Well, let me start with a question. Okay, so that's actually a sentence, but the question is coming up. Here it comes: did you expect that to be number one? Looking at the general consensus of other 2006 charts, I don't think I've seen one that put the Scissor Sisters at the top. Still, this was no cakewalk, it matched Snow Patrol vote for vote, so it was purely the fact that more people rated it higher in their voting preferences that stuck it's neck out over the winning line. I would have guessed Gnarls Barkley myself, but maybe it got overplayed and people got sick of it.
Naturally, the information doesn't end there. We may not have done a poll in 2005, but that doesn't stop me asking you my usual question. Now personally I think 2005 was a great year, and 2006 hasn't got close to it, but what do you lot think?
Now that's more like the behaviour that I come to expect.
Last time I ran a top 50 singles site in 2004, Kasabian missed the boat. So, in 2006 they released a new album, had a few pretty good singles and once again have failed to garner enough support to get themselves a Top 50 position - "Empire" hitting number 60 and "Shoot the Runner" out of ammo at 78. This split voting really can be a swine.... Another notable absence was Jamie T, who has released a clutch of great singles, and whilst he did sit within the Top 50 for a bit, faded badly toward the end with "Sheila" settling the highest at number 62. And given the love of the Libertines in the past, Carl Barât's new band, the Dirty Pretty Things certainly got a less favourable response with "Bang Bang You're Dead" doing the best at number 75. A top 50 regular who didn't cut it was Lord Robbie Williams, "Lovelight" not shining bright enough at number 56. Other big sellers that weren't so well received were Sandi Thom who was a pretty lightweight 87, and Infernal, whose 6th biggest selling UK single of the year "Paris To Berlin" got to number 64.
As always, we put a lot of songs into our aide-memoire. 29 of them were about as popular as Jade Goody at a Bollywood premiere offering themselves up for eviction with no votes. In a bizarre twist to the norm, this year there were virtually no bobbins songs in amongst them. Okay, I grant you that tosh like Matt Willis deserved this accolade, but The Young Knives, The Infadels, The Rapture, Boy Kill Boy, The Vines, Jim Noir? All of these I would say deserve a listen. And given the usual good response to works by Damon Albarn, I was surprised to see the latest project The Good The Bad and The Queen was also languishing without a vote. As for the people who voted for Chico and Paris Hilton, well, you can remain anonymous, you poor misguided souls.
And so onto the usual quest to see if people can pick the ridiculous from the sublime. And, once again, it's been quite revealing as to what has and hasn't made it into the public consciousness.
Hopefully in seeing the Top 50, you can see we can eliminate Keane, Madonna, Muse and My Chemical Romance. I quite liked the comment of a colleague of mine who surmised that I'd be vindictive and probably put the made up one at the end as people wouldn't get all the way through the aide-memoire. Well, I think we can see from the above that the correct answer was found by a large number of voters, and was indeed near the end. I can state that it wasn't deliberate though. The usual tendancy for people to gravitate towards the downright weirdly monikered continues - for those who think John B was made up, why not check out his MySpace page? It was heartening to see that even though it was truly ficticious, one person still voted for it - maybe we should offer it as a download and see if we can crack the proper singles chart?
Okay, that's this years effort concluded. Hope you've enjoyed it. I'm off to resume my life but you can be sure I'll be keeping my ears open to the music that 2007 throws my way. I probably won't be able to go and see any bands live, mind you, since everything sells out before I can even key in my credit card number, but let's not go there, shall we?
Other results: Top 50 of 2009 Top 50 of 2008 Top 50 of 2007 Top 50 of 2005 Top 50 of 2004 Top 50 of 2003 Top 50 of 2002 Top 50 of 2001 Top 50 of 2000
Site designed by Jason Mansfield, 2007
Thanks go to the following people for assisting with getting together our comprehensive aide-memoire: Danny G, Paul M, Kat H
Any thoughts, comments on the site are welcomed, just mail me.