2005: The End? - April

I must have had enough of listening to Galaxy FM on my phone by April 2005. The only new entry in the Top 40 that month that reminds me of that time is "Let Me Love You" by Mario which is also the only R&B record that month which I like.

It was a time when a friend who was also into rap and R&B was telling me there wasn't much in the way of new music taking his fancy. He reluctantly said the best R&B record of the moment was "It's Like That" by Mariah Carey. I will concede it's probably the most convincing R&B record she's done, but not for me. Sounds like it could be a Beyonce record which is never a good thing.

Rap wise there are 2 records which get full marks, but I regard both as 2004 records because they were taken from 2004 albums that I own. There's "Caught Up" which turned out to be the final  Top 40 hit to date for Ja Rule. There's also "Hope" by Twista, though I do prefer the album version which has a Cee-Lo singing the chorus rather than Faith Evans.

I was getting back into dance music more but not really the records getting in the charts. It was a bit thin on the ground dance record wise, but the only one I truly like is "Robot Rock" by Daft Punk. There's also half marks for "Give Me Your Love" by XTM & DJ Chucky presents Annia, the less known but just as cheesy follow up to "Fly on the Wings of Love" but good fun nonetheless.

Other dance records are "I Like The Way" by Bodyrockers which has always irritated me, "So Much Love To Give" which is an AATW records cheesfest by Freeloaders who were N-Trance under another name, "I See Girls" by Studio B which is just commercial crap, "Adagio For Strings" by Tiesto which is an example of why trance has a bad name and "Avalon" by Juliet which is too vocal heavy for my liking.

Once again indie/garage rock is the genre with the most records and includes "Neighbourhood #2 (Laika)" by Arcade Fire which gets full marks. There's also a few indie records which get half marks.

Picking the best record is a tough choice because none of the records with full marks are what I'd call stand out. That was what was going wrong with music really, some solid records but nothing that made me think wow. I'm going to pick "Robot Rock" by Daft Punk.

Picking worst record is also difficult because of the sheer quantity of crap. I'm going to pick "Shiver" by Natalie Imbruglia mainly because she was being portrayed as a serious musician, but she wasn't.

Here's a list of the records with the best on top, worst at the bottom and the good ones in green, OK ones in amber and rubbish ones in red (and in no particular order):

Score: 18%

Now we're 4 months in I think now is the time to feature a graph to show how the years progressing:

We started consistent but now the fall begins.