2004: The Good Old Days? - January

At the start of 2004 we are seeing where the mid-00s indie boom all began. Franz Ferdinand, Zutons, Snow Patrol, Razorlight and Keane were amongst the biggest of these new indie bands and all made their Top 40 debuts in the first 2 months of 2004.

In January 2004 there were just 31 new entries which is the lowest in 2004 and lower than any month in 2005. No genre really dominates, it's quite evenly spread. Whilst it lacks quantity, what about quality?

Well lets start with the best record which is "Runnin' (Dying To Live)" by 2Pac & Notorious BIG. At the time I was skeptical before listening, the posthumous 2Pac and Notorious BIG collaboration had been done before and this time it was produced by Eminem whose production on "The Eminem Show" was pretty poor. However once I heard it I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was.

Just one other rap new entry which came from DMX and Swizz Beatz with "Get It On The Floor" which also gets full marks. A good month for rap then, but what about R&B?

Pretty rubbish actually. Again there was just 2 new entries, one from the god awful Beyonce with "Me Myself And I" and the other was "Milkshake" by Kelis. I really tried to like the latter at the time but I've finally just accepted that I find it shit.

Onto the dance music and the only one which gets full marks is "Good Luck" by Basement Jaxx. I've given half marks to Flip & Fill with "Irish Blue", the vocal trance concept works better with MC Junior on vocals it seems. The vocal trance of Motorcycle with "As The Rush Comes" on the other hand is fuckin awful.

The one remaining record to get full marks is Sean Paul with "I'm Still In Love With You". I have his "Dutty Rock" album, the days when he was good.

Time for the worst record then which goes to Amy Studt with "All I Wanna Do". It's a dreadful cover of the Sheryl Crow record which I'd never heard before and hope to never hear again.

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: 19%

Here's a look at the chart:

We've now looked at the whole of 2004 and the question is was 2004 the good old days. We based on this I'd say no. It had it's moments (i.e. April) but when I was doing my Top 30 reviews in 1993 the score for the final week that year was 32% and was the worst week of the 90s to that point. We've only exceeded that score for one month in 2004. It does generally look better than what came after, but not good enough to be considered the good old days. There's only one thing for it, join me next week for 2003: The Good Old Days?