ILM Top 100 2005-2009: TRACKS

deserves to be higher imo. still great to see ya'll have neva 4gotten.

wow, actually kinda shocked that got so high. great song though! there's something undeniable about the production during the chorus. well and the chorus in general.

That's the only Girls Aloud record from the second half of the decade that deserves to be anywhere near this poll and it's still great.

girls aloud are another "wtf was i thinking" from the early part of this decade - what a dreadful band they became, and in such a way that it infected all the old good stuff, because everything awful about them post-chemistry was already present in them. i thought "biology" sucked at the time, though, and it still sucks - what a total mess of a song it is.

the only girls aloud keeper from 05-09 is obv "whole lotta history"

stronger reminds me of like empire state of mind or something where it had huge mainstream crossover appeal 2 ppl who barely follow pop/rnb music...like a friend of mine, when it was out, commented 2 me abt it being srsly inspirational 2 her

i thought "biology" sucked at the time, though, and it still sucks - what a total mess of a song it is.

^ this. I hate that Girls Aloud couldn't really be represented otherwise, but "Biology" is garbage.

while i'm happy to see someone rep for 'whole lotta history' (probably their only good ballad imo), lex (and johnny) you are insane.

xposts

deserves to be higher imo. still great to see ya'll have neva 4gotten.

it seems people HAVE forgotten about the sugababes though, when it comes to british girl groups who used to set the pace then fell off spectacularly - their infinitely superior "ace reject" was in the noms list, it never had a hope of placing though. if you haven't heard it, you should.

sugababes were ALWAYS better than girls aloud, and it was never even close. (mis-teeq were obviously better than both, ;_; sacrificed on the altar of victoria beckham's solo career)

girls aloud are another "wtf was i thinking" from the early part of this decade - what a dreadful band they became, and in such a way that it infected all the old good stuff

Haha HANGUPs.

lol their dancing is awful in that vid

the first few times i heard "biology" i was kind of offended by the muddy waters thing so i didn't really give it a chance for a while. but now i love it.

Sugababes had many amazing singles, but they had almost as many absolutely dreadful ones. Also I think WWTNS -> Chemistry -> Tangled Up are, barring 2 or 3 tracks, pretty fantastic.

Both GA and the Sugababes are WELL past their sell-by date as is that entire aesthetic but it was fucking brilliant up until a point that is only *just* within the remit of this poll. If anything the Sugababes fell off even harder if their recent stuff is anything to go by but who cares really.

lol strongers existence.

biology is a jam, the whole album is <3 4eva. If you like that you really should check the Rachel Stevens album Come And Get It. I know she may be as dull in person as a Sam Allardyce team but that album is poss the best pop record of the decade, Blackout withstanding.

it's also partly cuz cheryl cole has somehow become one of the most insufferable ubiquitous celebrities around i'm never quite sure about the extent to which people buy the ridiculous "nation's sweetheart" thing she tries to craft ham-fistedly around herself.

Sugababes were much better 00-04.

Girls Aloud's rubbish dancing has always been charming. "We are too drunk or busy being wags to learn routines, lets just do some silly hand gestures" (later stolen by beyonce.)

RIP Cheryl btw. What Ashley can't kill, malaria sure can.

ahoy ahoy OTM xpost

shouldn't let Out of Control (despite a couple of great tracks) and Cheryl's ubiquity/dreams of breaking US with bland R&B pop ruin the glory days.

Lex it's only going to get worse

http://news.sky.com/sky-news/content/StaticFile/jpg/2010/Jul/Week1/15660008.jpg

ahoy ahoy otm re: rachel stevens btw

Biology's chorus str8 rips off my favourite track of the entire 00's (U Schnauss' On My Own) - this means it's pretty good, although I can never quite separate the two in my head

mutya buena is the kind of pop heroine that none of girls aloud could ever be. sugababes effectively died when she left (i guess "about you now" was one last hurrah)

come and get it is still a good album, surprisingly, lol rachel stevens though.

Which people are you talking about? The people that post here, of course not. But yeah she's suffering from massive overexposure and her solo stuff is beyond dreadful. But really the actual girls themselves feel kind of irrelevant to the records, where there's barely a trace of personality in their voices. I still can't tell which is which.

I'm amazed that people thought to nominate So Good and Negotiate With Love but neither of those people plumped for I Said Never Again But Here We Are which was another high-water mark for this type of pop.

Sex god to GOD

RIP :(

http://www.hotflick.net/flicks/2005_Deuce_Bigalow__European_Gigolo/005DBE_Rachel_Stevens_001.jpg

rob schneider gave the nations favourite racist cheryl tweedy malaria?

lol is it wrong if i legit liked cheryl's first two solo singles?

xp to mdc - i meant the ~general public~ really, i genuinely have no idea whether people buy into cheryl cole or not.

"i said never again" hasn't dated very well, "so good" was never good at all, "negotiate with love"/"funny how"/"dumb dumb"/"nothing good about this goodbye" are the rachel stevens keepers imo.

17. PORTISHEAD "The Rip" (2008) [413 points, 19 votes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBOaLjtR4mw

aw

But really the actual girls themselves feel kind of irrelevant to the records, where there's barely a trace of personality in their voices. I still can't tell which is which.

they were at their best when they had that collective pissed-up girl-gang personality to their vox, à la "no good advice", but it was really striking how useless cheryl cole's voice was on its own - like even worse than any of the spice girls, and they could barely hit any notes at all!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_E1-t6h4ZE

Oh shit. That Girls Aloud song is goood. I'd always ignored it before because I thought I'd heard it.

It is funny, though, how one girl's always cut out of the shot. They shoot that video in wide screen or something?

Also, you can tell which is which because they go out of their way to make their hair colors distinctly different from one another. Can't have two girls with the same shade!

I made my own mp3 version of that when you first posted it and I still listen to it every once in a while. xp

'the rip' wasn't a standout track for me on that album so i'm still confused at its 'hit single' status on ilm

i voted for 'machine gun' which seems like much more of a statement on its own rather than a part of an album

Machine Gun >>> The Rip

I voted for 'Machine Gun' and not 'The Rip' because I think Machine Gun is a brilliant, brilliant song and the Rip a nice little experiment

but yeah my prediction upthread of The Rip in 10-20 and Machine Gun in the top 10 is still on

wouldn't be surprised to see machine gun still make it.

xpost re girls aloud: Nothing wrong with the video. The VEVO version is cropped for some reason.

16. PORTISHEAD "Machine Gun" (2008) [424.5 points, 18 votes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8azH3iJWsI&feature=fvst

The Rip is so unbelievably gorgeous - I'd love for Portishead to use it as a jumping off point for the next album. They're very good at doom-laden but it feels like they can do it in their sleep by now.

(xpost lololol)

No point sitting on this since people are already talking about it.

Portishead went back-to-back.

Well, I'm happy my vote established the correct order, at least! :D

I actually gave Small more than 10 points more than Machine Gun, because Small is pretty much Portishead's crowning achievement and a quite staggering piece of music on any level IMO

the same people voted for both portishead songs then?

no, as said above I only voted for Machine Gun

i like that slowed down "the rip" more than the orig

nylon smile is the only track i care abt on that album

The Rip is so unbelievably gorgeous - I'd love for Portishead to use it as a jumping off point for the next album.

What actually happened was that The Horrors used it as a jumping off point for their big 8-minute single, which I ended up preferring to The Rip (SB me)

if you insist

wow! this entire top 20 has been pretty amazing so far.

I think that if you don't like "Machine Gun", you don't like melancholy death robots, and if you don't like melancholy death robots, well you're no friend of mine.