2002: The Good Old Days? - April

In May we'd gone back to the UK garage era which helped give it the best score in 2002 so far. I did however mention the latter stages of this era will give us records which contributed to the genres demise and this is what we see in April.

There's "Ride Wit Us" by the So Solid Crew who were seen by many as the reason for its demise. We also had "Champagne Dance" by Pay As U Go, another collective with lots of members including future grime artist Wiley. It wasn't just the crews that led to the demise, it was also everyone jumping on the bandwagon. The other garage single of the month was "I Can't Wait" by Ladies First who were basically a girl group doing garage. None of these records get any points.

The best record is a drum & bass one which is "Shake Ur Body" by Shy FX & T-Power, an example of drum & bass being musical without being too watered down. Another dance record to get full marks is "So I Begin" by Galleon though it could do without the vocals.

Maxi Jazz is involved in 2 records that get half marks. There's "One Step Too Far" by Faithless which features Dido, the sister of Rollo from Faithless. Then there's "My Culture" by 1 Giant Leap which also featured Robbie Williams. Barthezz does his similar sounding to "On The Move" follow up with "Infected" which also gets half marks.

I do however now think I spoke too soon in Mays post about being back in a more credible era for dance music. Lots of other dance records but they all get zero. One example is "Lazy" by X-Press 2 ft David Byrne, a record loved by many dance music fans but I've always hated it.

Just half a mark from the rap world which comes from Outkast & Killer Mike with "The Whole World" which isn't quite good enough to get full marks. Former drum & bass producer Adam F had gone into rap music collaborating with Lil Mo on "Where's My..." which isn't to my liking. Not so keen on "Let's Push Things Forward" by The Streets either.

The only R&B point comes from the most unlikely source, N Sync. It was their final Top 40 hit, the Neptunes produced "Girlfriend" which was basically a warm up to Justin Timberlake's solo career. The only other R&B record was "U Turn" by Usher which isn't to my liking.

No other records get full marks so that just leaves the worst record. This month it's Michelle Branch with "Everywhere". It's one of those cringeworthy records you would expect to find in a cringeworthy high school movie at the time. I'm even less tolerant of that type of music now as I was back then.

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: 12%

Here's a look at the chart:

Oh dear, what a terrible month. It wouldn't get this bad again until December 2005. It's going to take a remarkable first quarter for 2002 to be convincing as the good old days.