Saturday 7 November 2009

No you don't mean nothing at all to me

The next five songs that narrowly escaped featuring inside my top 100 songs of the decade;

Nelly Furtado - Say It Right - 2007

So we've had Maneater already and next up is the slighty better, if much more subtle Say It Right. Only a #10 hit in the UK because it was a download only release (which was a hindrance in early 2007), the fourth single from Loose was a huge airplay hit and is still played regularly on commercial radio now. Complete with the classic 'eh, eh' in the background from producer Timbaland, like many others this song slowly washed over me and continued to grow on me over time after finding it only average as an album track. As a single it all suddenly made sense...



Julie & Ludwig - On Again...Off Again - 2004

Back to Eurovision 2004 and my ultimate favourite of that contest, Malta's eccentric duo Julie & Ludwig with their bizarre operatic theatrical pop song On Again...Off Again. Malta used to be Sweden for me...I loved their string of 2002-2005 entries but its all gone a bit downhill from there and Sweden and Norway have taken over in my affections. This song never failed to cheer me up as it was wonderfully ridiculous and it's a shame it couldn't creep into the top ten that year, finishing just outside.



Milk Inc - In My Eyes - 2002

Part of my 2002 Belgian dance obsession that also included Minimalistix, Dee Dee, Lasgo and Ian Van Dahl, Milk Inc were my ultimate favourite and their UK album was a pleasant surprise too, a great mix of pop, dance and more unusual sounds. In My Eyes, their debut UK release was a top ten hit here and one of my favourite dance songs of 2002; short, sweet and to the point.



Kylie Minogue - Wow - 2008

Surprisingly, no Kylie songs feature in the top 100, this being my favourite single of hers from the noughties, despite close competition from Red Blooded Woman, On A Night Like This, In Your Eyes and Come Into My World. Wow should have been the lead single from X, classic pop Kylie, as opposed to the risky cool Kylie that we saw on 2 Hearts, which was fine for 2nd/3rd single material, but not lead. Wow eventually far outsold its predecessor, and deservedly so, but my favourite Kylie singles remain the 90's songs What Do I Have To Do and Some Kind of Bliss. The fan favourites, Can't Get You Out Of My Head and Spinning Around are not amongst my favourites...



Masai - Do That Thang - 2003

Floptastic duo Masai launched themselves as a post All Saints/Corrs/Savage Garden MOR pop duo with chart missers Heaven & Hell and Kick Back, both of which I bought on single and loved. Sharon and Anna came back for a final try in 2003 with the supposedly sexy Do That Thang, an R&B/pop offering that SMASHED in at #42 in the UK charts after I had been convinced that it would be huge for them. Either way, and however cheap it sounds these days (actually, it always sounded cheap), these girls were one of my favourite acts of the early part of the decade and I must be the only person in the country that's the proud owner of all three of their singles!!!

2 comments:

  1. Oh COME ON Richard. We all know In My Arms should have been first single for Kylie :(

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  2. wasn't a huge fan of In My Arms...

    I can see that it would have been a good lead single though...forget all of that, she should have gone with the still unreleased White Diamond (not the ballad version)

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