2004: The Good Old Days? - May

Let's take a moment to recap the journey so far. I tested the theory that the quality of the charts plummeted in 2005. In truth there was a gradual decline and then in Oct 2007 we had the first month where I didn't like a single new entry. Then I decided to go back in time to 2004 to see if the charts were better than what followed. Prior to the slump in the run up to Christmas this generally proved to be the case. Also based on the Top 40 in the first week of July I found 2004 to be better than a lot of 20th Century years. Now I've gone back to May, this happened:

This was perhaps the last prolific month in the Top 40 for trance music. We're talking the commercial rubbish being churned out in large quantities, a sort of predecessor to EDM. I have however managed to find a point for Oceanlab with "Satellite", the rest all get zero. The only other dance music point goes to Armand Van Helden with "Hear My Name".

Rap wise we fare better with the best record going to Busta Rhymes & Method Man with "What's Happenin'". There's also full marks for Cassidy & R Kelly with "Hotel" whilst Chingy & J Weav get half a point for "One Call Away".

Onto R&B and it's actually quite tragic. The only point goes to The 411 & Ghostface Killah with "On My Knees" which I feel needs an explanation. I like the sampling and the sampling is the chorus plus it's a decent rap from Ghostface Killah. The singing from The 411 is terrible.

The worst record is also an R&B number from Christina Milian with "Dip It Low". Just a few months prior I'd seen her debut album in a record shop for just £2 which implied her brief music career was finished. Unfortunately that wasn't the case and she returned with this really poor effort.

The only other record to get full marks was one that wasn't from 2004 but was charting for the first time then. Nick Drake died in 1974 and had recorded the tune "Magic" in 1969 and was reworked by Richard Hewson.

There's also half marks for The Corrs with "Summer Sunshine" and for Kasabian with "Club Foot".

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:

2004 was starting to look consistent until this month. It's worse than much of 2005.