Fair do's, I say. This chart does mirror reasonably closely (or at least more closely than previous years' polls) the best sellers of the year, and pop songs have really rushed to the fore as well. Then again, the breadth of songs being voted for has widened again, 265 different songs all getting at least one vote - so just goes to show we are a bunch with varied musical tastes.
As tradition dictates, here's the bit where I ask a question, and you lot answer. Mostly. I'm going to stick my neck out and say that 2007 was better than 2006, but what did our survey say?
Something wrong here, we're not supposed to reach agreement!
Given how much pop hit the chart, it was only to be expected that things from other genres were gonna get nudged out. Maximo Park were unlucky not to feature in this site before as they debuted in 2005 (the year of the no poll). This time round the album got a bit of a mauling critically, nonetheless plenty of folks I know loved it, but sadly split voting between 2 very fine singles meant that both failed to hit the top 50, "Our Velocity" at 60, "Books From Boxes" at 61. The Enemy were another band who released a clutch of fine singles (the album is damned fine too), but none of them did well enough - "Had Enough" did the best, but ran out of patience at 74. A nearly Mercury Music Prize winner, Bat For Lashes also failed to ignite the voters passions, "What's A Girl To Do?" asking all the right questions, but going no further than 152. Previous Top 50 stalwarts fared little better - U2's "Window In The Skies" making only 119, and the Manic Street Preachers triumphant return "Your Love Alone Is Not Enough" getting close, but no cigar at number 67.
In spite of the breadth of voting, the collectives' brain wracking turned out once again to come up with some duffers. 27 this year were as welcome as floodwater in your living room and were all washed out with no votes. All the pop was (almost all) duly voted for, but alternative music once again fared badly with plenty of songs not winning your attention. Once again no-one had the guts to cast a vote for Chico, and that gives me some consolation.
So that leaves us to check the quest for the made-up song. And here were the ones that people plumped for:
Through a process of elimination (Avril Lavigne, Britney Spears, Foo Fighters, Gwen Stefani, Kate Nash, Leona Lewis, Mika, Rihanna, The Fray, The Hoosiers, The Plain White T's all hitting the top 50) you can slim it down a bit. A useful tip to remember - we make up the band name too! Still, most people correctly identified "Chumface - Murky Chicken" as bollocks. As usual, some people were astute in identifying mistakes in the aide-memoire - most notably our stab at "that song featuring the word Mutya" being put down to Basement Jaxx when it was in fact Groove Armada. Chico, Robots In Disguise and Alter Kicks can live with the indignity of not only getting no votes, but also being so unbelievable that people thought we'd made them up too.
So that polishes off another year's poll. Thanks for all the votes and let's see what 2008 throws our way musically.
Other results: Top 50 of 2009 Top 50 of 2008 Top 50 of 2006 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, 2008
Thanks go to the following people for assisting with getting together our comprehensive aide-memoire: Danny G, Paul M, Kat H, Greg B, Lorraine W
Any thoughts, comments on the site are welcomed, just mail me.