Has anyone you don't like ever done something you do like?

Vladimir Putin

A right-wing politico of whom I'm no big fan (the anti-gay laws that he has thrust upon the Russian Federation are sickening and he grossly mishandled the sinking of the Kursk submarine in 2000, to name but two things he is guilty of).

But he has to be admired, in a grudging way perhaps, for the transformation of Russia from a near-bankrupt nation on its knees that had been led down a road of ruin by an alcoholic buffoon back into a near-Superpower.

Boris Yeltsin gutted the Russian economy by short-sightedly selling off Russia's mineral wealth to the opportunistic oligarchs for a fraction of their worth for a one-off cash injection to prop up the failing economy. This stripped Russia of much of her wealth and the long-term effects could still be utterly devastating.

Yeltsin staggered onwards with his Presidency until 1999, when his approval rating reached a record low of a reported 2%. He finally resigned in near-disgrace and his Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, succeeded him.

Putin inherited a country that was borrowing over $40 billion from the IMF and others, a country whose economy and currency had collapsed in 1998, a raging Vietnam-esque war in Chechnya and a country in the grip of corruption and oligarchy. Bleak does not begin to describe.

During his first tenure as President (2000-2008), real incomes in Russia grew by a factor of 2.5, real wages tripled, unemployment reduced by 50%, poverty reduced by 50%, GDP grew for 8 straight years (72% total growth), murder rates in Russia halved by 2011, he signed the Kyoto Agreement, several endangered species are now protected by law.

Russia was on the verge of complete collapse in 1999. Putin changed everything. I may dislike the man and his social policies, but I admire him for what he did to the world's largest country. He grabbed her by the hair and dragged her back from the abyss. He is the closest that there is to a legal dictator, but for all his faults, his successes and achievements cannot be denied.

Deleted User wrote: »

And while I don't hate Keane, I always saw them as really dull and formulaic.

I would agree, though Somewhere Only We Know is a very, very good song as well.

Here's my one - it's actually a pretty good song, despite them being so incredibly unlikable in general.


Another bubble-gum 90s girl band who had one single good song were All Saints (see what I did there, eh eh!?), and no it's not that God awful cover of Under the Bridge:


And though Dave Chappelle completely destroyed it with this parody, this remains the one tolerable R. Kelly song of his career (I hate I Believe I Can Fly, before so). Oddly, it listed on a tonne of 'best' and 'worst' of the 2000s lists, so I guess it's pretty polarising.