2002: The Good Old Days? - July

In many ways my music tastes are a little older than my years. When I talk about the good old days of rave for example I talk of a time when I was too young to actually go to a rave but was always listening to the tapes. There are however some things I was the right age for, one of which was the Fatboy Slim era.

It was July 2002 when he played to 250k people on Brighton Beach and being in my early 20s at the time I was the right sort of age to be there. Unfortunately I was living the other end of the country in Newcastle at the time and couldn't be bothered to go all that way. 

My pick for the best record was the one Fatboy Slim opened his set with which was "It Just Won't Do" by Tim Deluxe & Sam Obernik. Despite not being there I do hold some nostalgia for it and have watched it on YouTube many times.

Dance music was the most prolific genre in July and it also contributed most of the points to this months score. Just missing out on best record was "LK (Carolina Carol Bela)" by DJ Marky & XRS & Stamina MC. Also getting full marks were Beginerz with "Reckless Girl" and Fischerspooner with "Emerge".

There's half points for Rob Dougan with "Clubbed To Death" and DJ Shog with "This Is My Sound". Inevitably there was rubbish too such as "Shooting Star" by Flip & Fill which was the first of many watered down covers of happy hardcore tunes. 

What about the rap and R&B then? Well rap contributes no points because there weren't any rap records. R&B on the other hand was a mixed bag.

The R&B points come from Ashanti and Alicia Keys, both records reminding me of a seaside trip I went on that wasn't to Brighton that summer. Another that reminds me a little of that trip is the worst record which is "Work It Out" by Beyonce. It's not the worst thing she's done by any means but this is where her solo career began, without it there may have been no solo career which would have been a good thing.

The Pet Shop Boys had their most unusual Top 40 hit with "I Get Along". I say unusual because they swapped the synths for guitars which is very unlike them. I do quite like it though.

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: 21%

Here's a look at the chart:

Halfway though the year and we're yet to get above 25%. Then again we didn't in the 2nd half of 2003 either. We should hopefully at least see an improvement in the first half of the year.