Well, there we go. The White Stripes have been garnering praise aplenty for their album "Elephant", but this is probably the first time this year that their single has come up top of a poll. They only just squeaked in, mind you - it was a pitched battle between them and The Darkness all the way - with the Lowestoft rockers leading most of the way. Only with the last vote, did The White Stripes stick their neck out and claim the crown - after previously losing out to Gary Jules at the last, that's gonna hurt for The Darkness. Most people I spoke to expected Beyonce to run away with it, but once again you lot decided otherwise. And what about The Thrills? I was expecting a bit better than number 48 for the feelgood indie band of the year, but that old thing called split voting took it's toll - I should know, there was nearly an argument to decide which 2 out of the 3 should make the aide-memoire. Still, the breadth of songs remains as big as ever - 224 songs were voted for this year, so we know we cover a wide variety of tastes. So, onto the other part of the survey, normally I vote one way, the masses go the other way, but let's see:
For once, I also voted yes, so either I'm getting a better judge of opinion, or my decision making this year was on the blink.
Hmm. Have to say that I was quite surprised to see that Kiwi rockers The Datsuns didn't manage to quite get into the Top 50, "Harmonic Generator" just missing the cut at number 53. It was out at the start of the year though, and Jet probably stole their thunder as the year progressed. Other well publicised alternative bands didn't fare any better - you couldn't get many more column inches in the NME than The Libertines, but "Don't Look Back Into The Sun" was about as good as it got - number 63. Pop also had a few that didn't do as well as I thought: Rachel Stevens number 2 hit "Sweet Dreams (My LA Ex)" got only as far as number 60, and Busted's chart topper "Year 3000" conked out at number 78. This year also saw no top 50 entries for U2 and Robbie, the only 2 acts to have made it into the chart every time for the first 3 incarnations. U2 had the excuse they didn't record anything, but uur Bob could only get to number 75 - his fans were probably still in a queue to get to a PC when I shut the lines down. And last years winners? Liberty X clearly didn't spark the imagination this time, their Richard X collaboration "Being Nobody" was pretty much that at 114.
And as we always expect, sometimes our aide-memoire is a bit over-zealous, so 39 songs did as well as the UK's Eurovision entry in 2003 - 0 points. Included in that subset were the likes of Victoria Beckham, Fast Food Rockers and Kim Marsh. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Yes, it's just a bit of fun, but it's always interesting to see just how many obscure indie songs are so obscure that people think they are made-up. So here's what we got this time:
Yes, the majority were indeed correct - although knowing how we like to invent smut-laden songs, I can fully understand how some people might have been fooled by The Caesars. A good way to knock quite a few off the list of possibles is to check out the playlist to Danny Garlick's show on Spydaradio - you never know, you might like it......
Which brings us to the end of this incarnation of the online survey. Thanks to all for casting their votes, hope you've enjoyed it. I'll see you at the back end of 2004 to see who blew our eardrums away. Now if you'll be upstanding, I'm going to bung the national anthem on, followed by that "eeeeeeeeeeeeee" noise.......
Other results: Top 50 of 2009 Top 50 of 2008 Top 50 of 2007 Top 50 of 2006 Top 50 of 2006 Top 50 of 2004 Top 50 of 2002 Top 50 of 2001 Top 50 of 2000
Site designed by Jason "He Plays Music" Mansfield, 2004
Thanks go to the following people for assisting with getting together our comprehensive aide-memoire: Danny G, Kat H, Carolyn T, Isaac H
Any thoughts, comments on the site are welcomed, just mail me.