2003: The Good Old Days? - September

In September 2003 there was a pretty even split in number of new entries between dance, rap/R&B, indie and rock/metal plus a handful of more specialist ones. 

I spoke of October being a bit of a 90s hangover with Blur and Suede, well this month we have Ocean Colour Scene and Placebo making their 90s hangover contributions, neither record is any good.

The best record is one I'd forgot was even a Top 40 hit which is "We Want Your Soul" by Freeland. It's odd to thing a respected dance producer like Adam Freeland was ever in the charts given todays standards. We also have some decent dance records from Dutch with "My Time" and Junior Jack with "E Samba".

We have a couple of old timers in the charts with remixes of their old records and both get full marks. They are Elton John with "Are You Ready For Love" which failed to make the Top 40 first time round but topped the charts this time. Then there was the Rolling Stones with "Sympathy For The Devil" which whilst well known was never a hit at the time.

We were at the turning point for the Black Eyed Peas as "Where Is The Love" was the last of their genuinely good records before they went seriously shit. On the other extreme is the So Solid Crew whose UK garage music was questionable but then they came back with "Broken Silence" which is a rap record and the best thing I've ever heard them do.

Onto the "R&B" then and I use it in inverted commas because these records are really pop. We have "Senorita" by Justin Timberlake, a silly but fun record. Then we have a definite guilty pleasure in "Miss Perfect" by Abs who looked like he was trying to be Britain's answer to Justin Timberlake.

One thing I remember being in the news at the time was Justin Timberlake babysitting for Jamelia while she went to some awards or something. I can't find anything on Google so maybe I just imagined it. Anyway Jamelia has the worst record this month with "Superstar". I tried to like it at the time because it was R&B, but in the end I thought who am I kidding, this is shit.

Iron Maiden were on form with "Wildest Dreams" which has sufficiently fast drumming in it, the key to whether an Iron Maiden record is decent or not.

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: 25%

Here's a look at the chart:

Now we have a typical 2004 score. We will get back to the good old days eventually, it's a question of when.