As you can probably guess from my earlier comments, Radio V2.0 isn't my first stab at writing a music blog. In fact, this has been a recurring project over recent years. Usually, it ends up going on hiatus for important life events (like when I got an XBox 360) and then it withers on the vine.
As I realize you probably have ZERO idea of what to expect when you show up at this outpost, here's a clue in the form of my Top 20 singles of 2005 dug up from my last crack at writing this thing regularly. Consider this both your chance to figure out whether it's worth sticking around, and a chance to gaze into a crystal ball into my top singles of 2006 post that will probably make an appearance in the next two weeks.
Radio V2.0's 20 BEST OF 2005
This list will not be most popular singles of the last year, but a thoroughly subjective (and therefore correct) list of the twenty best singles of 2005. I'm sure a couple times you'll nod in agreement and a couple times, you'll shudder in pain, but to answer a couple FAQs quickly:
1. Level of cool is not considered. The list has songs that have yet to be released in the US, and songs from albums that have sold upwards of 5 million. This is not the top 20 songs that you would've known if you were cool enough, but you're not-- so there, it's a straight up top twenty best of.
2. The track had to have been released in 2005. No greatest hits, no reissues, no oldies. The song had to be from an album actively being promoted in 2005. The album may have been released in 2004, but if the SINGLE was released in 2005 (meaning a commercial release or a radio one), it's been considered for this list.
3. As the blog is Radio V2.0, the list is weighted toward "popular" songs. We considered everything that made a dent in the greater consciousness, but sorry, really indie stuff didn't crack the list, neither did hardcore anything or clone acts. Sorry, Jessica Simpson. Without further ado....
20 from 2005:
20. James Blunt - "You're Beautiful" (Custard/Atlantic UK) Ex-Army officer makes 2005's most beautiful pop ballad in a year utterly devoid of them. In fact, an album full. Powerful for its borderline obsessive lyrics and lilting vocal, this is top-shelf stuff.
19. Arctic Monkeys "I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor" (Domino UK) 3 minutes of crunching guitar driven dance-rock from the band scheduled to break bad in about 5 minutes. A thoroughly manic, yet engaging, escapist and shockingly excellent single.
18. Robyn - Be Mine (Konichiwa Sweden) Shamefully forgotten for her 1997 run of pre-Britney pop hits and the platinum album from hence they came, Robyn returns a decade later with a catchy thoroughly modern, thoroughly grown-up, upbeat, string laden tale of unrequited love. If this whets the appetite for more, check out 2003's even hotter "Keep This Fire Burning"
17. Stereophonics - Dakota (V2 UK) Toiling in the shadows of England's Coldplay and Ireland's U2 is Wales' greatest musical export, Stereophonics. Retooling their sound by adding heavier guitars and submerging Kelly Jones' vocals in the mix a bit more than usual, "Dakota," is a triumph of a kiss-off record blanketed by an irresistible wall of sound.
16. Coldplay - Talk (Parlophone UK) Once more to the podium for the Princes of Rock. While latest collection X&Y was buried under the weight of world-beating expectations, this singular moment shows the boys still have it, even if the album didn't deliver. Riding a Kraftwerk riff for all it's worth, they deliver the energy and vitality you rarely capture on a Coldplay record but is so evident live.
15. Kasabian - Club Foot (RCA UK) All swagger and cojones, this brilliant single shows dance rock less light on its feet as when the Brothers Franz serve it up. Gritty, grimy and primal, maybe the most aurally sexual three and a half minutes to show up in years. From their excellent, sadly overlooked self-titled debut
14. White Stripes - My Doorbell (V2 USA) Every White Stripes album has a moment of utter transcendence that makes you realize they are frickin geniuses. This is it. All piano stomp, rudimentary drumming, bluesily howled vocals and crazy sticky chorus, the White Stripes continue to make a case for being America's best band.
13. Hard-Fi - Cash Machine (Necessary/Atlantic UK) A pop fable told by the light of the empty ATM, lyrically in the school of Mellencamp's regular guy down on his luck (they even use a little melodica on this one), but sonically right in the pocket of contemporary British post-punk. An excellent introduction to a first-rate band that should make big waves here any day now.
12. Bodyrockers - I Like The Way (Mercury UK) The best dance record of the year not to make a conscious bid to be anything but a club banger. Swarthy vocals that drip of intent, not to mention sweat, balance on top of the chugging guitars and a four-to-the-floor house backbone. So dirty, so fuckin' brilliant, even after it was in a Diet Coke commercial.
11. Gwen Stefani - Hollaback Girl (Interscope USA) On first listen this is one of the WORST records of the year, exempted because its drumline and overtime cheer-routine vocals are the most addictive thing since Coke (cola or otherwise). Thine mind doth protest, but thine ass shaketh. And really, that's the mark of a great pop record. The ability to invoke surrender in people who should know better.
10. The Killers - Mr. Brightside (Island USA) Another excellent salvo from the most promising American band to debut in ages. Lyrically engrossing, sonically undeniable and delivered with Brandon Flowers' trademark evocative wail, "Mr. Brightside" is a latter-day classic, growing more vital with every listen.
9. Green Day - Wake Me Up When September Ends (Warner Bros. USA) The most important album of the decade so far is such because it is full of songs like this one. Alternating between seeming navel-gazing and aggression, Green Day sparkles when their songs say something, and this is one of their best moments. (Editor's Note: "Boulevard Of Broken Dreams" was considered a late 2004 release)
8. Gorillaz f. Shaun Ryder - Dare (Virgin UK) Perhaps one of the best ass-shakers to come out of the pipeline in ages, almost no one would recognize Damon Albarn's pitched up vocals here. Almost nonsensical in a way that only a band without a human face would be allowed to be, but undeniable for sheer catchiness alone.
7. Madonna - Hung Up (Warner Bros. USA) Even I get 'em wrong. Late last year I reviewed this track and basically, I did not think it a fitting return for the Queen of Pop. The first time I heard the album version instead of the castrated radio edit, I realized how wrong I was. Maybe it's the fact that in the context of its parent album Confessions On A Dancefloor it sounds infinitely better, or maybe (as I suspect) the breakdown that starts at about 4:02 in the album version and the build-up back toward the final chorus make the whole record worth it. A true hands-in-the-air moment of pop transcendence.
6. Kelly Clarkson - Since U Been Gone (RCA USA) One of the few galvanizing moments of 2005, and hopefully a slap upside the head to the people who A&R American Idol winners' records. "This is what happens when you give one a good song!" There are so few people who dislike this record, that you start thinking maybe the key to world peace doesn't go through Baghdad or the West Bank, maybe it goes through a 3-minute pop/rock throwdown that Avril is killing herself for not snapping up first.
5. Kanye West f. Jamie Foxx - Gold Digger (Interscope USA) Every now and then a hip-hop record shows up that not only doesn't fall into self-parody, but is equal parts of the moment and game changing. This time we can thank Kanye. The lyric rings true, the hallmark of a great rap record; the beats are typically club hot and the use of Jamie Foxx channeling Ray Charles is awe-inspiring. Yes, it may have been played into the ground, but unlike other records with a similar fate (the thoroughly mindless and grooveless "My Humps, anyone?) Kanye delivered a record that people will reference five years from now when realizing music back then (today) wasn't as bad as we thought at the time.
4. Robbie Williams - Tripping (Chrysalis UK) For the sake of argument, the (British) King of Pop returned to active duty in '05 with this ska-inflected piece of experimental pop that while being borderline too cool for the room is undeniably catchy and a blueprint for state of the art pop. Cribbing shamelessly from prior works and the music world in general, Robbie throws strings, woodblocks, background harmonies and horns together while alternating between sing-song verses, a falsetto chorus and rapping in the bridge to create a richly textured recording that took him to places no one would have expected him to go. A more than worthy, challenging four-minute escape from the banal, repetitive world of pop by numbers.
3. Mariah Carey - We Belong Together (Island) Within three and a half minutes this spring, Mariah Carey managed to erase four years of jokes; four years of believing her career was over and about ten years of mediocre recordings. This was a veritable sea change for one of the greatest voices in pop and all it took was returning to the secret of her success. The formula. A good song, squarely in the pocket of radio trends, plus that voice equals a hit. Echoing her 1995 hit, "Always Be My Baby," "We Belong Together" was so much more than a great single, but at its essence that's exactly what it was. A yearning plea for her own celebrity or a lover, we'll never know, but we know it's an undeniable record.
2. Athlete - Wires (Parlophone UK) While we were busy lauding Snow Patrol in 2004 as the band most likely to steal Coldplay's mantle as the kings of brainy rock, Athlete were busy refashioning themselves into worthy challengers who would open 2005 and the campaign behind their second album Tourist with "Wires." The lyric is an elegant rumination on a father's reaction to seeing his newborn hospitalized at Christmas. The gentle, emotional vocal backed by a minimialist piano line, shimmering guitars and seemingly fragile drums reaches an emotional climax with a whisper rather than a wallop. A fine piece of songcraft from a woefully underappreciated act.
1. Hard-Fi - Hard To Beat (Necessary/Atlantic UK) While Hard-Fi's debut album Stars Of CCTV has a solid cache of singles, "Hard To Beat" is everything a great pop record needs to be. The lyric is a universal boy meets girl tale with a chorus catchier than bird flu (in a good way). The vocal (on which singer Richard Archer swaggers like a young Jagger) rides a rump-shaker of a disco-rock backing track that recalls at turns Chic, the Stones, Martha & the Vandellas and Stuart Price. It's a record that grabs you, shakes you and makes you hit the repeat button without breaking a sweat. Best described as the love child of Franz Ferdinand and Madonna, I would be shocked not to find this record topping many 2006 lists following its US release.
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