Wednesday 2 December 2009

GaGa, an S Clubber and an instrumental

85. Lady GaGa - Poker Face - 2009

Easily the biggest selling single of 2009, Just Dance was good, well great for a debut single, but it's Poker Face that transformed this 'Lady' from a singer into an icon. Like its predecessor, Poker Face was produced by the mysterious RedOne and released almost everywhere else in the world in 2008!!! It first charted here in January as an album track and gradually made its way up the chart, eventually to #1, and has gone on to sell close to 900,000 copies this year!!! An absolutely stunning pop song, and the one that truly made me see what the fuss was about with this woman. Rewind back a few years and there's no way UK radio would have played anything like this, favouring singer/songwriters and indie bands like James Blunt, Snow Patrol and The Kooks. Turn on the radio now and you'll hear Lady GaGa - and nothing else. An absolute legend, and the decade's most promising new star.



84. Jo O'Meara - What Hurts The Most - 2005

S Club 7's lead singer Jo O'Meara finally launched her solo career in 2005, two years after the band broke up, and two years after fellow S Clubber Rachel Stevens launched her incredibly successful solo career. Her debut single, and only single in fact, was a cover of a country song, turned into a pop song for Jo, and later turned back into a country song by Rascal Flatts, and most notably into a dance song by Cascada. I do love the Cascada version, and it sold a lot more than Jo's version, but the song is a slow song at heart, and I do prefer this version. Jo has a stunning voice, possibly one of the best British vocalists of the decade, so it's a shame that ever since her involvement in Big Brother's Jade/Shilpa-gate she's never given it another go, because without her, S Club 7 would have been a very weak band indeed.



83. Timbaland feat Nelly Furtado & Justin Timberlake - Give It To Me - 2007

The fan's favourite Timbaland single is The Way I Are with Keri Hilson, the radio's favourite was of course Apologize with One Republic so just to be different, my favourite single from Shock Value was by quite some stretch Give It To Me. An incredibly subtle song which despite the talent on the song, didn't have anyone shouting or overdoing it, instead being a very simple yet incredibly effective R&B song with what was very fresh production at the time. Nelly sounded great, Justin played his part and even Timbaland's vocals were good on this. One of my favourite R&B songs of the decade, and I was extremely glad when it went to #1 in the UK!!!



82. Cascada - Everytime We Touch - 2006

2006 was personally my favourite year of the noughties for various reasons. Musically it was on odd year - singer/songwriters and indie bands were slowly being phased out after 3 years of dominating as quirky popstars like Lily Allen and Sandi Thom started to rule the charts. After years of no Eurodance at the top end of the charts, Infernal's From Paris To Berlin became a huge hit at the start of the summer and then at the end of the summer, German trio Cascada, led by the incredibly underrated Natalie Horler, who really does have an excellent voice, stormed into the top five with their huge US hit Everytime We Touch. Cascada duly became the only Eurodance act of the decade that I can think of that have lasted beyond the first two singles, indeed they are still going strong almost four years on, and rightfully so, their singles have so much more personality to them than the average trashy Eurodance act. Especially this one, one of the dance classics of the decade, incredibly catchy and a great party song.



81. Rank 1 - Airwave - 2000

Rewinding right back to the very start of the decade for this. Dutch act Rank 1 slipped into the UK top ten with this trance classic in April 2000. The highly influential song had a haunting melody, later ripped off on True Love Never Dies by Flip & Fill/Kelly Llorenna. I don't really know an awful lot about Rank 1 to go off on a tangent about them, I just know that this song is absolutely glorious, possibly my favourite instrumental track of the noughties, well aside from one vocal 'I feel you over the airwave'.

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