Rock

761. ‘Don’t Speak’, by No Doubt

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Without realising it, 1997 has gotten off to a pretty rocking start. Established names like Blur, and U2, have ensured that guitars have been well-represented at the top of the charts. Carrying on the trend are a band enjoying their breakthrough smash…

Don’t Speak, by No Doubt (their 1st and only #1)

3 weeks, from 16th February – 9th March 1997

…which has gone on to become one of the decade’s best-remembered hits. ‘Don’t Speak’ is both of its time – it has that US alt-rock sound, with the post-grunge power chords, that had worked for Deep Blue Something a few months earlier. But it also has some more unusual ideas in the mix: a moody flamenco beat, and melodramatic lyrics delivered more like a showtune (You and me, I can see us dying, Aren’t we…?)

Perhaps, strangest of all, there’s a woman singing! A rock song! Any excuse not to do those dishes… I jest, of course! There have been plenty of women singing rock songs at the top of the chart, and female-fronted rock bands, like Blondie, the Pretenders, T’Pau, and…. You get my point. Gwen Stefani’s fantastic vocal performance was, I’d say, one of the main selling-points.

‘Don’t Speak’ had been around for a while – as had No Doubt, who formed in Anaheim, in 1986, and went through nearly a decade of trying to make it – in a more upbeat form. Stefani re-wrote it after breaking up with the band’s bassist Tony Kanal. The pair then took the leading roles in the video, which plays on the way the media side-lined the three other members to focus on Stefani. The band were on the verge of splitting up, allegedly, on the day they filmed it.

As good as ‘Don’t Speak’ is – and I do like it, though wouldn’t include it my pantheon of all-time nineties classics – it could be seen as a bit of a sell-out for the originally ska/punk No Doubt. The lead single from their 3rd album, the breakneck ‘Just a Girl’ had been a minor hit, and then made #3 on re-release later in 1997, and I do wish that had been the bigger smash.

Maybe it’s just the fact that the peak of their career coincides almost exactly with my formative years, but it seems very odd that this is No Doubt’s, and Gwen Stefani’s, only chart-topper. At least they managed one in the UK, with ‘Don’t Speak’ never officially being released in the US, despite a sixteen-week run on top of the airplay charts. Before we go then I should mention that, in my humble opinion, No Doubt’s grimy ‘Hella Good’, Stefani’s glorious solo debut ‘What You Waiting For?’, and her equally cool, um, ‘Cool’, all should have been number ones. No Doubt, meanwhile, recently reunited for the first time in almost a decade, and played a well-received set at Coachella.

760. ‘Discothèque’, by U2

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We come to the last of five one-week number ones, the end of a run of interesting short-stays at the top of the charts. And is this the most interesting?

Discothèque, by U2 (their 3rd of seven #1s)

1 week, from 9th – 16th February 1997

U2 do dance. Or at least, U2 incorporate dance beats, loops and lots of effects into a rock song. Sadly, the title is misleading – there’s no disco to be found here. Bono doing his best Gloria Gaynor is sadly still a pipe-dream, though at various points he does attempt a falsetto to rival the Bee Gees.

No, the ‘dance’ element is firmly nineties-dance – house beats with a techno-ish edge. But underpinning it all is a pretty cool guitar riff, which is fed through different layers of feedback as the song winds on. It is at times crunchy, chiming and, in its best incarnation, gloriously scuzzy. It means that for all Bono’s theatrics, ‘Discothèque’ is actually the Edge’s show, especially when you see his handlebar moustache in the video…

But more on that in a sec. As soon as this single was played on the radio, rock snobs may well have clutched their pearls in horror at what U2 had become. Dance beats! In a rock song! And remixes… by DJs! Pass the smelling salts… But the Prodigy and the Chemical Brothers, even Babylon Zoo, have been pushing this sound for months already, to great success. If anything the critics could have accused U2 of bandwagon jumping. But who cares if it’s not that original – it’s a fun tune. A banger that is sadly forgotten among some of U2’s bigger, more po-faced, hits.

Plus, anyone complaining about this hadn’t been listening to U2 for the better part of a decade. Large swathes of ‘Achtung Baby’ and ‘Zooropa’ had incorporated non-rock influences. Their last #1, ‘The Fly’ was well over five years earlier, but you can hear the roots of ‘Discotheque’ in it, and for most of the 1990s they had been flirting with some avant-garde stuff. So, no, this cannot claim to be the quirkiest of our recent chart-toppers – that accolade remains with White Town. Finally, what confirms this as a good song is that the band look like they’re having great fun in the video, prancing around inside a disco ball, and dressing up as The Village People.

In my posts on U2’s previous number ones, ‘The Fly’ and ‘Desire’, I may have referred to them not being my favourite band, and Bono not being my favourite frontman. But actually, their first three chart-toppers are all very good, and very different. I might even name ‘Discothèque’ as my favourite of all their #1s, if I didn’t know one of the harder-rocking ones to come. It’s definitely better than their next chart-topper, which is U2 by numbers. In fact, this, and the ‘Pop’ album, were probably the last really experimental thing that the band did. For their next LP, in 2000, they went back to the stadium rock anthems that their fanbase loves, but that always leave me a little cold.

758. ‘Beetlebum’, by Blur

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Continuing with our run of quirky number ones…

Beetlebum, by Blur (their 2nd and final #1)

1 week, from 26th January – 2nd February 1997

On the one hand, there’s nothing very quirky about Britain’s second biggest band scoring their second chart-topper, with the lead single from their highly anticipated fifth album. And yet… ‘Beetlebum’ isn’t Blur at their most accessible – a fuzzy, droning number about taking heroin. It would actually make a good pub quiz question: name Blur’s two UK number ones. Everyone remembers ‘Country House’ because of the hoo-haa around the Battle of Britpop. But I doubt many casual fans would name this one over ‘Parklife’, or ‘Song 2’.

At the time, ‘Beetlebum’ was seen as a disappointment by some, and it’s hard to imagine this now, as it effectively signalled the start of Blur MK II, the Blur we’ve known for the past two decades. But until now, most of their singles had been laddish and upbeat, delivered with a knowing wink. ‘Beetlebum’ is a much rawer beast, perhaps the first song to mark the comedown from Britpop’s highs.

Damon Albarn was at first reluctant to admit what the song was about, but lines like And when she lets me slip away… Nothing is wrong, I just slip away and I am gone… Plus a whole minute of He’s on, He’s on, He’s on it… give the game away pretty quickly. The song neither glamourises, nor demonises the drug; more gives the feel of what it is like to be under its influence. ‘Sleepy, and sexy’, according to Albarn.

I remember reading a line – though I don’t remember where – describing ‘Beetlebum’ as ‘bum Beatles’. Which is harsh, even if the comparisons to White Album/Abbey Road-era Beatles are obvious, especially in the chorus harmonies. Perhaps because of the Beatles’ influence, Noel Gallagher went on record naming this as the one Blur song he wishes he had written.

And I think nowadays, now that people have got over the disappointment of it not being ‘Girls and Boys Part II’, we can agree that ‘Beetlebum’ is a great song, and if you listen carefully you can hear that it’s as full of hooks as any of their other hits, culminating in one of the creepiest endings to a #1 single – a full minute’s worth of that droning riff, weird noises, effects and alarms, ending with one final click. It’s definitely worthy of being Blur’s ‘other’ chart-topper. Plus, I’ve always had a more personal soft spot for the record, as it was my 11th birthday number one.

They have no further chart-toppers to come, sadly. Follow-up ‘Song 2’, their biggest hit outside the UK, stalled somewhat appropriately at number two, and the lead single from their next album, ‘Tender’, will famously be held off the top by Britney Spears. Damon will be back, though, as the mastermind behind Gorillaz. Two #1s for the best Britpop band (something I’ve just decided this very second, but it feels right) is pretty paltry, so I’ll do a Blur ‘Best of the Rest’ sometime soon.

746. ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’, by Deep Blue Something

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I’ve made a big deal about British rock (‘indie’, ‘Britpop’, call it what you will) not getting its fair share of airtime at the top of the singles chart in the ‘90s. I even did a special post on it. But here’s an even rarer sighting of the US equivalent…

Breakfast at Tiffany’s, by Deep Blue Something (their 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 29th September – 6th October 1996

When I think of US alternative rock, post-grunge, in the mid-1990s, I think of REM, the Chili Peppers, Hootie & the Blowfish, and… I’m struggling, to be honest. Britain was bursting at the seams with their own alt-rock, and not many American acts broke through. Here then is US indie, alt-, college (again, call it what you will) rock’s one week in the sun. I might even go as far as suggesting that this is the first such #1 since The Highwaymen in 1961, though that might be pushing things slightly.

It’s a catchy record, with jangly verses which contrast against the power chords in the chorus. It’s a very different sound to Oasis, or Blur – there’s an earnestness to US rock that its British equivalent often deliberately avoids – but I’m sure the prevalence of Britpop benefitted this in making it to #1. And, though I was still young at the time, I can remember it being everywhere on the radio…

The most interesting thing about this record is the lyrics. Even the title intrigues… ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’? I make it only the second number one single to share its name with a book, after ‘Wuthering Heights’, but I’ll happily be proven wrong if I’ve forgotten one! It’s about a dying relationship, that the singer tries to save by thinking of one thing the pair have in common. And I said, What about, ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s? She said I, Think I, Remember the film… I think we’re meant to assume that this is enough for them to give it another go. I always thought that the next line was And as I recall, I read the book and I liked it… with the film and the book versions of ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ being pretty different and a sign of the couple’s ill-suitedness… Except it turns out that the real line is as I recall I think we both kinda liked it… Call me a cynic, but my subconscious didn’t want them to stay together.

I see a lot of hate for this song online, hate that was also around at the time. And I can kind of see it, the fact that it’s cookie-cutter mid-nineties soft rock. The lyrics could also be seen as contrived, though I think they’re endearingly clumsy. It’s certainly not worthy of #6 on the ‘50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs Ever’ list, as VH1 and ‘Blender’ named it!

Deep Blue Something were from Denton, Texas and, despite forming in 1991 this was their first hit. Their only hit in much of the world, apart from in the UK. We felt sorry for them, and allowed their follow-up ‘Josey’ to make #27, sparing them a one-hit wonder tag. They split in 2001, but reformed in 2014. The members juggle being in Deep Blue Something with other day jobs in the music industry. Apart from, that is, guitarist Clay Bergus, who is a manager of Eddie V’s Prime Seafood restaurant in Fort Worth. Which is great.

734. ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’, by Oasis

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‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ isn’t Oasis’s best song (that is a question for a different post, but it would probably be something from their debut album). ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ is, though, probably the ultimate Oasis song. Oasis at their Oasisest.

Don’t Look Back in Anger, by Oasis (their 2nd of eight #1s)

1 week, from 24th February – 3rd March 1996

They set out their stall in the opening seconds, with the piano line from ‘Imagine’ which, according to Noel, was a deliberate middle finger to those who claimed Oasis were musical copycats. It hooks you in, declaring that the next five minutes are going to be epic. In fact, every part of this song, from that intro onwards, is a hook.

You can be the type of person who jots down every little chord, lyric or guitar lick that Oasis nicked – and I am that person sometimes – or you can be someone who admires the way they managed to distil British rock history into an elite-level run of singles (and two excellent albums), who admits that when they were good, they were very good. The drum-fill before the final, soaring chorus here is, no hyperbole, one of pop music’s great moments.

‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ also features some of Noel’s more coherent lyrics. My personal favourite is the Please don’t put your life in the hands, Of a rock n roll band, Who’ll throw it all away… with the squealing guitars in between. A lot of the lines are still nonsense, but they work somehow. I assume it’s about a break-up, given all the stuff about walking on by, and not looking back. Or maybe it’s a mantra for living positively, not lingering on mistakes. Don’t go thinking that ‘Sally’ is anyone important, though. ‘It’s just a word that fit, y’know,’ says Noel. ‘Might as well throw a girl’s name in there.’

A song written and led by Noel has to beg the question: what of Liam? Well, despite having nothing to do, he spends the video mooching around the garden of a stately home in his shades, and still manages to be the star of the show. He is apparently responsible for the song’s most famous line: So Sally can wait… having misheard what Noel was really singing while writing it.

Despite what I wrote earlier, I’m going to briefly be the guy that points out the bits that Oasis nicked. I just now noticed that while everyone was distracted by the ‘Imagine’ piano in the intro, the floaty guitar in the outro is a rip-off of ‘Octopus’s Garden’. Is that common knowledge, or have I just unearthed another, previously undiscovered fossil?

‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ was the 4th single from an album that had already sold in the multi-millions, and so the fact that it made number one is testament to how truly massive Oasis were in 1996. Over the past twenty-eight (!!!) years, it has gone from a pop song to almost a hymn, or an alternate national anthem. In the wake of the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017, gathering crowds spontaneously began singing it, giving the lyrics an even more resonant feel.

Meanwhile, it has also been voted the 4th Most Popular #1 Single ever, the 2nd greatest Britpop song (after ‘Common People’), and the Greatest Song of the 1990s. (And, most importantly, the 2nd Best Song to Sing Along to While Drunk – controversially robbed of top spot in that poll by Aerosmith’s God-awful ‘I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing’.) It is also by far the best of Oasis’s eight number ones… and I hope that’s not too much of a spoiler for what’s to come!

720. ‘Some Might Say’, by Oasis

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I’m both thrilled and downhearted that we’ve reached the beginning of the Oasis era. Much like I wrote in the intro to my last post, on Take That’s ‘Back for Good’… What can I add to the three decades’ worth of column inches dedicated to Britain’s most polarising band.

Some Might Say, by Oasis (their 1st of eight #1s)

1 week, from 30th April – 7th May 1995

Basically, what to say about Oasis that isn’t cliched? I need to approach this completely subjectively, then. Which isn’t hard, because Oasis were my first big musical love (OK, second… but we’ll deal with that Spice Girls-shaped elephant in the room when the time comes…) ‘Some Might Say’ has never been among my very favourite Oasis records but, actually, this is a good thing, as far as this post is concerned. It hasn’t been overplayed to death, and I’m glad that this made #1, and not the two #2 hits that followed.

On the other hand, I’d rather their two preceding singles – ‘Whatever’, or ‘Cigarettes and Alcohol’, had been the first chart-topper. ‘Some Might Say’ has some of the vim, the punkish energy of ‘Definitely Maybe’ – I’d say it’s the song from ‘What’s the Story…’ that could most easily slip onto their debut – but signs of bloat are already appearing. After a brilliant glam riff opening, it settles into a slightly plodding, overlong rock song (why, oh why, is this five and a half minutes long?) And, despite the long-held belief that Oasis were a rejection of grunge’s misery and introspection, there are some very heavy, grungy chords in the chorus.

I had a pop at Gary Barlow’s lyrics in that last post, and I have to call Noel out here too, even if this is where I tip into well-trodden cliché. Oasis lyrics walk the line between revelatory and ridiculous. One minute you’re thinking ‘Yes, profound!’. The next you’re thinking ‘Maybe not…’ Some might say they don’t believe in heaven, Go and tell it to the man who lives in hell… is a great line. Some might say you get what you’ve been given, If you don’t get yours I won’t get mine as well… is more at the ‘maybe not’ end. (Though we can all agree that The sink is full of fishes, She’s got dirty dishes on the brain… is a lyric for the ages…)

The star here, as in many of Oasis’s early songs, is the man interpreting these words, and making them his own. Liam. The last true rock star, and one of the all-time great frontmen. A beautiful moron (‘Some Might Say’ doesn’t have a proper video because he never showed up for the shoot), his sweetly aggressive vocals attack his brother’s unwieldy lines and transform them. Just try singing this song like he does. It’s very difficult – your voice ends up straining, and cracking, and getting lost among the walls of guitar (Oasis were, thankfully, never fans of understated production.)

Like I said, I once loved Oasis – growing up male, in small town Scotland, in the late ‘90s/early ‘00s, it was all but mandatory – but it is a love that has faded. I’ve accepted that they were limited, that they did have a habit of ‘borrowing’ riffs and melodies (even now I’ll listen to a Kinks album track and hear a bit that sounds familiar…), and that they believed their own hype a little too much. And yet, they were never as bad, as unoriginal, as much a Bargain Bucket Beatles, as some critics were desperate to make out.

Anyway, I’m writing as if this was their one and only chart-topper, not as if they have seven more to come. It’s easy to forget just how phenomenally successful they were. All seven of their studio albums entered the charts at #1, while ‘Some Might Say’ was the first of eight singles in a row to make either #1 or #2, between 1995 and 2000. It might not be the perfect song to be crowned their first chart-topper – the first chart-topper of the Britpop era even – but Some might say, We will find a brighter day… is perhaps the perfect summation of the Oasis manifesto.

672. ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ / ‘These Are the Days of Our Lives’, by Queen

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On November 23rd 1991, Queen frontman Freddie Mercury released a statement announcing that he was HIV positive, and had developed AIDS, confirming years of speculation about his ailing health. Barely one day later another announcement followed: Mercury was dead, aged just forty-five.

Bohemian Rhapsody / These Are the Days of Our Lives, by Queen (their 4th of six #1s)

5 weeks, from 15th December 1991 – 19th January 1992

Which brings us to the final #1 of the year – the Christmas Number One – and the first time a song has re-topped the charts. How to deal with this? Write about ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ all over again? I’d rather not… Or just provide a link to my original post on the song, back when it was a nine-week chart-topper (and another Xmas #1) back in 1975-76? Neither seems the perfect solution… ‘Bo Rap’ may well be one of the best-loved, most innovative, outré pop songs of all time; but it has been played to death. We all know what it sounds like. Luckily, Queen twinned it with a song from ‘Innuendo’, their latest album, and gave us something else to talk about!

‘These Are the Days of Our Lives’ couldn’t be more different from its re-released partner. A lounging, glossy soft-rock tune, with a gentle Bossa nova beat. It’s not classic Queen – it sounds more like a Freddie Mercury solo record – until Brian May’s trademark guitar come chiming in towards the end. Lyrically, though, it’s the perfect swansong.

It was written by Roger Taylor, but lines like You can’t turn back the clock, You can’t turn back the tide, Ain’t that a shame… are sung ruefully by Mercury, in what many have claimed were the final vocals he ever recorded. It’s unashamedly sentimental, and usually that would have me running a mile, but when lyrics like Those days are all gone now, But one thing is true, When I look, And I find, I still love you… are sung by a dying man then they hit much harder.

The video – filmed in black and white to hide just how gaunt Mercury was – is certainly the last thing he filmed, six months before his death. Ever the showman – behold the cat waistcoat! – he asked for the closing shot to be re-filmed, in which he chuckles to himself, looks down, then whispers I still love you… Not a dry eye left in the house.

The lyrics shift from ‘those were’ the days of our lives to ‘these are…’, in a positive message, a sign that even in the shadow of death each day is a gift. Again, this is something I might balk at if it weren’t for the fact that a dying man is singing it. If he believes it then who am I to judge? Personally, I’d have liked ‘The Show Must Go On’ as the posthumous single – much more dramatic, much more Queen – but that had been released a couple of months earlier, making #16.

For sure ‘These Are the Days of Our Lives’ wouldn’t have made number one on its own, without either Mercury’s death or ‘Bo Rap’s re-release. A certain run-of-the-mill Elton John song will suffer a similar fate a few years later, caught up in another famous death, becoming one half of the highest-selling single ever in the process. ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ meanwhile added five more weeks in top spot to its original nine, becoming the third longest-running #1 ever. And this isn’t the end of the chart-topping story for either Queen or Freddie. But it is the end for 1991, one of the more interesting years for chart-topping singles, with Gregorian chants, rapping cartoon characters, sixteen-weekers, Bono in character as ‘The Fly’, Vic Reeves (because why not?), and it all ending on a farewell to the greatest frontman who ever strutted the stage.

668. ‘The Fly’, by U2

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After four months, sixteen weeks, one-hundred and twelve days… a long old time however you want to count it… something desperately needed to end Bryan Adams’ record-breaking run. Thank God for U2, then, and the lead single from their seventh album.

The Fly, by U2 (their 2nd of seven #1s)

1 week, from 27th October – 3rd November 1991

And it’s a real palate cleanser after the thick stodge served up by Bryan. ‘Achtung Baby’ was a big departure for U2, away from the new-wave rock of their early albums. Away even from ‘Rattle and Hum’, and the stripped back rock ‘n’ roll of their first #1 ‘Desire’. ‘The Fly’ was intended as an opening statement: this is where we are now.

Where they were now was distorted, industrial rock, with clear influences from the musical movement of the time: electronic dance. Everything is drenched in a murky reverb, even Bono’s half-rapped verses, and his falsetto vocals in the chorus. It must have surprised fans who’d fallen in love with ‘Pride (In the Name of Love)’, or ‘With or Without You’.

Despite this being U2, and a number one single, I don’t think I’d properly listened to ‘The Fly’ before today. It was the album’s biggest hit, but I’d say the subsequent singles – ‘One’, ‘Mysterious Ways’ and ‘Even Better Than the Real Thing’ – have left a bigger cultural mark. But I like it: it’s uncompromising, innovative, and the most ‘nineties’ number one so far. We’re almost two years into the decade, and this is first chart-topper that categorically couldn’t be mistaken for coming any earlier.

I said we needed something to kick the overblown ‘(Everything I Do)..’ out the way. And it’s funny, because U2 aren’t the first band you’d normally turn to for unpretentious rock ‘n’ roll. If you dig a little deeper into the song, you’ll find that it believes in itself every bit as much as its predecessor. It’s sung, according to Bono, by a character called ‘The Fly’, who’s in hell but who’s actually quite loving life down in the fiery pits: Look I gotta go, yeah, I’m running out of change… the song ends with… There’s a lot of things, If I could I’d rearrange…

Luckily, you can ignore the brainy stuff and lose yourself in the song’s cool groove. It rocks, whatever the message, and U2 are at their best when they rock. Luckily for this blog, many of their lead singles, and therefore their number ones, do instantly leap from the speakers. Oasis were good at this, too: picking for a lead single not the best song on an album, but the one that made the most noise and the biggest statement. Yes we’re back, ‘The Fly’ seems to say, and we’re the biggest band on the goddamn planet!

This record is very modern in another way, too. Since the mid-eighties, guitar-led music has lost its place as the driving force in pop. Rock bands now can often only make #1 with a lead single, such as this, propelled to number one thanks to their fanbase (see also Queen’s ‘Innuendo’, and Iron Maiden’s ‘Bring Your Daughter…’) Rock has made a comeback of sorts in the 1990s, but under limited terms. Never again will it be the default sound of the charts.

661. ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’, by The Clash

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Last week, in a recap of the past thirty chart toppers, I made a lot of just how eccentrically the charts have been behaving over the past year or two. And happily, they show no signs of becoming predictable quite yet…

Should I Stay or Should I Go, by The Clash (their 1st and only #1)

2 weeks, from 3rd – 17th March 1991

For yes, we must sound the ‘random re-release’ klaxon one more time: The Clash score their sole UK #1. And once again, as with ‘The Joker’, it’s Levi’s Jeans we have to thank for giving this classic tune a new lease of life (the ad team knew how to pick them!)

We open with a nonchalantly cool intro. Two guitars have a little call-and-response, before a bass guitar so jagged it almost rips your speakers in two. It’s a simple riff, so easy and familiar that my immediate response is to dredge the memory banks to recall if it’s a cover version. It isn’t, but Mick Jones based it, knowingly or otherwise, on ‘Little Latin Lupe Lu’, a sixties garage-band classic.

The whole thing is loveably ramshackle, and a world away from the polished dance hits that have been the sound of the early 1990s. The guitars crackle, Joe Strummer sneers, and the band holler and screech the backing vocals in Spanish. The main lyrics meanwhile, tell the story of a toxic relationship: It’s always tease, tease, tease, You’re happy when I’m on my knees… and the chaotic ‘chorus’, such as it is, does its best to portray the frenzy of a conflicted mind.

The singer’s happy to remain, no matter the torture doled out, but by the end of the song we’re left none the wiser over whether he stays or goes. (I struggle to see how this helped to advertise jeans, but who am I to question…?) I’d call this record pretty poppy for The Clash, as well as assuming it was one of their early singles. But it was the 3rd release from their 1982 album ‘Combat Rock’, making #17 at the time. And despite coming five years after the band’s sixth and final studio album, this re-release was their first Top 10 hit, let alone their first number one.

Over the past few months, rock music has started to creep back in to the upper reaches of the charts (hurray!) If we start with ‘The Joker’s classic rock, then five of the past twelve #1s have been rock of one kind or another: indie rock (The Beautiful South), heavy metal (Iron Maiden), progressive rock (Queen) and now this. Is ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’ more classic rock? Or is it garage? Or is it our first real punk rock #1, a decade and a half too late…? Or should we simply not care, and just revel in proper rock ‘n’ roll enjoying its new-found moment in the sun?

658. ‘Innuendo’, by Queen

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It feels like a trick pub-quiz question: which number one hit by Queen is over six minutes long, composed of several sections, in several genres…?

Innuendo, by Queen (their 3rd of six #1s)

1 week, from 20th – 27th January 1991

‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ everyone will shout, and everyone will be wrong. (For Bo Rap isn’t quite over six minutes long…) No, ‘Innuendo’ is Queen’s true forgotten epic. And what an epic. It starts off brooding, and ominous, reminiscent of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Kashmir’, with apocalyptic lyrics such as: While there’s a wind and the stars and the rainbow, ‘Til the mountains crumble into the plain… Freddie bemoans mankind’s inability to live in harmony, and its insistence on dividing people by race, religion and creed.

Then come the flamenco guitars, which to my untrained ears sounds like some serious musicianship (it was played by Brian May and Steve Howe of Yes), and a bridge that sounds like a cross between the monkish chants used by Enigma, and a Disney theme. After all that, it’s hard not punch the air when a trademark Brian May guitar solo comes swooping in, saving this monster from disappearing up its own arse.

It ends as it began, ominously stomping its way to the end of time. It’s hard not to read this as Freddie coming to grips with his impending death, when he asks: If there’s a God or any kind of justice under the sky, If there’s a point, If there’s a reason to live or die. He knew that this was the last album Queen would release in his lifetime, and so the line Through our sorrow, All through our splendour, Don’t take offence at my innuendo… almost becomes a farewell to Queen’s fans and detractors alike.

Ultimately, though, it ends on a positive note: Yes, we’ll keep on trying…And that line is the moment in this bizarre epic that sounds like classic Queen. Otherwise, it’s one of the weirdest #1 singles ever, in an era of increasingly weird #1s. And it’s amazing to think that it’s only Queen’s 3rd UK chart-topper, after ‘Under Pressure’ and the aforementioned ‘other’ epic’. Just think of the classic Queen hits, the ‘Radio Gaga’s and the ‘Another One Bites the Dust’s, that didn’t make it while this beast (described beautifully by one journalist at the time as ‘seductively monstrous’) did.

It’s unfair to compare this record to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, though it’s perhaps inevitable. Bo Rap was the sound of a band in their infancy, four young men going wild simply because they could, because nobody had told them not to, and there’s a great joie de vivre throughout that song (and I say that as someone who would happily never hear it again). ‘Innuendo’ is far darker and much less optimistic, four middle aged men, one of whom was terminally ill, pledging to ‘keep on trying’ despite the odds being stacked against them, and against mankind.

As a teen, I had Queen’s three-disc Greatest Hits. I usually skipped ‘Innuendo’ in favour of the earlier hits (in fact, I think it was on Disc 3, which I barely bothered playing). But writing this post has given me an appreciation of this dark, strange record. The fact that it was a #1 hit is amazing – down to a combination of low January sales and Queen’s dedicated fanbase – but I’m glad it was. The band will be back before the end of the year, for their fourth #1, under predictably sad circumstances.