lbum Chart Notes: Every week the Shadows (#17) are in the chart, I keep wishing they’d play the whole of ‘Apache’ as opposed to that little snatch. It’s irritating. What we do get in full is ‘Harder To Breathe’ (Maroon 5, #12), which really is a bloody horrible song, isn’t it?

Our first new entry is Slipknot at #5. Do they play anything off it? Do they fuck. What they do play is ‘Dry Your Eyes’ cos the Streets is #4. And which I ain’t writing about till it charts for proper. Save meself and all that. So obviously it will chart at the precise moment Mum needs me to help her with the potatoes, and I’ll end up saying, “Umm more on this next week but I like the drum effects,” and the week after that it’ll be a picture of David Prutton or someone, and the week after that it’ll be #29 or something. Ufff. By a weird way of contrast, we get ‘I Don’t Wanna Know’ (Mario Winans, #3) played in full afterwards. They’re almost companion pieces till P Diddy comes in and is bloody useless all over the place. But yeah, it seems most of the best singles this year are the sad ones, or that’s how it’s sounding to me anyhow. Weird, innit?

And Avwiw “Kung-Fu Battle Grip” Wuhveen is the new #1 album. Her new album would appear to feature a lot of shouting, amazingly. Her new single is played, and fabulously opens with “Let’s talk it over/It’s not like we’re dead.” It’s called ‘My Happy Ending’. I’m suddenly really warming to her.

New Entries Outside The Top 40: InMe #31 (stunningly awful whiney nu-metal emo bullSHIT from somewhere in Essex, sung by a man who sounds like a miffy 12-year-old who dislikes broccoli. Dreadful); Deepest Blue #24 (a less rocking Turin Brakes); and Supergrass #23 (‘go experimental’ by sounding like the theme from 80’s Children’s BBC documentary series The Lowdown - better than ‘Moving’, not as good as ‘Grace’).

THE UK TOP 20 – WE TRYYYYYY, BUT STILL THE YORKSHIRE PUDDINGS REFUSE TO RISE

20) AVRIL LAVIGNE – Don’t Tell Me

I might buy the album. Hmm.

19) SAM & MARK – The Sun Has Come Your Way (NEW ENTRY)

Wherein our heroes find that the way to follow up on a godawful number 1 single does not involve releasing a song that Dodgy would have rejected on grounds of shittiness.

18) D12 – My Band

Still here? Oh right. How nice for you.

17) NATASHA BEDINGFIELD – Single

Let’s suppose someone makes a song cobbling together all the worst lyrics from this year. The hook line’s got to be “Can’t ro-MANCE on de-MAND!”, hasn’t it?

16) JET – Are You Gonna Be My Girl? (NEW ENTRY)

Because hey, how could you not want to be? Stylus’ 6th least favourite single of last year, according to, er, me, finds itself in a newly strengthened field where it might just avoid the top 10. Does that make it any less horrible? Fuck no. Aussie alpha male primates confuse ‘rocking’ with ‘being too loud’. Every clever move is telegraphed to pieces, as singer twat drops lines like “You don’t need money when you look like that, honey.” Nicks the riff off ‘Lust For Life’ and several other things and mashes it into some godawful piece of cock designed for the people who make alcopop adverts or, in fact, any adverts at all. Or all of the contestants in this year’s version of Big Brother, with the probable exception of Kitten. Chris Moyles loves this song. You’d never have guessed…

15) HOPE OF THE STATES – The Red, The White, The Black, The Blue (NEW ENTRY)

Kitten, you sense, might rather like this lot. Hope Of The States are a bit ‘political’, you see. “The red white and the blue has always been what lehhhhhhhhhhd you,” drowls the singer in the kind of voice that really should be pissing me off as it all goes A Bit Spiritualized in the background, lots of crashing strings and the like. But. For some reason… look, I’ve got this feeling you will already have decided whether or not you like Hope Of The States. They have been described as ‘like Godspeed but with singing’. Hope Of The States mean it. They are angry. See what I mean? This lot are checking the boxes of so many people so much right now.

I think I like them. Yes, his voice is horrible. The lyrics are overly simplistic and not as clever as they’re meant to be. And strings? Strings? Pfft—WE HAVE SEEN YOU ALL BEFORE, HUNNY!

Butbutbutbut—the key is that Hope Of The States MEAN IT. No, not in the tiresome way—well, you could see it as being the tiresome way. But this isn’t an issue of style, this is not about image or looking cool or rocking. Hope Of The States are this mob from Chichester who are just angry and confused with the world, and this is their flailing to try and get that frustration out and try to change stuff. They don’t seem to have got the hang of this yet, though—it does all feel somewhat vague, not because they’re holding back, but because they’re not quite sure what to do. They’re a very moving kind of a band. This isn’t single of the year, it’s not even close, but there’s just something about it that makes it all really rather endearing. You sense that one day they’re really going to be amazing—they’ve got power, now they need the control.

14) SARAH CONNOR – Bounce (NEW ENTRY)

Shamefully, I’m paying more attention to the tennis this afternoon. And dinner’s set things back again. What we have here is German popstar type Connor singing about kicking out her man over the beat from ‘Family Affair’ by Mary J. Blige. Contains the line “You’ve made your bed, and now you have to sleep in it.” That’s the high point.

13) THE RASMUS – In The Shadows

Ah, playing catch-up again, just like the old days.

12) THE CORRS – Summer Sunshine

It’s like Mis-Teeq never went away.

11) MAROON 5 – This Love

George Michael’s new single isn’t very good, by the way.

10) THE KILLERS – Mr Brightside (NEW ENTRY)

So people have noticed this mob now, and they’ve decided they don’t like them because they sound like an American version of Shed Seven. Perhaps this is so they can pretend they had reasons for hating on Shed Seven other than that they were ugly (though to be fair, with the exception of ‘Getting Better’, ‘Disco Down’ and ‘Why Can’t I Be You?’, they probably did). Other than that, though, this hateration is very much mystifying. Certainly their previous hit, ‘Somebody Told Me’, was a fair bit better than this (people are saying its chorus was rubbish. Counterpoint—its chorus was GREAT!!!), but this is still pretty decent, sweaty electro-rockeen, with a chorus that manages to avoid detection rather well. It’s not that brilliant really, but it’s still really quite good. I shall get the album and be quietly pleased with it, I’d reckon.

9) KRISTIAN LEONTIOU – The Story Of My Life (NEW ENTRY)

The Killers’ album, by the way, is called Hot Fuss, which isn’t much of a name for anything really. Kristian Leontiou’s album is called Someday Soon, however, which makes me think he sounds like Deepest Blue. He does. He means it, does Kristian, where ‘it’ is… umm, dunno. He’s a bit unhappy. He sings “We trahhhh” quite a lot. It is not as good as the tennis, or much else, really.

8) ANASTACIA – Left Outside Alone

Such as this.

7) CHRISTINA MILIAN – Dip It Low

Or this, actually. Right, now I have to write what I was going to write about Hope Of The States while listening to this. It could well be tricky.

6) V – Blood Sweat and Tears (NEW ENTRY)

They have been getting bigged up by lots of people. I was on the toilet at the time, so I’m not quite sure why. Maybe next week, eh?

5) THE 411 ft. GHOSTFACE KILLAH – On My Knees

I still haven’t written the Hope Of The States entry. This isn’t really helping.

4) CASSIDY ft. R KELLY – Hotel

I’ve this awful feeling I might not get anything done about Hope Of The States. However, to the reader, they’ll already have seen if I have or not, so consider this all a bit ‘Inside The Actor’s Studio’, OK? Discovery Channel style. Currently my radio is behind me at around 125 degrees from my eyeline, positioned on top of a filing cabinet so I can reach it easier. It’s very convenient.

3) EAMON – Fuck It (I Don’t Want You Back)

And so the Williams Sisters of the recent history of the top 10’s grip on the top 2 is broken, a bit. Too-rye-ay.

2) KELIS – Trick Me (NEW ENTRY)

And it’s bloody fantastic in all contexts other than Frankee still being at #1. The beat is skank-tastic. “Might trick me once, won’t let you trick me twice…” “oh-oh oh-oh!” Hooky to almost-illegal levels, tons better than ‘Milkshake’, WHY AM I HAVING TO LISTEN TO FRANKEE RIGHT NOW AND NOT THIS? Jesus Christ. This fucking owns, though, no question.

1) FRANKEE – Fuck U Right Back

Jesus… right, so is this the first time since ‘Mama Mia’ and ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ that a song’s been knocked off the top by a song containing its title? Oh yeah, the brackets. She’s terrible. He’s terrible. IT’S ALL TERRIBLE AND I WANT IT TO GO AWAY RIGHT FUCKING NOW. And maybe next week they will. Fucking better do anyway.