Song · Jem
“They” by Jem
From the EP It All Starts Here... (2003)
“They” by Jem appears on 4 radio countdowns from 4 stations between 2004 and 2022. It was first released in 2003 on the EP It All Starts Here.... Its best result is #50 on the 99X Essential 99 of 2004. In the combined RockLists rankings it is the #177 alternative song of 2004.
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Welsh singer Jem's "They" first surfaced on her It All Starts Here... EP in 2003, then went out as the first single from her debut album, Finally Woken, in 2004. Its spine comes from an unlikely place, a sample of the Swingle Singers' 1963 reworking of Bach's Prelude in F minor, lifted from their Jazz Sebastian Bach record, and Jem cut her vocals over it in her mother's spare bedroom.
It's trip hop with a pop smile, a Bach loop bent into a lazy, head-nodding groove, and Jem produced it with GE-OLOGY and Yoad Nevo, who also mixed it. America got it first, in February 2004, and the rest of the world caught up a year later. It turned out to be her biggest single: number six in the UK and a number one in Hungary.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Alternative & Modern Rock
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
Year-end countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | 69 | WFNX Boston, MA | WFNX Top 100 Songs of 2004 | 100 |
| 2004 | 53 | 107.7 The End Seattle, WA | The End Top 77 Songs of 2004 | 77 |
| 2004 | 50 | 99X Atlanta, GA | 99X Essential 99 of 2004 | 99 |
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 311 | 90.9 The Bridge | 90.9 The Bridge Top 909 Songs of the 2000s | 907 |
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