Nos. 5-1 and Credits
5. PANJABI MC – “Mundian To Bach Ke” Score: 6.73 / Controversy: 2.59
A Bollywood Knight Rider film please! 10 (IS)
How glorious it was hearing this booming out of cars all over New York City this spring, everybody wired roughly the same way at the same time, and to something not in English or Spanish. We Americans really have “world music” in the mass media pipeline now and it’s not modernist Brazilian singer-songwriters or East-African guitar gods but it’s the Diwali rhythm and it’s people choreographing belly-dancing to Indienserie (cf. Truth Hurts) and it’s the Knight Rider theme with tablas. 9.0 (MD)
Living in Edmonton is to hear bhnagra on the edges, every class had a few Indian kids, and they would take you to the ethnic grocery stores with badly labeled tapes on a back shelf. You would pick one up and have the most complex rush since garlic Nan mopping up cheap curry. Purists bitch that it is not strictly bhangra, but anyone who puts the magic on hip hop radio deserves some credit – they should play this at the beginning of Post Colonialism classes, cause I cant think of a better example of east-west commerce. 8 (AE)
Top tune which shows that if you stick around long enough the good rises to the top. 8 (PB)
Where’s Apache Indian now? 8 (TH)
Forever doomed to be the song played by the token Asian family in Eastenders. Think the bassline could be faster. 7 (SC)
I felt obliged to like this, therefore I don’t. 4 (AC)
04. TaTu – “Not Gonna Get Us” Score: 7.15 / Controversy: 2.53
It is a post queer anthem of liberation, it is another fuck you I am a misunderstood teenage song, it is a discussion of media stars in an age that savages them, it is an ode to the spirit of the Russian people. None of this matters cause the music is deeply infectious, and then they all lez up not caring that the world is falling in love with them. 10 (AE)
Good old Trevor – let’s hope this means his Uberpop will stick around. Who would have thought that the Russian Invasion would turn out to be so pleasant? 9 (MA)
They’re not actually Russians you know! 8 (PB)
Not gonna get us a number one? Gone off it somewhat. 8 (SC)
Hard to hate winsome Russki pronunciation. Dizzee Rascal could learn a thing or two from this re. Production like bombs going off. 7 (TH)
’03 Bonnie and Clyde. 6 (JB)
A weak follow up single, just a bunch of angsty shouting. The cracks were already appearing. Bye bye TATU. 5 (JL)
03. JUNIOR SENIOR – “Move Your Feet” Score: 7.89 / Controversy: 2.55
Blimey Europeans are great. They can even do Big Beat right. 10 (TE)
I no longer need to ask the Doctor for Prozac. 10 (AC)
Yay! Top sunny scandopop, extra point for the squirrel in the video. 10 (SH)
Big with the under-10s I hear. Fab. 9 (mainly for the squirrel) (MH)
Could maybe stand to be a little shorter, but you’ll only notice this if you play it thirty times in a row. 9 (JB)
What a joy to see this pair entertaining the youngsters with their bouncing and strutting! 8 (MA)
Honorary New Yorkers. They’ve so perfectly caught that vibe of so many anthemic New York records from twenty years ago — “I.O.U.” and “That’s the Joint” and “Freedom” and such — that it richly deserves its place in Yankee Stadium. And just like most New Yorkers my age, it’s ersatz in a faintly distasteful way. 7.7 (MD)
It’s the credible ‘Fast Food Song’. Just admit it. 6 (JL)
02. BEYONCE feat JAY-Z – “Crazy In Love” Score: 8.22 / Controversy: 2.24
The template for perfect pop in 2003. 10 (TH)
GREAT BIG RIFF! Hit of the summer. 10 (SH)
A good Christian girl who gets her baps out at every opportunity. 9 (MH)
Did I mention it doesn’t have a chorus? [Pete you are mental. – Ed.] Oddly one of the R’n’B/Rap crossovers where the rap bit is as good as the R’n’B. 8 (PB)
Yeah! This is great, full on sass attack, it’s got bounce and omphh and booty. Jay-Z adds his usual rap about being a little bit crazy but much better than anyone else, it’s comforting in a way, like the leaves falling from the trees in autumn. If I was so inclined I ‘d mention that I really like the video. I really like the video. 8 (JL)
Do you like music? Do you like fun? How can this not be Number One? Beyonce know how to play their brass instruments. 8 (MA)
+10 for brass section, -2 for Jay-Z = 8 (AC)
fanfare horns horns horns, it announces
itself as yes a big hit single oh yeah here it comes here we go let’s rock n roll gonna make you sweat and keeps going long enough to distract from the lack of “it”s arrival. A touch better than “Bootylicious” (which never actually got bootylicious), but doesn’t approach Destiny’s Child’s pre-Survivor singles which knew how to work smarter, not harder. 6 (JB)
The lyrics are cliched, the music is cliched, the dance moves are cliched. I blame Jay Z for destroying our favorite pop diva. 3 (AE)
01. GIRLS ALOUD – “No Good Advice” Score: 8.30 / Controversy: 2.12
Starts off with a classic borrowed pop hook, but then every minute something even better comes along, building into a towering ziggurat of hooktastic grandeur. The final spoken bit is the most exciting and coolest moment this year. 10 (TE)
It’s a train it’s a spaceship it’s a bullet! A silver one. In today’s adventure GA board the Silver Nihilism Express and bulletspeed their way into posterity by being the gleamingest pop mannequins ever but also by releasing the best single of the year/decade/century/millennium etc etc etc. A record for boarding a silvery bulletshuttlespaceship and hypersonic-ing your way into the furthest darkest twinkliest reaches of the universe, leaving fingerprint-free chromey stardust sneers in your wake. Silver. Bullet. Speed. It’s all these, and it’s as perfect as Stuff gets. Did I say silver? 10 Joker. (AL)
Deserved victor in the tepid pop rivalry. Thank God, no, thank Cowell someone remembered to bring the hooks back, even if they had to borrow them from their parents’ School Disco. 10 (MA)
I’d like to replace the hard nut Geordie when she gets banged up…fantastic. 10 (MH)
I listen to Capital you know. 9 (IS)
You’ve never lived unless you’ve heard this song bellowed by fifteen lesbians in a rough Bristol boozer after a fight. Could benefit from better beats but grebt. One True Voice can eat their fuc. 8 (PB)
While the NYC underground steals imspiration and bad licks from the rubbish difficult sound of indie 1981, GA get it right by recreating Kim Wilde. 7 (TH)
I have some good advice; please don’t ever do any more songs with such a terrible spoken word ending again. It may have worked for Atomic Kitten in ‘Whole Again’, but it didn’t work here. One fears that they may have peaked with ‘Sounds’, a shame. 6 (JL)
Growly female voices make my heart hurt with desire, and the electronic noise
that surrounds it is genuinely intruguing. 5 (AE)
You Have Been Watching
Magnus Anderson (MA); Pete Baran (PB); James Blount (JB); Sarah C (SC); Alix Campbell (AC); Mike Daddino (MD); Anthony Easton (AE); Tom Ewing (TE); Meg Hewitt (MH); Steve Hewitt (SH); Tim Hopkins (TH); Jel (JL); Alex Linsdell (AL); Isabel Smith (IS)
Thanks to Alan, Minna and everyone who voted at the club night. Thanks also to Parker Place for letting us play the Fast Food Rockers.
Compiled and edited by Tom Ewing.