And B-sides… The Beatles

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October 5th marks the 64th anniversary of the release of ‘Love Me Do’, the Beatles’ debut single proper. And while it wasn’t a number one, in the UK at least, I thought it was as good moment as any to do this B-sides post, which I’ve been toying with for a while. Plus, in blog world we’ve just reached the Arctic Monkeys, British rock’s last great hurrah. What better time, then, to take a deep dive into the band that gave us British rock’s greatest hurrah?

I considered choosing my Top 5, or even Top 10, and at one point a Top 6 (?), favourite B-sides to the Beatles’ seventeen UK number ones. (Yes, I know they’ve had eighteen, but they hadn’t in 2005, which is where we are in number1sblog land). But then I realised that I liked too many of them, and so why not rank all of them?

Ranking is a pointless task, lazily clickbaity; but it is undeniably satisfying. It is a very human impulse – a male impulse I might argue – to put things into lists. So here we are.

The Fab Four’s B-sides varied widely from territory to territory, and from release to re-release. But these fifteen tracks are the original British B-sides to their #1 singles. And yes it’s fifteen B-sides from seventeen #1s, thanks to their two chart-topping double A-sides, ‘Day Tripper’ / ‘We Can Work It Out’ and ‘Eleanor Rigby’ / ‘Yellow Submarine’.

One, two, three, FAH…

15. ‘The Inner Light’, B-side to ‘Lady Madonna’

‘Lady Madonna’ was the first single The Beatles released after their trip to India to see the Maharishi. And while the Fats Domino inspired A-side was about as far from eastern mysticism as you can get, ‘The Inner Light’ made up for it with bells (and sitars, and drones) on. It’s a George Harrison composition – the first to be released on any Beatles’ single – with lyrics inspired by Taoism, and is highly regarded by scholars who know their meditation. But, I have to be honest, it’s a bit of a racket to my ungodly ears.

14. ‘Yes It Is’, B-side to ‘Ticket to Ride’

‘Ticket to Ride’ is such a statement single, one of The Beatles’ big steps away from a beat combo to an experimental rock group, that I’d have expected the B-side to have been a little more avant-garde. But the slow waltzing ‘Yes It Is’, in which the boys beg their girl not to wear red because it will remind them of their ex, is a slight disappointment. The harmonies are strong, and the accordion and/or harmonica lends an intriguingly woozy edge to it. But it sounds like a retread of ‘This Boy’, which you will be able to find much further down this list…

13. ‘Thank You Girl’, B-side to ‘From Me to You’

Nothing particularly wrong with ‘Thank You Girl’, the B-side to their first number single. But it feels like it’s been patched together using scraps from better songs. There’s the harmonica clarion call from ‘Please Please Me’, there’s the chugging riff from ‘I Want to Hold Your Hold’, and there’s some pretty ropey rhyming couplets. I do like the weirdly affected and echoey way they sing the ‘oh oh oh’s though.

12. ‘She’s a Woman’, B-side to ‘I Feel Fine’

Paul McCartney wrote ‘She’s a Woman’ as an attempt to copy the style of their early tour-mate Little Richard. I don’t think it sounds particularly like Little Richard, more like Georgie Fame, but McCartney sounds half cut and wonderfully hoarse singing this bluesy number. It apparently features the band’s first reference to marijuana in the turns me on line, but that feels like retroactive thinking, unless the ‘woman’ of the title is Mary Jane herself.

11. ‘I’ll Get You’, B-side to ‘She Loves You’

B-side to the Beatles’ best single (no arguing, thanks), ‘I’ll Get You’ is perhaps the perfect distillation of the band’s early sound. It’s a great beat-pop song. It just loses a couple of marks because it relies a little too heavily on the ‘oh yeah’s.

10. ‘I’m Down’, B-side to ‘Help!’

Releasing a record that would appear on paper as ‘Help!’ / ‘I’m Down’ suggests that things were not all tickety boo towards the end of the Beatles’ touring days. But if you expect ‘I’m Down’ to be a mopey record then you’re to be disappointed. Written by McCartney a couple of years earlier, like the A-side it couches its depressive message – I’m down, I’m really down, Down on the ground… – in a rollicking rock and roll beat, with lots of whooping and hollering, a wild organ solo, and a brilliant intro that rips off Little Richard’s ‘Long Tall Sally’ to fine effect. The Top 10 are all great songs, signature hits for literally any other band, and ‘I’m Down’ gets us off to fine start.

9. ‘Rain’, B-side to ‘Paperback Writer’

Pop music was developing so quickly in the mid-sixties that the Beatles went from releasing ‘I’m Down’ to ‘Rain’ inside ten months. Their first release to use reversed vocals, as well as nods towards eastern musical styles (though no actual sitars feature on the song) and other classic ’60s psychedelic touches, it was recorded around the same time as ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, and the relationship between the two songs is clear. And yet, despite the experimental sounds, John Lennon has described the song as being concerned with that most quintessentially British phenomenon: ‘people complaining about the weather’.

8. ‘Baby, You’re a Rich Man’, B-side to ‘All You Need Is Love’

A year later, and the same psychedelic sounds were incorporated into a much poppier song for the B-side to hippy anthem ‘All You Need Is Love’. It has a very hooky chorus, but lots of odd touches – it features a clavioline, for example, the same proto-synthesiser used on the Tornados’ ‘Telstar’. The ‘rich man’ in the title might be Brian Epstein, or those involved in the hippie movement.

7. ‘You Can’t Do That’, B-side ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’

The first B-side in this list that, I think, might be better than the A-side. This chugging, bluesy groover, with John Lennon letting his rock star voice loose is a gem. I am a sucker for the use of a cow bell in rock music, mind you, so that might be swaying the vote.

6. ‘Old Brown Shoe’, B-side to ‘The Ballad of John and Yoko’

Once the Beatles had gotten through their psychedelic phase, their final year or so was spent recording songs that were either very experimental, or a return to their rocking roots. (Or that were a middle finger to what people expected of them, like the A-side to this one.) ‘Old Brown Shoe’ is a rocker, with a brilliant bass line and a wonderfully echoey effect on George Harrison’s lead vocals. Sources are conflicted as to whether it’s Ringo playing drums on this record, or Paul.

5. ‘This Boy’, B-side to ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’

I will argue all day long that early-Beatles shouldn’t get overlooked as much as it does (give me the Red Album over the Blue any day…) So I’ve managed to put two pre-1965 B-sides in the Top 5. The next one is rightfully recognised as one of their best, but ‘This Boy’ is beautiful too. The Everly Brothers harmonies in the first two verses, and the soulful blast that John Lennon gives the middle-eight, make it a highlight of their early hits.

4. ‘Don’t Let Me Down’, B-side to ‘Get Back’

The Beatles’ second last chart-topping B-side is one of their more famous ballads. Like at least two other songs on this list, it is enhanced by a full-throated vocal performance from John Lennon. I’ve always loved the off kilter middle eight, and the risqué sounding third verse (Ooh she done me, She done me good…) Like the A-side ‘Get Back’, this also features Billy Preston on the piano, most notably in the outro.

3. ‘Things We Said Today’, B-side to ‘A Hard Day’s Night’

For a long time I thought that ‘Things We Said Today’ had come along much later in the Beatles’ careers, maybe around ‘Revolver’, or at least ‘Rubber Soul’. But for this minor-key masterpiece to have been recorded less than two years after ‘Love Me Do’ astounds me. It’s a McCartney composition, allegedly inspired by difficulties in his relationship with Jane Asher, and sees him look ahead to a day in future – I always read it as after they’ve split up – when they remember the nice things they used to say to one another.

2. ‘Revolution’, B-side to ‘Hey Jude’

On another day this could have been my number one. But today I am feeling less revolutionary, more contrary. Though in fact that kind of sums up John Lennon’s ‘Revolution’, which is not so much about wanting a revolution as telling those who want one that they’re doing it wrong. You say you’ll change the constitution, Well you know, We’d all love to change your head… And we can surely all relate to agreeing with a cause but thinking those in charge are sanctimonious pricks? And if we can’t all agree on the politics of the song, I’m sure we can all agree on how nasty those fuzzy guitars sound.

1. ‘I Am the Walrus’, B-side to ‘Hello, Goodbye’

Edging out ‘Revolution’ because, at the end of the day, has there been a more regime changing lyric than oompah oompah stick it up your jumper? Started by Lennon when he was on an acid trip, and with influences from Lewis Carroll, playground chants, extracts from ‘King Lear’, and his own bloody-mindedness after finding out that hip young English teachers were using Beatles songs for their lessons (‘let the fuckers work that one out’, he is alleged to have cackled). ‘I Am the Walrus’ defies explanation, quite intentionally, and is top of this pile. If only they had listed it as the A-side over ‘Hello, Goodbye’, it would have been one of the strangest number ones of all time.

Happy Beatles day, then. I’m off to listen to the Red Album…

1020. ‘I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor’, by Arctic Monkeys

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Here we go! Arriving with a jolting, ascending guitar intro, an intro that conveys the sensation of sticking a fork in a toaster, comes British rock’s last hurrah.

I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor, by Arctic Monkeys (their 1st of two #1s) 

1 week, from 23rd – 30th October 2005

We’ve heard hints of the arrival of a mid-‘00s indie rock revival in number ones from Stereophonics and Oasis. But both those bands pre-dated the movement by several years. By 2005, indie rock had been a rising force for a while, since bands like the Strokes and Libertines appeared circa 2002, but the genre’s biggest act – the one band from this time who became properly, globally famous and remain a huge deal to this day – took their time in coming along.

That is probably down to the fact that they were still teenagers when this, their debut single proper, made number one. Arctic Monkeys are, famously, from Sheffield, and Alex Turner sings in an accent so thick that it makes the Gallaghers sound posh. That’s one of the things that makes this record great, and allows me to call it British rock’s last hurrah. It takes elements from everything that went before – the Beatles’ tight harmonies, the Jam’s melodic punk, the Sex Pistols’ spit and vinegar, Oasis’s working class schtick – and still turns out something new. You can tell that the Monkeys grew up listening to rap, in the way that they lyrics are delivered, and were influenced by that very northern British, kitchen sink realism, in the way the song tells its story of an unglamorous dancefloor encounter.

Mid-‘00s indie was a very modern musical movement in general, in that it grew organically on early social media sites like MySpace, and through illegal file sharing services. To the uninitiated, it might have felt like ‘I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor’ arrived out of nowhere to debut at #1 in October 2005, with the band having just been signed to a label that June, but in truth their reputation had been growing steadily ever since they’d first released music on bootleg CDs in 2003.

And, in a sign of what pop music was to become, the Arctic Monkeys brought their fans along with them. Their debut album was full of very specifically teenage lyrics, and specifically Yorkshire references. (One of my favourite lyrics of all time is from ‘Fake Tales of San Francisco’, taking aim at poseurs: You’re not from New York City, You’re from Rotherham…!) ‘I Bet You Look…’ doesn’t have a line as good as that, but No there ain’t no love no, No Montagues or Capulets, Just banging tunes and DJ sets… is up there for its clever gaucheness. And, at the end of the day, like all great rock ‘n’ roll, it’s a very horny song at heart.

Having said all that, and having given this track a deservedly glowing write-up, Arctic Monkeys are a band I struggle with. I bought the debut album, and the follow-up, and thought they chose their singles very well. But after that I struggled to love their music, and their last two albums have been a slog to listen to. On the one hand I admire their desire to move between genres, on the other I do think that there’s an element of them disappearing up their own arses. But we’ll have time to consider that after their second #1, coming up soon as part two of a quick fire chart double.

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1019. ‘Push the Button’, by Sugababes

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Two huge girl group number ones in a row. And after Pussycat Dolls’ ballsy and bouncy ‘Don’t Cha’, the Sugababes go for something similarly seductive.

Push the Button, by Sugababes (their 4th of six #1s) 

3 weeks, from 2nd – 23rd October 2005

And in doing so, they come up with a really, really good tune. ‘Push the Button’ is a modern girl group classic. The rising chord progression, the semi-melancholy, yearning upward motion of it. It feels like a three and a half minute key change, especially in the bridge. After waiting patiently for him to come and get it, He came on through and asked me if I wanted to get with it… (Note that our British girls have been waiting demurely, unlike those hussies in the Pussycat Dolls… How obvious should a girl be? they ask in the first verse, making the record actually quite an astute commentary on straight dating culture.)

Then comes the chorus, and an extra chugging bass synth, and before you realise it you’re listening to one of the decade’s – nay, the 21st century’s – best pop songs. All three of Sugababes’ previous chart-toppers have been good to great, but ‘Push the Button’ tops them all with its catchy simplicity. For it is simple. The lyrics are basic, the production nothing fancy, the video with the girls dancing in a lift is predictable… But it has layers, little touches of sound and some really nice harmonising, that lift it up. Plus it has a spoken-word section, done in the same key-changing style, which is always a welcome addition to a song.

I joke about how brazen the Pussycat Dolls were, and if they weren’t back-to-back #1s then we probably wouldn’t be comparing the two. But really, this song is just as saucy. It’s just much more British. Mutya delivers the line My sexy ass has got him in a new dimension… in a way that is equal parts understated and silly. Nicole Scherzinger would have squeezed the life out of that lyric. Even the song’s title could be seen as a good old-fashioned, end of the pier double entendre. 

And my US vs UK comparison can be taken further, when we note that despite ‘Push the Button’ being a huge hit around the world, a Top 10 from Hungary to Australia and everywhere in between, it did not chart in the USA. In fact, Sugababes solitary appearance on the Hot 100 was for ‘Hole in the Head’, which made the heady heights of #96. Oh, America.

Having mentioned Mutya Beuno earlier, we should also mention that this was her final Sugababes’ single for some fifteen years, as she left the group that December to be replaced by Amelle Berrabah. Keisha Buchanan was left as the only remaining original Sugababe, and this line-up will see out their chart-topping careers over the next couple of years.

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1018. ‘Don’t Cha’, by Pussycat Dolls ft. Busta Rhymes

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The 2000s were, I have already somewhere claimed, the decade of the girl group. All Saints, Atomic Kitten, Sugababes, Girls Aloud… All big, all girls, all British.

Don’t Cha, by The Pussycat Dolls (their 1st of two #1s) ft. Busta Rhymes (his 1st and only #1)

3 weeks, from 11th September – 2nd October 2005

Here though come the Yanks. Not to suggest that the States have no girl group pedigree, of course. The Supremes, Ronettes, Shangri Las all say hello. But even the sassy Shangri Las would have blushed at something as strident as ‘Don’t Cha’. The Pussycat Dolls are very much a new, 21st century version of the all-American girl group.

Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me, Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me…? I mean, British girls would never be so brazenly forward (cough cough). But it was definitely a chat-up line that embedded itself in the zeitgeist for a while. The rest of the song is similarly sultry, with raunchy horns, an X-rated rap from Busta Rhymes, and lines about black and blue balls, and sharing partners. It was released in three versions: a kid friendly edit (without Busta), the original, and a ‘more booty’ mix.

In fact, the entire song is slower and more seductive than I remembered. I thought it was faster, poppier; but in reality it has a swing beat, and a Latin-inflected guitar line. This is much more in keeping with the Dolls’ pre-chart history. At the time, the one thing everyone had to say about PCD is that they were strippers. They themselves liked to call it ‘neo-burlesque’, but you can definitely imagine someone slowly removing their clothing to the rhythm and tempo of ‘Don’t Cha’.

They had been around since the mid-‘90s, but it wasn’t until 2004 that they tried to move into pop music. And they were a near instant success. ‘Don’t Cha’ was huge, unavoidable that autumn. But, at the same time, though they had a few years of decent success, and one more #1, PCD never turned into the chart force that their debut hinted at.

Their lead singer, Nicole Scherzinger, on the other hand did become a household name. Even at this early moment it was a bit of a Diana Ross situation, and they might as well have been named Nicole & The Pussycat Dolls. She has the chops for it, and sells every line in a manner so extravagantly sexy that it actually sounds quite funny. Burlesque, even. Listen to the way she rolls her tongue around every syllable of the Your secret is safe with me… line, for example.

For rapper Busta Rhymes meanwhile, this would be the only chart-topper of a career that was surprisingly more successful in the UK than in the States. This was his 9th Top 10 hit since debuting in 1996, and he would continue to have British chart success well into the 2010s.

Anyway, as enjoyable as this track is, though it is a little try-hard, up next we have some British ladies showing these American upstarts how to do a proper girl group banger. 

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Random Runners-Up… 25th September

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I’m back from a month of travelling, which means I’ll be speeding up the regular posts again, and also resuming the extra-curricular posts. Such as…

Our Random Runners-up. Yes, it’s time for another trio of randomly selected (thanks to Random.org) number two hits from this date in chart history.

‘Children of the Revolution’, by T. Rex – #2 for 3 weeks, from 17th September – 7th October 1972 (behind ‘Mama Weer All Crazee Now’ & ‘How Can I Be Sure’)

Though our three dates are randomly chosen (honest!), I did rejoice when they threw up this glam rock stomper. While all four of T. Rex’s #1s are great, I would argue that their chart fortunes peaked too soon, and that their two signature singles – ‘Children of the Revolution’ and ’20th Century Boy – sadly missed out on top spot.

‘Children of the Revolution’ was a bit of a side-step for Marc Bolan, a slower, heavier number, with a woozy, waltzing electric violin solo, hinting at less commercial ventures to come. Yet it is still classic T. Rex, with probably the ultimate Bolan lyric: I drive a Rolls-Royce, Cause it’s good for my voice…

‘Ghostbusters’, by Ray Parker Jr. – #2 for 3 weeks, from 16th September – 6th October 1984 (behind ‘I Just Called to Say I Love You’)

The ’80s was a decade filled with movie soundtrack number ones (one of which kept this record from top spot). ‘Ghostbusters’ is certainly one of the best remembered soundtrack hits, but it fell just short.

In truth, its continued popularity is a little odd, as the song’s lyrics are so tied to the film that they make very little sense unless you’ve seen it. But maybe that doesn’t matter when you have such a memorable synth line, and a such a catchy call and response chorus. Plus, as with ‘Children of the Revolution’, it has a great double-take lyric. Bustin’ makes me feel good! Come again, Ray…?

I must confess to struggling with naming any other Ray Parker Jr. song, and this was his only Top 10 hit in the UK (one of only two career Top 40 hits). Apparently Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsay Buckingham was initially approached to write the ‘Ghostbusters’ theme, and one can only imagine how this might have sounded had that came about. Probably not nearly as funky as this.

Another reason for this song living on long beyond its film soundtrack shelf-life is that it always features near the top of the annual streaming services’ Halloween playlists. So synonymous with the season is this song these days that I was slightly surprised to see it at #2 in late September, and not a month later.

‘It’s My Life’, by Dr. Alban – #2 for 3 weeks, from 20th September – 10th October 1992 (behind ‘Ebeneezer Goode’)

Completing our trio – fittingly all three of our random runners-up spent three weeks at #2 – it’s an early ’90s dance classic. I think it’s a classic, anyway. I was a shade too young to remember it. And I don’t know enough about dance music lore to judge how well this is remembered.

It has all the touches of a Snap!, or a 2 Unlimited, record – both of whom scored huge chart-toppers either side of this – but it also has an ominous edge to it. It has a grandness, and an edge… which is ruined slightly by the lyrics, which sound like a fifteen-year-old ranting at their overbearing parents. Stop bugging me, stop forcing me, stop yelling me… It’s my life.

Dr Alban was a Swedish-Nigerian musician and producer, more associated with dancehall, hip-hop and reggae. Dashes of that come through here in his rap, and some of the production elements, but on the whole this is standard Eurodance. And it was by far his biggest hit – his only Top 10 in the UK.

Hope you enjoyed the interlude. Back to the regular countdown, and a girl group double, next.

1017. ‘Dare’, by Gorillaz

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Ten years on from the Battle of Britpop, and Oasis are knocked off the top by one quarter of Blur…

Dare, by Gorillaz (their 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 4th – 11th September 2005

Gorillaz were the ‘band’ that Damon Albarn had formed in 1998, and had run concurrently with the day job until Blur went on hiatus in 2003. I say band in inverted commas, because they were completely virtual. Albarn took care of the musical side of things, while artist Jamie Hewlett took care of the visuals and designed the band’s members: 2-D, Noodle, Murdoc, and Russel Hobbs. (I believe this makes them the 5th animated act to top the charts, after The Archies, Jive Bunny, The Simpsons, and Bob the Builder.)

Reading that paragraph back, you can imagine what the Gallagher brothers made of all this arty silliness. It would have been quite funny if ‘Dare’ had been released a week earlier  and had held ‘The Importance of Being Idle’ off number one, though by 2017 relations had mellowed enough for Noel to duet with Gorillaz. Anyway, even if proper rock groups would have turned their noses up at an animated alt-rock, art pop, trip-hop group, at Number Ones Blog we’ll do no such thing. For ‘Dare’ is a great track.

For a start, it’s a lot more upbeat and faster paced than many Gorillaz tracks, being both danceable and yet slightly melancholy. It’s got a filthy bassline, and a kooky beat that reminds me in places of White Town’s leftfield classic ‘Your Woman’. Then there’s the contrast between Noodle’s falsetto (provided by guest singer Roses Gabor, not Albarn as I’d always assumed) and Shaun Ryder’s more, shall we say, dulcet tones. It’s not quite pop, not quite dance, not quite a straight forward electronic song. It’s… dare.

Legend has it that the song was originally titled ‘It’s There’, but Ryder’s thick Mancunian accent prevented him from saying the word properly. Shaun himself has denied this, saying that it was because he’s dyslexic, and in text messages always writes ‘there’ as ‘der’. Either way, he’s the star of the show, both in his ranting vocals and in the horror movie inspired video, where he sings the song as a disembodied head. (All I can think of when I see it is Krang from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles…) Though uncredited on both, Ryder gets his second number one appearance of the year, after he’d been one of the many celebs marching with Peter Kay on ‘Amarillo’. It was something of a swansong for him, as his biggest chart hits had come fifteen years earlier with the Happy Mondays.

I loved ‘Dare’ at the time, was very happy a song as odd as this had made #1, and am glad that it still sounds enjoyably weird all these years later. It was definitely a shadow number one though, coming on the back of the much more popular #2 ‘Feel Good Inc.’ In fact, not many would be able to name this as Gorillaz’s biggest chart hit, and would probably go for ‘Clint Eastwood’, their 2001 debut.

Once again I have to try to separate nostalgia from cold, hard fact but… Despite the misty eyed memories I have of the autumn of 2005, as I started my third year at university and fast approached twenty, I do think that with Oasis and now Gorillaz, we’ve hit a rich seam of chart-toppers, and the quality will keep up for much of the rest of the year.

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1016. ‘The Importance of Being Idle’, by Oasis

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Well how about this… Almost forty years on from their final number one, a stunning, chart-topping comeback for the Kinks…

The Importance of Being Idle, by Oasis (their 8th and final #1)

1 week, from 28th August – 4th September 2005

Nah, course not. And to be fair, while this is clearly a Kinks pastiche, it’s not a rip-off of one particular song. If you did have to be specific, you could probably call ‘The Importance of Being Idle’ the bastard offspring of ‘Sunny Afternoon’ and ‘Dead End Street’ (the video is certainly influenced by the famous clip the Kinks did for the latter). Noel also revealed that he borrowed from the La’s ‘Clean Prophet’, in which they too had done their best Kinks impression.

But what of this Frankenstein’s monster of a song… Is it good? Well, yes. Given the parts it’s stitched together from how could it not be? It’s also unlike anything else in the Oasis canon, let alone any of their previous chart-toppers. It’s light and breezy, with a musical hall air and a sense of silliness. In fact, I’m tempted to use a word that has never come within ten feet of any Oasis record up to now: it’s kind of camp. 

For a start, it’s a play on an Oscar Wilde title. But it also has slide whistles, and big boinging drums, and Rhys Ifans prancing around as an undertaker in the video. If only they’d gone the whole hog and put Liam in drag, a la Dave Davies in the Kinks’ original. ‘Lyla’ was a slight musical shift for Oasis, but this is a real hint at what was to come for Noel in his solo career, especially with the High Flying Birds.

We can also, perhaps surprisingly, draw a comparison between this and the McFly song it deposed from the top, as both deal with depression, in their own ways. While McFly had a positive mantra, Noel seems to be wallowing in his life of unpaid bills, frustrated girlfriends, and general laziness… Give me a minute, A man’s got a limit, I can’t get a life if my heart’s not in it…

Continuing the trend of low sales benefiting fanbase acts, Oasis follow U2, Britney, Nelly, McFly and Eminem in taking two singles from their latest albums to the top. This was the third time Oasis had done this, but the first time doing it with consecutive singles, and in the same calendar year. In my post on ‘Lyla’ I wrote of how well Oasis did big, bolshy lead singles. But ‘The Importance of Being Idle’ is a welcome addition to their three non-lead chart-toppers, which have all been a bit different (‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ and ‘All Around the World’ being the other two). This, their eighth #1, tied them with the Stones, making them the rock act with the joint-third most number ones, behind the Shadows (eleven) and the Beatles (seventeen, at the time).

And this was it from Oasis, from the chart-topping side of things. In fact, it was almost the end from them musically too, with one further album to come before they finally imploded in 2009. Despite the brothers’ recent reconciliation in a touring capacity, there have been no suggestions that they will be getting back into the studio. And it’s a shame that on their recent tour, they pretty much ignored anything released post-2000, meaning that classics like this remain somewhat buried under their biggest hits. Oh what I’d give for this to have a resurgence, and not bloody ‘Wonderwall’ yet again… 

I’m back from a month’s travels, and so we’ll hopefully be picking up the pace again and posting a little more regularly!

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1015. ‘I’ll Be OK’, by McFly

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Here it is, then. The McFly number one that I’m not so keen on…

I’ll Be OK, by McFly (their 4th of seven #1s)

1 week, from 21st – 28th August 2005

But woah! Hold on. It’s not bad. It’s slightly heavier than anything from their debut album, and more adult in content. It’s a musical pep talk, an encouragement that however difficult life may be, you’ll be okay. Perhaps this was a sign that the sudden catapulting to Britain’s biggest pop act status had been tough on what was still a group of teenage boys. Keen McFly watchers will note that it’s their first #1 where Danny has taken lead vocals, which means they were definitely going for something heavier.

The musical references are more grown up too, with lots of classic rock touches, from the chiming U2 intro, to the Beatlesy guitar licks, and some seventies-Who synth lines in the middle eight. It actually is, in songwriting terms, a good piece of music. I particularly like the little bridge before the second verse, and the drum fill on the try a little harder… in the final verse. It’s attention to detail like this that elevates McFly from boyband to proper band.

So why don’t I like it that much? Well first I must admit that I am liking it more now, listening to it intently for this post. It’s a very solid pop-rock song. But it’s McFly trying to sound like someone else. When writing on ‘All About You’, I mentioned that their second album ‘Wonderland’ – from which ‘I’ll Be OK’ was the lead single proper – is my least favourite of all their LPs. Because they seemed to be trying too hard to prove themselves as proper musicians, cramming their songs with references from the greats, and worthy lyrics about depression (this song), midlife crises (‘The Ballad of Paul K’) and teen suicide (‘She Falls Asleep’, the first part of which is fully orchestral).

Having said all that, looking at the album’s track list now, I’m also remembering that the three subsequent singles were all great, and were all Top 10 hits (especially the rocking ‘I Wanna Hold You’, all about a final shag before the end of the world). Plus it has one of their all-time great album tracks, the emo ‘Too Close for Comfort’.

So, there it was. The McFly song I’m not too keen, but that is still a fine record. From my least favourite of their albums, which is apparently still packed with great tunes. Maybe I’m just fussy…

1014. ‘You’re Beautiful’, by James Blunt

/ UK #1s blog / 8 Comments

My reflex reaction to this next number one is to wince and think ‘Oh God, no…’

You’re Beautiful, by James Blunt (his 1st and only #1)

5 weeks, from 17th July – 21st August 2005

Such a kicking has this song, and its singer, taken in the public imagination. It is an uncool song – I’ve always viewed it as a ‘Lady in Red’ for the 21st century – by an uncool (and rather posh) singer-songwriter. It is the softest of soft rock. It is middle-class mum rock. It is music for people who don’t actually like music…

But is any of that really fair? Once I get over myself, can I enjoy ‘You’re Beautiful’? Let’s see. The languorous acoustic guitar riff is on-hold muzak. James Blunt’s voice is reedy (and, yes, very posh), and the way he trills the title line is highly annoying. The lyrics are creepy, all about stalking a girl on the underground… She smiled at me on the subway, She was with another man, But I won’t lose, Won’t sleep all night, ‘Cause I’ve got a plan… And in the second verse there is the most incongruous example of swearing in a number one single, ever. Why did he have to be fucking high? It’s so out of place in a song this gentle, that it’s either terrible writing, or a terribly misguided attempt to add some ‘edge’, or both.

So, yes. Or I mean, no. This is crap. Still. It was crap then, and it is crap now. Bland, limp, lifeless sludge with lyrics that either creep you out, or that don’t make sense. I do think that the melody is nice, and that with different words, different production, and a different singer, this could be a decent song. But that it is a lot of ‘differents’… And then Blunt went and followed this up with the even drippier, and even more annoying, ‘Goodbye My Lover’.

But, here’s the thing. I really like James Blunt. He comes across as a down-to-earth, engaging person. He’s an ex-Army captain, who saw active duty in Kosovo, and seems to have his singing career fully in perspective. Once he’d made millions from this song, and the accompanying ‘Back to Bedlam’ album, he moved to Ibiza and started dating supermodels. He is well aware of his luck, and forms part of an interesting phenomenon involving British artists who record generally dull music but who are funny, engaging, and down to earth when not singing (see also Adele and Lewis Capaldi). 

Plus we do have to recognise that Blunt almost completely redeemed himself for inflicting ‘You’re Beautiful’ on us, by releasing the wonderful ‘1973’ a couple of years later. Since then he has only had one further UK Top 10, and that’s probably for the best, but I wish him nothing but happiness.

One final thing to mention about ‘You’re Beautiful’, and one of the reasons why it felt like it hung around for forever and a day, is its six week climb to #1. It was the slowest ascent to the top for over six years (since Steps’ ‘Tragedy’), and a sign that download sales – introduced three months or so earlier – were changing the way that the charts moved. During the remainder of the 2000s, records climbing to number one became much more common, in a huge shift from the ‘airplay for months then enter at the top’ days of the previous decade.

1013. ‘Ghetto Gospel’, by 2Pac ft. Elton John

/ UK #1s blog / 5 Comments

It’s an interesting chart sub-sub genre: the unlikely duet. A few weeks on from Tony Christie and Peter Kay, and in a grand tradition including Robbie and Nicole Kidman, Take That and Lulu, Five and Queen, and even Frank and Nancy, we come to perhaps the oddest duet of all.

Ghetto Gospel, by 2Pac (his 1st and only #1) ft. Elton John (his 7th of ten #1s)

3 weeks, from 26th June – 17th July 2005

Sir Elton John, British pop royalty, and a gangsta rap legend. A long-dead gangsta rap legend. 2Pac’s original ‘Ghetto Gospel’ verses had been recorded in 1992, though never released, while Elton’s chorus comes from his 1971 track ‘Indian Summer’. So, rather than a duet, this is basically two samples stitched together. Most of the credit should go then to the producer, one Marshall Mathers. For shortly after claiming that ‘Like Toy Soldiers’ would be Eminem’s last chart-topper for a while, I hadn’t reckoned with this record, which is better than his previous two number ones combined.

The two very different tracks, recorded two decades apart, are meshed together quite artfully, sounding like they were always supposed to be. And it is interesting to finally hear a rapper as influential as Tupac Shakur on top of the charts, nine years after his death. His rap style is much more deliberate, a little slower and more tied to the beat than 21stcentury hip-hop. The genre wasn’t such a chart-topping force in the opening half of the nineties, but the one obvious comparison to my ears is Coolio’s ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’.

The lyrics of ‘Ghetto Gospel’ focus on gang warfare and social inequality, and are perhaps surprisingly clean. I do feel that, in the UK at least, where 2Pac’s biggest hits were this and ‘Changes’, he might have a reputation for being more of a conscientious rapper. Which he was, but he also recorded plenty of songs with more earthy themes, like ‘How Do U Want It’, which was one half of his only US chart-topper.

Prior to his death by shooting in September 1996, 2Pac had scored one UK Top 10 (‘California Love’). Posthumously he managed four more, of which ‘Ghetto Gospel’ was the last. His estate was famously keen on making lots of money from his name making sure the world got to hear his music, releasing seven albums under his name in the decade following his murder.

Meanwhile, Elton John scores his third #1 of the 2000s, making this his joint most successful chart decade. And perhaps it is time to crown him King of the chart-topping duet, as this is his fourth (of seven total), following on from Kiki Dee, George Michael, and Blue. And he’s not done with the odd chart-topping duets either, though we’ll have to wait a while for his final run of number ones.