2008-10 And I’m on my knees Looking for the Answer

My final forties years formed, in retrospect, a bittersweet period with a mix of hot-headed adventure and the icy chill of a relationship gone sour. The first half of 2008 was occupied by preparations for a move to Somerset and a new life with Jan. I dismissed the nagging doubts and chiming alarm bells as symptoms of my traditional inertia and preference for the safe option, and duly gambled on leaving my childhood haunts and family bosom in June. Up to the point of packing, whilst spending most weekends down at Stogursey, I remained at the agency AMS during the week. Many of my musical memories still stemmed from the hours spent at my desk trying not to listen to the radio being pumped out into the office.

Some I still associate with those times include the debut single from Adele, ‘Chasing Pavements’ I never saw the ‘car crash’ video but those heartfelt vocals and the old-style lush string arrangements emanating from the speakers struck a chord. The whole Adele phenomenon didn’t explode until her 21 album came out a few years later but this track offered a glimpse of what was to come.

It was early days for Onerepublic, too. Ryan Tedder has since become the go-to songwriter for all sorts of pop wannabes but back then he and his band were best known for ‘Apologise’, made into a hit by the ubiquitous Timbaland, typically lacing the original with trademark “Dep dep”s. However, on ‘Stop and Stare’, I found the opening continuous electric guitar sound, reminiscent of some kind of eerie wind whistle, quite hypnotic. Not sure whether the rest of the song lived up to the intro, but it was one of my highlights in a sea of dross.  

North Walean singer Duffy emerged early in 2008 when she released ‘Mercy’. Its Sixties Northern Soul feel and her Dusty Springfield-like appearance singled her out from the crowd, propelling the Rockferry album to sales exceeding 1.7 million by the year’s end. ‘Mercy’ topped the chart for four weeks but it was the follow-up ‘Warwick Avenue’ which floated my boat. A gorgeous ballad, and hats off to the reference to the Bakerloo Line station. Another poignant slowie from that Spring was James Blunt’s haunting ‘Carry Her Home’. It only reached number twenty but certainly one of his best, in my opinion.

Probably two of the most annoying records of any era sent me scurrying back to my geodemographic analysis and Powerpoint reports. Sam Sparro’s ‘Black and Gold’ was pretty awful but Nickelback’s hymn to the stoner lifestyle in ‘Rockstar’ seemed to linger in the top ten forever. And how Virgin Radio loved it! I didn’t. My line manager Ange got it spot on when describing the song as “the anti-rock”. Aargh!!

At least Nickelback were a rock band. In that respect they seemed to be one of a dying breed. Approaching my fiftieth birthday with horrific haste, I was struggling to make sense of the preponderance of urban music at the top of the charts. I was grappling with the problem of knowing my Tinchys from my Tinies from my Taios. Messrs Stryder, Tempah and Cruz seemed to top the chart at will, but I was still none the wiser. At least I was more confident of recognising Dizzee Rascal in an identity parade. I wasn't too fond of some of his spelling, though.  ‘Dirtee’? It’s spelt with a ‘y’, Mr Rascal, a ‘y’! Then there was his crossover hit with Calvin Harris, ‘Dance Wiv Me’. It’s ‘WITH’!! Perhaps he was a secret fan of Slade...

British females were doing pretty well, too. What’s more, I was liking a lot of what they were doing, even if listening to Florence Welch (and her Machine) felt like being blasted by a hurricane while tied to a wall. The ever-outspoken Lily Allen returned to the top with ‘The Fear’. Featuring pithy, sarcastic observations of trashy starlet fame, the track had a more trance-dance sound than Lily’s usual destruction of ex-boyfriends in reggae or Country and I recall seeing her perform it on the Jonathan Ross show. Her lyrics were a tad naughtier live, though.

You’d never hear any profanities in Pixie Lott’s material. Of course there’d be no swearing from the pretty teenager living in my home town of Brentwood. She was no mere attractive ditzy blonde; she had brains and voice to match. Her first chart-topper ‘Mama Do’  was my favourite. Little Boots (aka Victoria Hesketh) was a welcome arrival in the charts with ‘Remedy’ in 2009, although that proved to be her last Top 50 entry. In the same year, a more successful, and slightly more enduring synth pop act was La Roux. Fronted by the androgynous-looking Elly Jackson, they had two big hits which whisked me back to the heyday of electro-dance while still sounding current. The frenetic ‘Bulletproof’ was a number one but ‘In For the Kill’ was, and still is, the track which, once heard, is very hard to shift from the brain. The vocals are a bit shrill but the uncomplicated production is undoubtedly on the money.

From out of nowhere, in 2008 Sugababes sounded back to their best with ‘Denial’. A few years earlier, I reckon this would have been a number one, but the trio were no longer in the limelight and it barely limped into the top 20. Things got worse soon after when Keisha quit the band. As a result, none of the original threesome were left, but they carried on regardless. ‘Denial’ may not have been as blatantly commercial as ‘Push the Button’ or ‘About You Now’ but it was brash and bouncy and deserved greater success.

  

There were plenty of sassy female Yanks around, such as Pink, Kelis and even Kelly Clarkson. Yet it was Katy Perry who had millions of girls around the world dabbling in lesbianism – well, if you believed the Daily Mail! I didn’t really see the virtues of Perry. Her voice was nothing special and I doubt she would ever have become the star she is had she not kissed a girl and liked it.  Ranking even higher on the obnoxiousness scale were the various products of the twin American conveyor belts of commercial crap, the casts of High Street Musical and Glee. Principal guilty party was the latter TV show’s cover of a little-known Eighties flop ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’. Add in a young Canadian brat called Justin Bieber and X Factor novelty duo Jedward, and the world of musical entertainment seemed to be wracked by an insidious virus.

Thank heavens for Lady Gaga!

My first experience of Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta was not a positive one. Her first appearance on the Jonathan Ross programme in 2009 was genuine ‘car-crash’ TV. She seemed totally unengaged and uncommunicative, gratifying fodder for the older generation keen to denigrate the talentless trash posing as modern pop stars. ‘Just Dance’ and ‘Poker Face’ went to number one and Brand Gaga was all-consuming. She was inextricably linked with outrageous costumes (remember the raw meat dress worn at the 2010 MTV Awards?!) and sexually-provocative lyrics which recalled Madonna in her heyday. Except we were now in the twenty-first century, so the celeb-obsessed media demanded notoriety to be ratcheted up to eleven. Gaga was no conventional beauty but she had – well – the X Factor.

Her second interview with Jonathan the following Spring was far more revealing. Behind the in-yer-face fashion it was patently obvious there was an intelligent woman, excellent voice, talented songwriter and musician. Had she been born twenty years later, Madonna simply wouldn’t have been able to compete. After she had steered her extravagant white peacock costume to the piano and began to play and sing ‘Brown Eyes’ live, it was a pivotal moment.

I had already appreciated the perfect pop of ‘Paparazzi’ (shown in its best light, like all Gaga’s music, live on stage), followed by the synth stomper ‘Bad Romance’ and the slower-tempo of ‘Alejandro’ (move over, La Isla Bonita) so here was a pop star I could recognise as the full package. I was compelled to make a rare foray into Taunton’s HMV (probably) to buy a new CD which wasn’t a compilation album: The Fame and the nine-track Fame Monster.

For all the ubiquity of Lady Gaga in 2009, she had fewer number ones than the three chalked up by The Black Eyes Peas. DJ-producer David Guetta added the Peas’ fifth album ‘The E.N.D.’ to his growing list of credits although the hits sounded like typical fare from Will, Fergie et al. I wasn’t fussed about the first chart-topper ‘Boom Boom Pow’ or the third, ‘Meet Me Halfway’ but ‘I Gotta Feeling’ screamed “instant classic” when released in August.

Gaga finished ahead of the Peas in both singles and albums lists, but not at the summit. That accolade went to a 48 year-old Scottish spinster with Asperger’s Syndrome by the name of Susan Boyle. The complete antithesis of Lady Gaga, she nevertheless grabbed more headlines in the second half of 2009 and 2010 than Gaga, Rihanna or Katy Perry combined. Like millions of others, even my jaw dropped when I heard her stunning voice filling the room with ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ from Les Miserables.

She was the archetypal overnight sensation and a gift to internet searchers worldwide. Her massive publicity made her such a nailed-on favourite to win the BGT final in June that even I cast a vote – for dazzling dance troupe Diversity. To my astonishment, Ashley Banjo’s boys actually triumphed. Nevertheless Cowell knew he was on to a sure thing with Boyle, and she converted column inches and YouTube hits into enormous album sales worldwide. To my relief, she didn’t shift many singles but I had to grudgingly admit that her success demonstrated the adage that anyone can do it if you really try.

Bruno Mars didn’t need a peaktime TV talent show to make it big. The pint-sized Hawaiian was one of the top artists of 2010 and 2011, churning out umpteen hits singles either as a solo or ‘featured’ vocalist. He seemed to switch seamlessly from vanilla pop to reggae humour and R’n’B ballad, none of which really floated my boat. Take That’s rebirth received new impetus in the form of a new member; an old new member by the name of Robbie Williams. Fifteen years after quitting the boy band, Robbie Williams returned to the fold, albeit temporarily. 

But where were the REAL bands. You know, the acts with guitars and drums. Real instruments. They weren’t anywhere near the top of the UK singles charts, that’s for sure. Of course, there were a few exceptions.

Irish trio The Script weren’t exactly high-energy rockers but did produce a handful of decent ballads, led by ‘The Man Who Can’t be Moved’. This one grew on me, and ‘Break Even’ also met with my approval. I wouldn’t have recognised any of the personnel had singer-songwriter Danny O’Donoghue not been one of the judge/mentors on BBC1’s new talent series The Voice UK. 

But The Script were hardly genuine meat-and-two-veg rockers. Muse and Kasabian were winning awards, more for their stupendous stadium tours than their recordings. Nickelback I have already summarily dissed and dismissed. The biggest selling rock single of 2009 or 2010 was a re-release of a barrage of roaring riffs, a flurry of “fuck”s and not a lot else, entitled ‘Killing in the Name’. I hated the record but applauded its use as a vehicle for halting the run of bland X Factor Christmas number ones. In December 2009, the anti-Cowell campaign coalesced behind the Rage Against the Machine single and, incredibly, succeeded. The latest pretty boy winner, Joe McElderry, was thwarted at the critical time.  It was only a transient triumph but for one glorious week, real music lovers had raged against the X Factor machine and won!

Coldplay, of course, were more to my taste, and they didn’t disappoint with their 2008 single ‘Viva La Vida’. It sounded different from their previous singles, with prominent strings, bell and a thumping tympanum in place of traditional drums. Despite the melancholic lyrics describing a ruler’s fall from his lofty position of power, it’s a thrilling, uplifting four-minute production. Sally gave me the album for my birthday. Sally was blessed with a musical download collection more eclectic than any 15 year-old had any right to possess. From Marley to Florence, burly Yank rockers Bowling for Soup to ginger-dreadlocked Newton Faulkner, Vampire Weekend to Lordi, she took great pride in blazing trails for acts long before they struck stardom in the UK. Another of her favourites were Kings of Leon.

Prior to September 2009 I honestly could not have named a single song from their three-album canon, nor did I know they were in fact a genuine band of brothers by the Tennessee family name of Followill. However, when I first heard that growling, prowling intro I knew ’Sex On Fire’ was a surefire hit. I was also intrigued by the unorthodox placement of the drumbeat on the opening verse before normality was restored for the exhilarating chorus and subsequent stanzas. Apparently the original intention was to call the song Set Us on Fire but a technician’s quip led to the change and the rest is history. 

I would later discover that ‘Sex On Fire’ was a favourite of Angie, too. It’s virtually the law that I request it for her at any discos, the inevitable result being her shaking everything she’s got on the dancefloor. Never mind the knee replacement, hearing those guitar siren calls and Caleb’s soulful vocals never cease to unleash Angie’s inner rock-chick emotions! Hell, isn’t that why rock music was invented?

When it came to musicals in 2008 there was only one name on everyone’s lips. Well, two names, to be precise. It made lots of money, money, money for Abba, the winners who took it all: Mamma Mia! We enjoyed the touring stage production at the Hippodrome, Bristol, in January and hurried to the local independent Bridgwater cinema for the much-heralded movie in its first week on release in July. Abba have been a recurring feature of this memoir, and for good reason; their music has continued to bound back joyfully into British culture at frequent intervals to remind us of their incomparable back catalogue of pop perfection.

Given the lavish cast-of-hundreds Greek location treatment, it was a guaranteed success but nobody could have predicted it would become the UK’s biggest box office hit of all time. Based on the behaviour of those around me, I reckon the cinema receipts benefitted from repeat visits of middle-aged women and their daughters intoxicated by the beautiful setting, the winning performances of Meryl Streep, Julie Walters et al, the stunning set-pieces (for example, Dancing Queen and Voulez Vous) and the feelgood love story.

Mamma Mia would also provide popular raw material for one of the productions by the Quantock Musical Theatre Company (QMTC), of which I was a member for over three years during my time in Bridgwater. It had a surprisingly striking impact on my life, enticing out the latent performer inside me, instilling self-confidence and establishing an inner strength which would benefit me far beyond the evenings in front of an audience.

Until 2008 my experience of being in a choir was restricted to my brief spell at primary school, singing the likes of ‘Little Spanish Town’ or ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’. That was all to change. Before I had taken the courageous but ill-fated decision to buy a Victorian house in the ‘nicest street in Bridgwater’ and become a full-time member of the Binstead family, I was already well acquainted with their involvement in the QMTC. 

It was run by Brian and Barbara Williams’, incomers from London who had become part of the fabric of Nether Stowey, a picturesque place at the foot of the Quantocks. Company rehearsals were held at the modern village hall.  The Williamses were massive fans of West End musicals, and had established the QMTC as a mean of directing their own productions of classics such as My Fair Lady and Oliver. For the latter, bolstering the membership created from friends of the family, a host of youngsters had been drafted in, giving the Company an impressive age range.

This blend of youth and maturity was also to serve the QMTC well in its secondary phase. The single-show format, toiling like stink for just a week’s performances a year, didn’t suit everyone. So it was, by the time I entered its lustrous circle, that the 30-odd members were instead spreading their range to encompass material from a host of sources, culminating in a Magic of the Musicals production. With no scenery or costumes to worry about, the QMTC could tour the village halls, appearing on Friday or Saturday evenings to entertain the local populace.

I saw no role for me in such an organisation. However, on my 47th birthday, Jan persuaded me to accompany the others. Believing I would have the chance to sit at the back and listen, I duly obliged. Jan probably smiled to herself. With the short, silver-bearded Brian running proceedings, nobody would be permitted to lurk in the shadows. She was right. I was swiftly set upon by  Brian and interrogated on my voice. Was I a tenor or bass? I hadn’t a bloody clue. I decided to sit with the men at the back. Easier to hide, I thought with cunning but naivete. It wasn’t long before Barbara sussed me out and shunted me forward to the tenors who comprised Scott, his close buddy Dom and Daniel, an entertaining trio who welcomed me into their wacky teenage world.

It was a steep learning curve. Although our first live shows weren’t scheduled until the new year, there was a lot to take in. For starters I could not then, nor can I now, read music. However, like many others around me, I found it possible to follow the staves, recalling long-forgotten teachings about crotchets and quavers, sharps and flats. Then there was the singing itself. As well as struggling with the notes, it became obvious my vocal muscles needed hours in the virtual gymnasium of each rehearsal. Never mind, as each week passed, my voice became more reliable, less likely to sound like Rod Stewart after a 48-hour bender.  

And so to 14^th February 2009: my debut performance! My diary records that despite a paltry audience in the tiny environs of Kilve - its parish one of the oldest in Somerset – we had a “good workout”. Four days later came an altogether different proposition: performing the same show on the sizeable stage of Minehead’s Regal Theatre. Unnerving but gloriously exhilarating! I considered my own voice to be “crap” but the audience seemed to leave happy. The performing bug was in me. Bloody hell, I could DO this….

Way back in my Rotaract days, I remembered going to see Les Miserables in London and departing feeling distinctly underwhelmed. A trip to a school production in Bridgwater Town Hall had me adjusting my opinion. Now I began to appreciate the power of the storyline as well as the music. Until then, ‘One Day More’ had been merely a nightmare of a song to learn: a complicated jigsaw of four-part harmonies, solo parts and chorus. When it worked, it sounded incredible. If someone came in too late: disaster! For three years, it was our show-stopping finale and I was a part of it.

I also immersed myself in the organisation itself, becoming its treasurer. We got through a few pianists in my time there, but most of them contributed different ideas designed to help us develop as individuals and, more importantly, a vocal unit.

For example, Peter threw in some random suggestions such as ‘Save the Best for Last’, ‘Eternal Flame’ and the a capella ‘Only You’. They weren’t strictly speaking songs from the musicals at all, but they undoubtedly developed our skills and repertoire. Peter’s promotion to head of music at Haygrove School left Paul as the custodian of the QMTC keyboard. He was more ‘old school’; a connoisseur of Latin and musical history, precise and a perfectionist, he also brought us on considerably. Even now, if I want to exercise my chords for presentations, interviews or even karaoke, I still practise his “Dah-meh-nee”s and “Ri-ta Chak-ra-va-ti”s to fine-tune my legato and staccato techniques.

The arrival of Shelagh in September 2011 proved a masterstroke. She gamely acquiesced in ceding the musical director’s role to Alice and with her at the piano the QMTC’s future seemed secure. In addition to works such as Oklahoma, West Side Story and Joseph…, there were also memorable performances of songs from Abba and The Beatles. I take particular pride in having my own suggestion of arrangement and audience participation in ‘Hey Jude’ accepted. I wasn’t just a weak tenor and part-time tambourine tapper, you know!

Our Christmas performances also became more important. Our sessions at the Hestercombe House Christmas Fayre and from the balcony of Bridgwater’s Angel Place shopping mall proved popular with players and public alike. However, for atmosphere and a genuine feeling of togetherness, nothing could compete with our mini-concerts on the grand staircase of Dunster Castle as part of the two-day annual Dunster by Candlelight event. I think even Angie enjoyed being in the audience for that one!

Come 2012, my relationship with Angie was blossoming and I was spending more time with her in Cardiff. With  attendance at rehearsals becoming more sporadic, I graciously bowed out in February. I confess I do miss the buzz of performing on stage. I may not be up there with the Michael Balls or Alfie Boes, nor even my fellow QMTC-ers, but my years with the Company gave me confidence and those years as a live performer remain with me for ever. 

2006-07 Now you're calling me up on the phone So you can have a little whine and a moan

2006 marked the end of not one, but two eras of considerable personal significance. Of particular relevance in the context of this musical memoir was the coup de grace applied to the mortally-wounded beast that was Top of the Pops. Long since consigned to the graveyard slot on Sunday evening BBC2, TOTP received its fatal blow on 30^th July. It seemed utterly appropriate for Jimmy Savile to flick the symbolic switch at the bitter end. Given the subsequent airbrushing out of any reference to the serial sexual predator, this is a recorded moment of TV history which will never be repeated.

With various dates and online communications occupying more of my time, TOTP was no longer essential viewing for me anyway. With Freeview channels, there were limited opportunities to see videos of current artists. Consequently my efforts to maintain at best a tenuous grip on the contemporary pop scene were becoming increasingly unsuccessful, at least in terms of visual recognition. In this period, thanks to changing events and employment, I started hearing more music radio, rewarded by the continuing resurgence of indie guitar bands.

Within a few weeks of the TOTP axe, the interminable process of voluntary redundancy from the BBC reached its ultimate conclusion. Having been my only employer, saying good-bye after 24 years was a genuine wrench. I had established some indelible personal and professional relationships, but it was my bond with the Corporation itself which proved the hardest to break. Even now, a decade later, I find myself in conversations relating to the Beeb using not ‘it’ but ‘we’.

Yet VR was a one-off opportunity to sweep away the cobwebs and try something different. As soon as my Beeb closing date passed, I found myself heading for my spiritual home county of Somerset to work part-time for the agency TRP to facilitate their contract with the Beeb. With a generous package including B&B costs, it suited both parties down to the ground. In the ‘minus’ column, the work itself was tedious in the extreme. For an analyst like me, there was little in the way of job satisfaction; it was all constructing and manipulating Excel spreadsheets.

As a result, after six months I declined the offer of a permanent position and, after an extra month’s work, we parted company and I entered the uncertain world of unemployment. So far, so straightforward. But there was a complication. While in the West Country I met Jan via internet dating and I ended up spending more time at her family home in Stogursey, a pleasant if remote village near Bridgwater. Of course, when the TRP contract came to an end, I returned to Billericay full-time to concentrate on job hunting. I did still venture down to the West Country at regular intervals to spend more time with Jan and her teenage girls Natalie and Sally. Their own musical tastes were in a subtle way, to influence my own, or at least shape what I would hear. And then there was the playlist of Bridgwater’s new BCR station, and its breakfast show in particular. Although Jan’s penchant was for MoR ballads, Autumn 2006  did yield a few decent songs that appealed to both of us.

The Scissor Sisters had already introduced their colourful camp pop to the UK charts but ‘I Don’t Feel Like Dancing’ took it to a new level. From Jake Shears’ falsetto to the total arrangement, it was lively, fun and – contrary to the title – an open invitation to get on your feet and dance. 

There were a few good ballads, too, which have endured. Paolo Nutini’s ‘Last Request’ promised so much, before he became so intensely irritating. However, I preferred James Morrison’s equally soulful debut, ‘You Give Me Something’. The producers gave him the full orchestral treatment on the chorus, one of the most glorious crescendos of any British love song. When it comes to monster melodic ballads, Gary Barlow had proved a master in that hazy heyday of Take That in the mid-Nineties. That talent seemed to have been dissipated and frittered away before that extraordinary moment in pop history: Take That reformed and blew us all away with new material.

‘Patience’ was the perfect comeback single. It bore all the hallmarks of a classic love song, whilst retaining the – in marketing speak – core values of brand Take That. But it didn’t end there. Early the next year, the were back at number one with the altogether more upbeat ‘Shine’, in which Mark Owen took centre stage as writer and singer. The Beautiful World album included another great Barlow ballad in ‘Rule The World’, possibly the signature tune of their second career. It was robbed of the top spot by the odious ‘Bleeding Love’ but has proved far more enduring, and was performed by the group in the 2012 Olympic closing ceremony. Take That were back, and Britain embraced them with open arms. Their singles have lost their potency but the massive stadium tours have become even bigger than they had been when a derided Boy Band. Although now shrunk to a trio, they are a modern rarity: a band whose gigs transcend mere concert status; they are Musical Events.

Former Pop Idol Will Young wasn’t finished as a credible artist either. Not that ‘Who Am I?’ exactly took the charts by storm. Indeed, it was his first single not to make the top ten. However, I rate the melancholic track one of his best, up there with the similar-sounding ‘Leave Right Now’. His clever video super-imposing Will into various old Blue Peter scenes fitted Will’s sense of humour but his live performances allowed him to showcase his gentle voice to great effect.

By the end of 2006, The X Factor had taken an icy grasp on the public, the lengthy autumn run of expensive peak-time TV promotion brainwashing the ITV audience into carrying mediocre ballads to the Christmas number one position. Shayne Ward’s successor was Leona Lewis, who turned out to be one of the most successful champions here and the States. A nice girl with a spectacularly pure voice, I’m sure, but her Mariah Carey-ish trills and runs represented for me all that is wrong with manufactured MOR pop stars. Her first post-X Factor single ‘Bleeding Love’ practically made not my love, but my ears bleed, such was my hatred for the song. For three months its success destroyed my faith in the whole bleeding universe!

After sixteen top ten hits, Girls Aloud finally had a song that I liked. ‘Call the Shots’ was an upbeat dancefloor-filler with an uplifting chorus which belied their vacuous celebrity image. Not that Cheryl, Nadine and the others really needed my endorsement. While Girls Aloud, Leona and those who followed in her dainty footsteps benefited from enormous financial promotion, the internet was facilitating more homegrown talent. Before the days of Facebook and Twitter, MySpace was for a few years the social medium, providing a platform for people to share not pictures of their pizza or cats which look like Hitler, but for their music. Some of it was building a following literally from their bedsit or living room.  

Probably the prime example of this was Sandi Thom. Her pining for the good old days

“When music really mattered and when radio was king

 When accountants didn't have control, and the media

 couldn't buy your soul”

in ‘I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker’ really struck a chord with the MySpacers, although not for me. It hung around for months and sold more than 400,000.

Middle-class rebel Lily Allen also had her MySpace account to thank for launching her music career. Like Thom, her debut single went to number one. On the face of it, ‘Smile’ was a bright and breezy burst of summer reggae. On second hearing, you realised her ‘smile’ was in enjoyment about her ex’s misery and, boy, was she rubbing it in! The language was pretty dirty, too. 

Another posh Londoner using fake Estuary English (so ‘real’, innit!) to boost her ‘street’ credentials was Kate Nash. From the BRIT school and MySpace, Kate became a star in 2007 when her ‘Foundations’ spent five weeks at number two. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t travel well beyond England but I really enjoyed the song, its jaunty melody and wry lyrics, the highlight being: 

          “you've said I must eat so many lemons, because I am so bi’-er”!

Her refreshing take on modern relationships earned her the 2008 Best Female Brit, but there has been nothing remotely as successful since then. When you’re representing a genre as limiting as Mockney Melancholy Boyfriend Bollocking, it must be hard to stay at the top, especially when Lily Allen hogged the Entertainment page headlines. A shame: Britain needs more redhead role models!

Like Lily, Amy Winehouse was another singer forever associated with the excesses of fame. As an up-and-coming jazz singer, she was not even a twitch on my antennae. It was only in the celeb photo pages of the fledgling Metro freebie newspaper that I would see pictures of an emaciated, elaborately beehived young woman falling out of nightclubs, taxis or her own front door. Wasn’t she supposed to be a pop star now? Well, yes. Her album Back to Black was the biggest seller of 2007, although at the time I disliked her singles like ‘Rehab’, ‘You Know I’m No Good’ and, in particular, ‘Tears Dry on Their Own’. Mark Ronson’s whimsical arrangements couldn’t really conceal the gloom and despondency of Amy’s words. It was only years later, after her inevitable early death, that I came to appreciate the quality of her voice and writing.

The only Winehouse track which appealed – and that only after being lured by its toe-tapping charms at a mass Christmas party in Battersea Park – was Ronson’s jump-beat jamboree cover of The Zutons’ ‘Valerie’.  The video became famous for not featuring Winehouse herself, probably because she was too pissed to turn up. Maybe.

Ronson wasn’t the only producer whose name began to appear as an artist on a number of hit singles. In a 15-month period, the hip-hop producer/DJ/rapper Timbaland cropped up everywhere. Unlike Amy’s collaborator, he did at least contribute a few vocals. However, I’m not sure a series of verbal tics, burps and hiccupped “Deh!”s and “Doody-oody-ooly-ep”s actually qualify as vocals. I was unimpressed by his work with Justin Timberlake and 50 Cent but he triumphed on Nelly Furtado’s reinvention as Urban dance queen. ‘Maneater’ topped the charts over here, ‘Promiscuous’ came close but my favourites were the Latin American vibe of ‘All Good Things’ and the enduring R’n’B groove in ‘Say It Right’. I’m still waiting for Nelly F’s third coming, with or without Tim (baland) Mosley.

Whilst still at the BBC, I would occasionally find myself in the presence of famous folk, whether passing in a corridor, at the next table in the canteen (sorry, restaurant) or even sharing a ride in a lift. My Star Watch roll of honour included a few notable musicians, such as Paul Weller, David Essex and Alison Moyet. Some were even singing. Before I was transferred from my Radio 3/Radio 4 Research Manager role at Broadcasting House back to Nations & Regions in White City, I grasped the opportunity to witness a handful of live ‘sessions’ in 6Music’s ‘Hub’. It wasn’t a salubrious music venue, simply a space shared with photocopiers, kitchenette and colourful toadstool chairs designed for informal meetings. However, it was extremely handy, just a 20-second walk from my open-plan office.

I tended to rely on my colleague Lolo, definitely the coolest person on our floor, for details of who was performing that week. Some artists I’d never heard of, while other performances I was unable to attend because of pesky work commitments (anyone would think I had a job to do). I mentioned earlier watching Richard Ashcroft (standing alongside Suzi Quatro), but there were also mini-gigs by Estelle, The Gang of Four and Belle & Sebastian. The latter were a duo whose name I knew but whose music I didn’t. Indeed, the only track I recognised was one released the same year, a fairly innocuous but pleasant little ditty called ‘Funny Little Frog’ which peaked at thirteen.

In my research role at the BBC, I didn’t get access to the areas enjoyed by my colleagues working with Radio 1 or Radio 2. However, I’ve always believed that my period on the Radio 3 management board greatly expanded my musical education. I don’t claim to be a converted fan of jazz or composers such as Mahler, Stockhausen or Bruch. However, I did become aware of a range of classical writers and musicians, along with rudimentary understanding of their styles and career spans. There were for me no free tickets to Glastonbury or other big pop junkets. However, I was able to attend a couple of easy-listening Proms at the Albert Hall and, in 2006, an Artur Pizarro piano recital in the soaring surroundings of St John’s, Smith Square. However, the best night out was to see the musical Stomp as part of the network’s awayday. I recommend anyone with rhythmic roots and a sense of humour to go along. Highly entertaining. 

There was nothing classical about Gnarls Barkley’s ‘Crazy’ but it did become a modern classic. It topped the UK chart for nine weeks in Spring 2006, helped by then-record download sales. The act basically comprised writer-producer Danger Mouse and soul singer CeLo Green, while the psychiatry-themed song neatly blended Green’s high tenor with a subtle Sixties-ish groove. The mirrored inkblot animation was an extraordinary video, too, but with the single’s longevity, TOTP needed a studio performance. Sadly for me, that comprised a funereal-paced soul ballad featuring CeLo in airline pilot’s uniform. I’m sure many loved it but I felt it lost what was so memorable about the record, namely the elegant pulse of the dance beat.

The following summer, Rihanna’s ‘Umbrella’ went still further, remaining top of the crop for a full ten weeks. And deservedly so. I hadn’t paid much attention to the Barbadian beanpole’s early singles, successful though they were. However, the drum ’n’ hi-hat-heavy production, backed by an almost imperceptible high synth line hammered me between the ears. I’ve never been a fan of Rihanna’s voice, nor of Jay-Z’s rap intro, but this must be one of the decade’s finest dance records. Amusingly, in contrast to drought-stricken 2006 when England experienced its hottest, sunniest July in 350 years, ‘Umbrella’’s chart dominance of May-July 2007 coincided with a record-breaking spell of wet weather. Either way, sales of actual umbrella-ella-ellas soared. Such a shame that Leona’s blasted song outsold Rihanna’s, another in the long line of reasons for keeping Simon Cowell off my Christmas card list.

The new wave of Indie rock was breaking powerfully on the shores of 2006. With the exception of Kaiser Chiefs guitarist Andrew White, apparently channelling his inner Johnny Marr/Noel Gallagher into his hairstyle, there was little similarity with the Nineties brand of guitar bands. In February 2007, the Chiefs themselves ascended the summit with the rock jewel ‘Ruby’. I don’t think it has necessarily stood the test of time but it was one of my favourites of the year. 

Tousled curls seemed to be the ‘in’ style, while some of the music had a slightly rumpled sound to it, too. Illustration number one: The Kooks and singer Luke Pritchard. Their fourth single ‘Naïve’ was their biggest seller, but it’s the sprightly, folky fifth, ‘She Moves In Her Own Way’ which was, and remains, their best-known hit.  

Illustration number two: Razorlight and Jonny Borrell. ‘Golden Touch’ had peaked at three, ‘Somewhere Else’ at two, but in October 2006, they went all the way with the tale of life on the road, ‘America’. It still receives generous airplay on Nation Radio but further success has somehow eluded the band. Great things were expected of Borrell on both sides of the Atlantic, in both music and acting. He possessed all the ingredients: the looks, the contacts, ‘A’ list girlfriends (allegedly) and the essential air of ‘indie cool’. The Hollywood career never happened and, despite a few festival appearances, Razorlight remain without a label. How quickly stars can wane.

Illustration number three: The Fratellis. The Glaswegian trio may all have sported the Fratelli nomenclature but the fraternal connection was totally bogus. Who cared? In 2006, they were hot property. ‘Chelsea Dagger’, apparently based on John Fratelli’s burlesque dancer wife and a play on Britney Spears, has become something of a football stadium anthem. Well, the boisterous chorus of “Der der-ler, der der-ler, Der der ler-der-ler-der-ler” certainly has. The actual verse and lyric has been long forgotten! In any case, I preferred the follow-up, ‘Whistle for the Choir’. Its semi-acoustic, almost Gallic lilt, plus memorable melody, really appealed to me, and that appeal remains undimmed to this day.

Mind you, when there was some decent stuff emanating from the speakers, I probably allowed myself to listen a bit too closely when I should have been identifying and analysing potential customer bases of agency clients. Virgin Radio’s focus on pop-rock introduced me to the music not just of conventional rock but also new bands with a twenty-first century sound.

I’ve already mentioned the Arctic Monkeys and, despite their undoubtedly sizeable following, their failure to convert me with their first album’s offerings. However, when I first heard ‘Fluorescent Adolescent’ at AMS, I couldn’t believe it was them. But there were the familiar ingredients: jangly rhythm guitars, earthy ‘Northern’ lyrics and Alex Turner’s slightly echo-ey or over-dubbed vocals. Yet there was a delightful melody, too. It wasn’t merely my favourite Arctic Monkeys track; it was one of my fave singles of the whole year. It also made me re-evaluate earlier songs. For example, I heard ‘Mardy Bum’ on the radio and for three minutes became immersed in the world of the Sheffield underclass. I didn’t rush out to buy their albums but perhaps I wasn’t as out-of-touch as I feared.

Turner’s songs weren’t particularly frolicsome fun-fests but their readiness to dress in clown costumes (reflecting the odd violent video for ‘…Adolescent’) did at least suggest a sense of humour. Other, more pop-oriented indie bands possessed an overtly happy sound. Scouting for Girls’ mildly irritating ‘She’s So Lovely’ was a case in point. Then there were The Hoosiers. Founded in Indiana and re-located to Bracknell, they had a number five single with ‘Worried About Ray’ around the time I joined AMS. It sounded like a sad song, which jarred with the enthusiastic vocals. The follow-up, ‘Goodbye Mister A’ sounded a more snug fit. 

The Feeling were in a similar vein, and enjoyed a run of quirky top 20 singles throughout 2006. ‘Never Be Lonely’ and ‘I Love it when You Call’ were perfect fodder for pop radio but too cute for my taste. Their biggest hit, the ballad ‘Sewn’, passed me by completely back then. A shame, because it’s quite a powerful slow number which demands a careful listen. The follow-up, ‘You Fill My Little World’ was more uplifting, and was the Feeling song which I most enjoyed. Its captivating chorus still makes me smile, not because it’s amusing but thanks to its cheery vocals, piano chords and general niceness.

When it comes to feelgood music, there can be few to match Mika. His uber-camp, shiny-eyed falsetto pop lost much of its sheen with repetition but when ‘Grace Kelly’ was released at the start of 2007, everyone fell in love with him – or at least with the song. I considered it not so much a breath of fresh air but a full-blown gale. Written about his experience of rejection in the business, it seemed to subvert all the conventions of a contemporary hit. With all the sonic winks and nudges, it was more musical comedy than platinum single material, yet it topped the charts for five weeks and sold over 600,000 copies. The chorus demanded that people of all ages, myself included, sing along. A shame that I misheard “I could be hurtful, I could be purple” as “I could be happy, I could be dappy”! But then I never was much cop at picking out lyrics.

There were a few American ballads dominating the airwaves. I found The Fray’s ‘How to Save a Life’ insufferably depressing, but The Plain White Ts’ charming acoustic love song ‘Hey There Delilah’ was far more engaging. Yet two singles released by a previously unknown Scottish singer-songwriter left an even deeper impression on me in 2007.

Like many of the other artists I’ve name-checked, I never saw Amy Macdonald appear on TV but her bluesy voice was always on the airwaves. ‘Mr Rock’n’Roll’ was a brilliant blend of acoustic strumming, electric noodling, strings and toe-tapping beat. Later in the year, she released the more serious but hauntingly atmospheric ‘This is the Life’, which I loved even more. For some inexplicable reason, it failed to crack the top 20 here yet took Europe by storm. It was the biggest seller of the year in Holland.

2007 ended with me desperately trying to ignore Leona Lewis and her X Factor descendants and wallowing in the past. A colleague’s illness allowed me to snap up a ticket to see Madness at the O2. What a venue, and what a show! I was getting older, and nostalgia was beginning to take a tighter chokehold on my musical experience.

2004-05 - My shadow's the only one that walks beside me

These were difficult years for me. In addition to the emotional pain of my protracted split from Kim, I was enduring frequent physical pains as a result of a flare-up of my Crohn’s Disease. They undoubtedly affected my life and work throughout 2004, culminating in major surgery that November, and a slow recovery during the first few months of 2005.

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 50^th 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 1,000^th 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!”

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.