon in 2001 and in my car I listened to Snoop Dogg's "Tha Last Meal" album which I'd recently purchased. The following year I drove to Wimbledon again and my fond memories of listening to Snoop Dogg on the way made me decide to do the same again. It then became a tradition for me to listen to that album whenever I drove to Wimbledon. I therefore found it quite amusing for Snoop Dogg to then release this, a record that contains the lyrics "Venus and Serena in the Wimbledon arena". I've been fond of this record ever since.
Worst Song: Amerie - 1 Thing
This faced some stiff competition from Will Smith and John Legend who are both artists with music I cannot tolerate. I felt this was just that little bit more irritating though. It just sounds like it's trying to get started but can't. The singing just seems so melodramatic too. It just really bugs me.
Top 40 Review
If I had to pick a year that music died then 2005 would probably be it. I remember there being lots of dreary indie bands and a real lack of new music taking my interest. I also remember someone saying that aside from Crazy Frog, cheesy pop was dead.
Looking at this Top 40, they had a point. There was also "Ring Ding Ding" by Pondlife which was basically the same thing, but there were no boy bands, girl groups or X Factor winners. Every record could be classed as a genre other than pop, even Crazy Frog could be classed as eurodance.
My memory of lots of dreary indie bands though isn't as accurate. I count 5 indie records and consider "Hard To Beat" by Hard Fi to be ok. The rest are crap though.
It was Rap and R&B that were more dominant in terms of quantity with several records incorporating both genres including the Snoop Dogg record. The others which get the thumbs up from me are "N Dey Say" by Nelly, "Lonely" by Akon and "Hollaback Girl" by Gwen Stefani.
We have an unlikely collaboration at the top of the charts between 2Pac and Elton John. It's the only number one from 2Pac to date, 9 years after his death. It works though.
One of the surprises is that Erasure were still having Top 40 hits in 2005. The record "Here I Go Impossible Again" isn't as good as their older stuff admittedly but it's still good.
That's all the records that get full marks mentioned. None of the dance music is any good and some of it is just as cheesy as cheesy pop. It was before EDM became a thing though and it is better than that.
I thought 2005 would struggle to make double figures and I was right.
Score: 8.5
Table
2005 is near the bottom, but slightly better than 2002:
Both songs came from their debut album "The Mac Band featuring The McCampbell Brothers". The band consisted of 8 members, 4 of which were brothers with the surname McCampbell who were the vocalists of the group.
The song was also written by brothers, David Lewis and Wayne Lewis who were both members of Atlantic Starr who had their biggest Top 40 hit "Always" the previous year. It failed to chart in America and didn't even make the R&B charts which "Roses Are Red" had topped prior to this.
Two more albums and several non charting singles followed before the group called it a day in 1991.
Here's my weekly look at the Top 30 from 30 years ago. The plan is for these posts to go out at 17:30 on a Sunday.
Here is the Top 40 in full.
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When Bonkers went from 3 CDs to 4 it was presumably because things were looking up. After all why would you pay that extra cost to sell at the same price if you don't expect to sell more copies.
Bonkers 16 did the opposite, it reverted back to 3 CDs. We still had Hixxy and Recon on CD 1. Sharkey was mixing CD 2 alongside CLSM and Kutski instead of Marc Smith. CD 3 was basically a merger of the previous albums CD 3 and CD 4 with Scott Brown mixing with Gammer, out went Neophyte and Dougal.
The Hixxy and Recon mix is once again very remix heavy, with 9 of the 15 tracks being remixes. It's also very Raverbaby heavy as expected. Basically it's cheesy vocal stuff that's not my cup of tea.
The significant thing about CD 2 is that CLSM was the composer of "John Peel Is Not Enough" in protest that there wasn't a hardcore show on Radio 1. Kutski then got a show on Radio 1 that played hardcore music.
Traditionally the Sharkey mix has been very much a freeform mix, but as time went on it started to get more similar to hardcore of the non-freeform variety. By the time of this mix it more or less sounds like a hardcore mix.
The inclusion of CLSM and Kutski may be a factor here. Having 3 DJs on a mix seems a bit excessive but there are 22 tracks in the mix. I find myself enjoying "Motion Maker" by Sharkey and AMS in the middle of the mix, but aside from that it doesn't really do anything for me.
I liked the Scott Brown and Neophyte mix on Bonkers 15 for being gabber throughout, but pairing Scott Brown with Gammer means we don't get a completely gabber mix this time. In fact it takes an hour for the gabber to come in.
I would say this is the poorest Scott Brown mix on a Bonkers album so far. The best bits are the remixes, but even they just sound like inferior versions of the originals. Even the small gabber section at the end isn't great.
As previously stated I had long stopped listening to modern hardcore by the time this album came out in 2006. Therefore this is educating me as to what exactly hardcore in 2006 was like and on this evidence I wasn't missing out on much.
It was the only Bonkers of 2006, but the next Bonkers to come out in 2007 won't be an education because it was Best of Bonkers.
Best Song: Faithless - Mass Destruction
The experimental nature of Faithless means their music has been very hit or miss over the years. This one where their experimenting has produced a true gem. The great thing about this record is how the tone gets more aggressive but with Maxi Jazz still rapping in the calm voice he usually raps with, it's the music itself that's getting aggressive.
Worst Song: Christina Milian - Dip It Low
Christina Milian started out as one of those nondescript singers on the chorus of a rap tune, in this case "Between Me And You" by Ja Rule. Then she did her own pop album labelled as R&B in 2002. A year or so later I saw that album on sale for just £2 in Music Zone, ridiculously cheap for any album at that time let alone one that's barely a year old. It seemed Christina Milian's time as a singer was already over. But then in 2004 she was back with this, which is even worse than the crap she was doing before.
Top 40 Review
Around the time of this particular Top 40 in 2004 I was working in an office where Radio 1 was played all day every day, so many of these records are bringing back memories of that job. Inevitably some of the older workers hated it and complained, I got sick of hearing many of the songs as much as I did but some were to my liking.
One of those was "Trick Me" by Kelis which prompted one of the older workers to say "we don't want any of your Jamaican Reggae" which was funny because it isn't reggae and Kelis isn't Jamaican.
An eye opener is that there are records I liked by artists who would go on to make some terrible music later on in life. Kanye West was still a relative newcomer at the time and has 2 records in the Top 40 with "Talk About Our Love" with Brandy and "All Falls Down" with "Syleena Johnson". Then there's "Eyes On You" by Jay Sean which is a great record.
Then we have records which I would probably put into the guilty pleasure category. These are "Dragostea Din Tei" by O-Zone and "Call U Sexy" by VS, the group Marvin from JLS was in before JLS.
Rap & R&B were the dominant genres outside of pop and account for the bulk of the decent records. It was still just about my music of choice but I was getting back into dance music more, just not the chart stuff.
There was still some terrible pop music in the charts, from the number 1 "Obviously" by McFly to the number 40 "Insania" by Peter Andre and everything in between besides VS.
It's hard to put my finger on what exactly it is, the fact I was into rap and R&B which had a strong presence in the charts, listening to Radio 1 on a daily basis or something else, but we have a surprisingly good score for 2004.
Score: 15
Table
2004 is the best year in the 21st century to date and is in the top half:
On a personal level, we have a new first. This is the first number 40 I actually remember charting at the time. Remembering this record proved to be a disadvantage for me when I was on Champions League Popmaster though. The question was what was Nick Kamen's only Top 5 hit? That's quite a reasonable question given it was Champions League, but I just couldn't get this record out of my head when asked the question which stopped me from thinking of the correct answer, which is "Each Time You Break My Heart". I knew this only got to 40 so therefore was the incorrect answer.
Nick Kamen was a model who was best known for appearing on the Levi's advert. A year later he began a music career and his debut hit was written by Stephen Bray, who's written several songs with Madonna, and Madonna herself. His follow up was a cover of "Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever" by Four Tops.
Then a little over a year later came his second album "Us" and this, the lead single from it. This song was written by Patrick Leonard, co-writer of 4 of Madonna's number ones and David Williams who previously had a hit as member of Chanson with "Don't Hold Back". Madonna provided backing vocals to this record.
It's his final Top 40 hit to date in the UK and it topped the charts in Italy. He carried on releasing music until 1992 and passed away earlier on this year.
When a boy band member starts their solo career they usually either rebel against their boy band roots and try to be taken seriously as a musician (Robbie Williams) or they make music that sounds exactly like the boy band they left without the backing singers (Ronan Keating). Another common theme regardless of what direction they take is they get off to a good start, maybe even get a number one but then soon fade into obscurity.
With Justin Timberlake he hasn't really taken either direction and with a solo career that's lasted longer than N Sync ever did its fair to say he's been one of the success stories of a post-boy band solo career.
Back when he began his solo career I predicted that he would go on to have a successful solo career. That's quite a bold statement given only Robbie Williams and Ronan Keating had managed this. Furthermore Robbie and Ronan were unknown in America so that successful solo post-boy band career had never been done there. In the UK Take That and Boyzone were the biggest boy bands of their eras, N Sync probably weren't even the 5th biggest.
In 2002 N Sync released their final UK Top 40 hit to date "Girlfriend" which also became their highest charting reaching number two. The difference between this and previous N Sync songs was evident. I remember hearing this for the first time and thinking this is actually quite good. It was produced by The Neptunes and featured Nelly which gave it a bit more credibility than your average boy band song.
However N Sync were still a boy band which would have been a barrier to some who suddenly find themselves liking the music to buying it. A Justin Timberlake solo career on the other hand could be marketed in a way to appeal to the urban crowd.
His solo debut "Like I Love You" was also a Neptunes produced record. His follow up "Cry Me A River" was produced by Timbaland. I openly admitted to liking both and would use the producers as the reason.
He also made the playlist on Channel U, and urban music TV channel. When adding the blurb they would say things along the lines of he was once uncool because he was in a boy band but now he's an R&B superstar.
Let's not get carried away though. Yes his music was R&B influenced and his album featured several people you would normally associate with R&B and rap, but it was still pop music. I don't mean that in a bad way, pop doesn't always have to be rubbish. I bought the album and I like the music on it, but given how particular I was back then if it hadn't been marketed as R&B would I have bought it? possibly not.
It would be 4 years until his 2nd album would come out which would top both the UK and USA album charts as well as giving him number one singles both sides of the Atlantic. I was less bothered about specifically what types of music I listened to by then and my love of R&B had certainly dwindled by then. Given how much I liked his first album though I tried to get into the music of his 2nd album but couldn't.
I've not really followed his solo career since then but I'm well aware he's kept it going. What I've heard hasn't been to my taste, but my prediction of a successful solo career proved to be correct.
Ronan Keating's solo career did nose dive eventually so it's fair to say Justin Timberlake has had a more successful solo career than him. What about Robbie Williams?
Well in the UK all bar one of Robbie Williams studio albums have topped the charts, the other reaching number 2. Justin Timberlake has had 2 albums reach number 2 whilst the others have topped the charts. Singles wise Robbie Williams has had 7 chart toppers and Justin Timberlake has had 4.
But you have to factor in that Justin Timberlake is American so looking at his American chart stats may be a better way to look at it. All bar one of his albums topped the charts with the other making number 2. He's also had 5 singles chart toppers.
Who's the more successful one then? I'll let you decide.
Here's my weekly look at the Top 30 from 30 years ago. The plan is for these posts to go out at 17:30 on a Sunday.
Here is the Top 40 in full.