http://www.youtube.com/p/394BC4C0823A1EB0
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Scissor Sisters – I Don’t Feel Like Dancing
You may think it impossible, but the Scissor Sisters have actually out-gayed themselves with this song and video! Of course this can only be a good thing, as jolly flamboyancy and silliness is always needed in pop music and now more than ever with the continual onslaught of samey singer-songwriters. Bright colours, silly costumes, ridiculous special effects (I even spotted a spaceship that resembles a Bop-It!) new hair-dos and rather a lot of dancing considering this song is about not dancing, this is a video you can’t ignore and surely can’t dislike. It is fun in 3-minute audio-visual form. Could this be the band’s first ever no.1? I really hope so!
Keane – Crystal Ball
This lovely song now has a video and it’s a good one too. It’s about a man (who we shall name Chris de Burgh for reasons obvious to anyone who’s heard this song) who leaves home in the morning and returns to find his life has been stolen by another man who looks rather like him (it may just be the same guy in different clothes, I can’t quite tell). His wife, let’s call her Crystal Ball, lives with this Other Man and doesn’t even recognise Chris. He then goes to work and finds the Other Man at his desk, and later sees him drive off in his car! What this has to do with spherical fortune-telling devices I’ve no idea – they seem to have just taken the first 2 lines (“Who is this man I see, where I’m supposed to be?”) very literally. Still, it’s imaginative and interesting to watch, so it gets my thumbs up.
Jump5 – Do Ya
This scarily energetic teenage 5-piece were kind of like an American Christian version of A*Teens, a mainstay of Dave Bedbug’s beloved Radio Disney when they were around in the early 00s. Amazingly they are still going although I haven’t heard anything about them in ages. Normally I love anything jolly and youthful but these kids scare me with their blondeness, over-enthusiastic dance moves and absolutely enormous mouths. I think I’ll stick with my Swedes for now.
Bugz In The Attic – Move Aside
When I first heard this song I could not believe that I liked it, because I hated their previous semi-hit Booty La La. I listened again and again and eventually I had to admit: this song is amazing! If this was the next single by Christina, Justin, Alesha, Basement Jaxx or Jamelia any of them would have a huge hit on their hands. Move Aside has so far only been released as a 12″, although the DJ/producer collective have just released their first studio album Back In The Doghouse.
Torgny Melins – Dansbander
How can a group of dull old blokes make such ace music? Well, they can start by being Swedish and having the genius idea of making a covers album of songs by the acetastic hip-pop-rock group Teddybears Sthlm. The Teddies themselves have already done 2 versions of this, the first being my favourite Hip-Hopper and the second being as a duet with Iggy Pop called Punkrocker which is supposed to launch them in the USA but no such luck yet as far as I’ve heard. If you have the Caesars’ UK album you will have heard their version of Punkrocker, as they share a band member with the Teddybears. The Torgny Melins versions may be far less cool but they’re possibly even more fun. If the grannies of the UK were listening to schlager instead of Westlife our charts would be in much better shape. Make sure you check out the Torgny Melins medley of 2005 Swedish pop hits as well, including Robyn, September and Moneybrother!
5. Bertine Zetlitz – 500
4. Alesha – Lipstick
3. Scissor Sisters – I Don’t Feel Like Dancing
2. Nelly Furtado – Promiscuous
and last but not least (the opposite in fact)…
1. Justin Timberlake – SexyBack
I’m still a bit on the fence with this one. It’s not bad, certainly better than a lot of things in the charts, but not even among the best singles JT has released. Therefore, I’ve posted one of the first videos he ever took part in, Tearin’ Up My Heart by *N Sync, from the days when videos were blurry, t-shirts were tucked in and dance routines were synchronised (the saddest loss of all). In the words of *N Sync themselves, I want you back old Justin! There’d better be some good pop on the album, or I shall be mourning the loss of a brilliant pop star.