2004: The Good Old Days? - September

One thing that's for sure before we look at how good the new entries in September 2004 were is that I remember a lot of these tunes well at the time so I was very much following the modern music at the time.

The only exception really is the indie/garage rock records. The only record I could confidently say I knew was "Cold Hard Bitch" by Jet but I don't like it. I remember a lot of the bands such as Embrace, Killers and Razorlight but the music just went in one ear and out the other. I have however awarded half a mark to the Thrills with "Whatever Happened To Corey Haim?" which was pleasant enough without being anything to write home about.

There were slightly more rap & R&B records in there and the only ones which don't get any points are the British ones from The 411, The Pirates and Joss Stone. Houston and Cassidy get half marks for their respective records and the rest get full marks.

Amongst these is "My Place" by Nelly and Jaheim which I considered to be good enough to buy the "Suit" album. I already owned the respective albums from Twista and Kanye West on which their respective singles appeared. I even liked "Leave (Get Out)" by JoJo, a 13 year old singer making her debut. I stopped short of buying her album though because I had the feeling anything else she'd do would be shit, and it was.

We have to turn to the dance music world for the best record though which comes from Armand Van Helden with "My My My". This came at a time when I'd given up on hardcore for good and found myself enjoying the slower paced house music much more.

Almost contradicting the above statement is giving full marks to The Prodigy with "Girls". This was supposed to be a throwback to their rave days but Liam Howlett has since disowned this period. It's nowhere near as good as their earlier material but I do like it.

Speaking of disowning your music moves me nicely on to Eric Prydz with his chart topper "Call On Me". It's not your typical Eric Prydz record, it's a commercial one made to sell and I'm with Eric Prydz with this one, it's not very good.

I've given half marks to Dizzee Rascal with "Stand Up Tall". This is a garage record and gave my hope that a garage revival was on it's way but it sadly never happened.

There's enough point scoring records this month that it would be too much to mention them all but there's always time to mention the worst record. This month it goes to Sugababes with "Caught in a Moment". I actually liked their debut hit "Overload" but their music went quickly downhill after that. This dreary nonsense made me come to terms with the fact we're unlikely to hear a decent Sugababes record again, and we didn'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: 26%

Here's a look at the chart:

Now this is the 3rd best month so far. 2004 is starting to look better than 2005 at least.