Top 40 Singles of 2004
40. Scissor Sisters - Mary
MERREH! YOU SHOULDN'T LET IT MAKE YA MEHD! It has suffered rather in recent months from overplaying, but on first hearing the album, I fairly quickly picked this out as one of the standouts, it's all rather lovely sounding, really, and the chorus is over the top in the right way.
39. Keane - Somewhere Only We Know
Singles from the two best selling albums of 2004, how indie am I? Anyway, this doesn't sound vastly different to (almost) every other song on the album, but somehow it sounds so much better than most of them. Something about the "simple thing, where have you gone?" line (although I thought it was "sympathy" initially) is what grabbed me the first time I heard, but I generally can't place what it is that makes this sound this good.
38. The Bravery - Unconditional
Yes, they sound like The Killers. Yes, the singer looks like he should be fronting a Smiths tribute band (and not a very good one, at that). And yes, none of their other songs sound anything much better than average, but this, this is something special. The change from "I JUST WANT, I JUST WANT LOVE!" to "I JUST WANT! Something, something for nothing!" really is rather brilliant, as is the CHEENOWNOWNOW CHEENOWNOWNOW CHEENOW intro riff. I will be suprised if there is a better song than this on their debut album.
37. Manic Street Preachers - The Love Of Richard Nixon
It all drifts along in a rather pretty and floatly way, and then suddenly there's a guitar solo out of nowhere in particular that sounds like it was lifted directly from Camel's masterpiece album Stationary Traveller. It's almost as fabulous as the stylophone solo from So Why So Sad.
36. Ash - Starcrossed
Tim Wheeler sings completely out of tune in the way that only Tim Wheeler can. It has one of those riffs that won't leave your head. It's about Romeo & Juliet. It's easily the best song on Meltdown (though it really shouldn't have been).
35. Ed Harcourt - This One's For You
Ed drunkenly mumbles at a piano. It's great.
34. The Delgados - Everybody Come Down
And The Delgados are greeted once again with total indifference from the general public, in a most perplexing manner. Sooner or later, they will surely have some kind of breakthrough. In the mean time, those of us who are paying attention will just continue enjoying great songs like this.
33. Snow Patrol - How To Be Dead
A really great single, despite not having anything remotely resembling a chorus - always a good thing. "Please understand me, see it's all down to drugs, at least I remember taking them and not a lot else" - excellent.
32. Hope Of The States - Nehemiah
One of those uplifting anthemy things. And, in common with R.E.M.'s The Ascent Of Man, it makes the words "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah" sound incredibly deep and significant.
31. Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out
Is really nothing without the first part of the song (which fortunately hasn't been overplayed at all), or, more specifically, the transition between the two. You just can't argue with those CHUG CHUG CHUGs.
30. Travis - Love Will Come Through
Fran Healy shows he isn't completely lost to horribly clumsy political ranting. Now he just needs to realise that Dougie writes great songs too, and they might manage to make a whole album as good as this again.
29. Brand New - The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows
Steals the guitar riff from Papa Roach's Last Resort wholesale. Was presumably only released as a single instead of I Will Play My Game Beneath The Spin Light because the title actually appears in the lyrics. Still, the 'sing the start of one line over the end of previous' trick in the chorus is great, and makes it impossible to sing along with, it has the usual superb lyrics, ("I contemplate the day we wed, your friends are boring me to death"), and the climactic "I LIE FOR! ONLY YOU! AND I LIE WELL! HALLELUH!" is sublime.
28. Snow Patrol - Run
Despite being no more commercial and not quite as good as One Night Is Not Enough from their previous album, this song somehow made them huge out of nowhere. And suddenly they sound like Coldplay, even though it sounds just as much like Snow Patrol as they used to. And Snow Patrol sounding like this is a great thing.
27. Starsailor - Four To The Floor
After hearing the horrible overdone seriousness of most of their debut album, one never would have expected something as patently ridiculous as this. It's all about the strings.
26. Ella Guru - Park Lake Speakers
It's just really really lovely. I cannot think of anything else to say about it.
25. Pet Shop Boys - Flamboyant
Sounds like Pet Shop Boys, obviously. But, yeah, there aren't many other bands who have quite such a distinctive sound as them. As they go, this is rather good.
24. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Nature Boy
"I was just a boy when I sat down to watch the news on TV, I saw some ordinary slaughter, I saw some routine atrocity". With an opening line as fantastic as that, it barely matters what the rest of the song sounds like, but the rest of the song does a good job of living up to it anyway.
23. Tim Booth - Down To The Sea
James really were a rather fantastic band, and this probably wouldn't have sounded much different if it was a new James single, rather than a Tim Booth solo single, ergo, it is also fantastic.
22. Belle And Sebastian - I'm A Cuckoo
"I had a funny dream and you were wearing funny shoes" is undoubtedly the second greatest opening line amongst this list. This is generally rather great, too.
21. Keane - Bedshaped
This was fantastic when it was a b-side to the original Everybody's Changing single last year, and it still is now. Just a shame they didn't have any new songs this great.
20. The Streets - Dry Your Eyes
It is such a completely perfect representation of that moment of breakup, I could tell that even before I went through the damn thing myself. "I can grow and I can change or we can adjust" is clearly total bollocks, and you know it, but you say it anyway, because there's nothing else you can say. And of course the chorus is complete cliché, THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT. Mike is sitting there crying into his beer, and what can his mates offer? Nothing. Nothing can take away any of the pain there. "Dry your eyes, there's plenty of fish in the sea.". Clearly total bollocks, but you say it anyway, because there's nothing else you can say.
19. Scissor Sisters - Comfortably Numb
And we move from that moment of rather seriousness into the most ridiculous song in the list. The first few times I heard it, I despised it, it was ruining a classic, yadda yadda yadda. Your first response to this is always going to be "WHAT THE EXPLETIVE", probably even if you don't already know the original, but this really is fantastic. "Ah ah have become! CUMF!tbly numb!"
18. Embrace - Ashes
And this is just about the greatest anthemic chorus Embrace have ever recorded (And they wrote All You Good Good People, for christ's sake!) It pretty much injects pure positivity directly into your brain. In a good way.
17. Delays - Lost In A Melody
Even after the completely unexpected fantasticness of their album, I didn't expect this. It showed that Greg Gilbert had a rather gorgeous voice (although not so great for football anthems), but there was nothing as utterly hypnotic as this on it. bloop blupblup! blupbloop blupblup! bloop blupblup! blupbloop blupblup! blup blupblup! blup blupblup!
16. Franz Ferdinand - Matinée
I don't care what everyone says, this is still better than Take Me Out. It's the Terry Wogan bit that really makes it stand out though, of course.
15. Muse - Sing For Absolution
This is actually rather shockingly restrained (for Muse) for a song called "Sing For Absolution"; instead of the completely over the top theatrics that they always do so well, they opt more for the understated beauty that they usually don't do so well. But here, they pull it off with ease.
14. Bright Eyes - Lua
It's Conor Oberst doing what he does best, which can be summed up with two words; achingly beautiful.
13. Thirteen Senses - Do No Wrong
In a similar way to Keane, they released an album that really wasn't very good, because everything on it was far too similar. This song would greatly stand out from that anyway, but the backwards guitar effects propel it completely into the realm of genius.
12. Biffy Clyro - Glitter And Trauma
Deep insights into life are all well and good, but sometimes utter nonsense like "You are. The human. Strobe. You are the human strobe." is so much better.
11. Morrissey - First Of The Gang To Die
Solo Morrissey is, of course, never going to reach the heights of The Smiths' career, but just occaisionally, he gets pretty damn close. Such a silly boy, indeed.
10. Muse - Butterflies & Hurricanes
Now this is Muse trying as hard as possible to outdo their previous efforts at going for over the top theatrics, and succeeding in a big way. And then they released the single version with added guitars that managed to outdo that even further. Yes, it's pretentious, but some of us take that as a good thing.
9. Belle And Sebastian - Your Cover's Blown
It's the middle section funk that really makes this. "The DJ's picking up speed, that's something I just don't need" is a great line, purely because it's so weird to hear in a Belle And Sebastian song.
8. Modest Mouse - Float On
It's so bizzare to know that this song was one of the hugest hits of the year over in America, because somehow it failed utterly to catch anyone's attention in the slightest over here. Hit or not, it's awesome. One of those songs that injects optimism directly into your bloodstream.
7. Brand New - Sic Transit Gloria... Glory Fades
Nothing that he tells her is really having an effect
He whispers that he loves her,
But she's probably only looking for s...
...o much more than he could ever give:
A life free of lies and a meaningful relationship.
Lyrically, they really don't come much better than this.
6. The Streets - Blinded By The Lights
Undoubtedly Mike Skinner's most accomplished work thus far, because it's the only one which isn't made entirely on the content of his lyrics. The jerky, slightly out of time synth in the background is just perfectly designed to create a totally uneasy feeling that makes the story itself so much more vivid. It is a perfect sonic representation of that feeling of vague paranoia and total loneliness one can get in a room full of people.
5. The Cure - The End Of The World
So, 2004, the year which made me discover that The Cure had written the greatest song ever (and indeed, discover The Cure in general) and left me mostly unable to listen to it without crying. This is not that song, obviously. It is Robert Smith at his poptacular best. The "I couldn't love you more" chorus is rather touching and I feel a fair amount of resonance with the lines "Me, I don't say much, it's far too hard to make you see in a moment".
4. Modest Mouse - Ocean Breathes Salty
Not a hit anywhere, what with it not having the huge anthemic chorus and such. But it does have the fantastic abrupt fake ending and even more fantastic even more abrupt real ending. And, y'know, lot's of great stuff in between.
3. Hope Of The States - The Red The White The Black The Blue
It seems a little odd now that I got QUITE so excited about the prospect of an album from Hope Of The States to the point where I was fully expecting it to be one of the greatest albums ever recorded before actually hearing most of it, but from what I had heard, it makes perfect sense. There was the transcendent epic beauty of Black Dollar Bills, and this. It's pretty much raw anger put onto record, and instills a hatred at the terrible state of the world and a desire to do something about it like nothing since Richey left the Manics.
2. Elbow - Grace Under Pressure / Switching Off
Four minutes or so of constantly swelling music building up to a climax of thousands of people singing "We still believe in love, so fuck you" together; it's truly awe inspiring.
And that's only the second best of the two songs here; Switching Off is so absurdly heartfelt and beautiful I can't find the hyperbole to describe it. "You the only sense/the world has ever made." It undoubtedly isn't true, and yet, just for that moment, it really, really is.
1. Marillion - Don't Hurt Yourself
Marillion really came a few years too late for their unexpected assault on the top 10 to actually make much difference; no one cares about the chart any more. But still, they got me interested, and I suppose just getting one more person to hear what they were doing made the whole thing worthwhile, right? Well, I could babble further about how I actually came to hear this song, but we'll leave that for when I get onto my album list (sometime in the next decade, I'm sure).
Don't Hurt Yourself utterly, utterly soars. I can think of no better word to describe it. The lyrics are really rather crap clichés in places "the past can only haunt you/live for today/each day's an open door" but with Steve Hogarth screaming out the chorus so heavenlily and more different twiddling, wailing and floating guitar touches than should in any way be possible to pack into less than six minutes, it really doesn't matter at all.
MERREH! YOU SHOULDN'T LET IT MAKE YA MEHD! It has suffered rather in recent months from overplaying, but on first hearing the album, I fairly quickly picked this out as one of the standouts, it's all rather lovely sounding, really, and the chorus is over the top in the right way.
39. Keane - Somewhere Only We Know
Singles from the two best selling albums of 2004, how indie am I? Anyway, this doesn't sound vastly different to (almost) every other song on the album, but somehow it sounds so much better than most of them. Something about the "simple thing, where have you gone?" line (although I thought it was "sympathy" initially) is what grabbed me the first time I heard, but I generally can't place what it is that makes this sound this good.
38. The Bravery - Unconditional
Yes, they sound like The Killers. Yes, the singer looks like he should be fronting a Smiths tribute band (and not a very good one, at that). And yes, none of their other songs sound anything much better than average, but this, this is something special. The change from "I JUST WANT, I JUST WANT LOVE!" to "I JUST WANT! Something, something for nothing!" really is rather brilliant, as is the CHEENOWNOWNOW CHEENOWNOWNOW CHEENOW intro riff. I will be suprised if there is a better song than this on their debut album.
37. Manic Street Preachers - The Love Of Richard Nixon
It all drifts along in a rather pretty and floatly way, and then suddenly there's a guitar solo out of nowhere in particular that sounds like it was lifted directly from Camel's masterpiece album Stationary Traveller. It's almost as fabulous as the stylophone solo from So Why So Sad.
36. Ash - Starcrossed
Tim Wheeler sings completely out of tune in the way that only Tim Wheeler can. It has one of those riffs that won't leave your head. It's about Romeo & Juliet. It's easily the best song on Meltdown (though it really shouldn't have been).
35. Ed Harcourt - This One's For You
Ed drunkenly mumbles at a piano. It's great.
34. The Delgados - Everybody Come Down
And The Delgados are greeted once again with total indifference from the general public, in a most perplexing manner. Sooner or later, they will surely have some kind of breakthrough. In the mean time, those of us who are paying attention will just continue enjoying great songs like this.
33. Snow Patrol - How To Be Dead
A really great single, despite not having anything remotely resembling a chorus - always a good thing. "Please understand me, see it's all down to drugs, at least I remember taking them and not a lot else" - excellent.
32. Hope Of The States - Nehemiah
One of those uplifting anthemy things. And, in common with R.E.M.'s The Ascent Of Man, it makes the words "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah" sound incredibly deep and significant.
31. Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out
Is really nothing without the first part of the song (which fortunately hasn't been overplayed at all), or, more specifically, the transition between the two. You just can't argue with those CHUG CHUG CHUGs.
30. Travis - Love Will Come Through
Fran Healy shows he isn't completely lost to horribly clumsy political ranting. Now he just needs to realise that Dougie writes great songs too, and they might manage to make a whole album as good as this again.
29. Brand New - The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows
Steals the guitar riff from Papa Roach's Last Resort wholesale. Was presumably only released as a single instead of I Will Play My Game Beneath The Spin Light because the title actually appears in the lyrics. Still, the 'sing the start of one line over the end of previous' trick in the chorus is great, and makes it impossible to sing along with, it has the usual superb lyrics, ("I contemplate the day we wed, your friends are boring me to death"), and the climactic "I LIE FOR! ONLY YOU! AND I LIE WELL! HALLELUH!" is sublime.
28. Snow Patrol - Run
Despite being no more commercial and not quite as good as One Night Is Not Enough from their previous album, this song somehow made them huge out of nowhere. And suddenly they sound like Coldplay, even though it sounds just as much like Snow Patrol as they used to. And Snow Patrol sounding like this is a great thing.
27. Starsailor - Four To The Floor
After hearing the horrible overdone seriousness of most of their debut album, one never would have expected something as patently ridiculous as this. It's all about the strings.
26. Ella Guru - Park Lake Speakers
It's just really really lovely. I cannot think of anything else to say about it.
25. Pet Shop Boys - Flamboyant
Sounds like Pet Shop Boys, obviously. But, yeah, there aren't many other bands who have quite such a distinctive sound as them. As they go, this is rather good.
24. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Nature Boy
"I was just a boy when I sat down to watch the news on TV, I saw some ordinary slaughter, I saw some routine atrocity". With an opening line as fantastic as that, it barely matters what the rest of the song sounds like, but the rest of the song does a good job of living up to it anyway.
23. Tim Booth - Down To The Sea
James really were a rather fantastic band, and this probably wouldn't have sounded much different if it was a new James single, rather than a Tim Booth solo single, ergo, it is also fantastic.
22. Belle And Sebastian - I'm A Cuckoo
"I had a funny dream and you were wearing funny shoes" is undoubtedly the second greatest opening line amongst this list. This is generally rather great, too.
21. Keane - Bedshaped
This was fantastic when it was a b-side to the original Everybody's Changing single last year, and it still is now. Just a shame they didn't have any new songs this great.
20. The Streets - Dry Your Eyes
It is such a completely perfect representation of that moment of breakup, I could tell that even before I went through the damn thing myself. "I can grow and I can change or we can adjust" is clearly total bollocks, and you know it, but you say it anyway, because there's nothing else you can say. And of course the chorus is complete cliché, THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT. Mike is sitting there crying into his beer, and what can his mates offer? Nothing. Nothing can take away any of the pain there. "Dry your eyes, there's plenty of fish in the sea.". Clearly total bollocks, but you say it anyway, because there's nothing else you can say.
19. Scissor Sisters - Comfortably Numb
And we move from that moment of rather seriousness into the most ridiculous song in the list. The first few times I heard it, I despised it, it was ruining a classic, yadda yadda yadda. Your first response to this is always going to be "WHAT THE EXPLETIVE", probably even if you don't already know the original, but this really is fantastic. "Ah ah have become! CUMF!tbly numb!"
18. Embrace - Ashes
And this is just about the greatest anthemic chorus Embrace have ever recorded (And they wrote All You Good Good People, for christ's sake!) It pretty much injects pure positivity directly into your brain. In a good way.
17. Delays - Lost In A Melody
Even after the completely unexpected fantasticness of their album, I didn't expect this. It showed that Greg Gilbert had a rather gorgeous voice (although not so great for football anthems), but there was nothing as utterly hypnotic as this on it. bloop blupblup! blupbloop blupblup! bloop blupblup! blupbloop blupblup! blup blupblup! blup blupblup!
16. Franz Ferdinand - Matinée
I don't care what everyone says, this is still better than Take Me Out. It's the Terry Wogan bit that really makes it stand out though, of course.
15. Muse - Sing For Absolution
This is actually rather shockingly restrained (for Muse) for a song called "Sing For Absolution"; instead of the completely over the top theatrics that they always do so well, they opt more for the understated beauty that they usually don't do so well. But here, they pull it off with ease.
14. Bright Eyes - Lua
It's Conor Oberst doing what he does best, which can be summed up with two words; achingly beautiful.
13. Thirteen Senses - Do No Wrong
In a similar way to Keane, they released an album that really wasn't very good, because everything on it was far too similar. This song would greatly stand out from that anyway, but the backwards guitar effects propel it completely into the realm of genius.
12. Biffy Clyro - Glitter And Trauma
Deep insights into life are all well and good, but sometimes utter nonsense like "You are. The human. Strobe. You are the human strobe." is so much better.
11. Morrissey - First Of The Gang To Die
Solo Morrissey is, of course, never going to reach the heights of The Smiths' career, but just occaisionally, he gets pretty damn close. Such a silly boy, indeed.
10. Muse - Butterflies & Hurricanes
Now this is Muse trying as hard as possible to outdo their previous efforts at going for over the top theatrics, and succeeding in a big way. And then they released the single version with added guitars that managed to outdo that even further. Yes, it's pretentious, but some of us take that as a good thing.
9. Belle And Sebastian - Your Cover's Blown
It's the middle section funk that really makes this. "The DJ's picking up speed, that's something I just don't need" is a great line, purely because it's so weird to hear in a Belle And Sebastian song.
8. Modest Mouse - Float On
It's so bizzare to know that this song was one of the hugest hits of the year over in America, because somehow it failed utterly to catch anyone's attention in the slightest over here. Hit or not, it's awesome. One of those songs that injects optimism directly into your bloodstream.
7. Brand New - Sic Transit Gloria... Glory Fades
Nothing that he tells her is really having an effect
He whispers that he loves her,
But she's probably only looking for s...
...o much more than he could ever give:
A life free of lies and a meaningful relationship.
Lyrically, they really don't come much better than this.
6. The Streets - Blinded By The Lights
Undoubtedly Mike Skinner's most accomplished work thus far, because it's the only one which isn't made entirely on the content of his lyrics. The jerky, slightly out of time synth in the background is just perfectly designed to create a totally uneasy feeling that makes the story itself so much more vivid. It is a perfect sonic representation of that feeling of vague paranoia and total loneliness one can get in a room full of people.
5. The Cure - The End Of The World
So, 2004, the year which made me discover that The Cure had written the greatest song ever (and indeed, discover The Cure in general) and left me mostly unable to listen to it without crying. This is not that song, obviously. It is Robert Smith at his poptacular best. The "I couldn't love you more" chorus is rather touching and I feel a fair amount of resonance with the lines "Me, I don't say much, it's far too hard to make you see in a moment".
4. Modest Mouse - Ocean Breathes Salty
Not a hit anywhere, what with it not having the huge anthemic chorus and such. But it does have the fantastic abrupt fake ending and even more fantastic even more abrupt real ending. And, y'know, lot's of great stuff in between.
3. Hope Of The States - The Red The White The Black The Blue
It seems a little odd now that I got QUITE so excited about the prospect of an album from Hope Of The States to the point where I was fully expecting it to be one of the greatest albums ever recorded before actually hearing most of it, but from what I had heard, it makes perfect sense. There was the transcendent epic beauty of Black Dollar Bills, and this. It's pretty much raw anger put onto record, and instills a hatred at the terrible state of the world and a desire to do something about it like nothing since Richey left the Manics.
2. Elbow - Grace Under Pressure / Switching Off
Four minutes or so of constantly swelling music building up to a climax of thousands of people singing "We still believe in love, so fuck you" together; it's truly awe inspiring.
And that's only the second best of the two songs here; Switching Off is so absurdly heartfelt and beautiful I can't find the hyperbole to describe it. "You the only sense/the world has ever made." It undoubtedly isn't true, and yet, just for that moment, it really, really is.
1. Marillion - Don't Hurt Yourself
Marillion really came a few years too late for their unexpected assault on the top 10 to actually make much difference; no one cares about the chart any more. But still, they got me interested, and I suppose just getting one more person to hear what they were doing made the whole thing worthwhile, right? Well, I could babble further about how I actually came to hear this song, but we'll leave that for when I get onto my album list (sometime in the next decade, I'm sure).
Don't Hurt Yourself utterly, utterly soars. I can think of no better word to describe it. The lyrics are really rather crap clichés in places "the past can only haunt you/live for today/each day's an open door" but with Steve Hogarth screaming out the chorus so heavenlily and more different twiddling, wailing and floating guitar touches than should in any way be possible to pack into less than six minutes, it really doesn't matter at all.