On to the next one thousand number ones, then. And after two weeks of Elvis oldies at the top of the charts, we are happily dragged back into the 21st century with this one.
Goodies, by Ciara ft. Petey Pablo (their 1st and only #1s)
1 week, from 23rd – 30th January 2005
It is a startlingly modern record, one of those that feels like a fast-forward button being pressed. ‘Goodies’ is crunk, or crunk&B, making this the second such chart-topper after Usher’s ‘Yeah!’ But whereas that song was very pop, with a dumb, hooky chorus; ‘Goodies’ makes the listener work a bit more hard to reveal its appeal.
At first it is sparse, with a Lil’ John-a-like rapping over an arrestingly annoying high-pitched whistle riff. It is not an intro that makes friends. But slowly elements are added: Ciara’s breathy vocals, the stabbing synths (the one element of the song that ties it to ‘Yeah!’), a twangy guitar line, and it develops into a fine pop song.
There are enough weird bits here for three or four songs, and it potentially could have been messy, but everything hangs together well. I particularly like the twangy riff (always a sucker for a guitar, whatever the genre) and the bridge, where Ciara switches to an impressively operatic falsetto. And Petey Pablo is an upgrade on Lil John: same southern drawl, less inane shouting.
It’s odd. ‘Goodies’ is not the type of record that is guaranteed to be a hit with me, but I remember it fondly from the time and listening to it now I am coming to the opinion that it is a lost classic. Maybe I’m just glad to have a proper pop song to write about, not the charity singles/X factor dross/Elvis re-releases that we’ve contended with in recent weeks, but I do think ‘Goodies’ deserves to be as well, if not better, remembered than our other crunk #1. It conjured up a steamy, southern US summer’s day in gloomy British January. And, for those who complain about the usual sexualisation found in this type of music, Ciara here offers a more wholesome alternative: If you’re lookin’ for the goodies, Keep on lookin’, ‘Cause they stay in the jar…
This was nineteen-year-old Ciara’s debut and, in the UK at least, biggest hit. It was the first of her five Top 10s, though she hasn’t particularly troubled the charts since the end of the ‘00s. In the US she remains more of a name, releasing her latest album just last year. For Petey Pablo meanwhile, this was by far his biggest British hit, his music career being interrupted by a spell in jail for bringing a stolen gun onto a plane.
‘Goodies’ was a day away from being my nineteenth birthday number one, and a good birthday chart-topper it would have been. Instead, I had to settle for yet another Elvis re-release, and not even a particularly good one…
After all the celebrations as we reached the 1000th #1 – a re-release of the 80th #1 ‘One Night’, which gave Elvis his 20th UK #1 – I thought an interesting way to wrap the festivities would be to go back to where it all started.
For Elvis, that is. I’ve done several ‘Today’s Top 10’ posts, but have never delved as far back as the fifties. Here then, is the UK Top 10 as it stood on this day sixty-nine years ago, which just so happens to have been the very first of Elvis’s eighty weeks on top of the charts…
10.‘Butterfingers’, by Tommy Steele & The Steelemen – up 2 / 10 weeks on chart
First up Tommy Steele, one of the British rockers who were trying their best to emulate their pearly-teethed, slick-haired American idols. Steele had scored his sole #1 a few months earlier, with a cover of Guy Mitchell’s ‘Singing the Blues’ (which had knocked Mitchell’s original off the top). From the title I expected a novelty rocker, but this is an over-sung ballad about letting a girl slip away. Oops, butterfingers. Listen to Steele’s yelping, and then the Elvis record on top of this chart, and tell me who did it better.
9. ‘Around the World’, by Bing Crosby – up 1 / 8 weeks on chart
The crooners’ crooner, and a fixture of the pre-rock charts. This is what I remember much of the 1950s sounding like as we worked through the earliest number ones. From the soundtrack to an adaptation of ‘Around the World in Eighty Days’, this could have been a hit in the 1930s, and proves just how badly Elvis and co. were needed.
8. ‘A White Sport Coat (And a Pink Carnation)’, by The King Brothers – up 1 / 7 weeks on chart
This is a bit more like it. Still far from rocking, but at least it swings. A natty young man – I’m just picturing that white coat/pink pocket combo – is dressed up for the dance, but has to go stag. Such were the problems face by youngsters in the fifties. In the US, the song’s writer Marty Robbins had a hit with ‘A White Sports Coat…’, but in the UK vocal group the King Brothers took it into the Top 10 for their only such success.
Fun fact, Paul McCartney wore a white sports coat to a village fete on July 6th 1957, apparently inspired by this song. That was, of course, the day he met John Lennon. Whether or not he wore a pink carnation has been lost to history.
‘When I Fall in Love’, by Nat ‘King’ Cole – down 1 / 13 weeks on chart
Another crooner. I don’t know why, but Nat ‘King’ Cole’s crooning is far more palatable than Bing Crosby’s. He just had a bit more pizzazz about him. (I mean, the man had ‘King’ for a middle name.) I did a post on how Cole is one of the unluckiest chart stars, in terms of never managing a number one. ‘When I Fall in Love’ is one of his hits that peaked at #2. It also made #4 on rerelease in 1987, on the back of Rick Astley’s cover version.
‘Yes Tonight Josephine’, by Johnnie Ray – down 3 / 10 weeks on chart
On its way down from #1, pre-rock star Johnnie Ray’s final UK chart-topper (read my original post here). Ray was one of my favourite discoveries from the early months of doing this blog, as one of the few artists before Elvis to trade on sex and charisma. ‘Yes Tonight Josephine’ is a little throwaway compared to some of his other hits, but it is catchy and perky and, most importantly, not one of the many saccharine ballads that filled the charts in the early to mid 1950s. Speaking of which…
‘We Will Make Love’, by Russ Hamilton – up 3 / 8 weeks on chart
The worst of the 1950s. Elvis was doing a public service by consigning tripe like this to the history books. The song’s title promises something raunchy, or potentially problematic (We will make love, and there’s nothing you can do about it…) But you have to remember that ‘making love’ in 1957 probably meant nothing more than what those old swimming pool ‘Dos and Don’ts’ posters referred to as ‘heavy petting’.
‘Around the World’, by Ronnie Hilton – non-mover / 8 weeks on chart
Another annoying idiosyncrasy of ’50s charts was the fact that people were rarely satisfied with one version of a popular song. On a couple of occasions we even had two versions of the same tune replacing one another at number one. And so it is in this week’s chart, not content with Bing Crosby’s ‘Around the World’, we had to have some homegrown crooning, from Hull’s very own Ronnie Hilton. For what it’s worth, I do think Hilton’s cover has a little more oomph about it, and it did chart higher than Crosby’s.
‘Little Darlin”, by The Diamonds – up 2 / 7 weeks on chart
So far so bland. But luckily for us, searching for a whiff of rock and roll, the Top 3 on this week’s chart seems to have been beamed down from a different planet to the easy listening schmaltz that we’ve just waded through. Not that ‘Little Darlin” is strictly rock ‘n’ roll, but doo-wop had the tempo and the sexiness to allow it to go toe-to-toe with rock on the jukebox. I love the castanets and the harp flourishes, two silly touches that make this record pop in comparison to Ronnie Hilton. It was written, amazingly, by a sixteen-year-old Maurice Williams, who would later go on to form the Zodiacs. Incidentally, I always assumed the Diamonds were black, but no. They were a Canadian vocal quartet, who still exist today minus any original members, and with a past members list that hits thirty.
‘Gamblin’ Man’ / ‘Puttin’ on the Style’, by Lonnie Donegan – down 1 / 6 weeks on chart
People always cite Cliff, or Marty Wilde, or even Tommy Steele, as Britain’s first homegrown rock ‘n’ roll star. But for my money, this week’s #2 record was true British rock ‘n’ roll. Skiffle pioneer Lonnie Donegan’s second #1 of the year might have fallen one place on this chart, but ‘Gamblin’ Man’ rocks harder than most chart-toppers, of any era. Listen to this next to one of the strained ballads further back in this Top 10, and it’s not hard to appreciate how seismic a change rock and roll was in 1957. And why many older people thought it was the devil incarnate.
‘Putting on the Style’ is a little more traditional, with a music-hall singalong chorus, but it’s still fairly raucous. When a young Paul McCartney, in his white sports coat, met a young John Lennon, Lonnie Donegan tunes were among the first songs they performed together. Read my original post on this #1 here.
‘All Shook Up’, by Elvis Presley – up 1 / 4 weeks on chart
And so here it is. Elvis Presley’s first week on top of the British charts. It wasn’t his first hit – ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ had made #2 a year before and his star had grown consistently from there – and ‘All Shook Up’ doesn’t have the raw power of a ‘Heartbreak Hotel’, or a ‘Hound Dog’. It’s an understated groove of a record, with a runtime of less than two minutes. But Elvis spends those two minutes purring, murmuring, growling… in short seducing the listener. The way his voice slips up an octave for the It scares-a me to death… line is great. And the little uh before the final chorus is sex itself.
‘All Shook Up’ would spend seven weeks at number one, and within eight years Elvis would score fifteen chart-toppers. The British chart’s most successful act was up and running. As was, belatedly, the rock ‘n’ roll era. In the months following this, both Buddy Holly and Jerry Lee Lewis would join Elvis in topping the charts.
(Drumroll please…) So, after fifty-three chart years, and eight and a half blog years, we arrive at the one thousandth UK number one single…
One Night / I Got Stung, by Elvis Presley (his 20th of twenty-one #1s)
1 week, from 16th – 23rd January 2005
And it’s a forty-six year old song, by a long-dead singer, setting a new record for the lowest sales of all time…
At least, that’s one way to look at it. You could also spin it as a rocking classic, by the biggest star the world has ever seen, taking advantage of a time of year when sales are traditionally at their lowest to make history. Either way, it’s clear that many interesting plot points converge here. And that’s before we get to Elvis extending his all-time record of chart-toppers to twenty, three ahead of the Beatles.
As with ‘Jailhouse Rock’, perhaps the least relevant plot point is how this record sounds, because this record wasn’t sitting at the top of the charts for musical reasons. This was bought by collectors, not by new fans discovering Elvis’s music for the first time. You do wonder how the OCC felt about this. On the one hand, it was a newsworthy story: Elvis back on top for this big anniversary, which probably garnered more attention than if it had been, say, Steve Brookstein who claimed number 1000. On the other, they may have been embarrassed that the casual chart-follower, interest piqued by this landmark moment, would find Elvis on top in 2005, and wonder how the charts could still claim to have any relevance.
For what it’s worth, I’ve always liked ‘One Night’, one of Elvis’s last rockers before joining the army. Without checking what I wrote in my original post, I like its bawdy slowness, its very bluesy riff, and the fact that Elvis is on tip-top vocal form. ‘I Got Stung’ is more throwaway, though it barrels along at a hundred miles an hour, and opens with Elvis yelping the line Holy smokes and snakes alive! Great stuff, all in all.
So, fairly or unfairly, appropriately or not, Elvis scored Britain’s 1000th number one. It’s taken me eight and a half years to get this far, and I’d like to thank each and every one of this blog’s followers, readers and commentors for making the journey a pleasure. Whether this is the first post of mine that you’re reading, or whether you’ve been around since the Tennessee Ernie Ford days, you make this worthwhile. And while I do try to keep things strictly musical, I’d like to mention how keeping this blog since 2018 has seen me through various ups and downs, in my personal life and in the world as a whole, and has genuinely helped to keep me sane. Listening to a number one single, be it good, bad, or indifferent, on a loop and trying to craft a five-hundred word post about it is as close as I can get to mindfulness.
The most recent new UK #1 (Taylor Swift’s ‘I Knew It, I Knew You’) was the 1456th chart-topper, and if I keep my current pace up I should reach that song in late 2030. I hope you’ll all still be around then, if only because I have strong feelings about Tay Tay that the world definitely needs to hear…
Over four hundred votes have been cast, and the results are in. Thanks to everyone who took the time to choose their favourites, and their least favourites, from my shortlist of thirty. I’ll now run down the top five Best and Worst #1s of all time. Official. No debate.
A couple of observations before I do so, though. I was interested to see that twice as many votes were cast for ‘Best’ as were cast for ‘Worst’. Which means our readers are a more positive bunch than I gave them credit for, preferring to think only on uplifting things. Or, they just didn’t bother scrolling down to find the second poll…
Also, because so many votes were spread across just thirty songs, the results are extremely close. There are lots of ties, with the Top 10 split by only five votes!
Let’s do the worst first. Honourable mentions go to ‘Everything I Do (I Do It for You)’, a song I hate but that I felt others were less harsh on. Yet it finished in 9th place, and I now feel vindicated. Also, well done to the one (1!) person who voted for ‘C’est la Vie’. Everyone else who didn’t? What are you like?
Anyway, the Top 5 worst #1s of all time are…
5. ‘Unchained Melody’ / ‘White Cliffs of Dover’, by Robson and Jerome – Yep, granny-baiting garbage, and the start of Simon Cowell’s near twenty-year reign of terror over the UK singles charts.
4. ‘There’s No One Quite Like Grandma’, by the St. Winifred’s School Choir – More (quite literally) granny-baiting garbage. I’d have this a couple of places higher, personally, but I’m happy enough that it’s in a tie for third-place.
3. ‘F**k It (I Don’t Want You Back)’, by Eamon – Our readers are not fans of ho-wop, apparently. My most recent Worst #1 rightfully takes its place in the Top 3, tied with St. Winnie’s.
2. ‘No Charge’, by J.J. Barrie – The previous winner of Worst of the Worst when I did this poll four years ago. I worried that ‘No Charge’ might have been overshadowed by more recent horrors. But no, this sanctimonious bilge only drops one place. For what it’s worth, this is my least favourite #1 of all time.
1. ‘Let’s Party’, by Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers – Your official Worst of the Worst, by quite some margin too. I’m not sure I agree. Sure, I named it as one of my worst; but it is upbeat, and throwaway, and almost tolerable. It was the third Jive Bunny #1 in less than six months though, and presumably people’s patience had run out. Plus, it does feature Gary Glitter.
On to the five best. Before we do so, a shout-out to ‘Your Woman’, which finished in 6th place above various better-known luminaries. A weird record that I love, but that I didn’t expect to have such widespread appeal. Also to the one song not to receive a single vote in this poll: my very first Best #1, Johnnie Ray’s ‘Such a Night’. Poor old Johnnie Ray, as Dexy’s once sang… I assume this is because it is a song from 1954 which nobody has ever listened to, but I urge you to check it out here as it is a swinging classic.
Finally, a mention for the surprise winner of my last Best of the Best poll: ‘Baby Jump’, by Mungo Jerry. This time it collapses to joint second-last….
On with the Top 5 Best #1s of all time…
5. ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’, by The Rolling Stones – Can’t argue with this. Even if, looking back, I do wish I had chosen ‘Get Off Of My Cloud’ as the Very Best Stones #1. It’s not better than ‘Satisfaction’ as such, it’s just not as over-played.
4. ‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’, by Marvin Gaye – Another sixties classic, with which I cannot argue. Interestingly neither of these records featured at the top of the list in my earlier poll. Technically this is joint second, along with the next two records. How Crowdsignal settles tie-breaks I do not know, but it has this in fourth.
3. ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’, by Sinead O’Connor – This one was way down the rankings until the end of the week, when a flurry of late votes sent the classic weepy into joint-second.
2. ‘Crazy in Love’, by Beyoncé – Our most recent Very Best chart-topper, and proof that not all our readers are stuck in the seventies and eighties. I’m really glad that a ‘modern’ (okay, yes, it’s twenty-three years old) pop song has managed to rank alongside these oldies.
1. ‘I Feel Love’, by Donna Summer – Officially the undisputed best number one single of all time. This is the only record to remain in the Top 5 from my last poll, ascending one place to win by a single vote. ABBA are out (now 10th), The Beatles are out (now 16th), and Blondie are out (now 8th). Donna Summer remains. Disco rules. We feel love.
Thanks again for voting. I hope you agree with the results. If you don’t, have at it in the comments. See you tomorrow as we end our week of anniversary celebrations by finally reaching the 1000th number one single!
Thanks again to our guest writers this week, who have donated fine posts on the Stones, Wizzard, ‘Crimson and Clover’, and the very concept of being ‘number one’... Our final guest post of the week comes from Kevin (AKA freddybobs) with the record he wishes could have taken that final step up to the number one position. And it’s another classic…
As in sport, getting to number one can grant you immortality, but the runners-up are yesterday’s jam in no time at all. So it is that ‘Karma Chameleon’ is still ubiquitous 40-plus years on, but you never hear a song that it kept pegged at number two for two weeks in the autumn of 1983. I speak of “They Don’t Know” by Tracey Ullman.
I think it’s one of the great love songs. No, I really do. It’s not a power ballad, because it doesn’t need to be. There’s no desperation or yearning or heartache to tell of; it’s a simple and joyful paean to young love where the only thing that matters is being with that one person, regardless of what others think. Because you know, and they don’t.
Kirsty MacColl was nineteen when she wrote it, and took the original version all the way up to #62 in 1979. Some prefer her version, but for me Tracey’s cartoon-character voice sounds younger, and contributes to the overall feel of wide-eyed innocence.
The song opens with wedding chimes, lolloping piano and Tracey singing wistfully about her love for her own Prince Charming despite the disapproval of everyone she knows. The words she uses describe something universal. I get a feeling when I look at you, she sings. We don’t know what that feeling is, but we definitely recognise it. And her friends? When they look at you, they don’t see what I see... These are not complicated sentiments, they’re very simple; but they say more about the helpless joy of young love than a dozen Celine Dion songs ever could. And ultimately, the denouement: They’ve never heard of love. No, they don’t understand; they couldn’t possibly.
The song’s innocent feel is enhanced by its strong ’60s and Phil Spector influences. There’s definitely some Ronettes or Shangri-Las there, particularly in the “do do do” backing vocals in the middle-eight – ironically from Kirsty herself – as is the “Bay-bee” crescendo, a couple of notes that Tracey couldn’t quite reach…
The song was accompanied by a cheap and cheerful video featuring Tracey getting ready for a date at the bowling alley, blotting her lipstick with the Marc Bolan pics on the wall and pointing excitedly at her engagement ring. Then she sees his terrible attempts at bowling and grimaces at his awful shoes, but it doesn’t matter; she loves his faults as well. At the end, she’s wearing slippers at the supermarket; she’s dowdy, with a child in the trolley and another on the way. But “they” weren’t proved right. She fantasises about Paul McCartney and rolls her eyes when her moustachioed hero pinches her ass, but her joyfulness is undiminished.
And that’s one of the two elements that make this song so poignant. The song captures a feeling that everyone has at some stage or other, but yes, it’s bound to fade. No-one wants to live with that intensity forever, but it’s a shame it’s gone.
The other element, of course, is Kirsty MacColl’s death aged just forty-one in Mexico in 2000. She debuted with her version, and the whole premise of the song – embarking on one of life’s great adventures – mirrors her own tentative steps into the music business. And tragically, she died while there were still so many adventures ahead of her.
‘They Don’t Know’ was the second of three top ten hits by Tracey Ullman in 1983. She had a couple of minor hits in 1984 and then decided her pop career had probably peaked. So she resumed her comedy career to great success in the USA, where of course she premiered ‘The Simpsons’.
But yes, this stalled at number two behind ‘Karma Chameleon’, a frothy and lightweight zillion-seller, condemning this fabulous song to be forgotten before that year’s Christmas decorations were up. No-one ever said it was fair, but it would have been nice if Tracey and Kirsty had sneaked just a week from Boy George. For young lovers everywhere.
Thanks again freddybobs, and everyone else who has contributed a post, a like or a comment this week. And to everyone who has voted in our ultimate #1s polls below, too. There are still 24 hours to vote before I reveal the results, and it remains close!
For our fourth guest post of the week, Keith (AKA nostalgicitalian) is pondering a philosophical point that all music lovers will have contended with at some time… The enduring popularity of terrible songs.
My friend Stewart, over at The UK Number Ones Blog reached out a while back and asked if I’d participate in a guest feature. By the time this posts, his site will have almost reached its 1000th number one song. This guest post is to help celebrate that amazing achievement.
Stewart gave us guest writers a lot of freedom. We could write whatever we want, as long as it has a connection to the “top of the charts.” With that being said, let’s pause for a moment and define “number one.”
According to Merriam-Webster: “Number one most commonly refers to the primary, most important, or highest-ranking person, thing, or priority in a given group.” I like this definition a little bit better: “Something that is first in rank or highest in quality.”
In other words, a number one song should be something of high quality. It should be the “best” song on the chart, but that isn’t always the case. You can glance over every Billboard Hot 100 chart and see for yourself here.
As I looked over the charts, I found that there were plenty of songs that had me wondering, “Just how did that piece of garbage go to number one?!” For starters, here is a quick list of number one songs from the 1960’s that left me shaking my head: ‘Alley Oop’, ‘Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini’, ‘Mr. Custer’, ‘Sukiyaki’, ‘Dominique’, ‘Ringo’, ‘Winchester Cathedral’, and ‘Honey’. Some of them were number one for multiple weeks!
I realize that some of those would be considered novelty songs. Novelty songs would begin to fade from the chart in the ’80s, but there were still some that hit number one in the ’70s. Who can forget ‘The Candy Man’, ‘My Ding-a-Ling’, ‘The Streak’, and the awful ‘Disco Duck’? Maybe I should rephrase the question to read “Who would like to forget them?” When you go back to the definition, is Disco Duck “something that is first in rank or highest in quality?” I highly doubt it!
In 1996, the ‘Macarena’ was number one for a whopping fourteen weeks! For what it is worth, it was a dance craze (much like ‘The Twist’ in the ’60s, which also went to number one). It played at weddings and parties as well as on the radio. It truly was popular, but was it really the best song of 1996? There were only nine number one songs that year. You could argue that ‘One Sweet Day’ from Mariah Carey & Boyz II Men (11 weeks) or ‘Because You Loved Me’ from Celine Dion (6 weeks) were better songs, but musical tastes are subjective.
While I don’t find myself listening to much “current” music, there are certainly songs that fall into that category that I like. However, I will offer one more song that I cannot believe spent multiple weeks at number one. Consider 2020’s ‘The Box’ by Roddy Rich. It contains many uses of the F-word and the N-word, and references to female genitalia, sexual acts and sexual innuendo. This was an 11-week number one song.
If a number one song should represent the “highest in quality,” and considering the songs presented above, does a song reaching number one really mean anything? I used to believe it did, but looking back I’m not so sure. One is just a number.
Keith writes about music, pop culture and life at nostalgicitalian.com. Thanks again Keith, for an original take on our topic. And for not giving in to nostalgia, and for pointing out that crap songs have been around for just as long as good ones!
I think this post is the perfect companion for our ongoing polls, in which you can choose your ‘best’ and ‘worst’ from my own favourite and least-favourite chart-toppers. Well over three-hundred and fifty votes have been cast so far, and it is still very tight at the top of both polls. Every vote counts! Results will go out on Sunday.
Our next guest post comes from another long-time follower, who joined our journey sometime around the late 1950s. Max (aka Badfinger) blogs on music and pop culture at powerpop.blog, and has kept up with our wanderings through the charts even though we left his preferred ’60s and ’70s eras behind a while back. Today he’s writing about a lost hit from that time, and how it highlights the differences between the charts on either side of the Atlantic…
When I was growing up, my sister had this single. It was cracked, so she taped the B-side with scotch tape, and I would listen to it over and over. Of course, it went like “Crimson and Clov-CLICK-er.” But I didn’t care; it was a great song to me even with the hideous CLICK.
Now to the subject of the post. I’ve always been fascinated by how some bands could be huge in one country and barely make a dent in another. In America, we missed out on a lot of British acts like T. Rex, Status Quo, and Slade. At the same time, the UK never fully embraced some major American artists such as CCR, Bob Seger, and Grand Funk Railroad. They were certainly known there, but they never enjoyed the kind of success they had back home. I always wondered about that in bands and songs.
While I was writing up this song up a few years ago and typing out the chart position of it, I was shocked when I saw a blank in the UK chart position. I thought the source was wrong, so I emailed Stewart; no dice, it didn’t chart. This song is one of those records that proves the charts don’t always make sense. Tommy James and the Shondells were no strangers to success in the UK. ‘Mony Mony‘ had reached No. 1 there. But when it was released in early 1969, it failed to chart at all.
Part of the problem may have been that the song was unlike anything else on the radio at the time. It moved at a slower pace at mid-tempo. The tremolo effects on Tommy James’ voice and guitar gave it a dreamy sound. American audiences loved it. British listeners may have found it a little too different, bubblegum, or old hat. The UK music scene was changing quickly in 1969. Harder rock bands and progressive groups were starting to get more attention.
There is also the possibility that the record simply did not receive the promotion it needed. Maybe ‘Crimson and Clover’ (released January 1969) came too close after ‘Mony Mony’ (March 1968). Tommy James was always a bigger act in the United States and Canada than in Britain. In those days, radio play and television appearances could make a huge difference. If a record was not pushed hard enough, a song could get lost among dozens of new releases arriving every week. Of course, there was always the opposite, such as Ian Dury and the Blockheads, ‘Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick’, and many others that hit number 1 in the UK and did nothing here.
Just so everyone knows, I’m not knocking the UK for it not charting. It’s just amazing to me, though, how one song can be so big in one country and flop in the other…either way! Whatever the reason, Joan Jett actually charted Crimson and Clover in 1982 at #60 in the UK, and her version peaked at #7 in America and #4 in Canada. At least it made an appearance in the UK Charts!
Thanks again, Max. Everyone else be sure to check out his blogs, through which I’ve discovered so many songs over the years. And don’t forget to vote for the Best and Worst #1s! Results out on Sunday!
Today’s guest post comes from long-time follower John, aka popchartfreak, who I believe may have been my first ever commenter, back when each of my posts attracted around 2.5 views. He’s written about the first single he ever parted with cold, hard cash for. And it’s a classic. (Certainly cooler than the first record I ever bought, which was the soundtrack to ‘Joseph and His Technicolour Dreamcoat’.)
How could I celebrate the Number Ones Blog’s anniversary theme? Well, why not my first purchase of a single that was about to hit number one with the help of my pocket money: ‘See My Baby Jive’ by Wizzard, in 1973.
That track triggered in me a massive enthusiasm for Roy Wood, Wizzard, ELO and The Move back-catalogue to boot. Top Of The Pops helped: the outlandishly colourful outfits and makeup on Top Of The Pops and the Phil Spector wall-of-sound-reinvented was thrilling. I loved that record, a sort of glam rock update of the 60’s with added excitement so much so that it sat on top of my personal weekly charts for a record ten weeks.
So what exactly is great about it? In the first five seconds it sounds like an attention-grabbing aeroplane engine on Loud morphing into a furious drum beat, an orchestra strings section, female backing vocals and horns. It’s ten seconds in before Roy starts singing Look out! Look out! The backing singers stay on board throughout, giving it Ronettes vibes through to the hook and back to the verse. There’s no pace let up, the horn section stays big with lots of intricate riffs in the mix, to the instrumental bridge when the strings take centre stage, then the sax, then back to Roy. Verse, chorus, repeat chorus to a crescendo, different parts sung for variation and then to the final sax fizzle out solo via an instrumental bit, oh-oh-ohs, and the kitchen sink thrown in for added excitement. Talk about epic! My jaw still drops at this record, a mini-masterpiece of pop. Love it.
In total, Roy released a trio of Phil Spector-ish hit singles: ‘Angel Fingers’ (another number one) and ‘I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday’ – a universal Christmas classic that peaked at #4 (behind Slade), and that is still in the UK charts every Christmas fifty-three years later. Roy flirted with all sorts of stuff: ’50s revivalism for Wizzard, and his quirky solo career – album ‘Boulders’ was fabulous, he did 100% everything on the album instrumentally and vocally, hopping from Eurovision gospel to a ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ pastiche of a computer in love. Later, hit single ‘Forever’ was a Beach Boys via Neil Sedaka pastiche, and ‘Going Down The Road’ was bagpipes reggae. The man was a musical hero who could turn his hand to anything. Everybody in the UK still knows who Wizzard are in the 2020’s: that Father-Christmas-decked-out bloke who wishes it could be Christmas everyday! I just wish they could hear ‘See My Baby Jive’ for a change!
Thanks John. A great post on a great song. And a reminder to vote for your best and worst #1s before I reveal the results on Sunday!
Welcome to the first of a week of guest posts to celebrate reaching our 1000th number one. First up, long-time follower John Van der Kiste gets things underway with an ode to an unruly, and perhaps unlucky, classic from the Stones…
When is a No. 1 not a No. 1? When it’s so controversial that mainstream retailers won’t stock it, and we argue that sales figures were ‘adjusted’ that week to keep it at No. 2? Or, when the Official Charts Company say no while the music press Top 30s suggest otherwise? That was the fate of The Rolling Stones’ ‘19th Nervous Breakdown’.
In the New Musical Express and Melody Maker charts, it enjoyed three weeks in pole position from 19th February 1966. Ditto for BBC TV’s Top of the Pops, which then based its weekly Top 20 on samplings from these and the other music weeklies, Record Mirror and Disc. The OCC, which has the Record Retailer Top 50 charts as its source from 1960 to 1969, made it No. 2 for those three weeks, with Nancy Sinatra’s ‘These Boots Are Made For Walkin’, walkin’ all over them at No. 1. Otherwise it would have given the band seven consecutive chart-toppers between July 1964 and May 1966.
It was written on their autumn 1965 American tour and recorded in December at RCA Studios, California, its title apparently inspired by an exhausted Mick Jagger saying he was about ready for his nineteenth nervous breakdown. As usual he wrote the lyrics, Keith Richards provided the music. However it’s not about work-related stress, but a poor little rich girl who was given everything by her parents, a mother who owed a million dollars tax and a father still perfecting ways of making sealing wax. She had a thousand toys, but still she cried all night. Jagger was moving in high society circles with glamorous girls ready to meet England’s most rebellious rock star if they could, and like Ray Davies of The Kinks, he was happy to satirise them mercilessly. He also sneaked in a subtle drugs reference, maybe to see if it got past the moral guardians: On our first trip I tried so hard to rearrange your mind… Radio and TV missed that.
There are some wonderful musical touches too, like when Brian Jones’ guitar borrows a distinctive lick from Bo Diddley’s ‘Diddley Daddy’, a 1955 American single. Towards the fade, Bill Wyman supplies that notable bass run. ‘I bounced the string with the top of my finger on the pickup, and ran my finger down the string,’ he said. ‘That’s what created that so-called dive-bombing sound.’ Not to mention a guitar fuzz tone on the riff before each chorus, or the sweet and sour vocal harmonies, or Charlie Watts’ superb drum fills and cymbal beats.
Had it not been for The Animals’ ‘House of the Rising Sun’ (4.29) in 1964, at 3.50 this would have been the longest UK No. 1 in terms of playing time until superseded a year later by Procol Harum’s ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’.
Because it wasn’t an ‘official’ No. 1, it seems to have flown a little below the radar on radio playlists. Perhaps it remains that bit more fresh for not having been aired so often as the band’s chart-toppers.
John has recently published a book in the Rock Classics Series on the Stones’ Let it Bleed album, plus an On Track title about Gerry Rafferty, with an On Track on Bob Seger, currently being edited and due for publication in July – all three through Sonicbond.
Don’t forget to vote for your best and worst number ones! I’ll publish the results on Sunday…
Welcome all. We’re on the verge of celebrating a milestone I’m not sure I ever imagined reaching when starting this blog back in January 2018: our 1000th number one!
Before we get to that, from tomorrow we’ll be marking the milestone with a week of guest posts from some of our long-time followers, readers and commenters. And before that, why don’t we open things up to the floor?
Over the past eight and a half years, I’ve published thirty recaps, in which I’ve stopped every thirty (or more recently, fifty) number ones to reflect on chart trends. And, most importantly, to choose a Best and a Worst chart-topper from each recap. Now it’s over to you, to vote on your favourites from my thirty best, and worst, chart-topping singles. At the foot of this post, you’ll find two polls in which you can vote for as many of the songs as you like. I’ll reveal the results in a week, just before covering the 1000th #1. Have at it. This is democracy manifest!
I did the same thing a few years ago (you can see the results here). I’ve wiped those scores, and added the most recent winning records, so even if you voted back then please do so again! I also did a poll for Christmas #1s, and that poll remains open if you’d like to have your say there.
But before all that, I thought it would be fun to go through my stats and see which posts, and which songs, have had the most engagement over the past eight years. (Again, I did this after the 500th #1, and the results were somewhat surprising…) Here are my most viewed posts from each decade covered. Interestingly, none of the current most-viewed posts are the same as those most-viewed after the 500th #1…
The second-ever UK number one, scoring a week in early 1953 after Al Martino had kicked things off. So I suppose time has been on this post’s side, given that it’s been online since January 2018. And the song was a huge hit in its day, staying on the UK charts (then just a Top 12) for nineteen weeks, and staying at #1 in the US for up to 12 weeks (depending on which chart you look at in those pre-Billboard Hot 100 days).
But still, it is not the first record you think of when someone says ‘the 1950s’. Bill Haley, Elvis and all the other rock and rollers were still a good three years off. A little digging has given a possible explanation for ‘You Belong to Me’ being searched for more often than your average pre-rock ‘n’ roll hit, as it has featured in horror film ‘The Nun’ and TV series ‘Fallout’ in recent years.
A bit more of a classic this, our most-viewed #1 from the sixties. Still, it ain’t the Beatles or the Stones. One theory I have is that huge, generational hits have so much written about them that any link to my little blog is buried on page 300 of a Google search. Whereas for slightly less famous hits, I might appear higher up in a search.
Also interesting is the fact that you have to scroll pretty far down my list of most-viewed posts to find a #1 from the ’60s. This is, in fact, only my 33rd most viewed chart-topper. There really is quite the disparity between that decade, compared to the seventies and eighties. Even the fifties rates higher on average. I have no theories to posit as to why this might be…
Backing up my theory that the least remembered songs do well on little-known blogs such as mine, here are Windsor Davies and Don Estelle singing an old Ink Spots tune, while in character for their roles in ‘It Ain’t Half Hot Mum’. Of all my posts on 1970s number ones, this has had the most views, by quite some distance. In fact, after the homepage, this is the most-viewed chart-topper…
Another idea I have is the ‘bookmark theory’, in which someone bookmarks a particular post rather than the blog homepage, and whenever they return to the site it racks up another view for said random post. So if you are the reader who bookmarked ‘Whispering Grass’, do own up!
The only most-viewed post that matches with the Very Best #1s lists that you can vote on below, ‘Relax’ is an eighties classic. So it makes sense that this is the most viewed post from that decade. But then it leaves me wondering why this is the only one of my ‘most-viewed’ posts to make sense like that…
From a bawdy and controversial eighties classic… to this. Yes, my most viewed post from the decade of Britpop and boybands, the decade that is so ‘in’ with the kids right now, is Cliff Richard at his most God-bothering.
Time isn’t even on this song’s side, as it was the penultimate #1 of the ’90s, so has technically been playing catch-up. At the time of publication, I remember that ‘The Millennium Prayer’ sent my views spiking to their highest-ever levels, causing me to wonder if Cliff’s more rabid fans had spotted it and had been sharing. But then, I was far from complimentary about it, so I also worried that Cliff himself had seen it and was going to come after me with a lawsuit. So far, nothing quite so dramatic has happened…
And my most-viewed ’00s #1 is the decade’s, and the millennium’s, first. Which lends more credence to the ‘time is on its side’ theory. But I think this was also a beneficiary of the huge spike in views I enjoyed after ‘The Millennium Prayer’, as I published it a few days later and it went similarly viral. Or maybe it’s just popular because it’s such a freaking tune!
Anyway, that’s what people have viewed over the years, and I am always grateful for anyone who takes the time to read any one of my posts. Now it’s time to choose your favourites from my favourite chart-toppers. Take your pick from the Beatles, the Stones, ABBA, Blondie, Bowie, Marvin Gaye, Jerry Lee Lewis, Eminem, Beyonce and, um, Bucks Fizz. Multiple votes are allowed. Vote for them all if you wish!
Or you can indulge your dark side. Who wants to hear the best #1s when you can hate-listen to these horrors from Dana, Engelbert Humperdinck, Westlife, Ray Stevens, Jive Bunny, Donny Osmond, Robson & Jerome and, um, Elvis.
The UK Number Ones Blog 