I'm not saying it was your fault - although you could have done more

Continuing my trip up the list of the most streamed songs for each year.  

2006 : Naïve - The Kooks

This has surprised me - they're not exactly a band many remember with excessive adoration and it's not even their best song ("She Moves In Her Own Way", obviously), so I'm intrigued as to how it's managed to take the year (and experience suggests I'm going to be no closer to understanding it after I've finished either).

I didn't remember the video and it's actually quite an interesting one because it made me realise that I had no clue what the song was about - and doubly interesting because it goes absolutely no way to clearing up the mystery.  Apart from that, it's pretty dull. 

Wikipedia tells us it got to #5 in the UK, was the 19th best selling song of the year and reached #15 in New Zealand - all of which doesn't really explain anything.  It does also give us an amusing random fact - it was actress Jodie Comer's favourite song as a teenager and she considered having the title tattooed across her neck.  Until she actually thought about it.

Wikipedia also gives us some cover versions - Lily Allen (it's fine, but doesn't really add anything), Mutya Buena (ditto) and Arnie J (not great, but at least they try something different).  In an all-time record low, secondhandsongs.com only gives us two more - Max Tanner (very close to the original) and Thom Cooper (and again).  YouTube offers a much more impressive number of covers, but they're all versions by people you've never heard of - I checked a couple out and it's fair to say acoustic versions with the guitar are verrrry popular, but I liked this loop version.

I'm no closer to understanding how this took the year - my only assumption is that the competition was absolutely dreadful, so let's check it out.  Looking at the UK year-end list, the best-selling track of the year was Gnarls Barkleys's "Crazy" - which I certainly hear more often than I hear "Naïve" these days.  The rest of the top five were Leona Lewis's "A Moment Like This" (nope - don't remember this at all), Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie", Scissors Sisters' "I Don't Feel Like Dancing" and Sandi Thom's "I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker" (which was phenomenally successful for no obvious reason).  

There are actually some pretty decent songs in the year-end top 50 - Nelly Furtado's "Maneater" (#7). Justin TImberlake's "Sexyback" (#10), Lily Allen's "Smile" (#11), Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars" (#14), Corrine Bailey Rae's "Put Your Records On" (#24) and Beyonce's "Irreplaceable" (#29) have all stood the test of time pretty well.  The Kooks make two appearances - this one is at #19 and "She Moves In Her Own Way" (#39).  For balance, I also have to mention Chico's "It's Chico Time" (#40) - The X Factor has made us do some funny things over the years.

Looking further down the charts throughout the year we have Editors "Munich", The Automatic's "Monster", Muse's "Supermassive Black Hole", Kasabian's "Empire", The Fratelli's "Chelsea Dagger", Lily Allen's "LDN" and Amy Winehouse's "Rehab" - not a huge selection, but some decent enough tracks.  It's fair to say I wasn't expecting the US to bring much to the party here - and they don't but there are some surprising tracks in their year-end top ten with Daniel Powter's "Bad Day" taking the #1 spot, whilst James Blunt's "You're Beautiful" (#4) and Natasha Bedingfield's "Unwritten" (#6) fly the flag for the UK.

So, as expected, I'm no clearer understanding how The Kooks took the year - I think Gnarls, Shakira or Nelly feel much more likely winners.  But we know that logic doesn't enter into these things, so well done them Kooks!

2005 - Happy enough with this!
2007 - A decent enough song, but not an obvious winner