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…
1950s – ‘You Belong to Me’, by Jo Stafford
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.
1960s – ‘The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore’, by The Walker Brothers
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…
1970s – ‘Whispering Grass’, by Windsor Davies & Don Estelle
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!
1980s – ‘Relax’, by Frankie Goes to Hollywood
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…
1990s – ‘The Millennium Prayer’, by Cliff Richard
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…
2000s (so far) – ‘The Masses Against the Classes’, by Manic Street Preachers
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.
The UK Number Ones Blog 
You Belong To Me, along with hosts of other 50’s music, appear in Fallout, it (the record and the show) really is quite stylish and an eye-opener to anyone not familiar with the decade musically. I think that’s why it’s getting hits where the 60’s isn’t. Stuff from the 60’s is better known than the 50’s, so there’s that, but there is also the mortality of that generation which is sadly increasing week by week in the same way the 50’s did a decade ago. You have to be over 75 to remember the 50’s as a child really, and 85 as a teenager, so that decade was long-dropped from radio stations, and the 60’s is in that process now, with the 70’s not far behind. It’s all about the 80s and 90s and increasingly 00’s as those generations get all nostalgic for times gone by and listen to Radio 2 or oldies stations. Boom Radio still caters for the 60’s crowd in the UK, but it’s a rarity as a theme these days, mostly it’s just the odd classic track here and there or in the medias.
Maybe Whispering Grass is getting hits from people looking for it from shows like Fallout and being unaware they should be googling The Platters or the like!?
Cliff’s is a mystery, though he continues to have a large fan following with nothing much positive reported in modern media, other than “Cliff’s old/on tour” or both. Cliff, though, for some reason, doesnt really appear in media much other than his own films, so I expect it’s more of a “what was the last number one of the 20th century” google and “what was the first number one of the 21st century” equivalent.
Voting now…!
Nostalgia is a strange thing, as it really warps your sense of time. To me as a kid in the 90s, an ‘oldie’ was from the 60s or 70s. Those songs seemed ancient. That’s what my parents listened to. And I’d never heard a song from the 50s, apart from Elvis and maybe Rock Around the Clock, until I went actively looking for them as a teen. Now when I see the 90s or even the 00s being classed as ‘oldies’ I’m confused, (and somewhat annoyed!), even though its the same time span from today. And apparently children now are nostalgic for the 2010s! I’m not having that… You can’t be nostalgic until you’re at least in your thirties 🙂