2004: the year in which Britain really went wild for a slushy R&B ballad…
Burn, by Usher (his 3rd of four #1s)
2 weeks, 4th – 18th July 2004
Barely two weeks after Mario Winans was mourning his unfaithful lover, and a couple of months on from Eamon’s whining, Usher ponders an age old dilemma. Man I don’t know what I’m gonna do, Without my boo…
Ballads like this had been the sound of the Billboard Hot 100 since the nineties, usually staying at number one for months on end (‘Burn’ itself was the US #1 for eight weeks, and knocked Usher’s earlier single ‘Yeah!’ from top spot). And while they often charted well in Britain, it feels like 2004 was the year that they belatedly broke through and dominated.
Why? I’m not sure. Slumping sales? A lack of British pop talent? More break-ups than usual? Was the insidious internet forcing American slush into the homes of impressionable British kids…? However it happened, it made for some fairly dull number ones. Usher’s vocals are impressive (though his tendency towards a falsetto is grating), yet the production is slow and treacly. While ‘Yeah!’ was certainly dumb; it was at least cutting edge and upbeat.
Another potential symptom of slumping sales seems to be that acts are scoring multiple chart-toppers, closer together. In 2003 only Busted managed multiple #1s, but we’ve now had three repeaters in a row – Britney, McFly and now Usher. A long time ago I described this phenomenon – lesser follow-ups making number one thanks to a huge smash hit – as ‘shadow number ones’. But I don’t think that’s what’s happening here, and it’s going to keep happening over the next few years, until sales start to pick up.
What’s also going to happen over the next few years is more and more syrupy R&B ballads like this making number one in Britain, beyond their natural habitat of the Hot 100. Think Akon, think Ne-Yo. Even normally upbeat females like Beyonce and Rihanna will try their hand at it. And here am I, scanning the horizon for any sign of a guitar…
In my post on ‘5 Colours in Her Hair’, I called it the perfect song for McFly to launch themselves with. Their second single, then, was the perfect song for McFly to announce that they were here to stay.
Obviously, by McFly (their 2nd of seven #1s)
1 week, 27th June – 4th July 2004
‘5 Colours in Her Hair’ was largely Busted under a different name, with a big nod towards the same pop punk sound; though with a much more melodic, classic rock influence. For ‘Obviously’ they keep the melodies strong, but this is much more of an understated record, balanced somewhere between power and jangle pop.
Can a song be instant, yet understated? If so, then this is that song. This made me a McFly fan, and started me on the path of buying every album, seeing them live three times, and buying each copy of Attitude magazine in which they shamelessly gay-baited us on the cover. It’s got a hell of a chorus, especially when Danny and Tom’s voices soar and intertwine towards the climax.
This is also a cut above Busted in terms of the lyrics, in which McFly prove that teenage boys can write songs about not getting the girl without sounding like spoiled toddlers. They’re in love with a girl, but have quickly come to the realisation that they aren’t good enough for her… Cause obviously, She’s out of my league, I’m wasting my time ‘cause she’ll never be mine…
The rest of the lyrics are either quite funny: the girl’s boyfriend is twenty-three, He’s in the Marines, He’d kill me… Or they’re endearingly clunky: I think the only reason they chose to run off to LA in the second verse is because it rhymes with that’s where I’ll stay… Their debut album, ‘Room on the 3rd Floor’ is full of similarly teenage lyrics, and is an LP I’ll always listen to fondly.
The one thing I’d change about this are the strings, which add strangely grand flourishes that a song this simple doesn’t need. Maybe they were worried the song was too subtle after 5CIHH, and wanted some more oomph, but it’s a bit much. In fact, that’s one of my few complaints with early McFly – an over-egging of the pudding in an attempt to prove themselves as a ‘proper’ band. It was worst on their second album, from which they’ll be scoring two more #1s soon enough.
Britney scores back-to-back chart-toppers for the second time in her career, with a track that’s the polar opposite to the throbbing ‘Toxic’.
Everytime, by Britney Spears (her 5th of six #1s)
1 week, 20th – 27th June 2004
Brit was never one for pure ballads. Her slower numbers – ‘Sometimes’, ‘Lucky’ – still had lots of poppy, Max Martin touches. ‘Everytime’ stands alone in her discography for how sparse it is. It’s held together by a music box riff, which is beautiful, and which deconstructs itself towards the end, just as if the box needed to be wound-up again. The song does build, slowly, with ominous strings, but it never feels cluttered.
Stripping the production back like that leaves the slightly scary proposition of Britney’s voice being front and centre. No, she’s not the best singer. And no, her voice is not in its element here (you can hear lines in the chorus where she has been, shall we say, digitally supported.) But I think it adds vulnerability, the fact that she holds back, doesn’t over sing, and is allowed to be imperfect.
It’s also helped now by what we know of Britney’s mental state over the past couple of decades. The inspiration for the song was her break-up with Justin Timberlake, an alleged abortion, and her anger at his #2 hit ‘Cry Me a River’ (which I guess makes ‘Everytime’ another answer song!) Tawdry speculation was rife – proving her point, really – and controversy ensued when the video appeared to show Britney killing herself in a bathtub, being rushed to hospital, and being reborn as a baby in the ward next door.
Let’s be bold, and call this a jewel in Britney’s discographic crown. But let’s also admit that it’s not among my very favourites of hers, because upbeat almost always trumps weepy for me, and because it’s hard to compete with a trio of all-timers like ‘…Baby One More Time’, ‘Oops…! I Did It Again’, and ‘Toxic’.
Let’s keep up the hyperbole though, and claim that Britney’s breathy delivery here invented the modern ‘cursive’ singing trend. Maybe the new-born baby in the video was actually Billie Eilish? And in the slightly odd falsetto parts, can I claim to hear Kate Bush…? Or is that hyperbolism taken too far?
‘Everytime’ was Britney Spears’ tenth UK Top 10 hit, and looked for a while like it might have been her last #1. She has one more to come, in eight years’ time, and a lot will happen to her between 2004 and then. And yet, she will keep churning out the hits – seven more Top 10s before that 2012 postscript, to be exact – and keep being, for better or worse, probably the most famous woman on the planet.
Sigh. Ready for Round Two of Britain’s Spring of Silliness?
F.U.R.B (F U Right Back), by Frankee (her 1st and only #1)
3 weeks, 16th May – 6th June 2004
Yes, after a month of Eamon’s whiny ‘F**k It (I Don’t Want You Back)’, his supposed ex-girlfriend Frankee had to have her say. There are two sides to every story… she announces in the intro. So far so stupid. But bear with me as I explain why this is the far better record.
‘F.U.R.B.’ is essentially the same song: same tune, same vaguely doo-wop melody, same amount of swearing. But whereas Eamon’s version was plodding and self-indulgent, Frankee’s version is sassy and, in places, pretty hilarious.
The sass is added very easily, by putting some synth blasts at the end of each bar to liven up the original’s treacly tempo, and by adding a couple more beats and clicks to the rhythm. And then by the fact that, lyrically, Frankee doesn’t go in for any moping. She goes for the low blows, and hits Eamon where it hurts. He was, it turns out, a crap shag.
You thought you could really make me moan, I had better sex on my own… and Fuck all those nights you thought you broke my back, Well guess what yo, Your sex was wack… I mean yes it’s childish, yes it’s tawdry, yes it’s vulgar. But I think a line like I do admit I’m glad, I didn’t catch your crabs is funny, and well-deserved after having sat through multiple plays of Eamon’s original.
And at one point there is a moment of precise critical clarity, when Frankee sings: If you really didn’t care, You wouldn’t wanna share, Telling everybody just how you feel… Exactly, Eamon! By writing an entire song about how much you don’t care, you’re showing the world that you really do! Idiot.
I feel there is a comment to be made here, on the power imbalance in male-female relationships. Why is the woman allowed to be rude post-breakup, while the man comes across as vindictive? If Eamon claimed Frankee was bad in bed then it would be very ungentlemanly. Frankee does it and it’s empowering. But also, do two songs as lowbrow as this deserve any deep analysis? Probably not.
Eamon denied that Frankee had ever been his girlfriend, but at the same time claimed he had auditioned her for the role of recording this answer song (he earned royalties for both), and welcomed her into “the world of ho-wop” (his words). Like Eamon, Frankee released an album off the back of this gimmick, but unlike Eamon she remains a gold-star one-hit wonder. She subsequently left the music business, and in 2016 joined the NYPD.
We knew it all along. Busted were just the warm-up for the decade’s finest pop-punk, not-quite-a-boyband: McFly.
5 Colours in Her Hair, by McFly (their 1st of seven #1s)
2 weeks, 4th – 18th April 2004
I love McFly. I think they produced some of 21st century Britain’s finest pop songs. I have seen them live three times. I’ll admit right now, off the bat, that I will struggle to give an unbiased critique of any of their seven chart-toppers. But, having said that, ‘5 Colours in Her Hair’ is pretty far down my list of best McFly singles, let alone my list of best McFly tracks (unlike most pop groups, McFly’s albums weren’t full of filler).
At the same time, this song was probably the best way to launch the band: a breakneck, surf-rock track with a stupidly catchy doo-doo-doodoo-doo hook, and lyrics about a loner with a sexy attitude (inspired by the dreadlocked Susan Lee from Channel 4 drama ‘As If’). This was the McFly manifesto for most of their first three albums, a period that would produce those seven #1s, as well as an unbroken run of fifteen Top 10 hits.
It’s also got that cheeky chappy energy we saw with Busted’s ‘Crashed the Wedding’ and, to a lesser extent, Sam and Mark. The video is a zany Monkees/Beach Boys/Beatles pastiche, and the I’d like to phone her ‘cause she puts me in the mood… is nicely naughty. The main thing that has never sat well with me is the Everybody wants to know her na-ee-a-ee-a-ee-ame hook, which I always thought was annoying and forced.
Having called them pop-punk in the intro, I’m going to retract that claim. Busted were more Blink-182, pop-punk adjacent. McFly had a far wider ranging sound, paying unapologetic homage to British pop and rock from the ‘60s and ‘70s, while Tom Fletcher and Danny Jones were the more talented songwriters (though Busted’s James Bourne, to give him his due, did co-write this record). The B-side to ‘5 Colours in Her Hair’ was a cover of the Kinks’ ‘Lola’, with Busted, while the first time I saw McFly live they announced that they were going to play a new song they had ‘been working on backstage’, before launching into ‘She Loves You’.
I might go as far as to name ‘5 Colours in Her Hair’ my 6th favourite of McFly’s seven number ones. Though it would rise up the rankings if we include the heavier version that they re-recorded for the US release of their debut album. That’s the version I would choose to revisit these days. It should be noted too, that this song managed two weeks at number one, an impressive feat given how later McFly singles tended to collapse in their second week of release.
Enter ‘Toxic’, one of pop’s great, weird moments. It is so crammed with odd little bits: Bollywood strings, surf guitars, techno synths, so cluttered that it shouldn’t work. It at times sounds artificially sped up, then slowed down, and the beat sounds just that ever-so-slightly off. ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ was, apparently, a reference point. Spears’ voice is fed through every distorting, vocoding, auto-tuning software known to man. It comes dangerously close, time and again, to being too much.
But it is not too much. It is just enough. Perfect, even, if the goal was to mimic the effects of being poisoned by something toxic. Its beauty lies in the little moments – the way the strings change direction in the second verse, the moments’ static before the second chorus. And yes, it set the tone for pop music to come. Every little bleep and squelch is intentional, and what pop music sounds like now in the attention-deficit age. Instantly ear-catching. No two verses or choruses identical. No patience for hanging around.
It’s why this decade has had some, largely female driven, brilliantly zany pop moments. It’s also why, say, ‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’ couldn’t happen in the 21st century, as it builds too slowly. (Though ‘She Loves You’ is thrillingly modern, the way it barrels in chorus-first.) ‘Toxic’ also provides a comparison with Britney’s debut single, at number one exactly five years before. ‘….Baby One More Time’ is a pop song in the classic sense, from the previous century, and sounds like it next to this record.
Britney probably had little to no input into how this song sounded, but that doesn’t mean it could have come from any old singer. It was written for Janet Jackson, and turned down by Kylie; but I can’t imagine either of them performing this. I’m not sure what Britney does, but she does something, and that’s star quality. No, actually, one thing she does is give us another iconically weird pronunciation. Step aside ‘baybay’; hello ‘talk Sikh’.
That intro was not quite me crowning ‘Toxic’ as my next Very Best, by the way; though it will of course be in the running. 2004 was Britney’s most successful chart-topping year, with another, very different, number one to come. One thing I’m fairly confident about is the next #1 won’t be troubling that particular decision…
After enjoying the light-hearted ‘Crashed the Wedding’ much more than the angsty ‘You Said No’, I’m sad to find that Busted are back to being emo.
Who’s David, by Busted (their 3rd of four #1s)
1 week, 22nd – 29th February 2004
It’s worrying how a song released when I was legally an adult can be filed under ‘hasn’t aged well’. I must be old. Anyway, here we are, in 2026 – with misogyny and the ‘manosphere’ hot, hot topics – grappling with ‘Who’s David’, the whiny tale of a girl that has given the Busted boys the runaround. (David being one of her many conquests, along with Peter, John and Mike.)
First things first. Girls cheat on boys, and make boys sad. Boys have the right to be upset about it without being labelled misogynists. But several of the lines in ‘Who’s David’ really land with a spiteful clunk, including digs about her make-up, an admission that they ‘invaded’ her phone, and the piece de resistance: You stupid lying bitch, Who’s David? Some guy who lives next door? (They don’t actually say ‘bitch’ as it’s blanked out, presumably at a nervous record company’s insistence. When they re-recorded their greatest hits in 2023, all grown up, they said it.)
Worst of all, though, is the insistence that they don’t really care. You’re so cheap, And I’m not blind, You’re not worthy of my time… and You can’t hurt me now, I’m over you… It’s childish. If that’s really the case boys, then why do we need this song? The far superior ‘Air Hostess’ could have been the album’s second single, and your third number one!
It’s no secret that Busted were desperate to be seen as a proper band. It’s why Charlie Simpson walked out on them, while they were at the height of their popularity, to form post-hardcore act Fightstar. But it’s also frustrating that that led to songs like this, and that of their four #1s, two are fairly spiteful. This isn’t the goofy Busted that I remember, represented by pretty much every one of their singles that didn’t make top spot.
The petulant lyrics sadly also detract from the fact that this is probably their ‘realest’ rock moment, with a chorus that is catchy and actually quite heavy. But I hadn’t heard this song in over two decades, and neither have many others. It isn’t in Busted’s Top 10 on Spotify, an impressive underachievement considering they only released eight singles in their short time together. And at least this isn’t the last we’ll hear from Busted – a band I thought I remembered fondly until I actually had to write blog posts about them – and if I’m correct their final #1 should redeem things slightly.
Where a Pop Idol winner is, the runners-up can’t be far behind. Two weeks behind, to be precise…
With a Little Help From My Friends, by Sam & Mark (their 1st and only #1)
1 week, 15th – 22nd February 2004
Sam Nixon and Mark Rhodes had finished second and third respectively behind Michelle McManus, and had wasted no time in deciding that they were stronger together. Simon Fuller signed them, and they quickly cobbled together this pointless cover of the Beatles classic.
Pointless, because it’s hard to outdo the Beatles when you’re talented, much less when you’re Sam or Mark. And pointless because ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’ has been at number one twice already, through Joe Cocker’s definitive cover, and Wet Wet Wet’s peppy charity version. But the sinister minds behind reality TV puppets rarely show much imagination, so here we are.
This record is certainly pointless, but is it bad? Well, yes, and no. It’s bad, because it’s cheesy, and cheap, and unnecessary. It has lots of Beatles-y touches, as if you’d asked AI to play a Beatles song but to make it sound like it came from a Pop Idol act in 2004. Except in 2004 we were blissfully AI free, and so someone must have actually sat down at a mixing desk and created this trash. At the same time though, there’s still a decent pop song buried in there. It’s catchy, and perky, and appealing if you’re eleven years old and completely unaware of this song’s history.
‘With a Little Help From My Friends’, and the very literal video in which Sam and Mark move into a house together, with a little help from their friends, was the first example of what would become a popular X-Factor trope: the cheeky chappy. Despite the gay subtext of the video, Sam and Mark weren’t a couple; they were two jack-the-lads, here for a good time not a long time, as long as all the fun was PG-rated. These cheeky chaps often came in duos – off the top of my head I’m thinking Journey South and, um, Jedward – but not exclusively. X Factor’s ultimate lad star was, of course, Olly Murs. None of this is original, X Factor never was, and you could argue that Simon Cowell’s Robson & Jerome were the prototype of this dynamic, while Robbie Williams made ‘loveable lad’ his own personal brand in his early solo years. But reality TV really went with it, as it was a character type that appealed both to the teenage girls watching, and their mums (and probably even their grannies).
Looking at them now, Sam and Mark feel quite familiar, but also very foreign. Reality TV, despite creating ‘famous’ people by the truckload, was the start of the end for old-school celebrity. Social media accelerated the cull, and now everyone seems to want their celebs to be normal, and relatable, and just like them. Maybe I’m in the minority, but I’d much prefer my famous people to have pet chimps and at least five marital partners. At the same time, and without wanting to get personal, Sam and Mark still appear ordinary. Social media has made ordinary people famous, but they don’t look ordinary nowadays. In 2026, Sam and Mark would both have six packs, and fades, and Turkey teeth, and probably a protein drink brand. In 2004, they genuinely look like people you’d meet down the pub. (Actually, writing this post has caused me to dredge up long-supressed memories of finding chubby-cheeked Sam quite cute back in the day…)
Moving swiftly on. As with Michelle McManus, Sam and Mark’s voices are begging a question… How did they end up almost winning a singing competition? Maybe it’s the banal material, but neither of them sound like particularly good vocalists. And to be fair, their singing careers didn’t last long. For one more single, to be precise. They moved into TV and radio, both as a duo and alone, and managed to stay in national-level work well into the 2010s. Mark’s most recent Wikipedia entry has him as a DJ on BBC West Midlands, while Sam was last seen as Buttons in ‘Cinderella’ at the Theatre Royal Wakefield.
One final piece of housekeeping: many sources list this as a double-A side with something called ‘Measure of a Man’. Thankfully the Official Charts Company do not, and so I haven’t had to listen to it, and can clock off early today.
The audio quality in the above video is a bit off, so to hear Sam & Mark in the 4k quality a song like this deserves click below:
Into 2004 we leap! Into what is officially the mid-2000s! And, as with 2003, the year’s first new #1 is the previous year’s TV singing contest winner…
All This Time, by Michelle (her 1st and only #1)
3 weeks, 11th January – 1st February 2004
Michelle McManus, a ‘larger than life’ travel agent from Glasgow, was the winner of the second series of Pop Idol. Her win caused quite the stir, with judge Pete Waterman storming off the set. Her size was both credited as the only reason she won, and blamed as a sign of Britain’s moral degeneracy. But, of course, she still had enough goodwill to spend three weeks at number one with her winner’s single (although with barely 10% of the first week sales that her predecessor Will Young had managed).
Listening to ‘All This Time’, I am immediately put in two minds. The first is telling me that this record is, inevitably, shit. But the other is telling me that it is perfect in its shittiness. We’ll hear many more number one in this style, on this theme; but none will top ‘All This Time’, the ultimate tossed-out in thirty minutes winner’s single.
The stupidly dragged out, faux-grandiose intro. The cheesy reverb. The gospel-lite backing singers. The OTT opening line: This time yesterday, I thought I was gonna die… and the actually quite uplifting chorus: All this time, We’ve come a long, long way, I’ve waited a lifetime for today… And, of course, the key change. I think every winner post-McManus should have been made to record their own version of ‘All This Time’. It should have become the national anthem of TV ‘talent’ show champions. The best thing about it isn’t even musical though… It’s the fact that it was released under a single-name – Michelle – as if she was already fit to take her place alongside Cher, Madonna or Beyonce.
While the criticism around her weight was undoubtedly ugly, it is hard to hear anything in this recording to suggest why Michelle McManus had just won a nationwide singing contest. Her voice isn’t bad, but I’m pretty sure you could hear similar at any karaoke night along Sauchiehall Street. It’s reedy, and a bit strained on the middle-eight, though perhaps a full-throated ballad like this wasn’t in her comfort zone.
And yet, unlike 90% of TV talent show winners, Michelle still has a career. I was back in Scotland over Christmas, and on Hogmanay there she was, twenty-two years later, singing her lungs out on the BBC. She may only have had two hit singles, but she has hung in there largely by agreeing to appear on whatever platform will have her. She has been a pop singer, an actress, a radio presenter, a TV presenter, a talent contest judge, a choir master, and a columnist for the Glasgow Evening Times. She has performed with Rod Stewart, Lulu, and Robbie Williams, and has sung for the Pope. Her TV credits range from ‘You Are What You Eat’, to ‘Loose Women’, to ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’.
You could view this as symptomatic of celebrity in the 21st century, the sheer graft required just to stay relevant at all costs; but I prefer to see it as testament to McManus’s personality. She seems like a nice person, someone you’d happily share a bottle of wine with. I do have a slightly personal connection to this song, too, as it was number one on my eighteenth birthday. It’s simultaneously a terrible, and yet somehow almost fitting, song to come of age to.
Another of 2003’s slightly out of kilter number ones: Tatu, Room 5, R Kelly, Evanescence, Blu Cantrell… Now this.
Changes, by Ozzy & Kelly Osbourne (their 1st and only #1)
1 week, 14th – 21st December 2003
Although as we are nearing Christmas, traditionally a time of love, joy, and slightly out of kilter songs, perhaps this one isn’t as surprising. It’s a cover of the old Black Sabbath ballad, featuring Sabbath’s lead singer Ozzy Osbourne, and his daughter Kelly, plus a few lyrical tweaks to change this from a song about a romantic relationship to one about a father-daughter relationship.
So, ‘woman’ is now ‘baby’, the ‘I’ is now ‘we’, while the I love you daddy… line really makes me flinch. Is it serious? Is it a novelty? Is it a pointless indulgence by a fabulously rich, celebrity family? (Christmas cards with family portraits are bad enough, but here we have a freaking family duet just in time for the holidays…) Or is it just a cynical cash-in, with the Osbournes at the height of their MTV series fame? Apparently Kelly had demanded her dad write a song about her – he’d previously written songs for his other two children – which feels quite in keeping with her bratty persona from the show.
I don’t think the style of the song suits either of their voices. Ozzy sounds strained, compared to the original – decades of ingesting every narcotic known to humankind taking their toll – while if there is a style that suits Kelly’s voice, this isn’t it (though I’ll admit, I did like her cover of ‘Papa Don’t Preach’). Add in an orchestra and a choir, and you lose the original’s simplicity in a schmaltzy swamp.
For The Prince of Darkness’s only chart-topper I do wish it rocked a bit more. Or, indeed, at all. But the original was also an outlier in the band’s discography, featuring neither guitars nor drums. It had been inspired by Sabbath drummer Bill Ward’s separation from his wife, but wasn’t released as a single until Ozzy recorded a live version in the early nineties. Another notable version of the song is a much more soulful cover by Charles Bradley, made famous as the theme to Netflix’s ‘Big Mouth’.
Despite clearly being released with the Christmas market in mind, ‘Changes’ was never really in contention for the Xmas #1, thanks to an epic chart battle that we’ll get to in our next post. This was Ozzy’s sole UK Top 10 as a ‘lead’ artist, though he had featured once with Black Sabbath (‘Paranoid’, in 1970) and alongside Kim Basinger, on Was (Not Was)’s 1993 hit ‘Shake Your Head’. Kelly outdid her dad in this regard, by three to one. And this is only the second, and so far final, father-daughter #1, after Frank and Nancy.
Ozzy, fifty-five at time of release, becomes the third man in their sixth decade to top the charts in 2003, after Elton John and Oliver Cheatham. The year of the late-middle-aged man! He sadly died a few months ago, meaning that this record takes on an even more bittersweet tone listening to it now (although I still think it’s fairly crap…)
This video quality isn’t great, so here’s one with better audio…
The UK Number Ones Blog 