Today’s guest post comes from long-time follower John, aka popchartfreak, who I believe may have been my first ever commenter, back when each of my posts attracted around 2.5 views. He’s written about the first single he ever parted with cold, hard cash for. And it’s a classic. (Certainly cooler than the first record I ever bought, which was the soundtrack to ‘Joseph and His Technicolour Dreamcoat’.)
How could I celebrate the Number Ones Blog’s anniversary theme? Well, why not my first purchase of a single that was about to hit number one with the help of my pocket money: ‘See My Baby Jive’ by Wizzard, in 1973.
That track triggered in me a massive enthusiasm for Roy Wood, Wizzard, ELO and The Move back-catalogue to boot. Top Of The Pops helped: the outlandishly colourful outfits and makeup on Top Of The Pops and the Phil Spector wall-of-sound-reinvented was thrilling. I loved that record, a sort of glam rock update of the 60’s with added excitement so much so that it sat on top of my personal weekly charts for a record ten weeks.
So what exactly is great about it? In the first five seconds it sounds like an attention-grabbing aeroplane engine on Loud morphing into a furious drum beat, an orchestra strings section, female backing vocals and horns. It’s ten seconds in before Roy starts singing Look out! Look out! The backing singers stay on board throughout, giving it Ronettes vibes through to the hook and back to the verse. There’s no pace let up, the horn section stays big with lots of intricate riffs in the mix, to the instrumental bridge when the strings take centre stage, then the sax, then back to Roy. Verse, chorus, repeat chorus to a crescendo, different parts sung for variation and then to the final sax fizzle out solo via an instrumental bit, oh-oh-ohs, and the kitchen sink thrown in for added excitement. Talk about epic! My jaw still drops at this record, a mini-masterpiece of pop. Love it.
In total, Roy released a trio of Phil Spector-ish hit singles: ‘Angel Fingers’ (another number one) and ‘I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday’ – a universal Christmas classic that peaked at #4 (behind Slade), and that is still in the UK charts every Christmas fifty-three years later. Roy flirted with all sorts of stuff: ’50s revivalism for Wizzard, and his quirky solo career – album ‘Boulders’ was fabulous, he did 100% everything on the album instrumentally and vocally, hopping from Eurovision gospel to a ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ pastiche of a computer in love. Later, hit single ‘Forever’ was a Beach Boys via Neil Sedaka pastiche, and ‘Going Down The Road’ was bagpipes reggae. The man was a musical hero who could turn his hand to anything. Everybody in the UK still knows who Wizzard are in the 2020’s: that Father-Christmas-decked-out bloke who wishes it could be Christmas everyday! I just wish they could hear ‘See My Baby Jive’ for a change!
Thanks John. A great post on a great song. And a reminder to vote for your best and worst #1s before I reveal the results on Sunday!
Welcome to the first of a week of guest posts to celebrate reaching our 1000th number one. First up, long-time follower John Van der Kiste gets things underway with an ode to an unruly, and perhaps unlucky, classic from the Stones…
When is a No. 1 not a No. 1? When it’s so controversial that mainstream retailers won’t stock it, and we argue that sales figures were ‘adjusted’ that week to keep it at No. 2? Or, when the Official Charts Company say no while the music press Top 30s suggest otherwise? That was the fate of The Rolling Stones’ ‘19th Nervous Breakdown’.
In the New Musical Express and Melody Maker charts, it enjoyed three weeks in pole position from 19th February 1966. Ditto for BBC TV’s Top of the Pops, which then based its weekly Top 20 on samplings from these and the other music weeklies, Record Mirror and Disc. The OCC, which has the Record Retailer Top 50 charts as its source from 1960 to 1969, made it No. 2 for those three weeks, with Nancy Sinatra’s ‘These Boots Are Made For Walkin’, walkin’ all over them at No. 1. Otherwise it would have given the band seven consecutive chart-toppers between July 1964 and May 1966.
It was written on their autumn 1965 American tour and recorded in December at RCA Studios, California, its title apparently inspired by an exhausted Mick Jagger saying he was about ready for his nineteenth nervous breakdown. As usual he wrote the lyrics, Keith Richards provided the music. However it’s not about work-related stress, but a poor little rich girl who was given everything by her parents, a mother who owed a million dollars tax and a father still perfecting ways of making sealing wax. She had a thousand toys, but still she cried all night. Jagger was moving in high society circles with glamorous girls ready to meet England’s most rebellious rock star if they could, and like Ray Davies of The Kinks, he was happy to satirise them mercilessly. He also sneaked in a subtle drugs reference, maybe to see if it got past the moral guardians: On our first trip I tried so hard to rearrange your mind… Radio and TV missed that.
There are some wonderful musical touches too, like when Brian Jones’ guitar borrows a distinctive lick from Bo Diddley’s ‘Diddley Daddy’, a 1955 American single. Towards the fade, Bill Wyman supplies that notable bass run. ‘I bounced the string with the top of my finger on the pickup, and ran my finger down the string,’ he said. ‘That’s what created that so-called dive-bombing sound.’ Not to mention a guitar fuzz tone on the riff before each chorus, or the sweet and sour vocal harmonies, or Charlie Watts’ superb drum fills and cymbal beats.
Had it not been for The Animals’ ‘House of the Rising Sun’ (4.29) in 1964, at 3.50 this would have been the longest UK No. 1 in terms of playing time until superseded a year later by Procol Harum’s ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’.
Because it wasn’t an ‘official’ No. 1, it seems to have flown a little below the radar on radio playlists. Perhaps it remains that bit more fresh for not having been aired so often as the band’s chart-toppers.
John has recently published a book in the Rock Classics Series on the Stones’ Let it Bleed album, plus an On Track title about Gerry Rafferty, with an On Track on Bob Seger, currently being edited and due for publication in July – all three through Sonicbond.
Don’t forget to vote for your best and worst number ones! I’ll publish the results on Sunday…
Welcome all. We’re on the verge of celebrating a milestone I’m not sure I ever imagined reaching when starting this blog back in January 2018: our 1000th number one!
Before we get to that, from tomorrow we’ll be marking the milestone with a week of guest posts from some of our long-time followers, readers and commenters. And before that, why don’t we open things up to the floor?
Over the past eight and a half years, I’ve published thirty recaps, in which I’ve stopped every thirty (or more recently, fifty) number ones to reflect on chart trends. And, most importantly, to choose a Best and a Worst chart-topper from each recap. Now it’s over to you, to vote on your favourites from my thirty best, and worst, chart-topping singles. At the foot of this post, you’ll find two polls in which you can vote for as many of the songs as you like. I’ll reveal the results in a week, just before covering the 1000th #1. Have at it. This is democracy manifest!
I did the same thing a few years ago (you can see the results here). I’ve wiped those scores, and added the most recent winning records, so even if you voted back then please do so again! I also did a poll for Christmas #1s, and that poll remains open if you’d like to have your say there.
But before all that, I thought it would be fun to go through my stats and see which posts, and which songs, have had the most engagement over the past eight years. (Again, I did this after the 500th #1, and the results were somewhat surprising…) Here are my most viewed posts from each decade covered. Interestingly, none of the current most-viewed posts are the same as those most-viewed after the 500th #1…
The second-ever UK number one, scoring a week in early 1953 after Al Martino had kicked things off. So I suppose time has been on this post’s side, given that it’s been online since January 2018. And the song was a huge hit in its day, staying on the UK charts (then just a Top 12) for nineteen weeks, and staying at #1 in the US for up to 12 weeks (depending on which chart you look at in those pre-Billboard Hot 100 days).
But still, it is not the first record you think of when someone says ‘the 1950s’. Bill Haley, Elvis and all the other rock and rollers were still a good three years off. A little digging has given a possible explanation for ‘You Belong to Me’ being searched for more often than your average pre-rock ‘n’ roll hit, as it has featured in horror film ‘The Nun’ and TV series ‘Fallout’ in recent years.
A bit more of a classic this, our most-viewed #1 from the sixties. Still, it ain’t the Beatles or the Stones. One theory I have is that huge, generational hits have so much written about them that any link to my little blog is buried on page 300 of a Google search. Whereas for slightly less famous hits, I might appear higher up in a search.
Also interesting is the fact that you have to scroll pretty far down my list of most-viewed posts to find a #1 from the ’60s. This is, in fact, only my 33rd most viewed chart-topper. There really is quite the disparity between that decade, compared to the seventies and eighties. Even the fifties rates higher on average. I have no theories to posit as to why this might be…
Backing up my theory that the least remembered songs do well on little-known blogs such as mine, here are Windsor Davies and Don Estelle singing an old Ink Spots tune, while in character for their roles in ‘It Ain’t Half Hot Mum’. Of all my posts on 1970s number ones, this has had the most views, by quite some distance. In fact, after the homepage, this is the most-viewed chart-topper…
Another idea I have is the ‘bookmark theory’, in which someone bookmarks a particular post rather than the blog homepage, and whenever they return to the site it racks up another view for said random post. So if you are the reader who bookmarked ‘Whispering Grass’, do own up!
The only most-viewed post that matches with the Very Best #1s lists that you can vote on below, ‘Relax’ is an eighties classic. So it makes sense that this is the most viewed post from that decade. But then it leaves me wondering why this is the only one of my ‘most-viewed’ posts to make sense like that…
From a bawdy and controversial eighties classic… to this. Yes, my most viewed post from the decade of Britpop and boybands, the decade that is so ‘in’ with the kids right now, is Cliff Richard at his most God-bothering.
Time isn’t even on this song’s side, as it was the penultimate #1 of the ’90s, so has technically been playing catch-up. At the time of publication, I remember that ‘The Millennium Prayer’ sent my views spiking to their highest-ever levels, causing me to wonder if Cliff’s more rabid fans had spotted it and had been sharing. But then, I was far from complimentary about it, so I also worried that Cliff himself had seen it and was going to come after me with a lawsuit. So far, nothing quite so dramatic has happened…
And my most-viewed ’00s #1 is the decade’s, and the millennium’s, first. Which lends more credence to the ‘time is on its side’ theory. But I think this was also a beneficiary of the huge spike in views I enjoyed after ‘The Millennium Prayer’, as I published it a few days later and it went similarly viral. Or maybe it’s just popular because it’s such a freaking tune!
Anyway, that’s what people have viewed over the years, and I am always grateful for anyone who takes the time to read any one of my posts. Now it’s time to choose your favourites from my favourite chart-toppers. Take your pick from the Beatles, the Stones, ABBA, Blondie, Bowie, Marvin Gaye, Jerry Lee Lewis, Eminem, Beyonce and, um, Bucks Fizz. Multiple votes are allowed. Vote for them all if you wish!
Or you can indulge your dark side. Who wants to hear the best #1s when you can hate-listen to these horrors from Dana, Engelbert Humperdinck, Westlife, Ray Stevens, Jive Bunny, Donny Osmond, Robson & Jerome and, um, Elvis.
I’m bringing this latest recap forward by one, so we can extend the big 1000th number one festivities. After the announcement of the latest Very Best #1, we’ll have a poll to decide the Very, Very Best (and very, very worst) #1s up to now. And then special some guest posts!
This is also a landmark recap in itself, as it is the thirtieth time I’ve published one of these posts, in which I pause and reflect on what the past thirty (or more recently, fifty) chart-toppers can tell us about the state of popular music at the time. What conclusions, then, can we draw from the singles that topped the British charts between March 2003 and January 2005?
Two main genres jump out at me. And they are sub-genres that I have largely made up. There’s tacky dance, that genre of mid-‘00s dance in which an old tune gets tarted up and remixed with a basic dance beat. The beat might be disco-ish, or trance-y, but it is always cheap, and tacky. Think LMC’s ‘Take Me to the Clouds Above’, or Shapeshifters’ ‘Lola’s Theme’, or the daddy of them all: Eric Prydz’s ‘Call on Me’. Even Elton John wasn’t beneath it, with his ‘Are You Ready for Love?’ redo. And while they may have been tacky, they were largely always catchy. And decent, even. I do have a lot of time for Room 5’s ‘Make Luv’, for one.
The other sub-genre has been less palatable, for me at least. It’s that slick and gloopy US hip-hop&B, with which American rappers and R&B stars belatedly started to score big British hits. It had been the dominant sound on the Billboard charts since the mid-nineties, but for some reason it really took off in Britain around 2004. Think Usher’s ‘Burn’, Mario Winan’s ‘I Don’t Wanna Know’, and Ja Rule’s ‘Wonderful’. One theory I have is that with single sales falling, and with these artists tending to be on big labels, they had the marketing clout to fill the gaps and take advantage of the slump.
Again, though, I didn’t dislike all such records. Nelly’s ‘My Place’ and ‘Flap Your Wings’ double-A was fun, and dare we still claim R. Kelly’s remix to ‘Ignition’ as a classic? Meanwhile this period’s biggest hit – Black Eyed Peas’ ‘Where Is the Love?’ – still has a lot of charm to it.
One other ‘genre’ needs mentioning, and it’s one that we’re starting to have to live with. Reality TV stars and talent show winners. It hasn’t felt as egregious this time around, but we’ve still met Pop Idol 2 winner Michelle (a song I did kind of enjoy), and her runners-up Sam & Mark. The X Factor-age began with a whimper from Steve Brookstein, original Pop Idol Will Young bowed out with the impressive ‘Leave Right Now’, while the greatest of all TV contest winners Girls Aloud finally managed a second #1 with a so-so cover of ‘I’ll Stand By You’. Meanwhile, non-singing reality TV accounted for the unexpected return of Peter Andre, and the even more unexpected appearance of Ozzy Osbourne on a chart-topping single.
That leads us to a more niche phenomenon that’s been seen over the past forty-nine number ones: old men. Elton, Ozzy, Oliver Cheatham (with Room 5), Steve Winwood (‘Call on Me’), and most recently Elvis, have all featured on #1 singles while well over the age of fifty. Or while dead.
I’ve hinted at it in an earlier paragraph, but we do need to reckon with just how low single sales fell during this era of the charts. From the latter-half of 2004, the record for the lowest sales for a #1 single has been broken twice, falling as low as 21,262 copies sold by the 999th #1, the re-issue of Elvis’s ‘Jailhouse Rock’. The incorporation of downloads into the charts is not far off, but I will argue that sales being in the doldrums has led to some interesting chart-toppers. I’m not sure if Kylie’s ‘Slow’, or Robbie’s ‘Radio’, or Tomcraft’s ‘Loneliness’ would have troubled the top of the charts in a more robust sales environment.
Before the awards, a shout-out to the most successful act of the past forty-nine… Busted, whose four chart-toppers have all come in this period. They brought rock, of sorts, back to the top of the charts, and paved the way for McFly to carry the torch to far greater heights…
To the awards, then. Starting as usual with the The ‘Meh’ Award for forgettability. All that hip-hop&B has given us plenty of dull chart-toppers, the two most egregious being ‘Burn’ and ‘I Don’t Wanna Know’. There’s also the easy target of Steve Brookstein’s plodding version of ‘Against All Odds’. But I’m going to go with a man who inflicted brain-melting dullness on us not once, but twice. I let Daniel Bedingfield away with ‘If You’re Not the One’ last time, but then he went and repeated the trick. My winner is his third and final #1, the snoozefest ‘Never Gonna Leave Your Side’. Yawn.
The WTAF Award for being interesting if nothing else also has a few ripe contenders this time. The double-hander of veteran US MCs Fatman Scoop and DJ Casper, and their eclectic hits ‘Be Faithful’ and ‘Cha Cha Slide’. The bizarre Xmas #1 ‘Mad World’, which I have just about forgiven for blocking The Darkness from the top. The fact that Ozzy Osbourne came anywhere near a chart-topping single… I think it has to go to Fatman Scoop’s slice of shouty nonsense though, if only for the nostalgia of remembering that I bought a copy and contributed to its surprise success.
For the thirtieth Very Worst Chart-Topper I did briefly think of giving it to Eminem, a man who I named as a Very Best Chart-Topper not long ago, for the stunning fall from grace that was ‘Just Lose It’. But no. Towering over everything, and this recap’s clear winner, is the God-awful ‘Fuck It (I Don’t Want You Back)’ by Eamon. He unleashed ‘ho-wop’ on the world, and the world briefly lapped it up. Shame on us. You may be thinking why Eamon and not his ‘ex-girlfriend’, Frankee? ‘F.U.R.B’ though is a significantly better record, if only for the line about not catching his crabs.
Finally, to the main event. Our latest Very Best Chart-Topper. Surprisingly, given that I usually wing this decision as I write, I have a clear Top 3 this time. In the bronze medal position, it is Tomcraft’s ‘Loneliness’, a dark trance banger, and the only non-tacky dance #1 of recent times. Proof that this blog has finally converted me to dance music! In 2nd, for the second time: Miss Britney Spears with ‘Toxic’. I did really want to give her it after passing over both ‘Baby… One More Time’ and ‘Oops…’, but a slightly better record stood in her way again. That was Beyoncé’s (and Jay-Z’s) Song of the Summer for ’03: the irrepressible ‘Crazy in Love’, a tune that still slaps as hard… does quick maths… TWENTY-THREE! years on. Yikes.
Let’s recap the recaps:
The Meh Award for forgettability
‘Hold My Hand’, by Don Cornell.
‘It’s Almost Tomorrow’, by The Dream Weavers.
‘On the Street Where You Live’, by Vic Damone.
‘Why’, by Anthony Newley.
‘The Next Time’ / ‘Bachelor Boy’, by Cliff Richard & The Shadows.
‘Juliet’, by The Four Pennies.
‘The Carnival Is Over’, by The Seekers.
‘Silence Is Golden’, by The Tremeloes.
‘I Pretend’, by Des O’Connor.
‘Woodstock’, by Matthews’ Southern Comfort.
‘How Can I Be Sure’, by David Cassidy.
‘Annie’s Song’, by John Denver.
‘I Only Have Eyes For You’, by Art Garfunkel.
‘I Don’t Want to Talk About It’ / ‘The First Cut Is the Deepest’, by Rod Stewart.
‘Three Times a Lady’, by The Commodores.
‘What’s Another Year’, by Johnny Logan.
‘A Little Peace’, by Nicole.
‘Every Breath You Take’, by The Police.
‘I Got You Babe’, by UB40 with Chrissie Hynde.
‘Who’s That Girl’, by Madonna.
‘A Groovy Kind of Love’, by Phil Collins.
‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’, by Band Aid II.
‘Please Don’t Go’ / ‘Game Boy’, by KWS.
‘Dreams’, by Gabrielle.
‘Forever Love’, by Gary Barlow.
‘I Feel You’, by Peter Andre.
‘You Needed Me’, by Boyzone.
‘Holler’ / ‘Let Love Lead the Way’, by The Spice Girls.
‘Stop Living the Lie’, by David Sneddon.
‘Never Gonna Leave Your Side’, by Daniel Bedingfield
The WTAF Award for being interesting if nothing else
‘I See the Moon’, by The Stargazers.
‘Lay Down Your Arms’, by Anne Shelton.
‘Hoots Mon’, by Lord Rockingham’s XI.
‘You’re Driving Me Crazy’, by The Temperance Seven.
‘Nut Rocker’, by B. Bumble & The Stingers.
‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, by Gerry & The Pacemakers.
‘Little Red Rooster’, by The Rolling Stones.
‘Puppet on a String’, by Sandie Shaw.
‘Fire’, by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.
‘In the Year 2525 (Exordium and Terminus)’, by Zager & Evans.
‘Amazing Grace’, The Pipes & Drums & Military Band of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guard.
‘Kung Fu Fighting’, by Carl Douglas.
‘If’, by Telly Savalas.
‘Wuthering Heights’, by Kate Bush.
‘Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick’, by Ian Dury & The Blockheads.
‘Shaddap You Face’, by Joe Dolce Music Theatre.
‘It’s My Party’, by Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin.
‘Save Your Love’ by Renée & Renato.
‘Rock Me Amadeus’, by Falco.
‘Pump Up the Volume’ / ‘Anitina (The First Time I See She Dance)’, by M/A/R/R/S.
‘Doctorin’ the Tardis’, by The Timelords.
‘Sadeness Part 1’, by Enigma.
‘Ebeneezer Goode’, by The Shamen.
‘I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)’, by Meat Loaf.
‘Spaceman’, by Babylon Zoo.
‘All Around the World’, by Oasis.
‘Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)’, by Baz Luhrmann.
‘Bound 4 da Reload (Casualty)’, by Oxide & Neutrino.
‘Because I Got High’, by Afroman.
‘Be Faithful’, by Fatman Scoop ft. The Crooklyn Clan
The Very Worst Chart-Toppers
‘Cara Mia’, by David Whitfield with Mantovani & His Orchestra.
‘The Man From Laramie’, by Jimmy Young.
‘Roulette’, by Russ Conway.
‘Wooden Heart’, by Elvis Presley.
‘Lovesick Blues’, by Frank Ifield.
‘Diane’, by The Bachelors.
‘The Minute You’re Gone’, by Cliff Richard.
‘Release Me’, by Engelbert Humperdinck.
‘Lily the Pink’, by The Scaffold.
‘All Kinds of Everything’, by Dana.
‘The Twelfth of Never’, by Donny Osmond.
‘The Streak’, by Ray Stevens.
‘No Charge’, by J. J. Barrie
‘Don’t Give Up On Us’, by David Soul
‘One Day at a Time’, by Lena Martell.
‘There’s No One Quite Like Grandma’, by St. Winifred’s School Choir.
‘I’ve Never Been to Me’, by Charlene.
‘Hello’, by Lionel Richie.
‘I Want to Know What Love Is’, by Foreigner.
‘Star Trekkin’’, by The Firm.
‘Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love for You’, by Glenn Medeiros.
‘Let’s Party’, by Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers.
‘(Everything I Do) I Do It for You’, by Bryan Adams.
‘Don’t Stop (Wiggle Wiggle)’, by The Outhere Brothers.
‘Unchained Melody’ / ‘White Cliffs of Dover’, by Robson & Jerome.
‘C’est la Vie’, by B*Witched.
‘I Have a Dream’ / ‘Seasons in the Sun’, by Westlife.
‘Do You Really Like It?’, by DJ Pied Piper & Masters of Ceremonies
‘Eternal Flame’, by Atomic Kitten.
‘F**k It (I Don’t Want You Back)’, by Eamon
The Very Best Chart-Toppers
‘Such a Night’, by Johnnie Ray.
‘Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White’, by Perez ‘Prez’ Prado & His Orchestra.
‘Great Balls of Fire’, by Jerry Lee Lewis.
‘Cathy’s Clown’, by The Everly Brothers.
‘Telstar’, by The Tornadoes.
‘She Loves You’ by The Beatles.
‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’, by The Rolling Stones.
‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’, by Procol Harum.
‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’, by Marvin Gaye.
‘Baby Jump’, by Mungo Jerry.
‘Metal Guru’, by T. Rex.
‘Tiger Feet’, by Mud.
‘Space Oddity’, by David Bowie.
‘I Feel Love’, by Donna Summer.
‘Heart of Glass’, by Blondie.
‘The Winner Takes It All’, by ABBA.
‘My Camera Never Lies’, by Bucks Fizz.
‘Relax’ by Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
‘You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)’, by Dead or Alive
From one of the most forgotten male chart-toppers in Steve Brookstein, to the ultimate male chart-topper… Elvis Aaron Presley.
Jailhouse Rock, by Elvis Presley (his 19th of twenty-one #1s)
1 week, from 9th – 16th January 2005
For what would have been Elvis’s seventieth birthday, on January 8th 2005, an ambitious (and money-spinning) project was announced by the holders of his back-catalogue, BMG Records. They would re-release each of the King’s eighteen UK number ones, week by week, for what would ultimately set collectors back around eighty quid. ‘All Shook Up’, his first chart-topper in 1957, came first, but was chart ineligible due to costing a tenner and coming with a commemorative, limited edition box in which to store all the other singles.
So it fell to ‘Jailhouse Rock’, Elvis’s second number one back in January 1958 (the first single to ever enter the UK charts at #1) to chart first… with the lowest sales ever recorded for a number one single to date: 21,262 copies.
Needless to say, this record was lucky to make number one. And lucky with the fortuitous fact that Elvis’s birthday fell in January, when sales are historically at their lowest anyway. Yet, can you imagine any other artist managing this? Re-releasing eighteen ancient singles and having them all chart in the Top 5, three of them returning to number one? After dominating the charts like nobody ever has, before or after, in the late fifties and early sixties; The King was back to dominate them again.
What of the actual music? Well, of course, ‘Jailhouse Rock’ is a classic. But there seems to be no point analysing it musically in the context of 2005. It was a forty-five year old rock and roll record re-emerging in an age of reality TV pop, tacky dance, and US hip-hop&B. I’ll refer you instead to my original post. I’m sure I was complimentary, but can’t really remember as I wrote it in 2018 (!) How time flies…
Next up, I’m going to bring the usual recap forward by one. And after that’s done, we can properly start the 1000 Number Ones festivities. Watch this space!
2005 begins with what should have been the final chart-topper of 2004, and that year’s Christmas #1…
Against All Odds, by Steve Brookstein (his 1st and only #1)
1 week, from 2nd – 9th January 2005
On the one hand you can feel a teensy bit sorry for Steve Brookstein, because a couple of years later winning X Factor would be a sure-fire way to have a genuinely massive million-seller, a Christmas number one, and at least one or two follow-up hits. But since he was the winner of the first series, before it was pulling in huge viewing figures, and because he came up against a juggernaut of a single in Band Aid 20’s ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ reboot, none of this came true. Instead he belatedly limped to #1 for a week, when nobody was watching, on a technicality.
At the same time, any sympathy for him evaporates when you hear this dull and predictable winner’s single. Did we really need another cover of ‘Against All Odds’? Mariah Carey and Westlife had taken their version to the top barely four years earlier. Phil Collins’ original was only two decades old. (Worryingly, Brookstein’s cover is now closer to 1984 than the present day…)
Of course, Brookstein isn’t a bad vocalist. But he is a glorified pub singer. Judge Sharon Osbourne didn’t like him, and I don’t think the X Factor producers were thrilled to have a thirty-six year old with a pretty limited appeal as their inaugural winner. The subsequent champions were all young, and pretty, with potential for real pop stardom. Some even came close to managing it.
The one person who did argue for Steve Brookstein was, inevitably, Simon Cowell. Cowell looks at a granny-baiting, middle-aged crooner as hungry kids look at chocolate ice cream. He lapped him up. For a while, at least. Following a debut, chart-topping album, Cowell and Brookstein feuded. Eight months after winning X Factor, he was dropped by BMG Records. According to Brookstein it was because he refused to record another LP of safe covers.
And so he faded into obscurity, popping up every now and then to rant about Cowell. He did a bit of musical theatre, a bit of TV, and a lot of provincial touring. Looking at his Wiki, has there been a more depressing sentence in a pop star’s bio than: “In June 2007, Brookstein appeared on the P&O Portsmouth to Bilbao car ferry, alongside X Factor alumni Chico Slimani and Journey South”? (More on Chico soon, btw.)
This would be the last X Factor winner’s single not to make Christmas #1 for five years, as the series dominated British pop culture in the latter half of the decade. So that’s something to look forward to covering… This also came dangerously close to being Britain’s 1000th number one single. Which feels like a close escape, but maybe it would have been fitting. Maybe it is the ultimate #1 single? Cheap, disposable, forgotten…
Twenty years on from the original, and fifteen years on from the SAW spin-off, comes the long-awaited Band Aid III: Band Aid with a Vengeance…
‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’, by Band Aid 20
4 weeks, from 5th December 2004 – 2nd January 2005
It was still helmed by Geldof and Ure, with the same aim of raising money for the world’s destitute, but they sensibly updated the collective’s name to Band Aid 20, and that sounds a bit more impressive than Band Aid 3. They also updated the sound of the record, and the singers involved, with more mixed results.
The original famously opened with Paul Young, then Boy George. This one opens with Coldplay’s Chris Martin, then Dido. (Insert opinion on the direction pop music had gone in during the past two decades…) It takes Robbie Williams, the third voice heard, to really get this record going. We then hear the Sugababes, Travis’s Fran Healy, the Bedingfields, Will Young, Jamelia, Busted (technically making ‘Thunderbirds’not their final #1), Joss Stone, and many other gilded names of the time.
In fairness, this version features a lot more ‘real’ instruments than the previous two, more synthy versions. The Darkness contribute a guitar solo – getting their Xmas #1 a year late – while Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood, alongside Sir Paul McCartney, form a backing band of some distinction. But the biggest nod to the 21st century is the rap from Dizzee Rascal, then a fairly niche British rapper, but who would go on to become one of the decade’s biggest chart stars. You ain’t gotta feel guilt just selfless, Give a little help to the helpless… is a rhyme for the ages.
Stealing the show though, is the one returnee from the original: Bono. He had to fight to keep his line, as Robbie and Justin Hawkins each recorded a take, but honestly, nobody can self-righteously proclaim Well tonight thank God it’s them instead of you… like Bono. It’s a line that gets a lot of stick, but to me it’s the one line in this festival of virtue signalling, about there not being snow in Africa and Christmas bells that are clanging chimes of doom, which actually rings true. We feel sorry for victims of war and famine, of course we do; but we also feel relief, and disgust.
I like a lot of the touches on this version, including the way it descends into an extended hard rock wig-out, then into a coda of semi-African sounding banging and shaking; but it lacks something. And that something is the driving synth riff from the original. So, yes, this is a version with ‘real’ instruments; but said riff, that is devoid of sleigh bells and snowy tinkles, but that gives the song a sense of urgency, a sense of hurry up, donate, save these poor souls! Plus, there must be a reason why neither this, nor Band Aid II, have replaced the original in the yearly Xmas onslaught.
Band Aid 20 was still a huge success, selling 72,000 copies in its first day, and almost 300,000 in its first week. It was the last CD single to sell a million copies, and was really a last hurrah for the format, with sales slumping to new lows by the early weeks of 2005. Downloads would be incorporated into the charts by the following spring.
I remember Band Aid 20 being a very newsworthy deal at the time, and listening to it now I can still identify many of the singers as their lines come up. There is one more chart-topping version of ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ to come, in another decade, but the attitudes towards that one, and its subsequent reduced chart performance, are an interesting marker of how society had shifted in the social media age.
Girls Aloud – the pop group of the noughties – finally score a second chart-topper, slaying the curse of the reality TV show winner…
I’ll Stand By You, by Girls Aloud (their 2nd of four #1s)
2 weeks, from 21st November – 5th December 2004
Of course, the fact that bangers like ‘The Show’, ‘Love Machine’, and ‘No Good Advice’ had all stalled at #2 in between their debut and this #1 was a travesty. It is a perfectly serviceable cover of the Pretenders’ 1994 #10 hit, recorded for the BBC’s annual ‘Children in Need’ telethon – which has already brought us number ones from S Club 7, and the all-star collective with ‘Perfect Day’ – but it is the dictionary definition of “nothing special”.
For a girl group, Girls Aloud were thankfully not very ballad-heavy. But this was proof that they could indeed handle some balladry, and that they could properly sing. That’s probably the best thing you can say about this record, though, as it goes down the bells and tinkles, over-produced route that so many songs of this ilk do. I prefer the opening verse, which is nicely stripped-back. After that it drowns in schmaltz. (Some might also call the original schmaltzy – and Chrissie Hynde certainly isn’t the song’s biggest fan, claiming that it sounded too desperate to be a hit – but it still has far more edge than this cover.)
Making this sound even worse is the knowledge that Girls Aloud’s chart-topping fortunes wouldn’t improve after this second #1 either. Further classics like ‘Biology’, ‘Something Kinda Ooh’ and ‘Long Hot Summer’ would stumble before their next chart-topper – another charity effort – over two years away…
But charity records always buck trends and do well, especially in the run-up to Christmas. For confirmation of this, just take a look at what’s up next…
Lo! What is that I hear on the horizon? Rock…? Music…?
Vertigo, by U2 (their 6th of seven #1s)
1 week, from 14th – 21st November 2004
I am a confirmed U2 sceptic. I think they can be too clever for their own good, too preachy, too glossy… But I’ve also enjoyed most of their earlier chart-toppers, from the bluesy ‘Desire’, to the arty ‘The Fly’, to the danceable ‘Discotheque’. I am also ready to forgive U2 anything, now that they’ve restored rock and roll to the top of the charts.
And ‘Vertigo’ does rock. The riff is brutally simple, and the chorus’s hook-line (Hello, Hello, I’m at a place called vertigo…) is brutally catchy. I especially like the verses, where the Edge’s guitar chirps and cheeps like a wildcat ready to pounce, and a filthy bassline is brought to the fore.
I wouldn’t go so far as describing it as ‘punk’, as some outlets did at the time. Yes it’s simple, and blisteringly fast. But it’s U2, in 2004. ‘Vertigo’ lent its name to one of the biggest tours of all time. It was used to advertise the iPod. And it’s still very glossy. The chorus, as effective as it is, is polished to an edge-less (pardon the pun) gleam. While the middle-eight, which is very U2 with Bono intoning All of this can be yours… in a chiming break, breaks any punk-y aspirations once and for all.
I’d also suggest that ‘Vertigo’ is a slight rip off of ‘Elevation’, from their previous album, which had a similarly dumb, sledgehammer riff. 21st Century U2 always had one rocking single per album, and at least one ballad (see their soon to follow final #1). Which could also be seen as a slightly cynical, commercial approach to album-making when compared to their ‘90s concept albums. Then again, like I said, I am a big old U2 sceptic.
But, really. This is a great song. And it ensures that U2 can claim a chart-topping career spanning over sixteen years, an impressive feat for any act. And, alongside their feature on LMC’s ‘Take Me to the Clouds Above’, it means that 2004 was their most successful chart-topping year. The album ‘Vertigo’ came from, ‘How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb’, was also one of their most commercially successful. It was also a bit of a swansong, as by the time of their following LP, in 2009, pop music seemed to have finally moved on from them.
You may or may not be aware that aside from pop music, the charts, and all things #1-spot related, my other area of deep geekery is football. And I love all footballing competitions, but none more than the World Cup. My party piece is being able to recite all the winners, runners-up, host cities and scores (half-time and full-time) of all the finals since the first tournament in 1930. Not that that has ever really got a party going, but you know what I mean…
Of course, this World Cup – hosted in the USA, Canada and Mexico – has proven itself to be very controversial. At least the most controversial World Cup since the last one, in Qatar. Which was the most controversial since the one before that, in Russia. What’s never been controversial are the songs which have charted off the back of World Cups. No. These songs have always been beacons of taste and decorum…
We’ve already met three World Cup related #1s – ‘Back Home’, ‘World in Motion’, and ‘3 Lions ’98’ – all extolling the virtues of the England national team. Which is something that I, as a Scot, have no problem with. At all. But there have been plenty of other World Cup adjacent hits over the years. Some of them even extolling the virtues of Scotland! Here, then, are the other Coupe du Monde-themed records to have graced the Top 5, without managing #1.
‘We Have a Dream’, by the Scotland World Cup Squad ’82 – reached #5 in 1982
In which the star of 1981’s ‘Gregory Girl’, John Gordon Sinclair, narrates a tale of falling asleep in front of the telly, and dreaming that Scotland win the World Cup, with him scoring the winning penalty kick. Then he wakes to find he’s not kicking the ball, he’s actually kicking his mother… He’s backed by the entire Scotland squad, ahead of their departure for Spain.
Before anyone accuses me of bias, this is far worse than any of England’s chart-topping efforts. It features bagpipes, because of course it does, and I’m not sure bagpipes have ever enhanced a piece of music. Scotland, as they always do, crashed out after the first group stage of that year’s tournament, pipped on goal difference by the Soviet Union.
‘Carnaval de Paris’, by Dario G – reached #5 in 1998
From the ridiculous, to the sublime. Ahead of the 1998 World Cup, English electronic group Dario G released this iconic track. It’s based on a folk song called ‘Oh, My Darling Clementine’, which had been used as a terrace chant in stadiums for several years.
For the tournament, the tune was updated with a gloriously ’90s euro-dance beat, featuring musical flourishes from different nations appearing at the tournament in France. A samba beat for Brazil, steel drums for Jamaica, a twangy Asian riff for Japan. And, contrary to what I claimed above, this is the only song ever to be enhanced by the introduction of (electronic) bagpipes, in the Scottish section.
This might be nostalgia talking, but listening to it now, the simplicity of the track is amazing. It’s become a World Cup anthem, still played to this day. Newe, ‘official’ World Cup songs are almost unlistenable: corporate soundboards featuring three or four singers you’ve never heard of from strategically selected countries. And Pitbull. They are played at the opening ceremonies and never listened to again. While the video here, featuring kids painted in the colours of each nation playing on a dirt pitch, is surprisingly touching. The World Cup may have been monetized and commercialized to unrecogniseable levels, yet it still somehow represents football in its purest form.
‘Ole Ola (Mulher Brasileira)’, by Rod Stewart & the Scottish World Cup Squad’78 – reached #4 in 1978
Another attempt by the Scottish national side, but this one is better. Whether that’s due to it being upbeat, or to having an actual pop star doing the singing, or both these things, I don’t know. But it’s fun, silly, and catchy. It’s based on a samba-rock track, the title of which translates to ‘Brazilian Women’. Quite why we recorded a cover of a Brazilian classic for a World Cup in Argentina remains unclear…
Although perhaps that oversight sums up Scotland’s campaign at the 1978 World Cup, which is now regarded as one of the greatest acts of over-confidence in football history. Scotland left for Argentina as genuine contenders, in our own heads at least. Manager Ally MacLeod claimed that the day of the final would become known as National Ally Day, even inspiring another single – ‘Ally’s Tartan Army’ – which also made the Top 10 around the same time. Needless to say, Scotland crashed out at the first hurdle, and came home with tails very much between legs.
‘We’re on the Ball’, by Ant & Dec – reached #3 in 2002
The 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan tempted Britain’s favourite Geordie duo out of recording retirement. Ant and Dec recorded this piece of fluff, their first single in five years, and scored (pardon the pun) their biggest hit up to that point.
It’s not terrible… But it’s not particularly good either. It follows a very basic England World Cup song formula: a chanted chorus, snippets of commentary, players names in the lyrics, references to 1966… If you’re a listener from any other country, there is an automatic level of obnoxiousness to any song about the England football team that you have to battle through before you can appreciate it. (There is also an automatic level of schadenfreude to bask in when England fail to win each tournament. In 2002 it was Brazil in the quarters that ensured they were on thirty-six years of hurt, and counting.)
We’ll meet Ant and Dec on our regular countdown eventually, with their one hit that got even further than ‘We’re on the Ball’.
‘World at Your Feet’, by Embrace – reached #3 in 2006
By the 21st century, it was the height of uncool to have actual footballers singing on your World Cup song. Instead you had to get past-their-best Britpop bands like Embrace to sing inspirational lines such as With the world at your feet there’s no one you can’t beat…
After the brilliance of ‘World in Motion’, and even ‘Three Lions’, this is incredibly bland, indie rock by numbers. The video, equally milquetoast, in which the band lead a group of England fans around Wembley stadium, could double as a Vodafone advert. It ends with a whimper, much like England’s 2006 World Cup campaign, which ended in defeat on penalties to Portugal.
‘This Time We’ll Get It Right’, by the England World Cup Squad – reached #2 in 1982
Though any nostalgia for the days when a World Cup song involved players huddled around microphones, swaying awkwardly, arms around one another’s backs, should be extinguished by songs like ‘This Time We’ll Get It Right’.
It has the same plodding beat and similarly jaunty lyrics to 1970’s ‘Back Home’, as if popular music hadn’t moved by lightyears through glam, punk, disco or new wave in the intervening twelve years. Though in actual fact England hadn’t qualified for the 1974 or ’78 tournaments, and so maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that this sounds like a direct follow-up record.
Anyway, while most of the records so far have been the sort of songs that would have finished bottom of their groups with zero points, the next three are finalists in my eyes…
‘Nessun Dorma’, by Luciano Pavarotti – reached #2 in 1990
Perhaps tellingly, the three biggest (and best) non-chart-topping World Cup hits are all ‘unofficial’ anthems. No official FIFA records or awkward footballers in chunky headphones.
And most randomly of all, we have a big beast of Italian opera: Luciano Pavarotti himself. ‘Nessun Dorma’ originates from Puccini’s ‘Turandot’, which debuted in 1926, and was first recorded by Pavarotti in 1972. The BBC used it as the theme for their coverage of Italia ’90, and so popular was it that it made #2 on re-release. Pavarotti, José Carreras and Plácido Domingo – AKA The Three Tenors – performed a concert ahead of the final, a live recording of which went on to become the highest-selling classical album of all time.
I don’t speak Italian, and know little to nothing about opera, but when big Pav hits the high note at the end of ‘Nessun Dorma’ it’s hard not to be awe-struck. So synonymous with football did this aria for a time become that it was performed on the pitch ahead of the following three World Cup finals.
‘Vindaloo’, by Fat Les – reached #2 in 1998
Having already labelled England-supporting songs as ‘obnoxious’, ‘arrogant’ and ‘bone-headed’ (if I haven’t used those exact words then I’ve definitely been thinking them), we come to the most obnoxious, arrogant and bone-headed of them all. And yet, I love it. I always have, aged twelve when it was released, and listening to it now, aged forty.
Its main refrain is We’re Enger-land, We’re gonna score one more than you… but it’s meant as a piss-take of the sort of songs that claim that it’s ‘coming home’. Comedian Keith Allen said he chose ‘Vindaloo’ for the title as it was just the sort of curry that a ‘right-wing lout’ would order. (I’m sure that some of the record’s buyers completely missed the tongue-in-cheek-ness of it, but an awareness of subtetly and nuance is not what louts are known for.) Meanwhile the rest of the lyrics involve camp gems like Can I introduce you please, To a lump of cheddar cheese… or Me and me mum and me dad and me gran went off to Waterloo, Me and me mum and me dad and me gran and a bucket of vindaloo…
Fat Les were Blur bassist Alex James, artist Damien Hirst, and Keith Allen (who co-wrote and performed in the video for ‘World in Motion’). The video features various comedians and celebs, most prominently Paul Kaye in a spoof of the Verve’s ‘Bittersweet Symphony’, and is so late-nineties it hurts. Please England, I beg of you, for 2026 can you give ‘Vindaloo’ a moment of resurgence, rather than ‘Three bloody Lions’?
‘Wavin’ Flag’, by K’naan – reached #2 in 2010
The 2010 World Cup in South Africa is not fondly remembered for the quality of its football, as an impressively dull Spain 1-0ed their way to the title. But it is fondly remembered, by me at least, for producing two of the greatest World Cup songs of all time. Give the competition to Africa, and at least you know the music is going to be good!
FIFA made a decent decision for once too, in commisioning Shakira’s ‘Waka Waka’ as the official song of the tournament. That only made #21 in the UK, sadly, while the song that took off was the official Coca-Cola anthem: ‘Wavin’ Flag’ by Somali-Canadian singer K’naan. Okay, yes, big corporations are usually not a good thing for music, but the song had had a long journey to this point, having been a hit in Canada on its own, with lyrics about the experiences of Somali refugees, and then as a charity single following the 2010 Haiti earthquake. With more football-friendly lyrics, it eventually became a hit around the world.
It’s a great blend of African beats and a pop sensibility, Bruno Mars co-wrote and produced it, and it is not about England winning the trophy. The perfect way to wrap up this post. Which hopefully you enjoyed, even if you have no interest in the beautiful game. I’m off to set my alarm for whatever game kicks off at 3am tomorrow!
The UK Number Ones Blog 