Other dramatic moments also affected
me. As a member of staff, especially based in Broadcasting House, I was
inevitably caught up in the shenanigans which arose from Tony Blair’s
disgraceful abuse of the BBC to cover up his wilful lies and misleading of the
country over the Iraq War with the ‘dodgy dossier’. Popular Director-General
Greg Dyke was sensationally forced to resign in February 2004. On Boxing Day,
as I lay on my bed in Basildon Hospital, I was touched terribly by the pictures
of the horrific tsunami aftermath in Thailand. The following summer I arrived
in London just an hour after the terrorist attacks on the Tubes and buses. But
life goes on.
There were shockwaves in the music
industry, too. Singles sales plunged further, crumbling under the weight of
technological advances. Of course by this time I was well versed in emails and
the internet. I’d even invested in a PC and, despite its lingering air of
embarrassment, used it for online dating. Our vocabulary was evolving. On top
of all this, there were the mysteries of (mostly illegal) file sharing,
downloads and videos ‘going viral’.
The first official Download Chart was
introduced in September ’04 and, despite fears of the traditional chart being
over-run by even crappier nonsense than was already there, the two sets of
consumers proved to be pretty similar when it came to musical tastes.
The nadir of chart history probably
occurred at the beginning of 2005. That manifested itself in the marketing ploy
commemorating the 50th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s first record.
Someone had the bright idea of re-releasing all of the Elvis number ones in
chronological order, week by week to build up fans’ own box sets. ‘Jailhouse
Rock’ duly topped the chart again, followed immediately by ‘One Night’. Despite
sales barely scraping 20,000, this duly became the official 1,000th
UK number one single. I braced myself for another fifteen weeks or so of
rock’n’roll torture. I reckon the Top of the Pops production team were even
more concerned. Presley’s estate had never granted the BBC permission to show
Elvis recordings so what could they do in the usual climactic number one slot?
One week they were even forced to hire a tribute band! Luckily, only three of
these posthumous performances made it to the top for a second time, and
contemporary artists were allowed a look-in. Mind you, if none of them could
shift 21,000 copies in any particular week, they clearly didn’t deserve to top
the charts either.
In each of these two years, only two
singles sold more than half a million, half of them being mega-charity records.
Band Aid 20 was the 2004 Christmas number one, but the biggest-seller of 2005
was one of those weird bolts from the blue. I’d never liked Tony Christie’s
1971 belter 'Is This the Way to Amarillo?’ I’d never much liked comedian Peter Kay either, not having seen his cult
Channel 4 sitcom Phoenix Nights, nor any of his stand-up routines. However,
when the Bolton comic revitalised the record, miming with the aid of numerous
B- and C–list celebrities marching with him on walking machines against
increasingly bizarre backcloths, even I had to smile and sing along.
OK, so the appearance of Jimmy Savile,
still alive and not yet revealed as the predatory pervert we now know he was,
casts a stain on the memory of the video. But it’s more entertaining to
remember Ronnie Corbett falling off his machine or Jim Bowen, against all odds,
somehow staying upright. Neither are still with us, but I hope this is unconnected with their gym equipment experiences. Anyway, the record raised millions for Comic
Relief. The video spawned countless amateur copies, many cleverly
choreographed, going viral on a youthful YouTube. Peter Kay has successfully
used the song as a crowd-pleasing filler in live shows ever since. As for me, I
no longer hear the opening “‘Sha-la-las” with dread; rather with an automatic smile on my face.
The Gallagher brothers are hardly
known for their laugh-a-minute demeanour. Yet their eighth and final number one
hit, ‘The Importance of Being Idle’,
was unusually wry and jaunty. While the vocals were Noel’s and the guitars
reminiscent of The Kinks, the record was also memorable for its video. This
featured a mime-and-dance tour-de-force from Rhys Ifans in funeral director
garb. It followed all the previous Oasis chart-toppers by spending just one
week at the pinnacle. I guess it’s because the band’s legion of fans tended to
flock to the shops, High Street or online, in the week of release. All the
same, for this most successful of groups, it’s quite an amazing sequence. There
were to be more lengthy and lucrative tours but no further major hits.
Oasis did at least last the best part
of 20 years. But that’s a meagre career span compared with Eighties icons The
Pet Shop Boys, Erasure and Depeche Mode. Each enjoyed a return to form in
2004-5 with respective singles ‘Flamboyant’, ‘Breathe’ and ‘Precious’.
The latter was the best of them; indeed I rate it amongst their top three
singles of all time.
Like the enduring Basildon boys,
Morrissey never made it to the top of the UK singles charts, either with The
Smiths or solo. However, he came pretty close with ‘Irish Blood, English
Heart’, the first single from his seventh studio album You Are The Quarry. It
was typically controversial in its political theme but, despite its lack of
airplay, went straight in at three. For all that, I preferred its successor,
‘First of the Gang to Die’. I
remember seeing this performance on Later…. Morrissey seemed so effortless and
precise in his vocals, raising him even higher than his already lofty position
in my estimation, if not for his dodgy politics then as a singer.
I also appreciated releases by a
couple of former boy band members. OK, so Robbie Williams was by then better
known as a solo star. Whatever his origins, the 2005 Intensive Care album gave
us one of his more divisive singles. On first hearing, it was hard to fathom
what to make of ‘Tripping’.
With no proper intro, it dived straight into a Clash-like ska rhythm. Huh?! I
hung on in there and was rewarded by an uplifting chorus and, for all its
eccentricity, a strangely engaging song. Was it all about drugs, as suggested
by the title? I don’t know. However, credit to the Robster for trying something
different.
Blue were taking a break, leaving some
of their members to forge separate careers. I liked Simon Webbe’s ‘No Worries’ single, although the “I just know your life’s gonna change” line, sung by
Yvonne John Lewis, is the best bit about the song. Webbe’s vocals make the
record sound like superior Lighthouse Family fare but it was surprisingly good.
More surprising perhaps was his failure to extend his discography beyond two
albums. Meanwhile, Westlife survived the
departure of Brian McFadden in 2004 and droned their way to yet another stodgy
chart-topping ballad. ‘You Raise Me Up’? No, it just got me down.
Busted’s tour support act, McFly
usurped their bosses’ crown and proved even more successful. Debut ‘Five Colours in Her Hair’ was pure pop gold and the follow-up ‘Obviously’ was almost as good. Incredibly,
they went on to notch another sixteen top ten hits. While Busted’s James Bourne
contributed to some of their early tracks, it was Tom Fletcher’s songwriting
and pleasant voice which proved decisive. Furthermore, the eager, easy-going
personalities of Tom, Danny, Dougie and Harry appealed to kids and adults
alike, helping them become charity song stalwarts. It amuses me to recall Mum
telling me she liked their version of ‘Don’t Stop Us Now’, released for Sport
Relief two years later. I doubt she’d ever heard the Queen original, but the
melodic intro probably did it for her. Actually, I’d even go so far as rating
their live performance of the song at Wembley as approaching the quality of
Freddie et al. Praise indeed!
I can’t vouch for the quality of their
musicianship but O-zone also enjoyed a big hit in 2004. ‘Dragostea Din Tei’
doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue – unless you speak Romanian – but it did
have a catchy chorus and boast the USP of being the first, and probably last,
band from Moldova to make the top
three over here! Six months after breaking Europe they disbanded. Such is pop!
The mid-Noughties were filled with
American pseudo-punk bands, from Good Charlotte and Fall Out Boy to emo idols
My Chemical Romance. However, in 2004, Green Day reminded us why their template
could not possibly be improved upon. That was on account of the album American
Idiot, unleashed that September with the single of the same name.
Expletive-laden and provocatively political, it bowled me over from the
dramatic opening riff to the sudden ending. Its three minutes are as powerful
and energetic as anything ever recorded. TOTP accorded them the accolade of a
live performance in the Television Centre car park, with the rest of the gig available on the red button. I took advantage and loved it.
Four other tracks were released as
singles but my favourite has to be ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’,
one of the very best rock ballads. It peaked at number five at Christmas but
deservedly hung around for months. Billy-Joe Armstrong’s kohl-eyed, round-faced
rock rebel look never seems to change, even in the second decade of the 2000s.
Will he ever succumb to the ageing process? Who cares? As for the album, it was
described variously as rock opera and concept album, telling a story of
working-class love and life in a post-9/11 President Bush America. It was
begging to be made into a stage musical and, five years later, this became
reality. Another five years, and it crossed the Atlantic, landing at Cardiff.
Angie isn’t familiar with the band so we didn’t buy tickets. Another regret.
Last year I happened upon an
interview with Green Day in which Billy-Jo and co spoke fondly about working
with Dave Grohl many years previously. Nothing surprising about that; everyone
who has worked for the Foo Fighters front man has nothing but nice epithets to
say about him. However, the programme reminded me of another broadcast I
watched in 2005 when The Foo Fighters released the double album In Your Honour.
For all Grohl’s ‘nicest man in rock’ persona, I’ve rarely heard a track of his
which had the ‘Wow!’ factor. ‘Learning to Fly’ came close – but no cigar.
This new album featured one typical
heavy rock CD alongside a more mellow acoustic record. Together Grohl described
them as “the bottle and the hangover”! I don’t know what I was watching back
then (Jonathan Ross, possibly?) but the band performed live a song from each.
When Grohl stepped up with just an acoustic guitar with no other accompaniment,
I saw a different side of the Fighters, which I guess was the whole point. He
was probably singing his old composition from the early Nirvana days ‘Friend of a Friend’.
These days it has come to represent a Kurt Cobain tribute but for me it merely
showcases Dave Grohl’s many and varied talents.
Green Day apart, I was more into the
emerging indie rock sound emanating from every corner of Britain – and Finland. Starting with the latter, The Rasmus
breathed some new life into a traditional rock genre with ‘In the Shadows’ but
in January 2004, it was Scottish band Franz Ferdinand who made the headlines.
‘Take Me Out’ certainly grabbed the attention. The snappy guitar and deadpan vocals in the
opening minute had a touch of the Nineties about it, then the chords slowed and
we were into what sounded like a completely different song. I can’t pretend I
found the melody particularly appealing but as a modern splash of guitar rock,
it worked a treat.
Franz Ferdinand were definitely at the
arty end of the spectrum. Singer Alex Kapranos was for a while a food critic
for The Guardian for heaven’s sake! My natural inclination was for something
more earthy, more engaging. Enter The Kaiser Chiefs! ‘I Predict a Riot’ wasn’t a big hit but once heard, never forgotten. Of course the chorus has lived
on amongst football crowds. Not in anticipation of Seventies-style mayhem but
mocking a chunky opposition player with ‘riot’ replaced by ‘diet’…
‘Every Day I Love You Less and Less’
subverted the usual idea of a relationships song and ‘Oh My God’ had a
delightful languorous swing to it. I remember watching them do Glastonbury and
appear, sweaty and swaying, for a live post-gig interview. Whether Ricky Wilson
was actually drunk on alcohol or euphoria, I couldn’t be sure, but he delivered
entertaining answers, unusual for a pop star. I went on to buy their 2005 album
Employment, which still bears up. Rather
too many “OhhhhhHHHHHs”, perhaps, but there were few duff tracks.
2005 was also the year in which The
Stereophonics finally achieved a number one single. ‘Dakota’ seemed to spring from nowhere. More than a decade later, it still feels fresh;
a twenty-first century classic. They haven’t really come close since and, on
hearing on the radio, it’s a track for which we still raise the volume to yell
“I don’t know where we are going now”.
The Welshmen had been going too long
to be media darlings but The Arctic Monkeys ticked the boxes of musos eager to
find fresh faces and new exciting music. They rode the crest of the
technological wave on which new artists could promote, market and distribute
their work in seconds. The internet was already an amazing thing. The Sheffield
quartet typified the new DIY rock band trend, and the back-to-basics video for
‘I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor’ further played to this elemental image.
As for me, I hated it, but you couldn’t avoid it.
Madonna may have been 47, almost old
enough to be Arctic Monkey Alex Turner’s granny, but she still looked good on
the dancefloor, too. Her 2005 disco track ‘Hung Up’ was another in her line of retro-modern dance fusion singles, sampling Abba’s
arpeggio keyboard hook from ‘Gimme Gimme Gimme’. An eleventh UK number one was
the inevitable conclusion. The video also ensured that nobody else could ever
again wear a pink leotard and make it their own. For all the ubiquity of
manufactured dancers with vices like Girls Aloud and the Pussycat Dolls,
Madonna still had more talent and charisma in her left ankle than a hundred
Cheryl Tweedys or Nicole Scherzingers in their whole gyrating bodies.
Madonna had been around seemingly for
an eternity, but Britain was churning out more young female singer-songwriters.
KT Tunstall was already a multi-instrumentalist, music graduate, professional
songwriter and almost 30 years old when she recorded her debut album Eye to the
Telescope. It brought her intriguing blend of folk, blues, pop and rock to the
world and sold a million in the UK alone. The beautiful ballad ‘Other Side of
the World’ had evident echoes of Dido at her best, but it was the up-tempo ‘Suddenly I See’ which seemed to be on the radio all the time and had my feet a-tapping.
Jemma Griffiths was another Celt with
a degree (in law!) under her belt. Born in Penarth, and furthering her musical
education as DJ, agent and promoter around Brighton, she finally broke through
with her Finally Woken album. Like Moby before her, she’d used her professional
experience and instincts to license all tracks for use on TV, which helped
break her in the States. She came to my attention in July ’05 as Jem performing
the bouncy ‘They’ on TOTP.
Her breathy voice needed multi-layering but she owned the stage to the manor
born, a talented free spirit with an ear for a killer pop tune. ‘Just a Ride’
and ‘Wish I’ sounded equally refreshing and yet, at the time of writing, she
has inexplicably failed to dent the top fifty again. I bought the album yet
remain the only person in my circle (admittedly with a feeble radius) who has
ever heard of Jem.
That same summer, animated ‘artists’ enjoyed considerable success, but with mixed
critical response. I’ll start with the positive. When Damon Albarn found a
post-Blur collaborator in artist and designer Jamie Hewlett several years
earlier, the virtual band Gorillaz enjoyed actual chart success. I wasn’t so
impressed. However, when they released ‘Feelgood Inc’ in
May 2005, I was converted to the cause. I couldn’t really relate to the
ugly-but-cool Gorillaz bandmates. I left that to my fifteen year-old niece
Rachel. But the captivating combination of rock, electro, hip-hop and bruising
bassline was topped off by the astonishing animation. The synth-backed sequence
of the floating windmill island still gets me moist-eyed and generously
goose-pimpled. The follow-up ‘Dare’, with Shaun Ryder, had a more conventional
structure, and went to number one, but for me it’s ‘Feelgood Inc’ that has the
edge.
At the pond life end of the spectrum,
Crazy Frog’s ‘Axel F’ must surely go down as one of the most irritating three
minutes of – I hesitate to ascribe the term music – amphibian turd in the
history of mankind. Thank you, Erik Wernquist! Harmless attempts at sound
effects became associated with a creepy computer animate character. With mobile
phone ringtones becoming big business, the frightful frog’s “A ring ding ding ding d-ding” was taking over not only the radio
airwaves but also seemingly the very air that we breathed.
Everyone wished
there had been a tadpole murder when ‘Axel F’ robbed Coldplay of a first number
one single in June. The event allowed Chris Martin to show he did, after all,
possess a sense of humour. Appearing on, I think, the Jonathan Ross TV chat
show, he opened a performance of their superior ‘Speed of Sound’ with a gritted
teeth “ring ding-a-ding” rendition! He acknowledged Coldplay’s nemesis again at
Glastonbury and probably on
subsequent occasions too numerous to mention.
After the split from Kim, I filled my
Saturday mornings listening to Jonathan Ross’s show on Radio 2. The network was
rapidly building a reputation for personality-led radio, playing music for my
age group. The evening schedules remained full of fodder for pensioners but
newly-promoted Controller Lesley Douglas was transforming Radio 2 into a
commercial-free haven for thirty- and fortysomething Radio 1 exiles like me.
Jonathan Ross was the star signing. He may have come at a price but was worth
every penny. I looked forward to his broadcast over breakfast and it was
sometimes difficult to switch off to do the weekly shop. ‘Wossy’ is nothing if
not a master of the anecdote, and his life was ripe for an endless stream of
funny and credible stories, accompanied by producer Andy’s helpless giggling.
Of course, it wasn’t all about the
chat. Radio 2 could break new music acts, and it was on one of those Saturday
mornings when my ears were first treated to ‘Somewhere Only We Know’.
Hmm. Sounded good. It must have been a song I’d heard but long forgotten.
Jonathan back-announced the artists as Keane. I soon realised Keane were a
band, on the road to conquering Britain with their brand of piano-led pop rock,
out-Coldplaying Coldplay.
The multi-platinum album Hopes and
Fears is one of my all-time favourites, containing so many excellent tracks.
‘Somewhere Only We Know’ was an instant success with me, marked by Tom
Chaplin’s high tenor vocals and Tim Rice-Oxley’s fervent keyboard rhythms. And
yet ‘Everybody’s Changing’ has become perhaps their signature piece and a song I never tire of hearing, or
singing along to. For all that, it may well be the album finale ‘Bedshaped’
which was their concert performance highlight, be it at Glasto or the 2005 Live
8 charity mega-gig.
Writing of which, I was with BBC
colleagues at the Radio Festival in Edinburgh that July. Hordes of horseback
riot police were on every corner in case of civil unrest linked, not to our
event, but the Gleneagles G8 summit. Midge Ure had organised for Murrayfield
the final Live 8 concert to further focus hearts and minds of people and
politicians to Make Poverty History. At our venue, Midge had actually set aside
a ticket for every delegate to attend straight after the conference ended. Wow!
Fantastic! Only problem was the fact that I had no place to stay that night and
a non-transferable train ticket booked for that afternoon. I therefore had to
decline.
That may have been disappointing but
it turned out to be fortuitous. Had I delayed my return until the following
morning, my train would not have reached London. The 7/7 bombings caused a
public transport lockdown, closing not just the Underground network but also
all the rail termini. I did watch much of the rain-soaked concert on telly,
though.
One of the top songs for the waving
lighter brigades, including those being soaked at Murrayfield, was ‘Run’ by
Snow Patrol. The track may have subsequently become purloined by the loathsome
Leona Lewis, and the band more famous for the drearily monotonous ‘Chasing
Cars’, but it’s easy to forget how popular and influential the original was.
The verse is so sad and mournful but with the “Light up, light up….” refrain,
the mood lifts and – well – lights up into a symphony of hope in the face of
adversity.
Another power ballad beloved of all
but the most pop-adverse radio stations in the mid-Noughties was Daniel
Powter’s ‘Bad Day’. However, for a heartwarming, heart-melting romantic
message, the simple approach is often the best. That was the thrust of Natasha
Bedingfield’s ‘These Words’ which topped the chart in October 2004. After exhausting the traditional
inspirations of classical poets, etc, she settles quite rightly for the most
trustworthy source of all:
“These words are my own
From my heart flown
I love you I love you
I love you I love you!”
From my heart flown
I love you I love you
I love you I love you!”
She emerged that autumn from the
shadow of brother Daniel to become a genuine star in her own right. ‘These
Words’ may have been a hip-hop ballad but back then Natasha could be forgiven
anything. The Yanks preferred her follow-up ‘Unwritten’, reminiscent of Natalie
Imbruglia or a loved-up Alanis Morissette, but our own chart-topper was
endearingly British and all the better for it!
Another example of a delightful
no-frills love song was ‘Nine Million Bicycles in Beijing’ by
Katie Melua. Not a title which shrieks passion and romance, but the sweet
lyrics explain that for all the so-called facts and figures we learn, the only
precise truth is that “I will love you ‘til I die”. Ahhhh. And yet I also loved
this latest Melua-Batt collaboration from her second album Piece by Piece. A
few years later, Mum asked me if I was familiar with the songstress. She had
apparently been featured on BBC Essex and Mum proceeded to request Melua albums
for Christmas. Not sure I had a sweet enough tooth to bear the piles of sugar
heaped into an entire album but this was a rare occasion when our musical
tastes overlapped.
I’ve no idea what Mum thought of James
Blunt. Nevertheless, during the summer of 2005, most people I knew had an
opinion, and it was generally rather negative. His second single ‘You’re Beautiful’ was a real Marmite song. Love it or hate it, the song haunted the summer
airwaves for months. Unusually, it entered the chart outside the top ten and
climbed slowly to the summit, staying there for five weeks. For all its chart
dominance, it didn’t even sell half a million copies, but it carved a niche
deep in the British consciousness.
Here was a bloke so posh he’d ridden horses
in the Life Guards, was a son of an army colonel and with a family tree
traceable to tenth century Danish monarchy. At 31, he was quite late to pop
superstardom but that’s where he was heading. One minute he was supporting
Katie Melau and Elton John, the next he was headlining around the world,
selling 11 million copies of debut album Back to Bedlam.
Back to the chart-topping single,
where do I stand? Well, I considered it one of the best love songs I had ever
heard. Another simple structure, plaintive lyrics charting the singer’s
yearning for a woman’s affections he cannot possibly acquire. Women loved him.
Apart from being a man (formerly) in uniform, here was someone unafraid to
reveal his romantic side and lay his heart bare. It’s a trait common in male
balladeers in recent years but for a few years Blunt blazed the trail. He even
became the first Brit to top the US chart since Elton’s Diana tribute in 1997.
I did adore the song but I was no fan
of Mr Blunt. I found his voice so tiresomely weedy and reedy, it didn’t deserve
to sing lyrics as powerful and heart string tugging as ‘You’re Beautiful’. He hasn’t
claimed another really successful single although I felt 2008’s ‘Carry You
Home’ merited at least a top three spot, not a dismal twenty. His 2017
reincarnation as a Sheeran soundalike didn't quite reap the expected rewards either.
At Christmas 2005, I did my best to
avoid a feeble but popular song about a child’s ride on his father’s JCB and
Shayne Ward’s shitty X Factor-winning ballad ‘That’s My Goal’. However, shitty
X Factor-winning ballads were to become inescapable for the next decade.
Meanwhile, my life and career were bound for new challenges beyond the reach of
even Simon Cowell.
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