Gezza
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Post by Gezza on May 14, 2012 17:58:02 GMT 1
26TH APRIL- AMERICAN LIFE- Madonna (1 wk)A song that is rather like marmite! Where to start with "American Life"....well the parallel's are rather striking in terms of where Madonna was in 2003 and where she is in 2012, essentially producing music which is failing to shift beyond her fanbase whilst the press proclaims that it is over for her career. In all fairness she does rather get herself into these scrapes, the truth is that whilst we're prepaired for her to go out on a limb lyrically and visually we are certainly not allowing Madonna to veer to far from her pop roots. Whilst many an act of the time (and indeed now) would have got a heavyweight rapper in to do the rapping in this track she typically takes on the role herself, whilst it isn't awful it isn't good either, a wise popstar knows their limitations but Madonna never has. In a way this is good, it's a trait which has allowed her to become probably the most influential female popstar of the last 30 years, but what is does expose her to is the fact that her failures are far more visible than most popstars. The fact that she dares to attept them is what keeps fans, and to a large extend the wider record buyer population, willing to continue to grant her more leeway than we do the average popstar. "American Life" (the single) suffers a similar fault to "Gimmie All Your Love" it's melodic and perfectly acceptable single but as a lead single we simply expect something more than we do of most singers, the baggage of being a "Musical Icon" comes with its downside! The single is, ultimately, lightweight, and not poppy enough to lead the album, some of these problems weren't repeated with the current era but in terms of her career she would do well to look back to 2003 and devise her next step accordingly!
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Roo.
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Post by Roo. on May 17, 2012 22:29:58 GMT 1
Cry was definitely Imbruglia-lite, and as a HUGE Imbruglia fan it therefore leaves a lot to be desired. It's certainly not terrible though.
American Life is, well... different. I quite liked it at the time but didn't like the follow up at all, and time hasn't been kind to it.
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on May 18, 2012 14:21:56 GMT 1
3RD MAY- ALL OVER- Lisa Maffia (1 wk)Listening to this and it's VERY of its time! I'm not a fan of this genre as regular followers would know, and the former So Solid Crew frontwoman's debut single does little to alter my opinion. She still remains the highest charting UK female rapper of all time so you have to give her that, but for my money "All Over" isn't really a starter. I struggled to recall it before listening to it, and afterwards I was still struggling, but then many of 2003's runner up hits were quick bombers down the charts never really getting into people's heads, this being a prime example. Her only solo hit to grace the top 10, she can be thankful that she even got this far, though being beaten by a THIRD release from Busted's debut album tells its own story.
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on May 18, 2012 14:36:12 GMT 1
10TH MAY- RISE AND FALL- Craig David Featuring Sting (1 wk)Pop's a fickle old world and Britain's greatest new hope circa 2000 had experienced a little rise and fall of his own. Despite shifting a million singles and albums in 2000 David was famously snubbed at the BRITS 2001 despite being nominated in 500 categories (n.b actual number probably less). By his own admittance David has been damaged by Leigh Francis's portrayal of him on "Bo Selecta!" which had launched in 2002 and connected the artist with the caracature in the public's mind. Mind you naming your second album "Slicker Than You're Average" didn't help and when sales disapointed the press were quick to paint David as a yesterday man, and against this backdrop "Rise and Fall" was released as a third single from the album and became his 9th top 10 hit on the trot. Based around a sample of Sting's "Shape Of My Heart" (which would also be used on a Sugababes track in the same year, it led midweek flashes only to lose out on the Sunday to Tomkraft. Never a song I loved it's passable if uneventful, roping in Sting obviously helped with airplay and thusly sales and was a decent stab at getting his career back on track but quite frankly it reeks of blandness...
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on May 20, 2012 0:23:25 GMT 1
17TH MAY- FAVOURITE THINGS- Big Brovaz (1 wk)Imagine, if you will, all the cliches of rap, and add a healthy dollop of crappy UK attempts to ape the US import version of rap and hey presto you have this pile of tripe. The success of Big Brovaz was a mystery at the time to me, and remains so, there is no joy on a level that you can see in, say, the Mis-Teeq records of the same time, this is just basically ripping off "The Sound Of Music" (yes of ALL things?!!!) and attempting to ghetto it up. The group fell apart thanks to drugs scandals and two of the girls leaving to form Booty Luv in the second half of the decade. Truly woeful, it completes a hat-trick of No 2 hits that are all better best forgotten in my opinion however MUCH MUCH better is just about to happen.
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Post by greendemon on May 20, 2012 1:44:59 GMT 1
oh i HATE HATE HATE that last one... ...although i can remember thinking 'nu flow' was quite good
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borneoman
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love is tough, when enough is not enough
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Post by borneoman on May 20, 2012 9:17:12 GMT 1
not a fan of any of the latest ones... in perspective, American Life was pretty bad. She was lucky it wasn't the download era yet, otherwise she would have done a MDNA Was quite the coincidence that Sugababes and Craig David both made songs based on Shape of my Heart, a great song, but a flop for Sting that I imagined not many knew... The Sugababes one (Shape) was a million times better...
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on May 20, 2012 13:40:39 GMT 1
24TH MAY- NO GOOD ADVICE- Girls Aloud (1 wk)With more than just a nod to The Knack's "My Sharona" Girls Aloud had a lot to prove with this single. "Sound Of The Underground" was always going to massive, just like any winning Reality TV single, but it's the follow up that always counts, and "No Good Advice" hits just the right spot. Crammed with hooks and enough attitude to assert that they were SOMETHING special it's a song that never lets up from the up bombarding the listener with enough knowing sassyness that One True Voice could only dream off. Fair enough we can't downplay the fact the girls were clearly good looking and this aided them in the "Heat" magazine stakes but that they were given the finest offerings that Zenomania could produce (this one is actually co=written by Aqua's Lene Rasted) meant they were to them what Kylie was to S/A/W or Warwicj was to Bacharach & David, regular and reliable deliverer of hits. Rumour has it the girls were less than impressed when they first heard it saying it wasn't "their sound" apparently Higgens gave them 5 minutes to talk about it and see if they wanted to continue working with him, wisely they made the right choice, this ISN'T the best GA record (that's still to come in this thread) BUT it is a glorious pop record which states an attention, if they weren't going to be one of the biggest groups of teh decade they were certainly going to give it a go....
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on May 20, 2012 13:52:56 GMT 1
31ST MAY- ROCK YOUR BODY- Justin Timberlake (1 wk)The more I review these Justin Timberlake records the more it begs the question quite why he stopped when he did. After two crackers here he is with another one, there is, as usual, more than a whiff of Jackson about the track and the visuals ("Don't Stop Til You Get Enough" springs to mind) it's all perfectly executed pop, rhythmically tight with choreography which is faultless he remains the perfect popstar for 2003 and in less than 12 months seemed to have effortlessly transformed from a cheesy boyband member into an international popstar who looked like a "new" star- quite an acheivement. Perhaps he hadn't quite thought through how much time and attention this would all bring to him which is why the follow up took 5 years to produce, perhaps Timbaland was too busy, who knows but as an opening salvo of 3 singles his is one of the best.
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borneoman
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love is tough, when enough is not enough
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Post by borneoman on May 20, 2012 14:04:48 GMT 1
took me a while to figure out which one was Cheryl on the cover of that single!!!! You gotta love those lyrics (I don't need no good advice, I'm already wasted...)
I preferred the 2 previous Justin singles, this is too much of a Jacko copycat
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on May 22, 2012 19:12:55 GMT 1
7TH JUNE- SAY GOODBYE/ LOVE AIN'T GONNA WAIT FOR YOU- S Club (1 wk)So it's teh end of the road for what were by 2003 S Club Senior and how do you bow out? Well you rehash a couple of your biggest hits and what we have here is a re-write of "Have You Ever" ("Say Goodbye") and "Don't Stop Movin" ("Love Ain't Gonna Wait For You") only not quite so good. Yes all told it's rather a poor ending to the S Club story from which we will only meet one member as a solo artist for the remainder of this thread. Spearritt would go on to star in "Primeval", Lee went into musicals, O'Meara had a brief solo career before it all went pear shaped on "Celebrity Big Brother" and the others apart from Stevens didn't do much but tread former glories. Not much to talk about record wise, it all rather seems like they were treading water and fulfilling record company obligations before the serious business of solo careers got under way....at least that was the theory......
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on May 22, 2012 19:22:50 GMT 1
28th JUNE- FAST FOOD SONG- Fast Food Rockers (2 wks)An "Agadoo" for the 00s- that's being unfair, it's not that good. Yes in the summer of 2003 I am reliably informed this was all the rage on the school play ground, easy to see why. It's based around a Moroccan folk song "A Ram Sam Sam" and you'll be pleased to hear it make No 1 in Germany though it was called "burger dance" there and sung by the quickly forgotten DJ Otzi! Anyway the band lasted for under a year, enough to give them 3 top 30 hits and an album so they made a little go a long way all things considered. If you've forgotten it then well done you, if not then apologies for even mentioning it...
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Post by greendemon on May 23, 2012 0:24:40 GMT 1
jeez, have GA really been around that long? i feel old
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Post by Earl Purple on May 24, 2012 11:47:14 GMT 1
Of all the manufactured pop acts I always quite liked S Club 7: in particular "Bring It All Back", "Reach" and "Don't Stop Moving" which were all great pop songs. As seemed typical at the time they signed off with a "Goodbye" song, like the Spice Girls did in 1998 (which was more "au revoir" although it should have been "adieu").
Girls Aloud certainly had a lot of hits. I particularly disliked it when they started doing classic covers (I'll Stand By You, See The Day, I Think We're Alone Now and of course their awful version of Walk With Way with the Sugababes). I didn't think much of their "Long Hot Summer" song either at the time that Helen Love was #2 in my chart with a different song of the same title (and neither of them a Style Council cover version).
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on May 25, 2012 22:17:55 GMT 1
19TH JULY- HOLLYWOOD- Madonna (1 wk)Really the only performance I could put with this track, the 2003 MTV awards where Justin tries to look non plussed by Britney and Madonna kissing. Anyway "Hollywood" was the second release from "American Life" and her first back to back No 2 hits in 12 years. To be frank "Hollywood" is rather pedestrian, nothing special or remarkable really, the video you may recall got her into a bit of hot water this time for plagiarism from photographer Guy Bourdin who got a settlement from Madonna. Whilst its message may be a worthy one (beware the trappings of fame and materialism) it never quite rings true with Madonna, a star who you suspect enjoys all those trappings, the hollowness of the track is very evident at its core and that's what diappoints here.
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on May 25, 2012 22:25:57 GMT 1
26TH JULY- SATISFACTION- Benny Benassi (1 wk)A song I couldn't stand at the time and one that I can't stand now. It's basically about getting your end away and the lyrics consisting of "Push me, and then just touch me, til i can get my satisfaction" it's not exactly challenging on any level. I suppose drugs/ drink might help with this- but really, why bother?
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on May 26, 2012 9:51:59 GMT 1
9TH AUGUST- NEVER LEAVE YOU (UH OOH UH OOH)- Lumidee (1 wk)Debut, and sole top 40 hit from US star Lumidee Cedeno, it typifies much of what 2003 was about. It's rapidly turning out to be a marmite year for me, some fantastic records to be had (Girls Aloud, JT and few more still to come) and some real stinkers and this track unfortunately falls in to the latter category. This got to be very irritating very quickly, perhaps by the time I got to August i'd had enough of the "Uh Oh" as Beyonce's "Crazy In Love" had been ruling the airwaves for about 2 months already. To give her credit Lumidee's voice is quite sweet and clear but it's all wrapped up in a psuedo dancehall beat that calls to my mind Reggae and you ought to know my feelings on that genre by now!
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borneoman
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Post by borneoman on May 26, 2012 10:00:17 GMT 1
kinda liked Hollywood... agree on Satisfaction being terrible... cannot recall the Lumidee song at all!!
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Gezza
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Post by Gezza on May 26, 2012 10:09:39 GMT 1
16TH AUGUST- PRETTY GREEN EYES- Ultrabeat (2 wks)OMG guilty pleasure time! Along with Benny Benassi, the video for "Pretty Green Eyes" pretty much the mould for how dance music videos would be for the remainder of the video, very sexual featuring scantily clad woman and a lot of gyrating (Eric Prydz would perfect this just 12 months later) and who recalls "scouse house"? a very brief dance sub genre taking in this band and acts like Angel City and Dana Rayne, a kind of happy hardcore that became the rage for 6 months. It should be noted that these acts were not necessarily from Liverpool but the genre of music was particularly popular in the north west. Anyway I digress, yes "Pretty Green Eyes" is at the tackier end of dance music there is no denying but it's a little corker in my opinion, real care free music, and it's a much version of the song than the original by Force & Styles from 1997 which is a bit too hardcore for my personal taste. I make no claim that the record is a musical milestone, or that it is profound, it's just good oldskool dance music that I still pop on from time to time.
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vastar iner
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Post by vastar iner on May 26, 2012 10:39:46 GMT 1
The Lumidee one was alright. Would have been a lot better with a lot less production work. With just her vocals and the breakbeat it would have stood out. The rap and extra instrumentation detracted from the sound.
I never realized the song Madonna was "singing" when she did the "infamous" Britneysnog (and just how fake was that whole set-up with Timberland?) was "Hollywood". Probably on the basis that it was so forgettable I forgot it when I was listening to it. A complete nothing. Had it been given to, say, Brandy it would have sold minus ten copies tops.
As for Ultrabeat and those other dance records...(a) did anyone actually buy them other than DJs and (b) does anyone actually listen to them today?
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