Popular '02

Any chance the login can be sorted? Tried emailing as suggested & got bounced back?

I remember the re-release of My Sweet Lord getting to number 1 but it is a distant memory of my late adolescence, so the fact that it reached #1 in the same year as a Girls Aloud song is kind of blowing my mind right now. I was definitely an adult for the entirety of their career. I obviously aged a lot that year.

Not sure if MadMap is still around, so at risk of stealing their thunder, I’ll post the Billboard Hot 100 #1s of 2002 for the sake of comparison:

Nickelback – “How You Remind Me” [2 weeks, 4 total]
Carryover from 2001, #1 song of 2002. I think it’s probably the least bad of their big hits, but still pretty easy to mock.

Usher – “U Got It Bad” [5 weeks]
Continuing his “U” phase. Pretty so-so R&B ballad, I don’t consider it one of his best.

Ja Rule feat. Ashanti – “Always on Time” [2 weeks]
A song I remember being played a lot of The Box music channel (remember that?), an internet music critic I follow who reviews rap songs covered this song and discussed how this is what he calls a “thugs need love, too” song, where it has this awkward juxtaposition of being sweet sounding for a female audience but still be hard-edged enough for the male rap fans, and the end result comes out hitting a weird note.

Jennifer Lopez feat. Ja Rule – “Ain’t It Funny (Remix)” [6 weeks]
One of two songs where J-Lo had a previous release completely reworked into these midtempo meh-fests.

Ashanti – “Foolish” [10 weeks]
Another song that I remember getting loads of airtime on The Box. I actually haven’t heard this in a long time and revisiting it, there’s nothing much interesting outside of a sample that Biggie also used for one of his hits. Although apparently it was massive in the States as it ended as the #2 song of the year.

Nelly – “Hot in Herre” [7 weeks]
Ended as the #3 song of the year. Easily one of the most iconic hiphop songs of the decade and I think it holds up pretty well.

Nelly feat. Kelly Rowland – “Dilemma” [10 weeks n/c]
Already discussed.

Kelly Clarkson – “A Moment Like This” [2 weeks]
Funny we’ve discussed the “talent show winner gets song about this being their moment” trope a lot in the “Sound of the Underground” entry. Us Brits know it better as the song Leona was given when she won X Factor. Personally, I can’t bring myself to listen to it, it’s such a painful cliche to the point where it’s not even a song anymore.

Eminem – “Lose Yourself” [8 weeks, 12 total]
Already discussed.

Overall a pretty scant list compared to the UK one.

Ah The Vines, proving that the Indie Landfill was actually deep enough to reach the other side of the planet.

I think I’d characterise this as a fairly undistinguished year of number ones, at best.

“More Than A Woman” (a solid 10 IMO, towering over everything else here) and “Freak Like Me” and “Sound of the Underground” and, to a slightly lesser extent “Kiss Kiss” and “Just Like A Pill” suggest the future of pop, or at least the exciting bit of it, or at any rate the vocal contribution thereto, is female.

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Now, my annual comparison of the UK and Scottish no 1s.

Scotland missed out on the following UK-wide chart-toppers making it to the top:

1) Aaliyah – “More Than A Woman”
2) Liberty X – “Just A Little”
3) Blazin’ Squad – “Crossroads”
4) Daniel Bedingfield – “If You’re Not The One”
5) Eminem – “Lose Yourself”

Whereas, conversely, the following topped the Scottish charts but not the UK-wide ones.

1) Hermes House Band – “Country Roads”
2) DJ Alligator Project – “The Whistle Song (Blow My Whistle Bitch)”
3) Ronan Keating featuring Lulu – “We’ve Got Tonight”
4) Cheeky Girls – “Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum)”

To my ears the UK-wide list is slightly better.

Flowers in the Window is definitely a She’s in Fashion/My Favourite Game/Grace/Clocks etc. scenario. I still hear it a lot over better charting singles.