Just glancing through the list of 2006’s chart-toppers, I notice that it’s a year which is pretty well stocked for well-remembered, and eclectic #1s. We’ve already had Arctic Monkeys and Madonna and, while I don’t want to give too much away, we’ve got Lily Allen, Shakira, Justin Timberlake, My Chemical Romance and a returning Take That to come. All with records that people still look back fondly on today.
And yet our next number one, which I doubt anybody nowadays can hum the chorus to, is arguably the most (in)famous of all…
No Tomorrow, by Orson (their 1st and only #1)
1 week, from 19th – 26th March 2006
For if Orson’s ‘No Tomorrow’ is remembered at all, it is not for musical reasons. It is because it recorded the lowest ever weekly sales for a number one single: 17,694 copies/downloads. It’s a freakishly low sale, almost 3,000 below the second-lowest (Elvis’s ‘One Night’ reissue, AKA the #1000th #1, at 20,463), and will presumably never be bettered, if that’s even the right word.
But I’m glad, in a way, that the lowest sales record is held by this odd little alt-pop-rock record. It could so easily have gone to a much bigger song by default, on its tenth week at number one. This is not the type of thing we hear often at #1. I’m trying to think of a good term for this genre of glossy, well-produced US rock… Frat rock? Douche rock…?
I like it though. It’s dumb, but very catchy. The lead singer looks like a moron, in a pork-pie hat and tie combination. The chorus is stupid but soaring. Did I mention it’s dumb… It’s all about living for the moment, hence the title, but it tries to get its message across with lyrics like: Tomorrow there’s no school, So let’s go drink some more Red Bull, And not get home ‘til about six o’clock…
Despite not inventing the genre, we Brits can be a little possessive over our rock ‘n’ roll. And despite inventing the genre, Americans have been resoundingly put in their place by British rock groups. Who is the biggest American rock group? Aerosmith? Bon Jovi? Linkin Park? The Beach Boys…? It’s actually surprising when you think about how weighted towards UK acts rock music, in the British singles charts especially, has been.
And yet, every so often, we allow the Americans in. Often at the most random moments… Beach Boys aside, none of the other acts I just named have a UK #1. But Los Lobos, Deep Blue Something, the Offspring, and Limp Bizkit do. To this motley crew (no number one for them either…) we can add Orson. Who were actually so much more popular in Britain, for a brief shining moment, that they decamped from their native California to base themselves in London.
Their fame didn’t last, despite both their debut single and album going to #1, and they split up in 2008 after their second LP failed to do very much. Nowadays, if they are remembered for that unenviable sales record and little else. The Top 3 for this week in 2006 were separated by just three hundred or so sales, so the record could have gone to Chico, or to Black Eyed Peas’ ‘Pump It’ (a song perhaps even dumber than this one). I’m glad it went to ‘No Tomorrow’, though, as it’s a little moment of something slightly different at number one. And in the end it hung around, and went on to be the year’s 12th highest selling single, showing that you can’t always judge a song by its one-off sales figure…
There’s no high-quality upload of the song on YouTube, so here’s the audio:
