POP EYE 7/1/2001
Right you fuckers listen up. It’s January. Outside it is cold. I am forced to wear a coat which makes me look like a 1982 Echo And The Bunnymen fan. The potential indignity of falling plum on my arse is near-constant. British weather being what it is these conditions will hold until April, which will instead see downpours of Calcuttan proportions. Taking all this into consideration, would it be too much to ask of the great British public not to put a trance record at No.1 in the first week of the year? Rui De Silva feat. Cassandra obeys the blustery laws of trance to the letter: as such there is little or nothing to be said about it other than GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE TOP TEN. 2001 is the year of Zero Ibiza Tolerance. (See also a second Fragma single.)
It’s particularly sad to see Rui and Cass up top in the first week of January, which by time-honoured chart tradition is reserved for unlikely indie acts and washed-up no-hopers. Into the former category come White Town and Cornershop, into the latter come Blondie, and of course the position is not known as the “Babylon Zoo slot” for nothing, Jas Mann’s grisly outfit combining no-hopeness and indiedom with emetic effectiveness.
Steps are therefore beaten into second place, a shame since it’s one of their better songs. “One of their better songs” in the case of Steps means 6 out of 10 rather than 5, since they stick to that range like limpets, save when ambition gets the better of them and they raid Chic’s dressing up box instead of decking out like a BBC2 costume drama. H gets to do a solo bit on this one, be warned.
Some acts are trying to take advantage of the B.Zoo slot, though – well, one act, those cheeky monkeys the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who laughably scrape to No.31 with another slice of superannuated fuck-rock nonsense. The mind recoils from the tiny number of singles they must have shifted in order to make No.31 at this time of year, the useless fuckscrapes.
Other than that, little to report – all your Christmas favourites linger like cold turkey (the horribleness of which foodstuff made it euphemism-of-choice when the smack comedown slang was being parcelled out, and what better way to describe the sensation of finding a “Whassup” parody still in the Top 30?). Over the next couple of weeks we may expect a thaw in the frosted-over charts and perhaps even the Baha Men slipping from the Top 10. Until then, pip-pip.
THE FIVE BEST
Destiny’s Child – “Independent Women” (10)
Britney Spears – “Stronger” (13)
Wu-Tang Clan – “Gravel Pit” (19)
Daft Punk – “One More Time” (26)
Jay-Z – “I Just Wanna Love You” (32)
WORST THING EVER
Toploader – “Dancing In The Moonlight” (21) (cf. especially that fucking horrible advert with the Jamie Oliver lookalike young urbanite being duped into eating diet spread. Why is this still in our charts?)