The list of superstar artists with underwhelming singles chart records is long, and complex. There’s Led Zeppelin, who simply didn’t bother releasing them. There’s Chuck Berry, whose ding-a-ling made number one two decades after he’d helped invent rock and roll. There’s Stevie Wonder, whose two chart-toppers don’t begin to do his talent justice…
The Most Beautiful Girl in the World, by Prince (his 1st and only #1)
2 weeks, from 17th April – 1st May 1994
Then there’s Prince – the star with possibly the biggest disparity between talent and number one hits. Not that he has a terrible overall chart record in the UK: seventeen Top 10 hits is nothing to be sniffed at. But only this one chart-topper (the 2nd biggest hit of his long career, apparently…)
And I’m just going to come out and say it… For ‘The Most Beautiful Girl in the World’ to be Prince’s only #1 is as big a travesty as ‘My Ding-A-Ling’. It might even be bigger. At least Berry’s novelty is dumb fun. This is syrupy, over-produced tripe, with some queasy lyrics… It’s plain to see, You’re the reason that God made a girl… The fact that the song debuted on the 1994 Miss USA pageant speaks volumes.
As I listen, all I can think of is all the brilliant Prince tunes that came and went without making #1… And not only is this dull, it’s disappointingly chaste. This from a man who recorded songs like ‘Soft and Wet’, ‘Cream’, and ‘Sexy MF’. There’s a spoken-word portion, as in all the worst love songs, in which Prince semi-raps: And if the stars ever fell, One by one from the sky…
It leads on to the most enjoyable bit of the song though, in which Prince provides his own backing vocals in a deep voice before launching back into his more famous falsetto. The song’s odd sound effects – tears dripping, clocks ticking, birds twittering – are interesting too. These moments are where we come closest to the fun, creative-chameleon Prince, who’s sorely missing from the rest of this sludge.
Of course, ‘The Most Beautiful Girl in the World’ isn’t technically a ‘Prince’ song. It came at the start of his ‘Love Symbol’ period, AKA the time he was known as ‘The Artist Formerly Known as Prince’, as part of a rebellion against his Warner Brothers contract. He felt they were holding him back, insisting that he chill out and release albums more sporadically. Interestingly, this single – one of his most successful – was released on a small, independent label, rather than Warner Bros. The corresponding album didn’t see the light of day for another year and a half, and is still involved in a lawsuit over plagiarism involving ‘The Most Beautiful Girl in the World’ and an Italian song called ‘Takin’ Me to Paradise’.
Prince does already have two other chart-toppers to his name as a songwriter. Two classics: Chaka Khan’s ‘I Feel for You’ and Sinead O’Connor’s ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’. And of course there’s ‘Purple Rain’, ‘When Doves Cry’, ‘Kiss’… So many that I might have to do a post on Prince’s nearly-number-ones. All these hits kick this one into the long grass… And yet. The charts often don’t play nice…
The UK Number Ones Blog 
I’ve never been the world’s great Prince fan, and this did nothing to convert me. Probably one of the most, er, exciting chart-toppers we have had since Lena Martel.
This one is OK, I quite liked it, but his career divides at this point from brilliant to meh. I was a huge fan, bought the albums, was into Prince in the UK before he caught on with Purple Rain era – and thats a candidate for greatest album of the decade – and went to see him in concert twice. I even forgave him for the high crime of seizing my portable cassette recorder as I went into Wembley Arena, denying me a badly-recorded souvenir along with cameras going the same way – and having to wait for ages to get it back after the concert. Obsessively protective about his ownership of everything, he went one step too far when he declared Prince was dead. That was my stepping off point and drew a line in the sand. Not just me either. He ended up giving his new albums away as free newspapers add-ons in the UK. Don’t piss off the fans, let that be a lesson!
But yes…the number one should have been When Doves Cry, or Sign O The Times, or Alphabet Street, or Let’s Go Crazy, or I Wish U Heaven, or songs he gave away like Sheena Easton’s awesome 101, still obscure, or Manic Monday for The Bangles, or so many others…
The most prolific of all 80’s stars for a great 10 years of high quality, and he died too young thanks to his pain killers for the high-heel jumping days.
Yes I remember the album giveaway… In the Daily Mail of all rags, if I remember correctly.
This one is pretty good. I was a slight fan of Prince. I liked him better than many of his peers especially his album Around the World in A Day…more than Purple Rain. The song that I loved by him was Raspberry Beret…but it probably didn’t come close to #1.
I will say…he was a hell of a guitar player a massive talented guy. So see…there are some I like lol.
‘Raspberry Beret’ only made #25 in the UK, which doesn’t reflect well on us… For some reason he took longer to click with UK audiences, and never reached the heights in the charts like he did in the US.
Did you like that one? The album sounded very 1967 in some parts.
I like a lot of his eighties hits, really. Even until the early nineties he had some fun, more hip-hop stuff like ‘Gett Off’… This single was the start of him disappearing up his own backside.
Funny about one of his songs. I would go to a bar in the 90s and the house band played a song I liked…called Cream. Didn’t know it was his song.
Yea I liked Purple Rain the song…the one I didn’t like was When Doves Cry…I never saw what everyone else did….but yea I did actually like some of his 80s stuff also!
His 70s stuff wasn’t bad either.
Yeah Cream is great. And it’s based on T Rex’s Get It On, which gives it extra coolness points
That band did a great version of it and it got me hooked on it. I do like a lot of his songs…I Wanna Be Your Lover I like a lot that started his career. Cheesy video but cool song.
1999/Little Red Corvette as a double A side came closest, kept at number 2 by Foreigner’s power ballad sludge in 1985. Maybe you should start another blog on classic hits kept off number one by absolute shit, there’ve certainly been enough of them in the period you covered so far, and more to come quite soon.
I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m a big Prince fan, and I consider this one of his best.
That’s the beauty of music, I guess…
My favourite Prince track was Thieves In The Temple, all but forgotten these days I think
Yes can’t say it’s one I’m too familiar with!