2004: The Good Old Days? - December

Lets take a moment to recap. I considered 2005 to be the year that chart music truly went downhill so decided to look at the new entries month by month to pinpoint when it took a turn for the worst. It turned out October was the best month that year and the decline that followed was in the run up to Christmas where we would expect a decline anyway. Then I continued into 2006 which showed some pretty low percentages some months. This led to the question when will we reach a month where I don't like anything which happened in October 2007.

Opting to go no further in the knowledge the charts haven't recovered since one outstanding question was just how good were the charts before 2005? This is the start of my look back at the charts in the run up to 2005 with more of the same.

In the journey so far indie/garage rock has been the prominent genre most months. In December 2004 though there were more rap and R&B new entries than indie/garage rock.

Now I'm back in the days when I was into rap and R&B this is a good place to start. Perhaps the most pure rap record is from the Beastie Boys with "An Open Letter To NYC", a great record that gets full marks. On the more pop rap side of things we have decent records from Snoop Dogg with "Drop It Like It's Hot" and Ice Cube with "You Can Do It". Then we have rubbish from Nelly with "Tilt Ya Head Back" and Jay-Z ft Linkin Park with "Numb/Encore".

From the UK we have The Streets with "Could Well Be In" which is OK and we have some comedy rap from Goldie Lookin Chain with "You Knows I Loves You" which I can't say I'm a fan of.

The R&B is more of the pop variety but we have "Obsession (Si Es Amor)" by 3rd Wish which gets best record and I have it on CD courtesy of it featuring on their follow up single "I Am" which didn't chart and was actually the last CD single I bought. We also have "Right To Be Wrong" by Joss Stone which is crap.

On the dance side of things it's mostly cheese with the only decent records being "Rocker" by Alter Ego and "Stay With You" by Lemon Jelly.

Brian Wilson has a solo version of "Good Vibrations" which doesn't sound an awful lot different to the Beach Boys original which shouldn't be surprising given he was on it. That gets full marks. There's also "Thinking Of You" by Status Quo which sounds like 99% of their other songs but I don't mind it and it gets half marks.

This just leaves the worst record which goes to Geri Halliwell with "Ride It". It reminds me that the charts had lots of crap in the good old days including records from the Spice Girls and their respective solo careers.

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: 17%

Here's a look at the chart:

Not the best start, it's worse than most months in 2005. Then again it is the Christmas slump so things should improve.