2001: The Good Old Days? - June

In June 2001 I would have more likely described my music taste as dance and rap as opposed to dance, rap and R&B because I had few if any R&B albums in my collection at the time.

The only R&B new entry I like from this month is "Fiesta" by R Kelly which may explain why his "TP-2.com" album was one of the first R&B albums I bought. What I do remember though is making the effort to like artists such as India Arie who made her Top 40 debut this month, but I eventually conceded it was crap.

Rap on the other hand is a different story with all the rap records this month getting full marks. These were "Until the End of Time" by 2Pac, "Lapdance" by Nerd, "So Fresh So Clean" by Outkast and "What's Your Fantasy" by Ludacris. I ended up buying albums by all these artists.

UK garage wise we have the excellent "Do You Really Like It?" by Pied Piper which had been doing the clubs for quite some time by this point. We also had "All I Want" by Mis-Teeq which made me concede I quite like their music. Not so keen on "Ring Ring Ring" by Aaron Soul which sounded a bit like a poor mans Craig David. Then there was "Booo"by Stick & Ms Dynamite which I find irritating.

The best record this month comes from Daft Punk. When it comes to their "Discovery" era people talk about "One More Time" and to an extent "Harder Better Faster Stronger". For me though the best single was the other one "Digital Love" which you never hear played now but that means it's still a pleasure to listen to.

There were several other decent dance records this month, one that deserves a mention is "Muzak" by Trisco which is unlucky not to get best record. Another worth a mention is "10 in 01" by Members of Mayday.

Onto the worst record and that goes to Christina Aguilera, Pink, Lil Kim and Mya with "Lady Marmalade". This was played all the time and I got sick of it very quickly, not to mention the fact it's a poor cover.

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: 28%

Here's a look at the chart:

Could have been better but it's still looking like 2001 is better than any year that came after it.