comic relief

1009. ‘(Is This the Way To) Amarillo’, by Tony Christie ft. Peter Kay

/ UK #1s blog / 3 Comments

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…

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1008. ‘All About You’ / ‘You’ve Got a Friend’, by McFly

/ UK #1s blog / 8 Comments

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.

Just the audio…

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950. ‘Spirit in the Sky’, by Gareth Gates with special guests The Kumars

/ UK #1s blog / 14 Comments

Sounding our biannual Comic Relief charity record warning klaxon…

Spirit in the Sky, by Gareth Gates (his 4th and final #1) with special guests ‘The Kumars’

2 weeks, 16th – 30th March 2003

Yes, every two years (or more often, if Children In Need also get in on the act) we have to suspend taste and decency in the name of charity. Recent efforts have been a bit more ‘straight’ – Boyzone, Westlife, S Club – but for the 2003 telethon, the Comic Relief producers went back to their roots…

And as with all charity #1s, I’ll try not to be too down on it because it was for a good cause and blah blah blah. I do like the Indian touches – the sitars, the backing vocals – and I do like ‘Spirit in the Sky’ as a song. The previous chart-topping versions – Norman Greenbaum’s original and Doctor & the Medics’ eighties reboot – are a lot better, mind you. Still, it remains a good song.

Unfortunately, Gareth Gates’ voice sounds at its reediest here. He did okay on his earlier chart-topping ballads, but this suffers from the same problems as his ‘Suspicious Minds’ cover. He just doesn’t have a rock voice – sounding too boyish – which means, along with the goofy production, this starts to sound like something you’d hear at Butlins.

Also unfortunately, the comic asides from the Kumars are not very funny. It’s hard to be funny in song. Very few #1 singles could be described as ‘funny’. The Kumars are in character, from their comedy chat show of the time, but their contributions are largely asinine. I thought we got reincarnated… Is it driving distance…? Maybe the fear of mocking both Christianity and Hinduism restricted them, but the only genuinely funny line is when one of them replies to the Gotta have a friend in Jesus… with Or Vishna! Oh, and the creepy I want to come back as Gareth’s hair gel…

This maybe could have been more of a moment, as one of the few appearances for British Indians at the top of the pop charts. Except that gets lost in the unfunny gloop. Which means this record is more memorable for being the final chart-topper of Gareth Gates’ whirlwind post-‘Pop Idol’ year. (He had two further Top 10 singles, before moving into musical theatre and television. Nowadays he is part of a stripping troupe known as ‘Boyband in the Buff’…)            

This was also notable for being ‘Spirit in the Sky’s third chart-topping appearance, as mentioned earlier, tying it with ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ and pulling it one behind four-time ‘Unchained Melody’. It’s probably telling that Gareth Gates had a hand in two of those three, and that lack of originality isn’t helpful if you want to have a long career in pop.

818. ‘When the Going Gets Tough’, by Boyzone

/ UK #1s blog / 9 Comments

From pop heaven, it’s back down to earth with a hefty bump…

When the Going Gets Tough, by Boyzone (their 5th of six #1s)

2 weeks, from 7th – 21st March 1999

Boyzone return with their penultimate chart-topper. Yes, we’re almost done with them. And, hey, at least this isn’t a ballad! Instead it’s that other modern pop group staple: the charity cover. From the late nineties onwards, charities desperate for your money made a clear shift away from novelty singles over to classic covers by the day’s big acts. There are similar crimes against pop to come from the likes of Westlife, Girls Aloud, and One Direction.

The synths are cheap and the production tacky on this version of Billy Ocean’s 1986 #1, while I think this might be Ronan Keating’s most grating vocal performance yet (a category with some very strong competition). In fact, this is pretty poor all round. I just don’t think Boyzone had the personality to do anything other than bland balladry. The fun and frivolity here sounds much too forced.

The best bit by far is that they keep the original’s saxophone solo almost note for note, which means we get a blast of sweet mid-80s sax – a sound I never realised I’d missed. And yes, the Billy Ocean version is a decent enough song (though not one I was overly hot on in my original post), and it’s hard to completely ruin decent source material. That original feels like a lifetime ago (in some ways it was, as I was born a few weeks before Ocean made #1), but the thirteen year gap between these versions means it’s the same as an artist in 2024 covering a song from 2011, which sounds like the blink of an eye…

This was the 1999 Comic Relief single, raising money for any number of good causes. So yes, yes, yes we shouldn’t be too harsh on it. (Though I would donate far more money than the price of a CD single to never hear Boyzone again). The video features the requisite plethora of celebs goofing around in the name of charidee. In fact, watching this was the most enjoyable part of this whole exercise, seeing people that hadn’t crossed my mind for many years: Will Mellor, John McCririck, Mystic Meg (RIP) and Saracen from Gladiators (as well as a very young Graham Norton).

762. ‘Mama’ / ‘Who Do You Think You Are’, by The Spice Girls

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Think ‘festive hits’, and your mind goes straight to Christmas, and then perhaps Halloween. Is there an Easter pop classic? Not that I can think of. What’s for certain is that the Spice Girl’s ‘Mama’ is the first, and only, number one single aimed at the Mother’s Day market.

Mama / Who Do You Think You Are, by The Spice Girls (their 4th of nine #1s)

3 weeks, from 9th – 30th March 1997

It’s a wonder why more acts haven’t tapped this under-used commercial seam… Or is it? Because ‘Mama’ pretty much ticks every box, sounding exactly how a pop song about how much we love our mothers should. ‘Mama’ killed the Mother’s Day hit off before it ever got going. It’s perfect.

But by perfect, I don’t mean it’s much good. It’s pleasant, with a nice minor-key melody, and is cleverly written as a letter of apology from a now adult child, for being such a little shit when they were growing up. I didn’t want to hear it then, But I’m not ashamed to say it now, Every little thing you said and did was right for me… And the Spices’ mums are in the video, holding pictures of the girls as kids, which is cute.

But by and large, it’s fairly bland. Plus, there are too many dated flourishes – scratchy fills between lines, and a strange organ riff – that distract from the actual song. It’s by far the weakest of their four singles so far. Luckily for us, ‘Mama’ is only half the main event here, and the record as a whole is redeemed by the other ‘A’-side.

‘Who Do You Think You Are’ is a fun slice of dance-pop: a tribute to the disco, funk and soul records of twenty years before. There’s a very funky bassline, and horns, and cheesy strings. There’s nothing particularly original in this pastiche, which means its only their second best song so far – still behind ‘Say You’ll Be There’ – but it’s become a wedding party staple. Plus it gave the world perhaps the ultimate Spice Girls image – Geri in her Union Jack dress, which she wore as the group performed the song at the 1997 Brit Awards.

‘Who Do You Think You Are’ was adopted as that year’s Comic Relief single, and a second video was made featuring The Sugar Lumps: a band comprised of French & Saunders, Kathy Burke, Llewella Gideon, and… Lulu. Who was a good sport because she’s actually, you know, a singer. This does mean, though, that she has been involved in the two biggest disco-pop hits of the nineties, after her feature on Take That’s ‘Relight My Fire’.

Charity records are at their best when they piggy-back on actual pop songs, and don’t inflict something ‘funny’ on the world in the name of a good cause. And this, with the Spice Girls at the height of their fame, probably made a lot more money than ‘The Stonk’. If I believed in such a thing as a ‘guilty pleasure’, then this would be one. Because who has not, at one point or another, belted out Mel C’s lines as the song closes? (She always got the best parts…)

The success of this pair of tunes confirmed a 100% chart-topping record for the Spices: four out of four. ‘2 Become 1’ had already lifted them into exalted company, as only the fifth act (and the first females) to reach #1 with their first three singles, behind luminaries such as Gerry & The Pacemakers, Frankie Goes to Hollywood… checks notes… Jive Bunny, and Robson & Jerome. And now this confirmed them as record breakers – chart-toppers with their first four, with many more to come.

717. ‘Love Can Build a Bridge’, by Cher, Chrissie Hynde & Neneh Cherry with Eric Clapton

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Love Can Build a Bridge, by Cher (her 3rd of four #1s), Chrissie Hynde (her 2nd and final solo #1) and Neneh Cherry with Eric Clapton (their 1st and only #1s)

1 week, from 19th – 26th March 1995

What this? Cher… Chrissie Hynde?… Neneh Cherry and Eric Clapton? It can only mean one thing: charity single ahoy!

It probably means one other thing… That this record isn’t going to be much good. Not that it stinks – no, we’ve endured far worse chart-toppers in the name of a good cause. But following directly on from one of the all-time power-ballads, this one meanders by fairly blandly.

The three women gamely try to wring some cheer out of this tune, spending much of the video swaying arm in arm as if it was a trailer for ‘Steel Magnolia’s II’ (the fact that they do so while standing on a moving collage of famine victims seems slightly tasteless…) But really, a song with such an impressive cast-list should have little more life to it. The two moments that raise the pulse are the middle eight – When we stand together, It’s our finest hour… – and the solo, provided by one of the most famous guitarists ever to wield the instrument. File Eric Clapton under an ever-expanding folder titled: ‘legends poorly served by their ‘biggest’ hit’…

‘Love Can Build a Bridge’ was written and originally recorded by mother and daughter duo The Judds in 1990, with lyrics inspired by Naomi Judd’s battle against Hepatitis C. This version was the 1995 Comic Relief single, which is interesting, as there’s nothing ‘comic’ about this song. But considering that previous Comic Relief number ones have included Cliff and The Young One’s remake of ‘Living Doll’, and ‘The Stonk’, this comes as something of a relief (if you’ll pardon the pun).

Though this does mean that there’s not as much to write about here, compared to the truly heinous charity singles. The most noteworthy thing is that it is Clapton and Neneh Cherry’s highest-charting hit (it being the fourth of only five UK Top 10s for Cherry), and Chrissie Hynde’s final #1, after ‘Brass in Pocket’ with The Pretenders and a duet with UB40 (interestingly a cover of Sonny & Cher’s ‘I Got You Babe’). The one contributor that we will be hearing from again is, of course, Ms Sarkisian, who has the small matter of releasing the biggest-selling hit by a solo female… ever… to come.

662. ‘The Stonk’, by Hale & Pace and The Stonkers

/ UK #1s blog / 15 Comments

Hot on the heels of The Clash, can we also claim this next number one as part of the recent rock revival…?

The Stonk, by Hale & Pace and The Stonkers (their 1st and only #1)

1 week, from 17th – 24th March 1991

Hear me out! There’s a boogie-woogie rhythm, and a honky-tonk piano… The lyrics are somewhat anarchic, vaguely saucy even, if you try hard enough… OK. No, I admit. This isn’t rock and/or roll. This is the return of the chart phenomenon that brought us such treats as Cliff Richard and the Young Ones remake of ‘Living Doll’: the Comic Relief single.

Those of you who live beyond British shores may never have enjoyed this bi-annual TV fundraiser, in which the great and the good of British light entertainment come together for an evening of forced merriment. Hence why the video for ‘The Stonk’ features Bruce Forsyth, Rowan Atkinson as Mr Bean, and (if my eyes didn’t deceive me) David Baddiel, while it opens with newsreader Angela Rippon being whacked out the way by a red-nosed Big Ben. (It is compulsory for Comic Relief to feature newsreaders doing stupid things. It’s funny, you see, because they are usually so serious.)

If this all sounds completely insufferable, then you’d be right. The gags, such as they are, all land flat. Ich bin ein Stonker… announces JFK, while Neil Armstrong claims one giant Stonk for mankind… Even Shakespeare isn’t safe: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s Stonk? someone asks, which makes no sense on any level. It’s shit, and completely unbothered about it. Proud of it, even. Maybe I’m a miserable sod, but I firmly believe that Red Nose Day would make even more money if people donated on the proviso that it would end an hour earlier for every million raised.

(Note the fact that this is advertised as a double-‘A’ side, alongside the much-loved Victoria Wood. The charts only mention Hale & Pace, however. Perhaps this record’s success had something to do with the other song on offer…)

And yet… I can’t list ‘The Stonk’ as one of the all-time worst chart-toppers. It’s not plumbing the depths alongside ‘Star Trekkin’ (which raised not a penny for charity) or ‘No Charge’ (the least humorous ‘novelty’ record of all time). That cheap, relentless boogie-woogie beat, and the chorus’s strong whiff of ‘The Timewarp’, does sort of hook me in. I didn’t want to, honestly I didn’t, but I’ve ended up tapping my feet.

It was written by comedy duo Gareth Hale and Norman Pace who, despite being TV mainstays throughout the 1990s, somehow never managed to become a part of my childhood. I couldn’t name a single one of their sketches or characters. Meanwhile, despite sounding as cheap and cheerful as a Butlin’s ‘knobbly knees’ contest, it does feature ‘proper’ musicians: British rock royalty even, in Queen’s Brian May and Roger Taylor, Black Sabbath’s Tommy Iommi, and Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour.

In wrapping this post up, I have no desire to ever hear this song again. I doubt anybody has actively listened to it since it left the Top 40 (as is the way with most charity singles). It isn’t on Spotify, and all that’s left as proof that this nonsense was, for one week in March 1991, the best-selling single in the country is this grainy YouTube video…