Baby I just don't get it
Continuing my trip up the list of the most streamed songs for each year.
2004 : Let Me Love You - Mario
I must know this, but I don't recognise it from the title - I wonder how long it will take me to recognise it?
Wow - I didn't recognise it at all. It's not a terrible song (very MJ balladish) but it's not exactly thrilling and it goes absolutely nowhere. It also has a very dull video - it features some very smooth dance moves, but apart from that the only thing of interest is that he gets a haircut in the five second intro. As Wikipedia puts it "the video generally features Mario dancing, alone or with backup dancers, on various sets".
Wikipedia has remarkably little else on the track - it was co-written by Ne-Yo and two other guys and Ne-Yo regretted giving it to Mario once he heard what Mario did with it. Apart from that, it's all about how well it did commercially - #1 in the US for nine weeks isn't exactly shabby, is it? It only got to #2 over here though - what a loser, eh?
Wikipedia does offer us a cover version though - CADE (a slight Euro twist to it, but still very dull). secondhandsongs.com doesn't come up with anyone else I've heard of although it did mark up The Baseballs version as "unusual" so I had to check it out (it's rocked up, which vastly improves the track). YouTube offers up another improved version from Teddy Swims, a nicely stripped back one from Jorja Smith and a rockier version from Love & Death (surprisingly, I reckon I could make an argument this is the best one).
Obviously my lack of familiarity with the song does make me wonder how it's manage to take the year and it didn't even get to #1 over here - I'll be interested to see how high up the year-end chart it came. Top of the list over here was a somewhat unsurprising Band Aid 20's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" but after that it gets all very unfamiliar to me Eamon's "Fuck If (I Don't Want You Back)" (which I don't remember at all), DJ Casper's "Cha Cha Slide" (which I vaguely remember as being rubbish), Eric Prydz's *Call On Me" (nope!) and Usher's "Yeah" (nope again!) making up the top five. The only songs in the top 50 I both recognise and like are Britney Spears's "Toxic", Kelis's "Milkshake", The Streets' "Dry Your Eyes", Jamelia's "Thank You", McFly's "5 Colours In Her Hair", U2's "Vertigo" and George Michael's "Amazing" - most of the others I simply don't recognise at all, although unfortunately that's not true for Peter Andre's "Mysterious Girl". I also have a sneaking suspicion that Frankee's "Fuck You Right Back" which was a comeback track to Eamon's literary masterpiece might not have been all that great.
Looking further down the charts has to produce some better tracks and we come up with Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out" and "The Dark Of The Matinee", Keane's "Somewhere Only We Know" and "Everybody's Changing", Morrissey's "First Of The Gang To Die" (he wasn't quite totally unacceptable back then), Jamelia's "See It In A Boy's Eye" and R.E.M.'s "Leaving New York" - not a huge selection! I was listening to quite a lot of music at this time but not much from the top end of the singles chart, it appears.
I strongly doubted that the US was going to save the day here and seeing that Usher has the top two places and another two in the top 100 almost made me give up then, but I did check the rest of the chart and came up with Kanye's "Jesus Walks" - and Kanye saving the day is certainly an unexpected state of affairs these days.
So, all in all, it's a weird year and whilst I don't quite see how Mario took the year, I also don't see any other obvious takers - I suspect Britney's "Toxic" is probably a good a shout as any, but it wasn't a great year for singles.
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