Never Had a #1… Part 5

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It’s been a while, so here is the next instalment of our look through the Top 40 biggest-selling global acts never to have had a UK #1 single.

We’re into the Top 20 today, counting down acts twenty through sixteen. Before we get going though, why not recap with Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4.

20. Carpenters

Biggest hits: ‘Yesterday Once More’ (#2 in 1973) & ‘Please Mr. Postman’ (#2 in 1975)

The Carpenters are possibly the most surprising name on this list. They weren’t a rock act that sold more albums than singles; they were a singles act that produced some of the best pop music of the seventies. It’s amazing that they didn’t manage a chart-topper in Britain, despite scoring three in the USA.

‘Yesterday Once More’ has one of their best melodies, and one of their catchiest hooks. Every shalalala, Every whoa-oh-oh… It was a very ’70s phenomenon, songs about how the old songs were the best, when the ‘old songs’ had barely come of age. And I’m sure I mentioned this in my post on how the Carpenters had never had a number one, but having traveled widely across Asia I can confirm that ‘Yesterday Once More’, and ‘Top of the World’, are two of the best-known English language songs every recorded.

‘Please Mr. Postman’, one of their American chart-toppers, is a decent enough cover. It was once voted as the duo’s best song by ITV viewers, which is just silly.

19. Bob Dylan

Biggest hit: ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ (#4 in 1965)

A man who needs little to no introduction from me, and another about whom I have previously done a ‘Never Had a #1’ post on.

What I will say specifically about Dylan’s biggest hit, is I think it quite fun that following worthy folk anthems like ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ and ‘The Times They Are A-Changing’, it took a six-minute, sneering bitchfest to bring about his biggest British hit. He then followed it up with the even nastier ‘Positively 4th Street’, one of the great ‘haters gonna hate’ records, proving that he truly was the Taylor Swift of his day.

18. Dire Straits

Biggest hits: ‘Private Investigations’ (#2 in 1982) & ‘Walk of Life’ (#2 in 1986)

Only the third British act in this Top 40, after Genesis (#23) and Def Leppard (#22), and the second highest. (I won’t give the game away, but I’m sure most of you can work out the final British band left to appear…) Anyway, Dire Straits have made number two twice. Once with the languorous Spanish guitars and spoken word combo of ‘Private Investigations’, which really doesn’t sound much like a Top 40, let alone a #2, hit. And then with the far catchier and more immediate ‘Walk of Life’, from their fourteen-times-platinum monster album ‘Brothers in Arms’.

17. The Doors

Biggest hit: ‘Light My Fire’ (#7 in 1967)

Back to the usual ‘bigger in the US’ type of acts that have populated this rundown so far, and it’s The Doors. Despite having two number ones to their name back home, ‘Light My Fire’ was their only Top 10 hit in the British Isles. And while the seven-minute organ solo version is great (the solo now has it’s own ‘chapter’ on this YouTube video), I have included the band’s shorter but much more controversial performance on the Ed Sullivan show, in which Jim Morrison reneged on a promise not to sing the girl we couldn’t get much higher… line. Sullivan refused to shake their hands, and banned them from the show indefinitely.

I have also already done a Doors ‘Never Had a #1…’ post, if you would like to read more.

16. Santana

Biggest hit: ‘Smooth’ ft. Rob Thomas (#3 in 2000)

Carlos Santana had been active since the sixties, both by himself and as leader of his eponymous band, but had never troubled the UK Top 10 until this late nineties classic.

It’s an interesting plot line of the fin de 20th siecle: classic rock acts having a renaissance. Aerosmith had their biggest ever hit in 1998, Blondie made an unexpected chart-topping comeback a few months later, and Santana finally breached the UK Top 10. With a little help from Matchbox 20’s Rob Thomas (who weren’t a British chart force either) they brought about this sexy, Latin-rock groover. (That little Mariachi drumbeat key change that leads to the solo is pop perfection in my book). In my mind this was the sound of the summer of ’99, when the record was initially released, but in reality it reached its chart peak in March 2000, and March is never a particularly hot and steamy time of the year…

So we’re almost into the Top 15, where we have remaining two solo females, three solo males, and ten bands, all of whom rock and/or roll, to varying extents. Until Part VI, then….

1008. ‘All About You’ / ‘You’ve Got a Friend’, by McFly

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And so we arrive at the ultimate love song. The song I will have played at my wedding…

All About You / You’ve Got a Friend, by McFly (their 3rd of seven #1s)

1 week, from 13th – 20th March 2005

Two slight caveats here: you must always allow me room for hyperbole when it comes to McFly, and I have little-to-no plans to ever get married. But still, I do think that ‘All About You’ is a lovely song.

First we have to skip the cheesy harps and strings intro, and imagine they’re being delivered with a knowing wink. Skip straight to the harmonies in the first chorus, and the pretty verses, with their timeless melodies. It is hard to write timeless, hard to write a song that sounds like it might always have existed.

The acoustic guitar solo is more of its time – though that ‘time’ would be a soft-rock song from the eighties – and the second bridge and chorus, when the band finally come in, is pure power-pop. Okay the lyrics are trite – Dancing on the kitchen tiles, Yes you made my life worthwhile, So I told you with a smile… – but eighteen year olds can get away with trite.

McFly songs provide a real chicken vs egg scenario for me. Do I blindly argue their brilliance because I think McFly are a truly underrated band; or are songs like ‘All About You’ truly great and deserve to have me arguing for them? I’ve been a McFly fan for so long now that I can’t judge this clearly.

Actually that’s a lie. The other side of this double-‘A’ will give me a chance to appraise McFly impartially. Since this was the official Red Nose Day single for 2005, the suits presumably needed a song with more of a message (and a music video in which the band could run around with lots of Ugandan orphans…) So they chose Carole King’s classic ‘You’ve Got a Friend’.

It is on the one hand completely unnecessary. It does not improve in any way on King’s original, or on James Taylor’s definitive cover. And I really don’t like all the woodwind. (See, I can write something bad about McFly.) But Tom’s voice sounds nice on the first verse. Plus, I sang this in my primary school choir, and it really does have one of the most heart-string tugging choruses in all of pop history.

The flutes, and the full-blown orchestra in the background of ‘All About You’, bring up one of the reasons why McFly’s second album, ‘Wonderland’, is my least favourite. They threw the kitchen sink at it, production-wise, with string sections and three-part rock operas about teen suicide. I think it was an attempt to prove themselves, to show that they weren’t just a boyband; but it led to bloat, and some boringly worthy music. By their third album, they seemed to have shaken that monkey off their back, and returned to making great pop-rock.

As this was the official Red Nose Day single, it opened with McFly’s highest ever weekly sale. It also meant this record didn’t have the massive second week collapse that they would become synonymous with. And yet, ‘All About You’ was still eclipsed by the unofficial Red Nose Day single, which brought about one of the biggest, and unlikeliest, hits of the entire decade, and which is up next.

Just the audio…

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1007. ‘Dakota’, by Stereophonics

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We’re slap bang in the middle of the ‘00s. I was nineteen, in my second year at university, and out at the dancing three or four times a week…

Dakota, by Stereophonics (their 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 6th – 13th March 2005

Before you fear that I’ll turn this post into a nostalgia-fest, and start banging on about blue WKDs and skinny jeans, I’m getting to a salient point. A lot of the music I heard on those nights out wasn’t just the pop and dance we’ve been hearing in recent posts. It was, as the Killers sang, indie rock and roll for me.

So ‘Dakota’ is a mini landmark number one, as it is the first chart-topper from the mid-00s indie revival. Think Franz Ferdinand, think Arctic Monkeys, think Kaiser Chiefs, Libertines, the Strokes, White Stripes and more. Like Britpop a decade earlier, it didn’t get a whole lot of representation at the very top of the charts, but there will at least be a few more rocking #1s in the coming months, and that is something to celebrate after the very pop-heavy opening years of the 21st century.

Of course, Stereophonics predated all these new-kid-on-the-block indie acts. You could class them as Britpop, but they weren’t that either. They emerged during that post-Britpop comedown that also gave us Travis, and Coldplay (a period Alan McGee famously dubbed ‘bedwetter indie’). They were probably overdue a number one single, as Britain’s pre-eminent rock group of the very early ‘00s.

But for this comeback single they were tapping into the sounds of the time, taking a step away from their usual pub rock anthems. ‘Dakota’ sounds like the Killers, with its synth stabs, crossed with U2 in the humungous chorus, and some Manics in the spiky guitars. It’s a big tune, clearly written for tens of thousands to sing along to in stadiums, and while I liked it at the time I’m finding it a bit plodding now.

The chord progression in the chorus is still good, and the thrashing I don’t know where we are going… break is still impressively heavy. But I’ve always had mixed feelings about Stereophonics. For every song of theirs I like – the bitchy ‘Mr Writer’, for example – there’s a song I find bloated and dull – i.e. ‘Just Looking’. And Kelly Jones’ sandpaper drawl is a voice I can only take for three songs at a time.

I also think ‘Dakota’ is a bit of an inferior retread of Stereophonics’ previous single, ‘Moviestar’ – a slinkier, more sinister slice of electro-rock. But, this is the record that brought them a belated #1 after nine earlier Top 10 hits. And it was their chart peak, after a very slow ascent, and they have never returned to the Top 10 since.

But hey, at least they kicked off the ‘mid-00s indie rock revival’. Not quite as catchy a genre title as ‘punk’ or ‘glam’, but still. It was probably rock music’s very last hurrah as a chart force. And I may be biased, as it was the soundtrack to my yoof, but it also gave us some great tunes. Not ‘Dakota’, not quite, but there’s better to come soon.

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1006. ‘Over and Over’, by Nelly ft. Tim McGraw

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In this post-Lil Nas X world, mixing country and rap together is nothing new. But I recall this next number one feeling like a bit of a novelty at the time…

Over and Over, by Nelly (his 3rd of four #1s) ft. Tim McGraw (his 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 27th February – 6th March 2005

Not that ‘Over and Over’ is particularly ‘country’. It’s a gentle pop song, with a lilting guitar. The most country thing about is Tim McGraw’s raspy drawl, and the Stetson he wears in the video. At the same time, this isn’t particularly a rap track either. Nelly even sings. Sort of. So, having called this ‘country rap’, in the end we’re left with more of a smooth R&B record.

That novelty feeling is about the only thing I recall about this song, as it is relatively unmemorable. It starts off lowkey, with both men singing like they’re babysitting and are just getting the kid off to sleep, but never really picks up. It’s fine. It’s a nice enough slow jam. I’m just not sure why this had the legs to make it to #1. Was it the lack of competition, and low sales? Was it Nelly’s star power? Was it said novelty factor? Whatever it was, Nelly becomes the third act in a row to enjoy a chart-topping spring follow-up to an autumnal lead single #1.

Looking into it a little more, country rap (also known, quite wonderfully, as ‘hick-hop’) had originated back in the late ‘90s. So perhaps we can view a record like this as being a breakthrough moment for the genre, with it making #1 in the UK and Australia, and #3 in the US. It is interesting that it made the top in Britain, and not America, but – like reggae – C&W has been an intermittently popular genre in the UK since the charts began.

Not only did this blending of genres lead to some of the huge country-rap hits of recent years, it also led to ‘bro-country’, in which male country stars started incorporate rapping and syncopated beats into songs about trucks, guns, beer and the like. Tim McGraw himself could be seen as a forefather of that genre. Bro-country (thankfully) hasn’t made much of an impact in the UK charts, while this is by far the biggest of Tim McGraw’s British hits, and the only one to ever make the Top 40.

This was also the tail-end of a career high for Nelly who, although he would return to the Top 10, and to #1 one final time, wouldn’t manage hit singles quite as consistently with his subsequent albums. He was always an interesting rapper, one who seemed a bit removed from the bigger, more posturing personalities of say 50 Cent or Jay-Z, and one who seemed happier to embrace a pop sound on his records. Which is probably why he has several more #1s than those more illustrious hip-hop stars.

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1005. ‘Get Right’, by Jennifer Lopez

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Like ‘Goodies’ a few weeks earlier, this is a song I remember from the time, but that I haven’t properly heard since it left the charts…

Get Right, by Jennifer Lopez (her 2nd of three #1s)

1 week, from 20th – 27th February 2005

Unlike ‘Goodies’ however, it is not with fondness that I remember ‘Get Right’. I remember it being distinctly irritating. Perhaps, more than twenty years on, it is time to reassess?

But the high-pitched, looped horn riff is just as confronting as I remember it. It sounds like the mating call of an exotic bird. Not being nineteen, and not being determined to have strong opinions on anything and everything, I can sort of admit that it has a wonderful funkiness to it. It makes you move. Though it could have done with occasionally changing key, or varying notes slightly. Especially by the time the ‘solo’ comes along, and just it’s twenty seconds straight of the same bloody horns.

Not that the horns don’t have an illustrious history to them, as a sample from ‘Soul Power ‘74’, by Maceo & the Macks, AKA James Brown’s backing band. But the riff that makes up the entirety of ‘Get Right’ is a tiny fraction of the free-styling saxophone on that record, which had been trimmed to the sample used here by Usher, in an unreleased track named ‘Ride’.

What of J-Lo, belatedly appearing on her second UK number one, after so many of her classic early ‘00s hits had failed to make top spot? I’d say this song could be sung by anyone, really. While not a spectacular vocalist, I think Lopez is someone whose voice can be easily recognised. But not on this one, for some reason. She even sounds a little strained, as if maintaining this sort of intense funk for four minutes is beyond her.

So, consider this record reassessed. Partly, at least. I like it more than my teenage self did, though would still label it as something I’d have to be in the mood for. And there are certainly better J-Lo tunes that didn’t make it to #1. But her longevity is impressive, with three chart-toppers stretched out over a decade or more.

As I mentioned, this isn’t the first forgotten number one of 2005, and we’ve barely made it to spring. ‘Goodies’ was a nice rediscovery, as was ‘Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own’, which would surely be a great Pointless answer when listing U2 #1s. Once again we have to recognise that poor record sales were allowing for some interesting chart-toppers. Is this the most forgotten period in UK chart history? In fact we’re in the middle of a run of eleven one-weekers – the second longest such run in chart history – and I’d also challenge anyone to hum the chorus of our next number one…

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1004. ‘Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own’, by U2

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U2 end a seventeen-year chart-topping career with an understated, and perhaps forgotten, little gem.

Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own, by U2 (their 7th and final #1)

1 week, from 13th – 20th February 2005

Understatement is all relevant, of course, and for many acts this would count as a bombastic power-ballad. By U2’s standards though, it is gentle and stripped-back. It had been written around five years earlier, about Bono’s father, who died from cancer in 2001. (The line: It’s you when I look in the mirror, And it’s you when I don’t pick up the phone…taps so sharply into many father-son relationships.) According to the band, the song went through a lot of workshopping, away from a traditional Irish sound to something more contemporary. And I’m glad they spent the time to bring it to fruition.

It still has a folksy feel, especially in the intro, which reminds me of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Man of the World’. Bono’s vocals are impressive – possibly his best performance on any of their chart-toppers – especially in the middle-eight, in which the song switches to something more predictably soaring. The Edge’s guitar chimes in trademark fashion, and we get briefly swamped in over-production, before ending on a sparser note.

I suppose it would be a lot to expect the biggest band in the world™ not to give in to that glossy sheen, when they have unfettered access to the best equipment and producers, but I would be interested to hear an even more restrained version of this ballad. Not that this gets spoiled by the production, not at all, but it’s a tempting thought. We have the low sales climate of early 2005 to thank for U2 enjoying two #1s from the same album for the first time, and their first chart-topper that isn’t a lead single. Not for the first time in the last couple of years a grim situation for the record industry has led to some interesting chart hits. This is also one of the longest-titled number one singles, from one of the shortest-titled chart-topping acts.

Actually, despite often being down on U2, and Bono in particular, I have enjoyed almost all of their six number ones, with one notable exception. Not counting their feature on ‘Take Me to the Clouds Above’, I would rank them thusly, in ascending order. ‘Beautiful Day’ >>>>>>>>>>>> ‘The Fly’ > ‘Discotheque’ > ‘Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own’ > ‘Desire’ > ‘Vertigo’. Because, at the end of the day, rock bands are at their best when they rock.

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1003. ‘Like Toy Soldiers’, by Eminem

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In which Eminem redeems himself after the execrable ‘Just Lose It’. A bit, at least…

Like Toy Soldiers, by Eminem (his 6th of eleven #1s)

1 week, from 6th – 13th February 2005

Things I like about this song are: A) The clever title. It is ‘like’ ‘Toy Soldiers’, the 1989 #5 hit for Martika that it samples. While Eminem’s acolytes that he refers to in the lyrics are like toy soldiers for him, in his many beefs with various other rappers. B) The sample I think is inspired, and it lends a soaring quality to the chorus. C) The added marching drumbeat, and the fact that Martika’s voice is pitched slightly faster and higher than the very plodding, power-ballad original. It improves it, in my opinion.

The fact that it’s taken six chart-toppers for Eminem to make such prominent use of a sample is surprising, given hip-hop’s love for ‘borrowing’ beats. Musically some of Eminem’s #1s have been a little lightweight, even a bit rinky-dink (‘Without Me’ is great, but it’s all about the lyrics not the production); while this one is way more impressive musically than lyrically.

So yes, what I don’t particularly like about this record are the lyrics. Not because they’re offensive, or provocative. More because they’re boring. They’re a five minute explanation of a disagreement between Eminem, 50 Cent, and Ja Rule. As a teacher, it sounds a lot like hearing a naughty kid try trying to explain why something isn’t their fault and how life is unfair: We actually tried to stop the 50 and Ja beef from happenin’, Me and Dre had sat with him, Kicked it and had a chat with him, And asked him not to start it, He wasn’t gonna go after him, Until Ja started yappin’ in magazines how we stabbed him…

I mean. I really couldn’t care less. Grown men – very rich grown men – acting the fool like kids in a playground. Anyone over the age of fifteen shouldn’t be allowed to have ‘beef’ with anyone. Grow up. By the end of the song, Eminem is calling for a truce in whatever rap battles have been going on, how he’s going to be the bigger man. And yet. Any five-second Google search throws up any number of post-2005 beefs that Eminem has rapped about.

Because, in hip-hop, beefing sells. All the posturing, the not backing down, the having your homies’ backs, is a huge part of the genre’s image. And I don’t want to sound too much like a middle-aged white guy (which I unmistakeably am), but I’ve never really seen the appeal of this side of rap music. And it leads to lop-sided songs like this, where I grow bored in the middle of every verse, as Eminem drones on about how nothing’s his fault, waiting for the far better chorus to swing by again.

‘Like Toy Soldiers’ brings to an end Eminem’s imperial phase. Seven #1s in less than five years, yet he won’t score another number one as lead artist until 2013. He won’t be absent from the charts – and in that time he’ll score one of the biggest non-chart topping hits of all time – but a mix of time away due to addiction and uneven output will mean he isn’t as untouchable as he once was.

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1002. ‘It’s Now or Never’, by Elvis Presley

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At the end of my last post, I claimed that ‘It’s Now or Never’ wasn’t particularly good. Which was a bit harsh, I suppose…

It’s Now or Never, by Elvis Presley (his 21st and final #1)

1 week, from 30th January – 6th February 2005

The problem I have with ‘It’s Now or Never’, both in its original eight-week 1960 run at number one and now, is that there are better Elvis songs which deserve to have been his biggest selling hit. ‘It’s Now or Never’ is catchy, eminently singable, and Elvis belts it out like no other; but it is essentially a novelty. It is an old Italian melody, ‘O Sole Mio’, tarted up as a pop song. It is better remembered nowadays as a Cornetto advert.

It also marked the launch of Elvis Mk II: the operatic, corny movie Elvis, who was being rinsed for every cent by Colonel Parker. Which in hindsight isn’t something to be celebrate. However, it also launched probably the most successful chart-topping run of any artist in British chart history. In just over two years (November 1960 to December 1962), Elvis scored nine chart-toppers, and racked up forty-one weeks in pole position. I’m sure I contended with all that in my original post on the song, published back in 2018. 

I’m also a bit down on ‘It’s Now or Never’ because this rerelease ensured that it was my nineteenth birthday #1. Which means it stands out like a sore thumb in my ‘Birthday #1s’ playlist… It’s far from being my worst birthday #1 – and maybe one day I’ll do a post on them – but I’d rather have had ‘Jailhouse Rock’ or ‘One Night’. Or even better, ‘Goodies’: an actual contemporary piece of music from January 2005.

‘Goodies’ withstanding, Elvis came very close to replacing himself at number one three times, with four consecutive number ones. Which it goes without saying would have been a record. In any case he became only the third artist to replace themselves at #1, after the Beatles and a posthumous John Lennon. But as winter turned into spring, and singles sales slowly picked up, none of his subsequent thirteen re-releases troubled top spot.

In fact, I remember at the time it was quite an interesting way to judge the overall health of the singles market. Assuming the Elvis rereleases always sold just over the 20k mark, the more singles that finished above him meant a more robust chart. From memory, I think the lowest he charted that spring was #5.

Here then ends the ultimate chart-topping career. Twenty-one of the buggers. Yes, some will complain that he has been helped by remixes and releases, and that without them he’d have remained tied with the Beatles on seventeen. But we have to treat these releases as ‘new’ #1s, with new packaging and new catalogue numbers. As we did when ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and ‘My Sweet Lord’ returned to the top. It’s been an interesting interlude, this Elvisenaissance, that’s for sure. But as much as I do love a bit of Elvis, I’m glad we’ll be returning to more contemporary #1s after this. 

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1001. ‘Goodies’, by Ciara ft. Petey Pablo

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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…

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