50
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Weezer - Beverly Hills
Weezer's Beverly Hills was the first single from the album "Make Believe", the song is their first release in over two years and was eagerly anticipated. The song itself is slow ambling song, with spoken verses and really catchy choruses and an ace talkbox guitar solo. The video for the song was shot at the infamous Playboy mansion featuring cameos from Hugh Hefner and several playboy bunnies. The video also featured numerous Weezer fans.
Emyr I
No of votes: 4, Score:
22, Highest vote: 1st
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49
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James Blunt - Goodbye My Lover
Artist link: 21
James Blunt is a bit like a superhero in reverse: in real life he's an all action, lean, mean ex-Marine who lives in Ibiza and parties 'til dawn; his alter ego is the wet, drippy mess that he sings about in songs like You're Beautiful (bloke sees girl he likes, does nothing about it then wallows in loneliness) and this track (bloke loses girl, does nothing about it, then wallows in self-pity). It's a sweet, touching song, and it's apparently very popular at funerals, but I can't help wishing he'd let his Arnie-side loose at the guitar a bit more. You know what I mean, a little less Goodbye, My Lover, a little more Hasta La Vista, Baby!
Greg B
No of votes: 4, Score:
23, Highest vote: 5th
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48
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KT Tunstall - Other Side Of The World
Artist link:10 47
Good news for the more mature amongst us! We've found an exception to the "you need to be under 20 these days to break the music industry" rule. By the time this song was released, KT Tunstall was nearly pushing 30 - so if you've left uni and floundered in your graduate job for a few years whilst your spare time music career goes no further than a slot at the Dublin Castle that should give you some hope. Out of the three hit singles that put KT's name in starry lights, this one is probably the least well known, though it is the opener for her massively successful album "Eye To The Telescope". Okay, so it doesn't take a degree in Physics (which her adopted father has) to work out that it's all about the problems of long distance relationships, but it's all crafted and delivered so effortlessly that this will waft around your ears and you'll come out of it with a suspicion you need to check out a rom com at the flicks.
Jason M
No of votes: 4, Score:
23, Highest vote: 1st
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47
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KT Tunstall - The Black Horse And The Cherry Tree
Artist link:10 48
"The Black Horse and the Cherry Tree? Never heard of it!" Yes you have, it's the one I would call the "Woo Hoo Song". But that's what folk music is about, isn't it? Silly titles made up probably whilst the songwriter was in the pub downing cider but with a catchy hook that everyone'll be able to remember in 300 years' time. KT Tunstall has captured all of this into an upbeat tune whilst somehow managing to add the kind of rock edge that folk songs often lack. A lot of people may prefer the slightly more mainstream songs she released after this one, but I think nothing can compare to a good old "woo hoo" and a pint of Magners.
Kat B
No of votes: 4, Score:
24, Highest vote: 1st
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46
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Shayne Ward - That's My Goal
A lot of people who consider themselves true music fans get very worked-up about The X Factor. They moan about how it's manufactured and fake, and that it's killing the 'real' music business. Me? I don't mind it (I don't watch it either, I hasten to add). There's always been manufactured music, and I suspect as long as the music industry remains a 'business' that there always will be, but the world is big enough for it to live side by side with the indie stuff. As to this song, well, it's a good, hummable tune that Mr Ward holds very well, it's got nice, meaningful (if a little shallow) lyrics, and the key change is in exactly the right place. It is, in the very best sense of the term, the Ikea of music, and there's room for a little Ikea in everyone's life, isn't there?
Greg B
No of votes: 4, Score:
29, Highest vote: 1st
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45
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The Bees - Chicken Payback
It's a weird one this. If we'd been picking our favourite songs of 2005 in the early months of 2006 as per the normal routine I don't think this would even have registered on my radar. Since then, over a slow period of osmosis it's worked its way into my - quite short - list of truly brilliant songs of the 2000s. First came an ad campaign for something or other (obviously not a particularly successful ad campaign then obviously since I can't remember the product...) then many plays by Jonathan Ross on Radio 2 then a feature on a local late night football show where, um, a monkey picked out balls randomly to predict scores. So that's how it happened to be one of my fave songs of the year way after the event - appropriately a bit like evolution itself.
Andrew S
No of votes: 4, Score:
31, Highest vote: 2nd
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44
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Kaiser Chiefs - Oh My God
Artist link:2  4 37  41
A frenzied, wrist shattering piano intro slowly builds into a blustering, belligerent, moshing rock out for everyone who looks back and wonders where their youth went, for everyone who realises they've been trapped too long in a job they hate, for everyone who needs to believe that they'll get there in the end if they can just keep picking themselves up, and an anthem for everyone who's ever been stuck on the wrong side of town long after the last tube's gone.
John C
No of votes: 5, Score:
22, Highest vote: 4th
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43
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Black Eyed Peas - Don't Phunk With My Heart
Artist link: 8
So the 'Peas like to have silly titles. This track is proper though. A proper use of two Bollywood samples "Ye Mera Dil Yaar Ka Diwana" from the film Don and "Ae Nujawan Hai Sub" from Apradh. I always think it's a shame that it sometimes takes a western group to popularise asian music, but this does a good job and has stood the test of the past 4 years. And so it duly made top 3 in the UK, and was a hit worldwide. I hope they phunk with some more eastern samples again.
Dan Mc
No of votes: 5, Score:
22, Highest vote: 4th
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42
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Bloc Party - Banquet
Artist link:40
It may not have been their first success (So Here We Are was the one that got them into the top 10), it may not even be their heaviest rock out (Helicopter would floor this in a straight one to one scrap), but nonetheless, this second release lifted from the critically and commercially successful "Silent Alarm" album is no musical slouch. The chopping guitar riff alternates between the left and right of you (the mixing of that must been painstaking) like some menacing presence swooping around, whilst the song dances around between varying styles, one moment bringing some chirping synth, the next some staccato drumming, but the mastery is how it all comes together to sound like the soundtrack to a frenzied and desperate chase down a darkened alley. It all culminates with Kele Okereke shouting "I'm on fire", I know it's not meant as such, but with assured performances like these, he's got a point.
Jason M
No of votes: 5, Score:
22, Highest vote: 4th
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41
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Kasabian - Club Foot
What a difference a year makes eh? In the poll the year before, when this originally surfaced it limped in 138th, but proving the old "if at first you don't succeed, re-issue it" adage, on the second attempt it's come up trumps. Maybe 2004 just wasn't the appropriate time to be chanting "(OOO) AAARGHERRRRARRRGHERRRAAAAGH". In any event, Kasabian bring something new to the rock table, and it appears to be a hard hat and a welders mask, that's the sort of semi-industrial sound that is stitched into the seams of this song. There's a touch of the Gallagher in Tom Meighan's vocals, and they've also got the accompanying self-assured "we are the best in the world" attitude down to pat too. It's a bit of a monster, if it was down the pub you'd probably be trying hard to look the other way and avoid eye-contact, but it is undeniably anthemic.
Jason M
No of votes: 5, Score:
22, Highest vote: 3rd
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Site designed by Jason "He Plays Music" Mansfield, 2009
(you see, I couldn't be arsed to do it in 2005, but in 2009 we came back and did it retrospectively).
Thanks go to the following people for assisting with getting together our comprehensive aide-memoire: Greg B, Kat B, Dan Mc
A MASSIVE THANKS also to all those who slaved over a hot keyboard to produce the write ups: Danny G, Paul H, Kat B, Andrew S, Isaac H, P Shoo, Jon B, Dan Mc, Harley R, Emyr I, Greg B, Veronica S, John M, John C