I know the best pop song of the year and all I got was this lousy sense of self-satisfaction.

Just a quick thought. It is a pity we live in an age where popular music is no longer popular music. Morrissey's You are the Quarry album is the best pop/rock release of the year and I have heard nothing on the radio, nor seen anything on television regarding it. Apparently, this is nothing new for the most suave, enigmatic and freaking coolest man in popular music.

The only reason I can come up with as to why 'First of the Gang to Die' (the catchiest and coolest pop song of the 00s so far)did not chart is lack of exposure. It's been out for months and he's even released a third single from the album. Not that anyone reads this, but I implore you to hear this song.
Let's just run over what the top 5 singles are on the Australian charts (according to Hit Magazine, 14/10/04). The albums aren't quite the farce the singles are, if only because Missy Higgins, Green Day and Little Birdy are supremely better than some of the refuse found below.
1. She will be loved - Maroon 5. Just awful. Pay attention to the lyrics. Or not. That women love this song is only testament to how feminism has failed to connect in the younger generations.
2. Car Wash - Christina/Missy Elliot. From the Shark Tale soundtrack. Such good role models for kids, aren't they?
3. Leave (Get Out)- JoJo. What with all the brouhaha about child porn in the news recently, if we skim a few more newspaper pages along, we see that a sexualised 13 year old has a hit single. I'm not denying anyone agency, but maybe the media are its own worst enemy.
4. These Kids - Joel Turner and the Modern Day Poets. This is the guy who auditioned for Idol as a beatboxer, didn't get through and now has a higher placing single than the winner, so I should be supportive. But no.
5. Out with my Baby - Guy Sebastian. So, Guy is a celibate Christian but expects people to buy a song with lines like 'I’m gonna make you shake ‘til you shake ‘til six in the morning baby' and 'Anything she wants, I got for (sic)' Not even naive Guy could argue that dancing and sex aren't inextricably linked.

Is there a pattern here? Two songs about sex, one song about 'the kids' (kids love that shit - just don't write a reflexive song about *why* the kids are so fucked up, then it's 'preachy'), one song sung by a kid (about a sexual relationship) and one song about nothing whatsoever (if Car Wash is about anything, it's sex).

I could continue like this for every song and every album on the charts, but you see it's more of the same (actually, 6 and 7 on the singles charts I think are admirable pop nuggets. Natasha Bedingfield's These Words and GreenDay's American Idiot). Pop music is dead. Or it isn't, but it's now a misnomer.

Charts are dubious anyway. Only some stores get counted, chains are weighted more than independents and the numbers they work off are based on shipment, not sales (ever wonder why that Rise Up song was a no. 1?). Little Birdy was no. 1 at JB Hi FI this week, but Cosima was in HMV. Pathetic.

Wake up, Australia.