Welcome back to our semi-regular feature, in which we explore a day in music history via the medium of number one records.

This time we’re keeping it simple. No births, deaths or marriages. Just four records that were sitting on top of the UK charts on this date in history, with links to my original posts for those who might have missed these song first time around. Let’s start back in the middle of the swinging sixties…

Beginning a fortnight on top on this day in 1966, it’s The Troggs with their sole British chart-topper. In a decade in which guitar was king, ‘With a Girl Like You’ was still noticeable for being even rougher and readier than most rock singles at the time. The first, and perhaps only, true garage rock #1? Quite possibly. The production is fuzzy, the riff simple, and the hook a catchy bababambam-ba.

This is far from being the Trogg’s best-known single, and asking the average person to name their only chart-topper would make a good pub quiz question. Most people might nominate ‘Wild Thing’ (which was coincidentally sitting at #1 on the Billboard 100 on the same day), or ‘Love is All Around’, two songs made famous in cover versions. More on that to come…

Starting its third and final week at #1 on this day in 1974, it’s George McCrae’s ‘Rock Your Baby’. Ushering in probably the sound of the late seventies, this is commonly seen as one of the first disco hits. It is certainly the first disco chart-topper. And it still sounds impossibly smooth, and groovy, fifty-two years on. Perfect for a summer’s day by the pool…

Hitting its second of four weeks at #1 on this day in 1985: Madonna’s first UK #1, ‘Into the Groove’. Despite her popularity at the time, I’m not sure many would have predicted that she’d go on to have twelve further chart-toppers spread over twenty-three years. Or that she would have scored her thirteenth UK #1 album just a couple of weeks ago, with ‘Confessions II’, aged sixty-seven. Despite personally preferring Dusty, or Kylie, or Gaga, I can’t think of an argument in which one can claim that Madonna isn’t the ultimate female pop star.

So yes, here is the Troggs hit that presumably everyone has heard. It had to wait almost thirty years to make number one, in this Wet Wet Wet cover version from the soundtrack to ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’, but presumably set Reg Presley up with a healthy pension for the rest of his life.

‘Love Is All Around’ certainly made up for lost time, becoming the longest-running #1 by a British act (a title that it only just relinquished this year, to ‘Rein Me In’, though it still holds the record for longest consecutive run at number one by a British act). On August 4th 1994 it was in its tenth of fifteen weeks on top. I am just a little too young to remember it, but it must have felt that love was indeed all around, and never off the radio, that summer…

Hope you enjoyed this little reflective interlude. Back with the main action in a couple of days!