2005: The End? - November

With Kate Bush, Billy Bragg, Eurythmics, Status Quo, Madonna and Bananarama all having Top 40 hits this month one could be forgiven for thinking this is 1985 rather than 2005. Unfortunately all of them except Bananarama left their better music in 1985. Like their other hit in 2005, I think Bananarama had improved and they get half marks once again.

In August I purposely didn't pick Goldfrapp for best record because I knew a better one was coming later in the year. Well here it is, "Number 1" is probably the best single Goldfrapp ever released.

The indie/garage rock genre was still the most prolific though to a lesser extent than earlier in the year. Just one of those records made it onto Top of the Pops which was "Wicked Soul" by Kubb. I thought what the fuck is that? Never heard of the song or band, but I wasn't missing out on much.

There is however one decent record from that genre which is "Local Boy" by Rifles. I remember that video of an old man going into one side of the pub by himself whilst a crowd of young people are watching the band in the other room. Back then I would have been one of the young people watching the band, these days I'd probably be the old man. Happens to most of us.

I'm not a big fan of 21st century Green Day but one exception is "Jesus Of Suburbia". I still think of that as my idea, when I was in a punk band heavily influenced by Green Day I wrote a 10 minute long song with different sections, my band mates dismissed it as a terrible idea but here's Green Day doing the same thing.

Onto the dance, rap and R&B and there's not much to say really. We have a terrible remake of "Pump up the Jam" and "Ai No Corrida" in the dance world that gets no points. R&B has a past his best Craig David, a probably at his best but not very good Ray J and a dreary record from Corinne Bailey Rae.

The only record that gets a point in the rap world is "Can I Have It Like That" by Pharrell & Gwen Stefani, with the latter making perhaps the smallest contribution a featured artist has ever had on a record, she simply speaks the words "you got it like that". 

All that remains is to pick the worst song which is "Wake Up" by Hilary Duff. I believe she was some Disney actress come singer and those sort of records just make me angry.

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: 14%

Here's a look at the chart:

The scores gone back down but still slightly better than June.