I suspect that the vast majority would have expected one of the 3 ladies beginning with L to have topped this year's poll, so I suspect quite a lot of iPhones might have been dropped when they saw that Dizzee Rascal won out. In fact, Lady Gaga was leading the poll for the majority of it, and then the younger portion of our polling audience could delay it no longer and participated..... It seems to have been quite a pop populated poll all in all, but then I don't think it's because there we no indie kids voting, it just turned out everyone voted for completely different things. After all, we had 234 songs that got at least one vote. Whether that's a testament to the diversity of music or not, I'll save for a pub discussion.
So having suffered one surprise, what's the typical question going to turn up? Brace yourselves.... (but let me just say that I didn't think it was as good as 2008)
Glad to see that the decade ended on a high note.
As hinted at in my introduction, I thought there was a lot of pop that got in, and when that happens, something has to be given the flick. Personal surprises for me were the alt folk sensation that were Mumford & Sons, I expected great things of them, but the voters had other ideas, "Little Lion Man" being rather a tame kitten at 81. Another band who I thought started the new year on form were White Lies, who suffered the cruellest of defeats by missing by the narrowest of margins - "Farewell To The Fairground" heading out of town at 51. Rock fans weren't really laughing either, gynaecologist's favourite Biffy Clyro were in my opinion a big thing in 2009, but "That Golden Rule" was clearly not that precious, getting to 83 and no further. And since we're on the subject, for the uber-trendy indie kids out there, NME favourites The XX couldn't even crack the top 100, with "Crystallised" freezing at 109. Of the commercial successes, probably the biggest omission was Tinchy Stryder, "Number 1" being somewhat optimistic - try number 69 instead.
Of course, as always we got a bit over-zealous in the aide-memoire, increasing our carbon footprint by putting in songs that you didn't give a monkeys about. There were 19 songs on our list that garnered zero votes, and looking at them, there's nothing that would give me cause for consternation, so it looks like all that polling over the past 10 years has improved what we understand about each other.
And so onto our usual tease - what was the song that we surreptitiously slipped into the aide-memoire that was merely a fabrication of our imagination? Here's what you lot thought:
Well done to those who correctly located The Wizard Sleeves as being total tosh. Admittedly, this year the aide-memoire has got some very odd songs in it, I'm surprised Quad Throw Salchow and Marina and the Diamonds didn't pick up some votes along the way too. Knowing that we tend to like a bit of schoolboy humour in our titles, I can understand votes for Marmaduke Duke (who are the side project of Biffy Clyro). Some of those on this list are not because people think they are made up, they just like to use it as a bit of wishful thinking, along the lines of "I wish that [name that band you hate] were made up", which probably accounts for Lady Gaga, Madness, Muse, Prodigy and The Killers.
Don't say that I'm not true to my word - incase you hadn't figured out the logo for this year, it's all a bit food related - it's biscuits sat on nice white ceramic plates. And, to ensure that no question is left unanswered, I'll even tell you what those biccies on the characters are:
The selection process was tough, and I offer my condolences to Fig Rolls, Ginger Nuts and Shortbread, for narrowly missing the cut.
That's it for the 2009 poll. But not only that, but also for the "songs of the year" polls that I've been doing on this site for the past 10 years. I think that now is a good time for me to stop, since (to coin a well worn phrase), I'm not getting any younger. I've got to say a huge thanks to everyone who has participated in this site, whether it be casting your vote, penning the write-ups or assisting with the aide-memoire. This site is a product of people's spare time, and it's been extremely gratifying to see just how many people love music as much as I do.
If anyone wants to do any polls like this one themselves, feel free to get in touch. But I don't think I'll be letting anyone continue with the database that sits behind this site's poll, but I'll happily empty out the tables and give you the blank one if you like.
That's not it for the site though - I intend to keep this online as a record of the polls for the first decade of the new millennia. Aspirationally, I would like to do some more work on the site to supplement each year's mini-site with a global top 50 singles site - one intention being to allow people to better explore the wealth of information that is stored (over 2300 songs, over 1100 artists and an awful lot of words in the write-ups).
Well, I wouldn't go that far..... I think there's room for one final poll - and being the monumental tease that I am, I'll leave it at that. Suffice it to say, you might get an email from me in a couple of months time.......
Other results:
Top 50 of 2008 Top 50 of 2007 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 2000Site designed by Jason "He Plays Music" Mansfield, 2010
Thanks go to the following people for assisting with getting together our comprehensive aide-memoire: Greg B, Kat B, Paul M, P Shoo
Any thoughts, comments on the site are welcomed, just mail me.