Best Song of 2001: Heat #2

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Destiny's Child lead the way once again, with MOP, So Solid Crew, Mis-teeq and Daft Punk slipping in behind them to make the 2001 final.

More big hitters in round 2!

• You get a maximum of TEN TICKS over the three bits of the poll. The top five will go through to the next stage.



• If you want to change your vote (or tick too many by mistake), you can edit your votes by clicking on 'Poll #12345' then 'Fill Out Poll'.



• UK chart placings given in brackets.



• You have until Friday lunchtime to vote.



• Rep for your favourites in the comments! Youtube embeds very welcome.

[Poll #1432757]

*Bob's 'Can We Fix It' was nominated, but technically only number one for a few days in 2001 so I've slotted in firm 2001 chart-topper Mambo No.5 in its place as requested. The fact that this is out of alphabetical order is symptomatic of my spreadsheet-organisation skills rather than any deep conspiracy.

Comments

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I've been chasing a few of these up on Youtube to jog my memory - biggest disappointment so far is that Case of the Ex really hasn't aged that well compared to the Aaliyah/Destiny's Child hits we've had. The chorus is still pretty good but it takes SO LONG to get there and it's just not as bitchy as I remember. Perhaps Mya is SMILING too much in the video?

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

File under 'more songs that would be better if done by Rihanna' I think.

I ticked it, cus I really liked it at the time and it's still as good as 'Bootylicious,' to my brain.

My how time flies aka stuff I truly hated then but have now ticked

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Feeder - overplayed by self at student indie disco & grew thoroughly sick of it, I like it much better now I don't have to take it so seriously

Pied Piper - hahahaha I totally see the value and merit in this song now

Oxide & Neutrino - this was on the Tomb Raider soundtrack or something and hence it was to be abhorred

Crazy Town - this needed a Dancefloor Moment to be appreciated properly (ie someone I fancied at the time professed a liking for it and I volunteered to go up and dance with him to it)

Re: My how time flies aka stuff I truly hated then but have now ticked

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Explanatory note: to give you an idea of how indie our indie disco was, Gorillaz were thought 'too cheesy' to get played.

We totally cained Chop Suey though - it is still awesome+++

Re: My how time flies aka stuff I truly hated then but have now ticked

[ms-bracken.livejournal.com]

Crazy Town - this needed a Dancefloor Moment to be appreciated properly

The WHOLE THING is Dancefloor Moment! (I am aware how deeply embarrassing my love of this is but I just can't stop)

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Man, I suck at remembering 2001.

Diabla

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

bangin, sublime, fun vid

Re: Diabla

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

well done your pimping has secured this banger my last tick, how have I never heard it before! though I think I must have at some rave or other...

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

A poor heat, this one!

'Digital Love' is a ::canon:: track that I just don't get at all.
'Can't Get You out Of My Head' is a ::canon:: track that I don't dislike but is SO overrated that I have to withhold a tick.
'Clint Eastwood' has that great Ed Case 2-step refix but I was so appalled by their good showing in the last heat that I can't encourage them.
Got briefly excited by 'Crush' but then remembered that Jennifer Paige's 'Crush' is the amazing one and Mandy Moore's 'Crush' is the one I can never remember.

WTF are Feeder/Ash/Ian Van Dahl/Crazy Town/Bob The Builder/System Of A Down doing in the nominations at all?! HAAAAAATE, so much hate.

Even after going back to remind myself of some I'd forgotten (Roni Size = ace) I've still only ticked 9.

On the plus side, the great stuff here is REALLY great - Mystikal going NUTS over that evocative, long hot desert nights twang while Nivea croons and aches. Oxide & Neutrino going so dark and so stately it's almost goth. 'Case Of The Ex' - I think, pace Kat, it holds up better than ever. "And you told me that she turned trick when y'all broke up in '96" is such a deeply satisfying lyric. And the Tori cover of '97 Bonnie & Clyde', which is a sort of dizzyingly ambitious pinnacle of what a cover version can be and do.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

System Of A Down and Gorillaz on 5. Mystikal on 1. ghdjdhfid&IUG~GNUoeo'pe334,m?c..".xxGGKJgo73

[koganbot]

Got only six on my first pass through and have never heard most of the rest so we'll see (and somehow I've forgotten what both the Mystikal and the Bubba sound like).

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

Toughest heat yet for me - in that I had a 4-way eliminator and had to sacrifice Mystikal (using 'i class it as 2000' as my excuse)

the Sovereign mix of 'Case Of The Ex' is great too

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

yes this was such a great era - it just seemed like there was this endless stream of classic R&B singles, and they'd always be accompanied be equally classic garage remixes.

The "class of 2000" excuse doesn't wash I'm afraid - it worked for the 1999 tracks because I felt they didn't belong in a 2000s poll at all. But 2000 tracks definitely do, and it's not their fault they ended up in this heat!

me and <i>my</i> daughter

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

The Tori cover might be quite interesting to ~discuss~ actually. Background: for her concept covers album Strange Little Girls she decided to reinterpret 12 songs by male songwriters from a female perspective (complete with SHORT STORIES and OUTFITS AND WIGS for each). So far so Tori, and it's a hit-or-miss affair generally which was obviously done to get out of a contract; mostly when it works, it works despite the concept ('Time' and 'Rattlesnakes' especially). But the Eminem one is an exception - she says she sung it as the dying wife locked in the car boot in the original, echoing her husband's words, and IIRC she recorded it locked in a wooden coffin (!) - and it REALLY works. Like the original it's the perfect midpoint of slightly hammy shock tactics and genuinely chilling moments.

Um, you might want to ignore the random chick and her "art project" video below.

Re: me and <i>my</i> daughter

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

My god, that sounds so much like 'Nice Day For A Murder' by Morgan Grace And The Hidden Hands/Romanovs/Whatever They're Called These Days in places. Then again, I suppose all gothpop sounds a bit similar.

/personal anathema.

Anyway, I really like that Tori album, as a curiosity piece. Am obviously a bit biased re: Tori tho.

Put rappers in coffins, they dive like dolphins

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

as requested...Mystikal & Nivea's astoundingly great 'Danger (Been So Long)'.



WATCH yourself! Or fuck around and get BESIDE yourself!

Re: Put rappers in coffins, they dive like dolphins

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

This is awesome! I don't think I've heard it before but his phrasing is v similar to that on Shake Ya Ass so it seems familiar. I prefer the backing on this to SYA though. Definite tick.

[infov0re.livejournal.com]

Wow, this is really hard; I don't like many of these at all, and don't know a handful. And the ones I do like aren't that great.

Although: big props for "Crystal"; one of my favourite New Order tracks, still, and coming so late.

Ugh. Now to find four more ticks.

hunt you down, i'll come tear out your heart / werewolf, i'm coming in dark

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Oh go on then, the other one which might have fallen down the cracks in people's memories. LOL I never knew this was on the Tomb Raider soundtrack. Fucking epic, anyway. Does anyone know where the chants were sampled from?



I really like these occasional ultra-gothy dark garage tracks which pop up every so often - see also Lady Fury's 'Murk Dem' ("Don't think I'm way too ruff - I'll snatch your heart and drink your blood") and even, I'd argue, Geeneus' 'Yellowtail'.

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

i like the SOAD song because the man sings:


CIDER CIDER
CIDER CIDER

Ian Van DULL moar like

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

How can such a boshing euphoric background (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjTV8i_KjXM) be WASTED on that drippy weak vocal hook? It's worse than when Dido turns up on Faithless records.

Re: Ian Van DULL moar like

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

'Will I' is better somehow

2001

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

More than the previous lot, this is stuff that I associate with arguing about on ILM. I think that being on the minor side of the arguments on the two big songs has hardened my heart - where I can see that hearing CGYOOMH (and to an extent Digital Love except that you don't, really, hear them) in the intervening years would have softened "I remember this!" to "I like this", I've gone "Oh, that bloody song" instead.

Re: 2001

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

haha the 'minor' side may also be known to historians as the losing side :)

[Edit: now I have a spare tick, after finding out that 'Cry' is actually the sort of Michael Jackson song that deserves having Jarvis Cocker waggling his bum at it, rather than 'Earth Song', which is ace :( ]

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I have a suspicion that the reason I remember 2001 but not 2000 is because 2001 is when I really started downloading mp3s big-time.

"Crystal" was the first time I heard New Order. I remember this precisely: I was sitting in the computer lab at uni, looking for a download of the third Garbage album, the self-titled. The FTP site at which I found it had two others up: Get Ready and Sneaker Pimps' Bloodsport (which makes it 2002, which makes sense as I remember it being spring, just before semester end). I downloaded the first track of each and ended up getting the rest of one but not the other - to this day I'm not huge on Sneaker Pimps. But I remember "Crystal" because it was possibly the only time in my life I thought "I've never heard anything like this before" but was able to grok it immediately.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

My boyfriend at the time was a big New Order/Joy Division fan and he went mad for Crystal. I couldn't quite see it myself - nice enough but it didn't have that OMG factor.

(gosh I am being incredibly negative about lots of songs on this poll! I will rep for stuff tomorrow to balance it out!)

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Wow - people really like Digital Love that much? I know I tend to go for more boshing stuff but srsly I think it's one of DP's weakest songs. Sappy gameshow end credits :(

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

surely it's technically one of their strongest songs and consequently weaker in the departments DP were previously best known for (boshin etc.). i think it's better than the more One More Time because it's less repetetive as a song too tho. but i like about half of the other tracks on Discovery more.

Spotify again

[meserach.livejournal.com]

http://open.spotify.com/user/meserach/playlist/3DlWl5pHCegv8Qpf4dbNmD

About a quarter of the songs are missing though. I think I'm gonna haveta start putting in tribute versions if the real thing isn't available.... anyone have any opinions on that?

Indeed, is anyone using these playlists at all?

Re: Spotify again

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

If only I could get to Spotify at werk I would be on them all day :(

Das Glockenspiel

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

This is a weak heat, no doubt. This was my 10th tick, a slightly reluctant one cos it's originally from 1998 or thereabouts. Still, a great track though, and there's a nice vid too:

Daddy DJ

[meserach.livejournal.com]

Waitaminute this is exactly in every way the song that got released more recently called "All I ever Wanted". Different lyrics but the thing is otherwise the complete spit. What gives there?

Re: Daddy DJ

[meserach.livejournal.com]

It says here the Basshunter dude "sampled" it, but this is that meaning of the word "sample" which means "I took the entire song and changed essenitally nothing".

It's all the more weird that the Basshunter dude's song originally had different lyrics again, which instead of generic boy-meets-girl-wibble were about playing a particular modification fo the videogame world of warcraft while chatting using the voice-chat program Ventrilo.

[credoimprobus]

My two noms in this heat, repped:

The Télépopmusik -- smooth and soothing electro, gorgeous.



The Guru -- ahaha I knew when I nommed this it wouldn't be likely to make many fans, but it's so summery and bouncy! And I have a possibly not entirely warranted love for it! (In retrospect I really should have given up the thought of trying to stick to singles where available and nominated the ace track with Erykah Badu off the same Jazzmatazz volume instead, but, well. And I am rather a bit fonder of this one, even so!)

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

i do like 'Breathe'. the other tracks from the 'Genetic World' album ft. Angela McCluskey are great too inc. 'Love Can Damage Your Health'. you wouldn't know she's a Glasweigan! I see she has a couple of solo albums inc. one released this year...

repping

[zcesl53.livejournal.com]

i have to rep a couple of tracks which seem to stand no chance at all here

Daylight is one of my all time favourite tracks, and i can't believe it only has 3 votes. No official video, but this is pretty entertaining instead
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-pvrZaGaU4
Great use of a sample, and those lyrics
"All i ever wanted was to pick apart the day put the pieces back together my way"
"Life's not a bitch, life is a beautiful woman, you only call her a bitch cos she wouldn't let you get that pussy"
a perfect record

My other rep is for muse, not surprised its not doing that well as it wasn't even a single
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiHUKVoYbdc
Particularly love this song for the coda which starts around 5 minutes in and completely changes the feel of the song. One to listen to all the way through even if it is 7 mins long

ah well, no way either of them are going to make it through to the next round...

Re: repping

[zcesl53.livejournal.com]

how do you embed youtube links ?

Hey, a lurker justifying their choices

[wholepint.livejournal.com]

So this is me being brave and explaining myself for once :)

I feel like I should probably drop out of the 2001 poll - simply because I still have big love for the two albums I was listening to that summer - Discovery and Rooty - and I'll just end up voting for DP and the Jaxx (before they went shit) in every poll... oh well! Except Broken Dreams is a pretty weak album track, nice melody but not much else.

I also can't do the 'go back and listen to these old tunes' thing because most of my internet time is at work in a quiet quiet office where headphones are frowned upon. Much as I would like to. So most of my choices in these polls are based on impulse - "hey *that* song, I love/loved that song" - ticks.

For example: I loved Crystal at the time - and it's probably the song that got me to go back and listen again and fall in love with New Order*, but at the same time it's not one I'm desperate to hear again now. So it gets a tick for what it did to my listening habits.



(*yes, I know Barney can't sing and he dances like your dad at a wedding and I don't care.)

Re: Hey, a lurker justifying their choices

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Don't worry about it dude - half my choices would have never been ticked if they'd been released later than 2005 - nostalgia is a big part of this whole extended polling business!