What fun. Go away for three months and have a terrific time, only to return and see that the powers that be have totally rooted LastFM and made it entirely user-unfriendly. Clearly the three-year-olds have really been monkeying with things.
Still, the more things change the more they stay the same. It's taken more than 24 hours to get this weekly chart up, despite what are claimed to be "real time" charts these days. The real time ones are neither accurate nor real time, but I guess the halfwits running the site need to be humoured.
Anyway, ranting aside, what have I listened to since I came back on Thursday?:
10.
Lauris Reiniks
I found his album "Nakts veikala" in Riga no less, and that made me think I needed to hear that lovely voice again. My joke about Latvian making everyone sound like they're impersonating Renars Kaupers holds true - at times Lauris is a dead ringer for Renars.
8.
Kareem Salama
You know how everyone claims to hate country music? Well, clearly they've never heard a note of Kareem's work. He is quite simply terrific, and frankly I forget I'm listening to pure American country music with a southern twang (yes, sung by the son of Egyptian Muslim immigrants) when I play his album.
8.
DJ BoBo
Should I be ashamed to enjoy his work? I don't really think so. It's honest, silly, predictable Eurodance, and I'm sure on some level he knows it's not rocket science. There's just something enjoyable about hearing him singing about vampires, pirates, chihuahuas or whatever else takes his fancy.
7.
Shiri Maimon
More Eurovision-related music, this time from the last female soloist to represent Israel. I still maintain she sounds good, but the country has submitted some truly outstanding works in the last few years.
5.
Vanilla Ninja
I guess it's only fitting that I should play an Estonian band, when I spent an entire month in that beautiful country. Vanilla Ninja are definitely one to live up to the hype - and when you have a brand of delicious kohuke named after you, that's hype and a half. A trifle silly, but the melodies are all wonderful fun.
5.
Bob Brozman & René Lacaille
Brozman's a funny one, in that he seems to want to work with just about everyone in the world. Sometimes the result is good, other times it stinks. In this case, it had its moments, but the collaboration just became a bit monotonous for my liking.
4.
Ruslana
Ah, Ruslana, the first ESC winner in the semi-final era and the winner of the first ESC I followed. I was expecting my tastes to have changed a bit since 2004, but I still enjoy her high-energy sound, even though I can't understand a word.
3.
Guru
He's definitely gifted, as his moniker (Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal) implies. Jazzmatazz 2, though, just wasn't his finest hour.
2.
Sertab Erener
The final ESC entrant for this analysis. I gave Sertab's Best Of a spin, and it's not bad. The problem for me is that Turkish pop music has come a long way since she started recording (it's come a fair way since she won ESC2003, frankly), and some of her older stuff doesn't hold up as well as I'd hoped.
1.
Anggun
A surprise appearance for the Indonesian-French songstress who is probably the best pop singer the mainstream media has never picked up on. She always seems to come up on my iPod on plane flights, so I gave her a bit of a spin on my return.
Anggun
