dire straits

Never Had a #1… Part 5

/ UK #1s blog / 6 Comments

It’s been a while, so here is the next instalment of our look through the Top 40 biggest-selling global acts never to have had a UK #1 single.

We’re into the Top 20 today, counting down acts twenty through sixteen. Before we get going though, why not recap with Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4.

20. Carpenters

Biggest hits: ‘Yesterday Once More’ (#2 in 1973) & ‘Please Mr. Postman’ (#2 in 1975)

The Carpenters are possibly the most surprising name on this list. They weren’t a rock act that sold more albums than singles; they were a singles act that produced some of the best pop music of the seventies. It’s amazing that they didn’t manage a chart-topper in Britain, despite scoring three in the USA.

‘Yesterday Once More’ has one of their best melodies, and one of their catchiest hooks. Every shalalala, Every whoa-oh-oh… It was a very ’70s phenomenon, songs about how the old songs were the best, when the ‘old songs’ had barely come of age. And I’m sure I mentioned this in my post on how the Carpenters had never had a number one, but having traveled widely across Asia I can confirm that ‘Yesterday Once More’, and ‘Top of the World’, are two of the best-known English language songs every recorded.

‘Please Mr. Postman’, one of their American chart-toppers, is a decent enough cover. It was once voted as the duo’s best song by ITV viewers, which is just silly.

19. Bob Dylan

Biggest hit: ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ (#4 in 1965)

A man who needs little to no introduction from me, and another about whom I have previously done a ‘Never Had a #1’ post on.

What I will say specifically about Dylan’s biggest hit, is I think it quite fun that following worthy folk anthems like ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ and ‘The Times They Are A-Changing’, it took a six-minute, sneering bitchfest to bring about his biggest British hit. He then followed it up with the even nastier ‘Positively 4th Street’, one of the great ‘haters gonna hate’ records, proving that he truly was the Taylor Swift of his day.

18. Dire Straits

Biggest hits: ‘Private Investigations’ (#2 in 1982) & ‘Walk of Life’ (#2 in 1986)

Only the third British act in this Top 40, after Genesis (#23) and Def Leppard (#22), and the second highest. (I won’t give the game away, but I’m sure most of you can work out the final British band left to appear…) Anyway, Dire Straits have made number two twice. Once with the languorous Spanish guitars and spoken word combo of ‘Private Investigations’, which really doesn’t sound much like a Top 40, let alone a #2, hit. And then with the far catchier and more immediate ‘Walk of Life’, from their fourteen-times-platinum monster album ‘Brothers in Arms’.

17. The Doors

Biggest hit: ‘Light My Fire’ (#7 in 1967)

Back to the usual ‘bigger in the US’ type of acts that have populated this rundown so far, and it’s The Doors. Despite having two number ones to their name back home, ‘Light My Fire’ was their only Top 10 hit in the British Isles. And while the seven-minute organ solo version is great (the solo now has it’s own ‘chapter’ on this YouTube video), I have included the band’s shorter but much more controversial performance on the Ed Sullivan show, in which Jim Morrison reneged on a promise not to sing the girl we couldn’t get much higher… line. Sullivan refused to shake their hands, and banned them from the show indefinitely.

I have also already done a Doors ‘Never Had a #1…’ post, if you would like to read more.

16. Santana

Biggest hit: ‘Smooth’ ft. Rob Thomas (#3 in 2000)

Carlos Santana had been active since the sixties, both by himself and as leader of his eponymous band, but had never troubled the UK Top 10 until this late nineties classic.

It’s an interesting plot line of the fin de 20th siecle: classic rock acts having a renaissance. Aerosmith had their biggest ever hit in 1998, Blondie made an unexpected chart-topping comeback a few months later, and Santana finally breached the UK Top 10. With a little help from Matchbox 20’s Rob Thomas (who weren’t a British chart force either) they brought about this sexy, Latin-rock groover. (That little Mariachi drumbeat key change that leads to the solo is pop perfection in my book). In my mind this was the sound of the summer of ’99, when the record was initially released, but in reality it reached its chart peak in March 2000, and March is never a particularly hot and steamy time of the year…

So we’re almost into the Top 15, where we have remaining two solo females, three solo males, and ten bands, all of whom rock and/or roll, to varying extents. Until Part VI, then….

Today’s Top 10 – January 31st, 1986

/ UK #1s blog / 10 Comments

This is the 4th ‘Today’s Top 10’ that I’ve done, and I’m being fairly self-indulgent with this one. Rather than picking a date that I think was significant musically, I’m picking a date that is significant personally. For today is my 39th birthday, and this was the British Top 10 as I arrived on this planet.

In events of more global importance, this was also the Top 10 on the week of the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster. My mother insists that watching coverage of the explosion on the news is what sent her into labour. But considering that happened on the 28th of January, and she isn’t featured in the Guinness World Records for the longest period of labour, I think she’s misremembering.

So, anyway, here’s the Top 10 as it stood this week in 1986. Is it any good…?

10. ‘System Addict’, by Five Star (up 3 / 4 weeks on chart)

First up, with their first visit to the Top 10, it’s Britain’s answer to the Jacksons. Well, Five Star were all siblings, at least. ‘System Addict’ sets a tone here, being so fabulously eighties, from the funky bassline, to the synthy parps, and the electronic drums. And I’m feeling very old, watching the video, seeing what passed for hi-tech in January 1986. But the lyrics… System addict, You got the hardware habit, Never can give it up… do feel fairly prophetic given what we’ve become in the thirty-nine years since.

9. ‘Saturday Love’, by Cherrelle with Alexander O’Neal (down 3 / 6 weeks on chart)

Descending from its #6 peak, a slice of smooth, sexy soul-funk. I think I must have been born at the very moment the ’80s peaked, as this manages to outdo even Five Star for period touches. ‘Saturday Love’ has lived on beyond this moment, however, having been sampled over a hundred times, by artists as diverse as 50 Cent and Charlie XCX. The video above is not the original, featuring scenes from the 1991 movie ‘Strictly Business’.

8. ‘Suspicious Minds’, by Fine Young Cannibals (up 2 / 4 weeks on chart)

A fixture on the charts in the second half of the 1980s, Fine Young Cannibals were enjoying their second Top 10 hit from their first album. I admire the confidence it takes to cover an Elvis classic on your debut LP. Peaking this week, their cover of ‘Suspicious Minds’ is fun, with a racing disco beat and falsetto backing vocals from Jimmy Somerville, who would go on to have the year’s biggest hit.

7. ‘West End Girls’, by Pet Shop Boys (down 4 / 12 weeks on chart)

A former number one on its way down the chart, ‘West End Girls’ was Pet Shop Boys’ breakthrough hit and has gone on to become one of the decade’s best-loved songs. As much as I love a lot of PSB’s stuff, I’ve never managed to connect with this one… My loss. Read my original post here.

6. ‘When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going’, by Billy Ocean (up 22 / 2 weeks on chart)

A soon-to-be number one charging its way up the charts. We recently suffered through Boyzone’s chart-topping cover, and so it’s nice to hear this much more palatable original. Again, the synths and sax make this sooooo eighties, but it maintains a cheesy charm. Read my original post here.

5. ‘Broken Wings’, Mr. Mister (down 1 / 8 weeks on chart)

I have been accused of unfairly maligning the 1980s more than any other decade. And perhaps sometimes that’s been true. When the eighties were good, they were great. Songs to rank alongside pop’s very best. However, when the eighties were bad, we got songs as dull, as self-important, and as constipated, as Mr. Mister’s ‘Broken Wings’. Utterly joyless.

4. ‘Borderline’, by Madonna (up 11 / 2 weeks on chart)

An almost constant fixture in the Top 10 between 1984 and 1987, Madonna was on her way to #2 here with a re-release of a track from her debut album. ‘Borderline’ had failed to make the Top 50 when first released two years earlier, but that was when Madonna was an upstart from New York rather than the biggest star on the planet. I like ‘Borderline’, but it’s fairly throwaway compared to some of her more impactful early tracks. Still, it’s got a nice catchy synth hook, and a nice re-imagining of disco horns for the electronic age.

3. ‘Walk of Life’, by Dire Straits (down 1 / 4 weeks on chart)

Dropping from its peak of #2, making it Dire Straits’ joint most succesful single, a welcome slice of rockabilly. They didn’t have that many big chart hits, but every one of Dire Straits’ Top 10s brings something different to the party. Following up the era-defining classic ‘Money for Nothing’ – a song that took a swipe at the musical trends of the decade while becoming one of its biggest hits – ‘Walk of Life’ is a much simpler affair, about a busker in a subway, with plenty of charm.

2. ‘Only Love’, by Nana Mouskouri (up 6 / 4 weeks on chart)

Moving up to the runners-up slot, it’s Greek chanteuse Nana Mouskouri with her only British hit. Mouskouri is a seriously impressive individual, having recorded music in thirteen langauges, including Japanese, Mandarin, and Welsh. She represented Luxembourg at Eurovision in 1963, worked for UNICEF, and was elected to the European Parliament in 1994. ‘Only Love’ was recorded as the theme to the TV series ‘Mistral’s Daughter’. It’s a nice enough ballad, fairly syrupy, but I’m grateful for the record below preventing this from being my birthday number one.

1. ‘The Sun Always Shines on TV’, by A-ha (non-mover / 6 weeks)

Despite 90% of the population assuming that A-ha’s sole number single would have been ‘Take On Me’, it is actually this. Is ‘The Sun Always Shines on TV’ a better song than its predecessor, or am I just biased, determined to have been born under a classic number one? There could certainly be worse songs to have as your birth number one, while this record proves once and for all that I was born at the height of what we now think of musically as “the ’80s”. But this is good eighties – compared to the likes of Mr. Mister – with its operatic vocals, its synthy tricks and its scattergun percussion. If only the entire decade had been like this… (read my original post here).

Oh, and good news for those who think ‘Take on Me’ unfairly missed out on number one! We’ll be featuring it soon as we journey through the chart toppers of 2000, in a version that, ahem, really holds its own with the original……….