Two huge girl group number ones in a row. And after Pussycat Dolls’ ballsy and bouncy ‘Don’t Cha’, the Sugababes go for something similarly seductive.
Push the Button, by Sugababes (their 4th of six #1s)
3 weeks, from 2nd – 23rd October 2005
And in doing so, they come up with a really, really good tune. ‘Push the Button’ is a modern girl group classic. The rising chord progression, the semi-melancholy, yearning upward motion of it. It feels like a three and a half minute key change, especially in the bridge. After waiting patiently for him to come and get it, He came on through and asked me if I wanted to get with it… (Note that our British girls have been waiting demurely, unlike those hussies in the Pussycat Dolls… How obvious should a girl be? they ask in the first verse, making the record actually quite an astute commentary on straight dating culture.)
Then comes the chorus, and an extra chugging bass synth, and before you realise it you’re listening to one of the decade’s – nay, the 21st century’s – best pop songs. All three of Sugababes’ previous chart-toppers have been good to great, but ‘Push the Button’ tops them all with its catchy simplicity. For it is simple. The lyrics are basic, the production nothing fancy, the video with the girls dancing in a lift is predictable… But it has layers, little touches of sound and some really nice harmonising, that lift it up. Plus it has a spoken-word section, done in the same key-changing style, which is always a welcome addition to a song.
I joke about how brazen the Pussycat Dolls were, and if they weren’t back-to-back #1s then we probably wouldn’t be comparing the two. But really, this song is just as saucy. It’s just much more British. Mutya delivers the line My sexy ass has got him in a new dimension… in a way that is equal parts understated and silly. Nicole Scherzinger would have squeezed the life out of that lyric. Even the song’s title could be seen as a good old-fashioned, end of the pier double entendre.
And my US vs UK comparison can be taken further, when we note that despite ‘Push the Button’ being a huge hit around the world, a Top 10 from Hungary to Australia and everywhere in between, it did not chart in the USA. In fact, Sugababes solitary appearance on the Hot 100 was for ‘Hole in the Head’, which made the heady heights of #96. Oh, America.
Having mentioned Mutya Beuno earlier, we should also mention that this was her final Sugababes’ single for some fifteen years, as she left the group that December to be replaced by Amelle Berrabah. Keisha Buchanan was left as the only remaining original Sugababe, and this line-up will see out their chart-topping careers over the next couple of years.
Don’t Cha, by The Pussycat Dolls (their 1st of two #1s) ft. Busta Rhymes (his 1st and only #1)
3 weeks, from 11th September – 2nd October 2005
Here though come the Yanks. Not to suggest that the States have no girl group pedigree, of course. The Supremes, Ronettes, Shangri Las all say hello. But even the sassy Shangri Las would have blushed at something as strident as ‘Don’t Cha’. The Pussycat Dolls are very much a new, 21st century version of the all-American girl group.
Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me, Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me…? I mean, British girls would never be so brazenly forward (cough cough). But it was definitely a chat-up line that embedded itself in the zeitgeist for a while. The rest of the song is similarly sultry, with raunchy horns, an X-rated rap from Busta Rhymes, and lines about black and blue balls, and sharing partners. It was released in three versions: a kid friendly edit (without Busta), the original, and a ‘more booty’ mix.
In fact, the entire song is slower and more seductive than I remembered. I thought it was faster, poppier; but in reality it has a swing beat, and a Latin-inflected guitar line. This is much more in keeping with the Dolls’ pre-chart history. At the time, the one thing everyone had to say about PCD is that they were strippers. They themselves liked to call it ‘neo-burlesque’, but you can definitely imagine someone slowly removing their clothing to the rhythm and tempo of ‘Don’t Cha’.
They had been around since the mid-‘90s, but it wasn’t until 2004 that they tried to move into pop music. And they were a near instant success. ‘Don’t Cha’ was huge, unavoidable that autumn. But, at the same time, though they had a few years of decent success, and one more #1, PCD never turned into the chart force that their debut hinted at.
Their lead singer, Nicole Scherzinger, on the other hand did become a household name. Even at this early moment it was a bit of a Diana Ross situation, and they might as well have been named Nicole & The Pussycat Dolls. She has the chops for it, and sells every line in a manner so extravagantly sexy that it actually sounds quite funny. Burlesque, even. Listen to the way she rolls her tongue around every syllable of the Your secret is safe with me… line, for example.
For rapper Busta Rhymes meanwhile, this would be the only chart-topper of a career that was surprisingly more successful in the UK than in the States. This was his 9th Top 10 hit since debuting in 1996, and he would continue to have British chart success well into the 2010s.
Anyway, as enjoyable as this track is, though it is a little try-hard, up next we have some British ladies showing these American upstarts how to do a proper girl group banger.
Ten years on from the Battle of Britpop, and Oasis are knocked off the top by one quarter of Blur…
Dare, by Gorillaz (their 1st and only #1)
1 week, from 4th – 11th September 2005
Gorillaz were the ‘band’ that Damon Albarn had formed in 1998, and had run concurrently with the day job until Blur went on hiatus in 2003. I say band in inverted commas, because they were completely virtual. Albarn took care of the musical side of things, while artist Jamie Hewlett took care of the visuals and designed the band’s members: 2-D, Noodle, Murdoc, and Russel Hobbs. (I believe this makes them the 5th animated act to top the charts, after The Archies, Jive Bunny, The Simpsons, and Bob the Builder.)
Reading that paragraph back, you can imagine what the Gallagher brothers made of all this arty silliness. It would have been quite funny if ‘Dare’ had been released a week earlier and had held ‘The Importance of Being Idle’ off number one, though by 2017 relations had mellowed enough for Noel to duet with Gorillaz. Anyway, even if proper rock groups would have turned their noses up at an animated alt-rock, art pop, trip-hop group, at Number Ones Blog we’ll do no such thing. For ‘Dare’ is a great track.
For a start, it’s a lot more upbeat and faster paced than many Gorillaz tracks, being both danceable and yet slightly melancholy. It’s got a filthy bassline, and a kooky beat that reminds me in places of White Town’s leftfield classic ‘Your Woman’. Then there’s the contrast between Noodle’s falsetto (provided by guest singer Roses Gabor, not Albarn as I’d always assumed) and Shaun Ryder’s more, shall we say, dulcet tones. It’s not quite pop, not quite dance, not quite a straight forward electronic song. It’s… dare.
Legend has it that the song was originally titled ‘It’s There’, but Ryder’s thick Mancunian accent prevented him from saying the word properly. Shaun himself has denied this, saying that it was because he’s dyslexic, and in text messages always writes ‘there’ as ‘der’. Either way, he’s the star of the show, both in his ranting vocals and in the horror movie inspired video, where he sings the song as a disembodied head. (All I can think of when I see it is Krang from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles…) Though uncredited on both, Ryder gets his second number one appearance of the year, after he’d been one of the many celebs marching with Peter Kay on ‘Amarillo’. It was something of a swansong for him, as his biggest chart hits had come fifteen years earlier with the Happy Mondays.
I loved ‘Dare’ at the time, was very happy a song as odd as this had made #1, and am glad that it still sounds enjoyably weird all these years later. It was definitely a shadow number one though, coming on the back of the much more popular #2 ‘Feel Good Inc.’ In fact, not many would be able to name this as Gorillaz’s biggest chart hit, and would probably go for ‘Clint Eastwood’, their 2001 debut.
Once again I have to try to separate nostalgia from cold, hard fact but… Despite the misty eyed memories I have of the autumn of 2005, as I started my third year at university and fast approached twenty, I do think that with Oasis and now Gorillaz, we’ve hit a rich seam of chart-toppers, and the quality will keep up for much of the rest of the year.
Here it is, then. The McFly number one that I’m not so keen on…
I’ll Be OK, by McFly (their 4th of seven #1s)
1 week, from 21st – 28th August 2005
But woah! Hold on. It’s not bad. It’s slightly heavier than anything from their debut album, and more adult in content. It’s a musical pep talk, an encouragement that however difficult life may be, you’ll be okay. Perhaps this was a sign that the sudden catapulting to Britain’s biggest pop act status had been tough on what was still a group of teenage boys. Keen McFly watchers will note that it’s their first #1 where Danny has taken lead vocals, which means they were definitely going for something heavier.
The musical references are more grown up too, with lots of classic rock touches, from the chiming U2 intro, to the Beatlesy guitar licks, and some seventies-Who synth lines in the middle eight. It actually is, in songwriting terms, a good piece of music. I particularly like the little bridge before the second verse, and the drum fill on the try a little harder… in the final verse. It’s attention to detail like this that elevates McFly from boyband to proper band.
So why don’t I like it that much? Well first I must admit that I am liking it more now, listening to it intently for this post. It’s a very solid pop-rock song. But it’s McFly trying to sound like someone else. When writing on ‘All About You’, I mentioned that their second album ‘Wonderland’ – from which ‘I’ll Be OK’ was the lead single proper – is my least favourite of all their LPs. Because they seemed to be trying too hard to prove themselves as proper musicians, cramming their songs with references from the greats, and worthy lyrics about depression (this song), midlife crises (‘The Ballad of Paul K’) and teen suicide (‘She Falls Asleep’, the first part of which is fully orchestral).
Having said all that, looking at the album’s track list now, I’m also remembering that the three subsequent singles were all great, and were all Top 10 hits (especially the rocking ‘I Wanna Hold You’, all about a final shag before the end of the world). Plus it has one of their all-time great album tracks, the emo ‘Too Close for Comfort’.
So, there it was. The McFly song I’m not too keen, but that is still a fine record. From my least favourite of their albums, which is apparently still packed with great tunes. Maybe I’m just fussy…
My reflex reaction to this next number one is to wince and think ‘Oh God, no…’
You’re Beautiful, by James Blunt (his 1st and only #1)
5 weeks, from 17th July – 21st August 2005
Such a kicking has this song, and its singer, taken in the public imagination. It is an uncool song – I’ve always viewed it as a ‘Lady in Red’ for the 21st century – by an uncool (and rather posh) singer-songwriter. It is the softest of soft rock. It is middle-class mum rock. It is music for people who don’t actually like music…
But is any of that really fair? Once I get over myself, can I enjoy ‘You’re Beautiful’? Let’s see. The languorous acoustic guitar riff is on-hold muzak. James Blunt’s voice is reedy (and, yes, very posh), and the way he trills the title line is highly annoying. The lyrics are creepy, all about stalking a girl on the underground… She smiled at me on the subway, She was with another man, But I won’t lose, Won’t sleep all night, ‘Cause I’ve got a plan… And in the second verse there is the most incongruous example of swearing in a number one single, ever. Why did he have to be fucking high? It’s so out of place in a song this gentle, that it’s either terrible writing, or a terribly misguided attempt to add some ‘edge’, or both.
So, yes. Or I mean, no. This is crap. Still. It was crap then, and it is crap now. Bland, limp, lifeless sludge with lyrics that either creep you out, or that don’t make sense. I do think that the melody is nice, and that with different words, different production, and a different singer, this could be a decent song. But that it is a lot of ‘differents’… And then Blunt went and followed this up with the even drippier, and even more annoying, ‘Goodbye My Lover’.
But, here’s the thing. I really like James Blunt. He comes across as a down-to-earth, engaging person. He’s an ex-Army captain, who saw active duty in Kosovo, and seems to have his singing career fully in perspective. Once he’d made millions from this song, and the accompanying ‘Back to Bedlam’ album, he moved to Ibiza and started dating supermodels. He is well aware of his luck, and forms part of an interesting phenomenon involving British artists who record generally dull music but who are funny, engaging, and down to earth when not singing (see also Adele and Lewis Capaldi).
Plus we do have to recognise that Blunt almost completely redeemed himself for inflicting ‘You’re Beautiful’ on us, by releasing the wonderful ‘1973’ a couple of years later. Since then he has only had one further UK Top 10, and that’s probably for the best, but I wish him nothing but happiness.
One final thing to mention about ‘You’re Beautiful’, and one of the reasons why it felt like it hung around for forever and a day, is its six week climb to #1. It was the slowest ascent to the top for over six years (since Steps’ ‘Tragedy’), and a sign that download sales – introduced three months or so earlier – were changing the way that the charts moved. During the remainder of the 2000s, records climbing to number one became much more common, in a huge shift from the ‘airplay for months then enter at the top’ days of the previous decade.
The intro to our next number one poses a pertinent question. Wha-wha-what’s going on…?
Axel F, by Crazy Frog (its 1st and only #1)
4 weeks, from 29th May – 26th June 2005
Well, quite. At least the answer comes promptly… This is the crazy frog!
Yes, the animated ‘frog’ (it looks nothing like a frog!) that started life as a seventeen-year-old boy impersonating a motorcycle engine, became a sound effect, then a ringtone, then a huge chart-topping artiste. Ding ding!
It’s hard to imagine now, in a world where everyone has their phone on silent, but ringtones were a huge deal back in the mid ‘00s. And for some reason they had to be as annoying as possible. And we paid good money for them. It really was bizarre. In the early days they were basic monotones (with which you really had to take a leap of faith that they sounded like the intended song), then polytones (with layered melodies), and then realtones. Crazy Frog, AKA The Annoying Thing (that’s not just my opinion – it’s what his creator called him), was born from this world. Ding ding!
He came with two controversies. One was that his company Jamster were saturating TV advertising breaks with his nonsense. In May 2005, apparently 87% of the British population saw a Crazy Frog advert an average of twenty-six times. The other was that he had a small but clearly visible penis and scrotum, which some claimed was inappropriate for children. Ding… dong!
Perhaps inevitably, and thoroughly unhampered by these controversies, the cash-in single came along. It had Crazy Frog bababaabababaaba-ing and ringdingding-ing to the classic ‘Beverley Hills Cop’ theme, originally by Harold Faltermeyer, which had been a #2 hit in 1985. Of all the songs he could have desecrated, this was probably a good choice. It somehow, almost, works… The Frog’s garbled engine noises manage to fit around a sped-up version of the iconic synth riff. Of course, it’s insanely annoying. That goes without saying. But it also, I will admit, kind of exists capably as a song. Ding ding!
My problem here is not with Crazy Frog, or with novelty singles in general. One thousand and twelve number ones in, we’ve seen our fair share of silly songs. And I think Crazy Frog deserves a place up with there with the legendarily crap chart-toppers, like ‘Shaddap You Face’, ‘Star Trekkin’’ and ‘Mr. Blobby’. Not only was it era defining, and successful (four weeks on top, third best-selling single of the year, number one in thirteen countries around the world), but it claimed a huge scalp in keeping an established, real band off top spot. Crazy Frog released in the same week as Coldplay’s ‘Speed of Sound’, and outsold it by four copies to one… Ding ding!
No, my problem is with the fact that this did not end at ‘Axel F’. All the most heinous of novelties – your Blobbys, your St. Winifred’s kiddies, your Teletubbies – had the good grace to remain largely one-hit wonders. Crazy Frog dragged this out for four more Top 20 hits, and three full-length albums! Who in the name of God was sitting through entire albums of this garbage?! Not until 2009 was the Frog retired by its creators. And then in 2020 he was resurrected. Yes, right at the height of Covid, someone thought ‘You know what the world needs now? The Crazy Frog’.
So… You should know by now that the charts don’t follow the rules. That they don’t play fair. That they don’t bend for tastes and trends. That they only respond to cold, hard sales (or, nowadays, streams). So it is that the longest-running #1 of the ‘00s so far, and the 4th highest-seller of the entire decade, is a re-released #18 hit from 1971.
(Is This the Way To) Amarillo, by Tony Christie (his 1st and only #1) ft. Peter Kay (his 1st of two #1s)
7 weeks, from 20th March – 8th May 2005
Back in 2005, I don’t think I’d ever heard ‘(Is This the Way To) Amarillo’, but it felt familiar. In that sense, it was probably a good choice for this project. Known enough to evoke nostalgia in the middle-aged, and insistently silly enough for us young ‘uns who were fresh to it. I’m not sure that this reason alone should add up to colossal sales, and seven weeks at the top, but perhaps that can be explained by the charity factor, and the involvement of the immensely popular Peter Kay. He had used the song in a 2002 episode of his sitcom ‘Phoenix Nights’, and the feel of it fits in perfectly with his old-school, working men’s club schtick.
I was never quite taken with the song, though. And I’m not just saying that retrospectively; it annoyed me with all its sha-la-la-las and perky horns. (This is me speaking as someone who is not usually put off by sha-la-la-las and perky horns.) Plus, it seriously did overstay its welcome. Maybe it’s because I was an avid chart-watcher at the time – and despite modern chart-runs making this one look positively brief – but I felt every moment of its forty-nine days at number one. Or maybe I was just annoyed that it kicked McFly prematurely off top.
Tony Christie was a crooner in the Tony Orlando, Tom Jones sort of mould, and had scored a #2 in the early ‘70s with ‘I Did What I Did for Maria’, about a condemned man who had blah blah blah you can guess the rest. He hadn’t been near the singles charts for thirty years, except for a bizarre cameo on electronic-indie act The All Seeing I’s 1999, Jarvis Cocker-penned #10 hit ‘Walk Like a Panther’. Despite the ‘ft.’ credit, this was not a remix, or a re-recording. How or why Peter Kay got a credit, when Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake have sung actual verses and choruses on recent chart-toppers without mention, I do not know.
The video was all Kay’s work, though, in which he marches to the song’s oompah beat alongside some particularly British celebrities. Parky, Ronnie Corbett, Tracy and Ken Barlow, Keith Harris and Orville, Sooty and Sweep, and more. Plus some slightly more dubious appearances from a football team with dwarfism, a Mahatma Ghandi lookalike who may or not have really been Indian, and a cigar-toting, shiny tracksuit wearing DJ and TV presenter who has been erased from more recent edits… It may only be twenty-one years old, but watching the video reminds you that the past really is a foreign country.
(If we follow the rule that says Peter Kay can get his name on a #1 single for mugging his way through the video, we should also be awarding a second chart-topper to Mr Blobby, a fifth to Shakin’ Stevens, and a seventh to Queen’s Brian May and Roger Taylor. And a first but by no means last number one of the year for Shaun Ryder.)
Peter Kay is the king of the strange credit on number one singles. He doesn’t sing on his one other official chart-topper (another charity effort coming up in 2009) but contributes vocals to a 2007 #1 in character, though he’s not credited as Peter Kay. All very complicated. Suffice to say, of the three number ones he’s been involved in, ‘Amarillo’ is the best. Make of that what you will.
This also gave Christie a brief chart renaissance, with a rerelease of his 1972 hit ‘Avenues and Alleyways’ making #26, eleven places higher than it had originally charted. He also returned to the Top 10 the following summer with ‘(Is This the Way To) The World Cup’, a classic example of why other parts of the UK take such pleasure in England not winning things…
A final thing to note is that one of the biggest ever changes to chart rules occurred right in the middle of this record’s run at the top: the incorporation of download sales. Not that it made a huge impact, as only songs with a current physical release had their downloads counted, and ‘Amarillo’s run at the top continued unabated. Nor did it mean a huge improvement in sales in general, with chart-topping singles still regularly struggling to sell more than 30,000 in a week for the next several years.
*Just a note to say that I’ll be slowing down the number of posts over the next month, as I will be travelling. I may take a while replying to comments as well. We should be back up to speed by mid September*
A shorter, sex-offender free version of the video:
The 2005 original video, if you don’t mind you-know-who…
And so we arrive at the ultimate love song. The song I will have played at my wedding…
All About You / You’ve Got a Friend, by McFly (their 3rd of seven #1s)
1 week, from 13th – 20th March 2005
Two slight caveats here: you must always allow me room for hyperbole when it comes to McFly, and I have little-to-no plans to ever get married. But still, I do think that ‘All About You’ is a lovely song.
First we have to skip the cheesy harps and strings intro, and imagine they’re being delivered with a knowing wink. Skip straight to the harmonies in the first chorus, and the pretty verses, with their timeless melodies. It is hard to write timeless, hard to write a song that sounds like it might always have existed.
The acoustic guitar solo is more of its time – though that ‘time’ would be a soft-rock song from the eighties – and the second bridge and chorus, when the band finally come in, is pure power-pop. Okay the lyrics are trite – Dancing on the kitchen tiles, Yes you made my life worthwhile, So I told you with a smile… – but eighteen year olds can get away with trite.
McFly songs provide a real chicken vs egg scenario for me. Do I blindly argue their brilliance because I think McFly are a truly underrated band; or are songs like ‘All About You’ truly great and deserve to have me arguing for them? I’ve been a McFly fan for so long now that I can’t judge this clearly.
Actually that’s a lie. The other side of this double-‘A’ will give me a chance to appraise McFly impartially. Since this was the official Red Nose Day single for 2005, the suits presumably needed a song with more of a message (and a music video in which the band could run around with lots of Ugandan orphans…) So they chose Carole King’s classic ‘You’ve Got a Friend’.
It is on the one hand completely unnecessary. It does not improve in any way on King’s original, or on James Taylor’s definitive cover. And I really don’t like all the woodwind. (See, I can write something bad about McFly.) But Tom’s voice sounds nice on the first verse. Plus, I sang this in my primary school choir, and it really does have one of the most heart-string tugging choruses in all of pop history.
The flutes, and the full-blown orchestra in the background of ‘All About You’, bring up one of the reasons why McFly’s second album, ‘Wonderland’, is my least favourite. They threw the kitchen sink at it, production-wise, with string sections and three-part rock operas about teen suicide. I think it was an attempt to prove themselves, to show that they weren’t just a boyband; but it led to bloat, and some boringly worthy music. By their third album, they seemed to have shaken that monkey off their back, and returned to making great pop-rock.
As this was the official Red Nose Day single, it opened with McFly’s highest ever weekly sale. It also meant this record didn’t have the massive second week collapse that they would become synonymous with. And yet, ‘All About You’ was still eclipsed by the unofficial Red Nose Day single, which brought about one of the biggest, and unlikeliest, hits of the entire decade, and which is up next.
(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…
I’m bringing this latest recap forward by one, so we can extend the big 1000th number one festivities. After the announcement of the latest Very Best #1, we’ll have a poll to decide the Very, Very Best (and very, very worst) #1s up to now. And then special some guest posts!
This is also a landmark recap in itself, as it is the thirtieth time I’ve published one of these posts, in which I pause and reflect on what the past thirty (or more recently, fifty) chart-toppers can tell us about the state of popular music at the time. What conclusions, then, can we draw from the singles that topped the British charts between March 2003 and January 2005?
Two main genres jump out at me. And they are sub-genres that I have largely made up. There’s tacky dance, that genre of mid-‘00s dance in which an old tune gets tarted up and remixed with a basic dance beat. The beat might be disco-ish, or trance-y, but it is always cheap, and tacky. Think LMC’s ‘Take Me to the Clouds Above’, or Shapeshifters’ ‘Lola’s Theme’, or the daddy of them all: Eric Prydz’s ‘Call on Me’. Even Elton John wasn’t beneath it, with his ‘Are You Ready for Love?’ redo. And while they may have been tacky, they were largely always catchy. And decent, even. I do have a lot of time for Room 5’s ‘Make Luv’, for one.
The other sub-genre has been less palatable, for me at least. It’s that slick and gloopy US hip-hop&B, with which American rappers and R&B stars belatedly started to score big British hits. It had been the dominant sound on the Billboard charts since the mid-nineties, but for some reason it really took off in Britain around 2004. Think Usher’s ‘Burn’, Mario Winan’s ‘I Don’t Wanna Know’, and Ja Rule’s ‘Wonderful’. One theory I have is that with single sales falling, and with these artists tending to be on big labels, they had the marketing clout to fill the gaps and take advantage of the slump.
Again, though, I didn’t dislike all such records. Nelly’s ‘My Place’ and ‘Flap Your Wings’ double-A was fun, and dare we still claim R. Kelly’s remix to ‘Ignition’ as a classic? Meanwhile this period’s biggest hit – Black Eyed Peas’ ‘Where Is the Love?’ – still has a lot of charm to it.
One other ‘genre’ needs mentioning, and it’s one that we’re starting to have to live with. Reality TV stars and talent show winners. It hasn’t felt as egregious this time around, but we’ve still met Pop Idol 2 winner Michelle (a song I did kind of enjoy), and her runners-up Sam & Mark. The X Factor-age began with a whimper from Steve Brookstein, original Pop Idol Will Young bowed out with the impressive ‘Leave Right Now’, while the greatest of all TV contest winners Girls Aloud finally managed a second #1 with a so-so cover of ‘I’ll Stand By You’. Meanwhile, non-singing reality TV accounted for the unexpected return of Peter Andre, and the even more unexpected appearance of Ozzy Osbourne on a chart-topping single.
That leads us to a more niche phenomenon that’s been seen over the past forty-nine number ones: old men. Elton, Ozzy, Oliver Cheatham (with Room 5), Steve Winwood (‘Call on Me’), and most recently Elvis, have all featured on #1 singles while well over the age of fifty. Or while dead.
I’ve hinted at it in an earlier paragraph, but we do need to reckon with just how low single sales fell during this era of the charts. From the latter-half of 2004, the record for the lowest sales for a #1 single has been broken twice, falling as low as 21,262 copies sold by the 999th #1, the re-issue of Elvis’s ‘Jailhouse Rock’. The incorporation of downloads into the charts is not far off, but I will argue that sales being in the doldrums has led to some interesting chart-toppers. I’m not sure if Kylie’s ‘Slow’, or Robbie’s ‘Radio’, or Tomcraft’s ‘Loneliness’ would have troubled the top of the charts in a more robust sales environment.
Before the awards, a shout-out to the most successful act of the past forty-nine… Busted, whose four chart-toppers have all come in this period. They brought rock, of sorts, back to the top of the charts, and paved the way for McFly to carry the torch to far greater heights…
To the awards, then. Starting as usual with the The ‘Meh’ Award for forgettability. All that hip-hop&B has given us plenty of dull chart-toppers, the two most egregious being ‘Burn’ and ‘I Don’t Wanna Know’. There’s also the easy target of Steve Brookstein’s plodding version of ‘Against All Odds’. But I’m going to go with a man who inflicted brain-melting dullness on us not once, but twice. I let Daniel Bedingfield away with ‘If You’re Not the One’ last time, but then he went and repeated the trick. My winner is his third and final #1, the snoozefest ‘Never Gonna Leave Your Side’. Yawn.
The WTAF Award for being interesting if nothing else also has a few ripe contenders this time. The double-hander of veteran US MCs Fatman Scoop and DJ Casper, and their eclectic hits ‘Be Faithful’ and ‘Cha Cha Slide’. The bizarre Xmas #1 ‘Mad World’, which I have just about forgiven for blocking The Darkness from the top. The fact that Ozzy Osbourne came anywhere near a chart-topping single… I think it has to go to Fatman Scoop’s slice of shouty nonsense though, if only for the nostalgia of remembering that I bought a copy and contributed to its surprise success.
For the thirtieth Very Worst Chart-Topper I did briefly think of giving it to Eminem, a man who I named as a Very Best Chart-Topper not long ago, for the stunning fall from grace that was ‘Just Lose It’. But no. Towering over everything, and this recap’s clear winner, is the God-awful ‘Fuck It (I Don’t Want You Back)’ by Eamon. He unleashed ‘ho-wop’ on the world, and the world briefly lapped it up. Shame on us. You may be thinking why Eamon and not his ‘ex-girlfriend’, Frankee? ‘F.U.R.B’ though is a significantly better record, if only for the line about not catching his crabs.
Finally, to the main event. Our latest Very Best Chart-Topper. Surprisingly, given that I usually wing this decision as I write, I have a clear Top 3 this time. In the bronze medal position, it is Tomcraft’s ‘Loneliness’, a dark trance banger, and the only non-tacky dance #1 of recent times. Proof that this blog has finally converted me to dance music! In 2nd, for the second time: Miss Britney Spears with ‘Toxic’. I did really want to give her it after passing over both ‘Baby… One More Time’ and ‘Oops…’, but a slightly better record stood in her way again. That was Beyoncé’s (and Jay-Z’s) Song of the Summer for ’03: the irrepressible ‘Crazy in Love’, a tune that still slaps as hard… does quick maths… TWENTY-THREE! years on. Yikes.
Let’s recap the recaps:
The Meh Award for forgettability
‘Hold My Hand’, by Don Cornell.
‘It’s Almost Tomorrow’, by The Dream Weavers.
‘On the Street Where You Live’, by Vic Damone.
‘Why’, by Anthony Newley.
‘The Next Time’ / ‘Bachelor Boy’, by Cliff Richard & The Shadows.
‘Juliet’, by The Four Pennies.
‘The Carnival Is Over’, by The Seekers.
‘Silence Is Golden’, by The Tremeloes.
‘I Pretend’, by Des O’Connor.
‘Woodstock’, by Matthews’ Southern Comfort.
‘How Can I Be Sure’, by David Cassidy.
‘Annie’s Song’, by John Denver.
‘I Only Have Eyes For You’, by Art Garfunkel.
‘I Don’t Want to Talk About It’ / ‘The First Cut Is the Deepest’, by Rod Stewart.
‘Three Times a Lady’, by The Commodores.
‘What’s Another Year’, by Johnny Logan.
‘A Little Peace’, by Nicole.
‘Every Breath You Take’, by The Police.
‘I Got You Babe’, by UB40 with Chrissie Hynde.
‘Who’s That Girl’, by Madonna.
‘A Groovy Kind of Love’, by Phil Collins.
‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’, by Band Aid II.
‘Please Don’t Go’ / ‘Game Boy’, by KWS.
‘Dreams’, by Gabrielle.
‘Forever Love’, by Gary Barlow.
‘I Feel You’, by Peter Andre.
‘You Needed Me’, by Boyzone.
‘Holler’ / ‘Let Love Lead the Way’, by The Spice Girls.
‘Stop Living the Lie’, by David Sneddon.
‘Never Gonna Leave Your Side’, by Daniel Bedingfield
The WTAF Award for being interesting if nothing else
‘I See the Moon’, by The Stargazers.
‘Lay Down Your Arms’, by Anne Shelton.
‘Hoots Mon’, by Lord Rockingham’s XI.
‘You’re Driving Me Crazy’, by The Temperance Seven.
‘Nut Rocker’, by B. Bumble & The Stingers.
‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, by Gerry & The Pacemakers.
‘Little Red Rooster’, by The Rolling Stones.
‘Puppet on a String’, by Sandie Shaw.
‘Fire’, by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.
‘In the Year 2525 (Exordium and Terminus)’, by Zager & Evans.
‘Amazing Grace’, The Pipes & Drums & Military Band of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guard.
‘Kung Fu Fighting’, by Carl Douglas.
‘If’, by Telly Savalas.
‘Wuthering Heights’, by Kate Bush.
‘Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick’, by Ian Dury & The Blockheads.
‘Shaddap You Face’, by Joe Dolce Music Theatre.
‘It’s My Party’, by Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin.
‘Save Your Love’ by Renée & Renato.
‘Rock Me Amadeus’, by Falco.
‘Pump Up the Volume’ / ‘Anitina (The First Time I See She Dance)’, by M/A/R/R/S.
‘Doctorin’ the Tardis’, by The Timelords.
‘Sadeness Part 1’, by Enigma.
‘Ebeneezer Goode’, by The Shamen.
‘I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)’, by Meat Loaf.
‘Spaceman’, by Babylon Zoo.
‘All Around the World’, by Oasis.
‘Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)’, by Baz Luhrmann.
‘Bound 4 da Reload (Casualty)’, by Oxide & Neutrino.
‘Because I Got High’, by Afroman.
‘Be Faithful’, by Fatman Scoop ft. The Crooklyn Clan
The Very Worst Chart-Toppers
‘Cara Mia’, by David Whitfield with Mantovani & His Orchestra.
‘The Man From Laramie’, by Jimmy Young.
‘Roulette’, by Russ Conway.
‘Wooden Heart’, by Elvis Presley.
‘Lovesick Blues’, by Frank Ifield.
‘Diane’, by The Bachelors.
‘The Minute You’re Gone’, by Cliff Richard.
‘Release Me’, by Engelbert Humperdinck.
‘Lily the Pink’, by The Scaffold.
‘All Kinds of Everything’, by Dana.
‘The Twelfth of Never’, by Donny Osmond.
‘The Streak’, by Ray Stevens.
‘No Charge’, by J. J. Barrie
‘Don’t Give Up On Us’, by David Soul
‘One Day at a Time’, by Lena Martell.
‘There’s No One Quite Like Grandma’, by St. Winifred’s School Choir.
‘I’ve Never Been to Me’, by Charlene.
‘Hello’, by Lionel Richie.
‘I Want to Know What Love Is’, by Foreigner.
‘Star Trekkin’’, by The Firm.
‘Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love for You’, by Glenn Medeiros.
‘Let’s Party’, by Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers.
‘(Everything I Do) I Do It for You’, by Bryan Adams.
‘Don’t Stop (Wiggle Wiggle)’, by The Outhere Brothers.
‘Unchained Melody’ / ‘White Cliffs of Dover’, by Robson & Jerome.
‘C’est la Vie’, by B*Witched.
‘I Have a Dream’ / ‘Seasons in the Sun’, by Westlife.
‘Do You Really Like It?’, by DJ Pied Piper & Masters of Ceremonies
‘Eternal Flame’, by Atomic Kitten.
‘F**k It (I Don’t Want You Back)’, by Eamon
The Very Best Chart-Toppers
‘Such a Night’, by Johnnie Ray.
‘Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White’, by Perez ‘Prez’ Prado & His Orchestra.
‘Great Balls of Fire’, by Jerry Lee Lewis.
‘Cathy’s Clown’, by The Everly Brothers.
‘Telstar’, by The Tornadoes.
‘She Loves You’ by The Beatles.
‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’, by The Rolling Stones.
‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’, by Procol Harum.
‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’, by Marvin Gaye.
‘Baby Jump’, by Mungo Jerry.
‘Metal Guru’, by T. Rex.
‘Tiger Feet’, by Mud.
‘Space Oddity’, by David Bowie.
‘I Feel Love’, by Donna Summer.
‘Heart of Glass’, by Blondie.
‘The Winner Takes It All’, by ABBA.
‘My Camera Never Lies’, by Bucks Fizz.
‘Relax’ by Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
‘You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)’, by Dead or Alive
