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.
Welcome back to our semi-regular feature, in which we explore a day in music history via the medium of number one records.
This time we’re keeping it simple. No births, deaths or marriages. Just four records that were sitting on top of the UK charts on this date in history, with links to my original posts for those who might have missed these song first time around. Let’s start back in the middle of the swinging sixties…
Beginning a fortnight on top on this day in 1966, it’s The Troggs with their sole British chart-topper. In a decade in which guitar was king, ‘With a Girl Like You’ was still noticeable for being even rougher and readier than most rock singles at the time. The first, and perhaps only, true garage rock #1? Quite possibly. The production is fuzzy, the riff simple, and the hook a catchy bababambam-ba.
This is far from being the Trogg’s best-known single, and asking the average person to name their only chart-topper would make a good pub quiz question. Most people might nominate ‘Wild Thing’ (which was coincidentally sitting at #1 on the Billboard 100 on the same day), or ‘Love is All Around’, two songs made famous in cover versions. More on that to come…
Starting its third and final week at #1 on this day in 1974, it’s George McCrae’s ‘Rock Your Baby’. Ushering in probably the sound of the late seventies, this is commonly seen as one of the first disco hits. It is certainly the first disco chart-topper. And it still sounds impossibly smooth, and groovy, fifty-two years on. Perfect for a summer’s day by the pool…
Hitting its second of four weeks at #1 on this day in 1985: Madonna’s first UK #1, ‘Into the Groove’. Despite her popularity at the time, I’m not sure many would have predicted that she’d go on to have twelve further chart-toppers spread over twenty-three years. Or that she would have scored her thirteenth UK #1 album just a couple of weeks ago, with ‘Confessions II’, aged sixty-seven. Despite personally preferring Dusty, or Kylie, or Gaga, I can’t think of an argument in which one can claim that Madonna isn’t the ultimate female pop star.
So yes, here is the Troggs hit that presumably everyone has heard. It had to wait almost thirty years to make number one, in this Wet Wet Wet cover version from the soundtrack to ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’, but presumably set Reg Presley up with a healthy pension for the rest of his life.
‘Love Is All Around’ certainly made up for lost time, becoming the longest-running #1 by a British act (a title that it only just relinquished this year, to ‘Rein Me In’, though it still holds the record for longest consecutive run at number one by a British act). On August 4th 1994 it was in its tenth of fifteen weeks on top. I am just a little too young to remember it, but it must have felt that love was indeed all around, and never off the radio, that summer…
Hope you enjoyed this little reflective interlude. Back with the main action in a couple of days!
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…
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.
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.
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.
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!
The UK Number Ones Blog 