2005 was the year I really started to lose interest in mainstream music. When I did my best year search for the charts I found every year after 2005 was worse than it and only 2 years that preceded it were worse. It was the year Top of the Pops was moved to Sundays before it was laid to rest a year later. It was also the last year I bought a CD single which was of a record that never made the Top 40. There was also very little to inspire me on the music channels and I found myself more drawn to the more retro channels like Magic and Smash Hits.
It gave me and idea, when exactly in 2005 did it go wrong and why?
I've therefore decided to look at every Top 40 hit of the year and do my usual thing of rating good, OK or rubbish. I'm going to do this month by month and come up with a percentage score as not all months will have an equal number of Top 40 hits.
OK let's start with January where we had 40 new entries so like going through a Top 40. The first eye opener is just how many records I don't remember. This was a time when I watched Top of the Pops every Friday I wasn't going out. Thanks to the list of Top of the Pops appearances on the Popscene website I can see that only 13 of these records were shown on the show. Furthermore the lowest charting single to appear on Top of the Pops made number 9.
At the time I would describe my music tastes as dance, rap and R&B so there's a good place to start. We have the last Top 40 hit from Roni Size with "No More" which I'd say is the best record that month. The only other drum & bass hit of the year was the debut for Pendulum, so we're basically seeing the end of the golden era for drum & bass in the charts about to make way for the crap era.
We also have solid efforts from The Chemical Brothers with "Galvanize" and Narcotic Thrust with "When The Dawn Breaks". What isn't so good is a pointless 2005 version of "The Key The Secret" by Urban Cookie Collective and that terrible idea of taking a dance classic in "Strings of Life" and sticking some crappy vocals on it resulting in "Strings Of Life (Stronger On My Own)" by Soul Central & Kathy Brown.
This was an era where DJs were going out of fashion and guitars were coming back in. This was reflected in the Electroclash genre which was a form of dance music with instruments. We have "E Talking" by Soulwax who started off a rock band and got more electro as time went on and are pretty good in my opinion. Then there's Scissor Sisters with "Filthy/Gorgeous" which isn't my cup of tea, nor is "Pornography" by Client.
Sticking with the guitars in concept, I remember indie music being big at the time but I count 14 of the 40 hits as being part of the indie or garage rock genres. Only 3 of those made it onto Top of the Pops, the yawnfest that is "Wires" by Athlete, the way past their best Manic Street Preachers with "Empty Souls" and "Cutt Off" by Kasabian which actually isn't bad. I also managed to find half points for "Evil" by Interpol and "Alive And Amplified" by Mooney Suzuki, neither of which I was familiar with beforehand.
Rap wise it's all from the UK with "Colossal Insight" by Roots Manuva which is OK and the grime record "Pow! (Forward)" by Lethal Bizzle which is pretty awful.
R&B wise we have a solitary record which is the chart topping Crunk&B record "Goodies" by Ciara & Petey Pablo. I really made the effort to like this record at the time but could never get into it and after hearing it again I still can't.
Erasure have a hit with "Breathe" which isn't as good as their earlier material but still just about worthy of a point. We had the re-releases of Elvis number ones which were a mixed bag.
I've already mentioned Roni Size as being the best record so what remains is for me to pick the worst. Lucie Silvas is a name that sounds like she should be a dance singer, but she isn't. She made dreary music that was just about as bad as it got at the time. It's therefore her record "Breathe In" which is the worst of this lot.
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):
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