(Drumroll please…) So, after fifty-three chart years, and eight and a half blog years, we arrive at the one thousandth UK number one single…
One Night / I Got Stung, by Elvis Presley (his 20th of twenty-one #1s)
1 week, from 16th – 23rd January 2005
And it’s a forty-six year old song, by a long-dead singer, setting a new record for the lowest sales of all time…
At least, that’s one way to look at it. You could also spin it as a rocking classic, by the biggest star the world has ever seen, taking advantage of a time of year when sales are traditionally at their lowest to make history. Either way, it’s clear that many interesting plot points converge here. And that’s before we get to Elvis extending his all-time record of chart-toppers to twenty, three ahead of the Beatles.
As with ‘Jailhouse Rock’, perhaps the least relevant plot point is how this record sounds, because this record wasn’t sitting at the top of the charts for musical reasons. This was bought by collectors, not by new fans discovering Elvis’s music for the first time. You do wonder how the OCC felt about this. On the one hand, it was a newsworthy story: Elvis back on top for this big anniversary, which probably garnered more attention than if it had been, say, Steve Brookstein who claimed number 1000. On the other, they may have been embarrassed that the casual chart-follower, interest piqued by this landmark moment, would find Elvis on top in 2005, and wonder how the charts could still claim to have any relevance.
For what it’s worth, I’ve always liked ‘One Night’, one of Elvis’s last rockers before joining the army. Without checking what I wrote in my original post, I like its bawdy slowness, its very bluesy riff, and the fact that Elvis is on tip-top vocal form. ‘I Got Stung’ is more throwaway, though it barrels along at a hundred miles an hour, and opens with Elvis yelping the line Holy smokes and snakes alive! Great stuff, all in all.
So, fairly or unfairly, appropriately or not, Elvis scored Britain’s 1000th number one. It’s taken me eight and a half years to get this far, and I’d like to thank each and every one of this blog’s followers, readers and commentors for making the journey a pleasure. Whether this is the first post of mine that you’re reading, or whether you’ve been around since the Tennessee Ernie Ford days, you make this worthwhile. And while I do try to keep things strictly musical, I’d like to mention how keeping this blog since 2018 has seen me through various ups and downs, in my personal life and in the world as a whole, and has genuinely helped to keep me sane. Listening to a number one single, be it good, bad, or indifferent, on a loop and trying to craft a five-hundred word post about it is as close as I can get to mindfulness.
The most recent new UK #1 (Taylor Swift’s ‘I Knew It, I Knew You’) was the 1456th chart-topper, and if I keep my current pace up I should reach that song in late 2030. I hope you’ll all still be around then, if only because I have strong feelings about Tay Tay that the world definitely needs to hear…
The UK Number Ones Blog 
Your “my original post” link is wrong.
Thanks for the heads up!
Not necessarily my favorite by Elvis who used to be my childhood idol, but it’s okay.
well done on 8 years of motivation! The number of projects in my life I’ve started and never finished would fill a book, that burst of enthusiasm and creativity followed by the realisation that it takes perisistence and self-motivation as much as anything else I think shows an admirable character trait I mostly lack 🙂 I’ve kept my personal charts going because that changes every week and is constantly re-born, and I can knock off a very short fictional story with a good plot as long as I can write it in a few hours – but anything that takes long-term effort, well I admire those that can do it while having to have a job and all the rest!
Absolutely! Hear hear!
Thanks! Certainly having somewhere to publish them and knowing that people are reading them is a motivator. I write other things too, and losing motivation is a big problem if you are plugging away by yourself. I also enjoy writing the posts, which is undoubtedly the most important thing!
“One Night”, pretty cool rocker roller. It sounds rooted in the late-50s Elvis. Elvis as usual sounds great on it. Apparently Colonel Parker and the record company didn’t think the song was suitable due to it’s initial suggestive lyrics, but Elvis refused to give up on the song and actually rewrote the lyrics, though of the three credited songwriters Elvis is not one of them.
“I Got Stung” is basically a preview of early-60s Elvis with the cleaner production and more commercial sound, though the song is stilled rooted in 50s-style rock and roll. It’s a fun song. I like the songs around the same. “I Got Stung” could’ve been a bit longer. It finished way quicker than I wanted.
I’ve realised that if you exclude the three re-releases (and I still am not very comfortable with the fact that these songs are considered new No. 1s but whatever), Elvis would tie The Beatles in terms of No. 1 singles. I do find it interesting a British act has the most US Hot 100 No. 1s (The Beatles) and an American act has the most UK No. 1s, and the No. 2 in the UK is British and No. 2 in the US is American (Mariah Carey). I do think Taylor Swift has a strong chance of beating The Beatles record in the streaming era. I would prefer The Beatles keep the record, but I guess in the streaming era someone will eventually beat them, and I don’t see Taylor Swift beating them for a few years now.
Does the streaming era allow artists more number ones than earlier eras? I’m not sure. Someone like Taylor Swift will always have one big hit per album, or per year, but streaming has killed the idea that LPs can have 4-5 hit singles. Elvis and the Beatles churned out singles every couple of months, and often had four #1s per year. In the UK they’re still miles ahead of the nearest challengers: Ed Sheeran, Cliff Richard and Westlife (all with 14), and only one of those three has a realistic chance of increasing their total.
On One Night’s suggestive lyrics, it was originally written as One Night of Sin, which presumably had Col Parker reaching for the smelling salts. Elvis did record it though, and it ended up as a B-side to this very re-release, I believe.
I don’t know how much difference streaming makes, but the longevity of modern superstars means the records will be broken eventually. The Beatles only lasted around 7 years. Elvis died around 20 years after his career started, roughly the same time as Taylor Swift has been releasing music.
Very true. Artists are too clean-living these days, too. Very few early deaths…
Yes, for an artist with a huge fanbase, streaming absolutely does allow you to much more easily get a No. 1. It allows you debut at No. 1 easily (recently Ariane Grande, Taylor Swift, BTS, Bruno Mars, Olivia Rodrigo have debuted at No. 1) but staying on the chart you need consistent streaming and radio play to keep the song on the chart. Most No. 1s in the US since the late-2010s tend to debut at No. 1 or in the Top 5 and quickly claim the top spot. Taylor in this year alone had two songs reach No. 1 and another song was No. 1 this year carrying over from the previous year.
You also gotta factor the Hot 100 not only do they count streaming but digital downloads and physical sales which tend to count higher on the Hot 100 formula and many of Taylor’s fans buy physical copies of singles and digitally download.
Taylor Swift’s 2025 album was terrible but it sold 4 million copies in the US alone in it’s first week, setting the record for most copies sold in a single week. The fanbase will literally buy anything she puts out.
Taylor in the US had 15 No. 1s. She only needs 5 more, which is easy manageable. People foolishly thought Drake was done and he had a huge album and a US No. 1 this year.
I take your point, and Taylor Swift’s US total is way beyond her UK total (7, off the top of my head). But I think your point is more Billboard specific, and how the trend there is to debut at #1. The Hot 100 has actually increased in turnover compared to the UK.
In the UK nobody is touching Elvis or the Beatles any time soon. Ed Sheeran and Calvin Harris edged close during the 2010s, but both have ran out of steam and are finding #1s hard to come by recently. Ariana Grande and Olivia Rodrigo both had #1 debuts recently, as did Harry Styles. But the only star I would put money on as guaranteed to make #1 with any new release is Taylor Swift. At the moment. But her bubble will burst, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened with the next album or two. She’s pushing forty, and if she takes any time off now she’s married then it might be harder to come back as successfully in a few years.
yay, happy 1000!
i haven’t been here since the very beginning, i discovered the blog some time in 2023 and i’ve been reading ever since. i’ve loved watching the progression of #1 hits from then until now! as someone who isn’t from the UK, this has been an especially great place for me to find some great stuff that i hadn’t heard before. it’s so much fun reading about the huge artists and trends from a country so far away! this blog actually inspired me to start a UK chart series of my own on YouTube, one where i also started from the very beginning and have been slowly progressing forwards. i reached 1,000 subscribers a few weeks ago, and i genuinely owe it all to this blog, as i likely wouldn’t have bothered to start my channel at all if i hadn’t discovered how much fun the UK charts can be to look back at.
thank you for all your hard work, i’ve loved reading about the last 1000 and i can’t wait to read about the next 1000! cheers x
Oh thank you. Hearing this makes keeping this blog going worthwhile! Do share your Youtube channel, if you comfortable doing so!
i’m totally comfortable sharing! each of my videos covers one year of the UK charts and so far i’ve done 1955 to 2007. i upload every Monday so i should be up to date in early November!
https://youtube.com/@summerfevercharts?si=5m9eIEN4bSYXJAbs
That is very cool. Very interesting way to do it. Must take a while to make each one! And it looks like you’ve built up quite a following! Nice : ) I went straight for the year 2000 video, because I knew that would be chaotic. Any reason why you started at 1955 though, and skipped the first couple of years?
One Night…is one of the ultimate rock ballads…powerful and so strong.