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:
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