2004 List: Top 5 Singles Of Shamelessness

Top 5 mainstream pop singles which should only have been guilty pleasures for a snob like me but which I actually shamelessly adore:

5. She Will Be Loved (Maroon 5): It’s just sho shweet! My pop ballad of the year, because there always is one which I love despite my hopes of better judgment. (If I’d made a list last year, you can bet Daniel Bedingfield’s If You’re Not The One would have been on it.)

4. Somebody Told Me (The Killers): I’m sure this band is the new big thing among people who think they’re hip but really aren’t, and the album has received lukewarm reviews from sources I trust, but this single reached out and grabbed me when the more highly regarded efforts of Franz Ferdinand, Scissor Sisters etc. did not. There is a mythical status attached to the Album As Art Form, but sometimes all you need to make someone’s day is a catchy song.

3. Fuck It (Eamon): When I first heard this song on the Internet several months before it was released as a single, I never thought it would ever get played on the radio. I also find the radio version bizarrely amusing; what with all the censorship it almost sounds like it’s been remixed by Aphex Twin. Despite the obvious novelty value of the song, it does appeal to me beyond the “Dude, he’s saying fuck a lot! Huh-huh-huh-huh-huh” sense. I really like the melody, and when Eamon’s voice quavers upwards on the last “ba-a-ack” of the chorus? Little heart flutter.

2. Numb (Linkin Park): Unlike Limp Bizkit and all the other nu-metal whatevers, there are actually no Linkin Park singles I actively dislike. I’m fairly indifferent to most of them, but at least I never feel the need to change the channel in disgust when they come on. There’s a chimey, dramatic bombast to this one which I really enjoy when it kicks in at the beginning of the song. The lyrics are same-old same-old, of course, as is the accompanying video – there’s this girl! She has dark hair and wears black and draws! The cool kids shun her ‘cos she’s different! But all she wants is to be “more like [her] and less like [them]!” So she runs into a church inexplicably! – but that’s all part of the fun.

1. Toxic (Britney): So far, my top pop single of the 21st century. Britney has very little to do with what is great about this song, although she is central to the greatness of the video. Mad props go to producers Bloodshy and Avant for this masterpiece, which is, amazingly, only one among many other sublime pop joys which Scandinavia has given the world this year. (The others will feature in another list if I get around to making it.) Maybe it’s something in their water.