2004: The Good Old Days? - March

In April 2004 there were several candidates for best record which made picking one a tough choice. Whilst March has some good records, none of them would stand a chance at best record had they been released in April.

I've picked "Black Cherry" by Goldfrapp. I'm a big fan of Goldfrapp but "Black Cherry" is nowhere near my favourite tune of theirs. When comparing Goldfrapp to chart music in general though they're always likely to come out on top.

Just the one dance record gets full marks and it's a cheesy one which is "Look At Us" by Northern Heightz. I can't help but like it, it's a fun record. There's half marks for JX with "Restless", alright but no "Son of a Gun" or "There's Nothing I Won't Do". 

The rest is AATW type nonsense and one of those AATW records is the worst record. Kelly Llorenna sang on "Set You Free" by N-Trance and therefore gave me a positive impression at first. Her solo hits though were terrible including her cover of "This Time I Know It's For Real". My positive impression of her had long gone by the time this came out. 

In the rap and R&B world it came as no surprise at the time that Nerd would have a decent record with their comeback single "She Wants To Move". What did surprise me at the time was liking an Usher record in "Yeah". The production from Lil Jon no doubt helps as does his shouting of a few random words.

What was perhaps even more surprising was 2 decent records that came courtesy of Roger from Sister Sister. We had Roger himself aka Marques Houston with "Clubbin", I didn't actually realise he was Roger when I first heard it. Then we have "Badaboom" by B2k on which Marques Houston was a writer. 

Simon from Blue went into music management and gave us a male/female vocal group called VS whose members included 18 year old future JLS member Marvin Humes. Sounds awful, but their debut single "Love You Like Mad" quickly became a guilty pleasure of mine.

No Doubt did a cover of "It's My Life" by Talk Talk which is one I've always considered to be pretty decent. We also have Kraftwerk in the charts with "Aerodynamik" which is a decent tune.

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: 23%

Here's a look at the chart:

Looking like April was a one off then and we're back to 2004 looking better than what came after but not much better.