2007: The End? - October

For the majority of months in 2007 so far around a third of the new entries have been indie. Not in October though, in fact there were just as many rap and R&B new entries. On paper this should mean good chart, but in practice it isn't.

None of the rap and R&B records are any good, they either come from artists whose best music was behind them such as Kanye West or Will I Am (as part of Black Eyed Peas), mixed bag artists doing the rubbish side of their work i.e. Timbaland and then those who were never any good in the first place such as Rihanna.

I would also hazard a guess that an indie fan would say amongst the new entries this month we have Manic Street Preachers and Stereophonics past their best and the new breed such as Jack Penate are not really proper indie music. Whatever they think, it's zeroes all around from me.

Of course we know by now that it's the dance music that's most likely to give us points and it would help if there was any. OK an exaggeration, but the only dance records were Ida Corr vs Fedde Le Grande with "Let Me Think About It", a Galaxy Chart record I never liked, and Freemasons with their usual commercial rubbish which this time is a cover of "Uninvited" by Alanis Morissette.

Without dance music giving any points, where are the points going to come from?

The answer is simple, nowhere. We have finally reached what is possibly the first month of the UK Top 40 where every single new entry is rubbish. 

All that remains is to pick the worst record, but first I will go through some strong candidates. One record you still can't avoid to this very day is "Valarie" by Mark Ronson & Amy Winehouse which is one I've always hated. The fact its a nod to the good old days annoys me more because what made them "good" old days was not having rubbish like this.

Britney Spears enters her "It's Britney Bitch" phase which is naturally shit, but possibly influenced the modern female pop singer to go straight into that phase. 

One thing I did enjoy in 2007 was the MTV comedy show "Strutter". One thing I remember Mike Strutter saying is that it's not known whether Jennifer Lopez is most famous for her singing, her acting or her ass, but one thing is for sure: they all stink of fuckin shit. I agree, yet somehow she's avoided having the worst record and she doesn't quite get it this month either.

Beating all these to worst record is Gabriella & Troy with "Gotta Go My Own Way". These are characters from High School Musical and is such a cringeworthy record. I was far too old for any of that nonsense by 2007.

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: 0%

Here's a look at the chart:

We can therefore say the charts well and truly died in October 2007. Despite some better than expected scores in 2007 we are still saying that in the best month that 71% of the new entries were shit. It looks like the charts had already declined by the start of 2005 compared to the 90s when it wasn't unusual for half the charts to be decent. To know how we got there we need to see whether the charts in 2004 were better. Join me next week for 2004: The Good Old Days?