Maybe it’s just my age, and the fact that I was in prime ‘coming of age’ territory during the summer of 2000, but it feels like every chart-topper at the moment has a line, or a moment, that resonates to this day.
Music, by Madonna (her 10th of thirteen #1s)
1 week, from 27th August – 3rd September 2000
We’ve had Craig David’s seven days of wooing. Robbie’s ‘Rock DJ’. Will the real Slim Shady please stand up and If it ain’t love, Then why does it feel so good… To the list we can add Madonna’s command: Hey Mr DJ, Put a record on, I wanna dance with my baby…
When I claimed that her version of ‘American Pie’ wasn’t as bad as people said, but that it was also a bit too safe, I was looking ahead to this record. Imagine if she had bent and twisted that hallowed classic of rock ‘n’ roll using the grinding, whirring, blurping production that she employs on ‘Music’. It may have turned out terrible, but it would have been every bit as fun and provocative as her other most controversial moments.
As it is, we are left with ‘Music’, and for a woman in her forties, almost two decades into her chart career, it is a remarkably modern record. The video and the lyrics may reference disco balls and boogying, but musically this is forward-facing electro-funk. Again, Madonna shows herself to be bang on-trend, as this sounds both like Daft Punk circa 1997, and Hot Chip circa 2006. It also leaves room for a bit of cheese amongst the cool, in the heavily distorted Do you like to boogie-woogie refrain.
Lyrically this is standard sort of ‘music brings the world together’ stuff. Although she does try to reach for a higher plane of thought with the line: Music, Mix the bourgeoisie, And the rebel… Apparently Madonna was inspired to write this at a Sting concert, noting the euphoric reaction of the crowd when he started to play the old Police hits. The video isn’t one of her most thought-provoking either, featuring Sacha Baron-Cohen in character as Ali G (how very Y2K) driving her around in a pimped-out limo.
No, here Madonna isn’t trying to outrage or annoy, she just wants us up on our feet. And I, for one, will always head to the dancefloor when this one comes on. This record took her into double-figures in the total number ones count, the first woman in British chart history to manage it. She joined Elvis, The Beatles, and Cliff Richard in managing ten or more chart-toppers. Meanwhile ‘Music’ itself made history by becoming the first song ever to be played on an iPod.
I may have overstated it in the intro, or allowed nostalgia’s rose-tinted specs to influence my take. Perhaps the chart-topping lyrics of the day were no more memorable than any other era’s. Perhaps I was just of an age to remember them. But I do think the #1s of the summer of 2000 were an integral part of turn-of-the-century popular culture, one of those periods when the charts reflected more than just musical taste. And that’s something, in this fragmented, online age, that I don’t think we’ll ever see again.
Just before our next recap, do we have a contender for the Worst Number One award…?
American Pie, by Madonna (her 9th of thirteen #1s)
1 week, from 5th – 12th March 2000
It’s fair to say that Madonna’s version of Don McClean’s ‘American Pie’ is much maligned. I’m guilty for some of this maligning, as I’ve pre-dissed it in earlier posts and comments, despite not having heard it for a quarter of a century. So, question is: is it as bad as everyone seems to think?
No, not at all. If this was the original version of ‘American Pie’, then it might be quite a fairly innocuous entry to the Madonna canon. But it’s not, of course. I think critics are more offended by the idea of this track than the song itself. Madonna? That cone bra wearing, Jesus humping, sex book publishing harpy, daring to cover one of the pillars of rock and roll?? And I’d guess that Madonna was fully aware of this, and that her deciding to cover this classic is an act every bit as provocative as the time she went down on Black Jesus.
At the same time, there’s nothing amazing about this version. It’s as if deciding to record it was bold enough, because Madonna forgot to make it particularly interesting. Sensibly, she doesn’t do the full eight minute version, and she uses McClean’s final verse, which most radio edits of the original skip. Perhaps she was attracted by the reference to the Father, Son, And the Holy Ghost, in keeping with her usual religious schtick.
‘American Pie’ was produced by William Orbit, just like the previous chart-topper from All Saints. This puts ‘American Pie’ in the unenviable position of sounding quiet a lot like its predecessor, but being not as good. All the Orbit swishes and swirls are there, but it ends up sounding like the B-side to ‘Pure Shores’. I’d have like Madge to have gone full, crunching electro – much like her second #1 of the year 2000 – just to truly give the purists a heart attack.
Madonna recorded this cover – and she’s not someone who has recorded very many covers during her career – for the soundtrack to her romcom ‘The Next Best Thing’ (her co-star Rupert Everett cavorts with her in the video, which also acts as an ‘America at the turn of the millennium’ time machine, with firefighters, body builders, blended families and kissing lesbians). It’s becoming something of a trend in the late nineties/early noughties for famous #2 hits make #1 in inferior cover versions. We’ve had ‘A Little Bit More’, and ‘I Have a Dream’. Now this, with a few more to come soon.
Perhaps, though, the final word should go to Don McClean himself, who was whole-hearted in his support for Madonna’s cover. ‘I have received many gifts from God’, he said, ‘but this is the first time I have ever received a gift from a goddess.’ (By ‘gifts’ we can only speculate that he meant ‘royalty cheques’.)
In other news, I recently wrote another guest post for Keith’s Nostalgic Italian blog, about books from our childhood. Check it out here.
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……….
Of all Madonna’s thirteen number ones, ‘Frozen’ – her first in almost eight years – has to be the strangest…
Frozen, by Madonna (her 8th of thirteen #1s)
1 week, from 1st – 8th March 1998
It’s her longest for a start, and probably the least accessible. There’s no instant hook, as with ‘Into the Groove’, and no controversial gimmicks, as with ‘Like a Prayer’. Instead there’s a shimmering, undulating electronic beat, beefed up at intervals by strange, reverberating sound effects and drum fills. And there are the strings that add an air of grandiosity to the song, especially when they come to the fore midway through, like an ‘Arabian Nights’ film score. A Rolling Stone reviewer at the time described it as “arctic melancholy”, and I think that’s perfect.
Interestingly for Madonna, the lyrics are the least noticeable thing about ‘Frozen’. They seem to be about a lover who is closed off: You only see what your eyes want to see, How can life be what you want it to be, You’re frozen, When your heart’s not open… Or perhaps it’s more religious, with Madonna, who had begun taking an interest in Eastern spiritualism, singing as a sort of high priestess. The video would bear this interpretation out, Madge floating above a desert, all in black, as a sort of nun-slash-witch, before turning into a flock of crows, and then a large dog.
In fact, despite me claiming that this isn’t one of her gimmicky chart-toppers, the first thing that springs to mind when I think of ‘Frozen’ is Madonna – famously blonde for most of the past fifteen years – now with long jet-black hair. Always one for the visuals… The second thing I remember about this record is hearing it almost as often as ‘My Heart Will Go On’ at the pool bar in Lanzarote during my spring holiday that year.
And the fact that it was on such heavy rotation at the time perhaps proves that this isn’t as inaccessible as I suggested. In truth, there are just as many hooks here as in Madonna’s poppier numbers, they’re just buried in the trip-hop beats, and stretched out over six minutes. Of 1998’s seven number ones so far, three have now run on beyond five minutes – ‘Never Ever’, ‘All Around the World’, and this – while Celine Dion wasn’t far behind (and that one certainly feels longer than five minutes…)
Although this was her first number one since ‘Vogue’, Madonna hadn’t ever been away from the top of the charts. In fact, she’d casually racked up a further seventeen (!) Top 10 hits between ‘Vogue’ and now. At the same time, ‘Frozen’ was the lead single from her first studio album in four years, following a few years of compilations and soundtracks.
Undoubtedly then, we can class this is one of Madge’s famous re-inventions. She wasn’t just following current trends with William Orbit on production duty, she was setting them. Fifteen years is a lifetime for a female pop star, and this was a statement release, one that announced the Queen of Pop wasn’t going anywhere. ‘Frozen’ was an interesting choice for the lead-single though, especially considering that follow-up ‘Ray of Light’ is the much better remembered hit, but it makes for an interesting detour in Madonna’s chart history. This is her second and final ‘90s #1, making it by far her least successful chart-topping decade. However, she has five more ‘00s #1s to come, all perhaps owing a debt to how successfully she updated her sound here.
I was nonplussed when Gary Barlow launched his solo career with the dreary ballad ‘Forever Love’. Nonplussed, and bored. Was that it, from the man meant to be the next George Michael?
Love Won’t Wait, by Gary Barlow (his 2nd of three solo #1s)
1 week, from 4th – 11th May 1997
I was also surprised that I had no recollection of ever hearing what must have been a hugely anticipated record. Almost a year later, Barlow’s debut album was ready, and his second single was released ahead of it. ‘Love Won’t Wait’ also doesn’t ring a bell, but at least it’s relatively up-tempo. There’s a hint of disco in the beat, and the bridge has a soaring chord progression. This might be… fun?
And then we reach the chorus, and I do recognise this one! Love won’t wait, Forever and a day… It’s a pretty basic, soul-pop song with some nice seventies touches. One reviewer compared it to Cliff Richard’s output from that time, and now I can’t un-hear that. It also sounds like the sort of song Take That would have chucked out as the third or fourth single from one of their earlier albums. It’s no great shakes, is what I’m saying; but it’s much better than ‘Forever Love’.
It also has an interesting back-story. It was written by none other than Madonna, during sessions for her ‘Bedtime Stories’ album in 1994. I couldn’t imagine something this unremarkable coming from Madge, but someone’s uploaded the demo onto YouTube. It feels more Motown than disco, and even in its rough form it sounds better than Barlow’s version. That’s true star quality, I suppose.
And I also suppose we can claim this as a belated second ‘90s #1 for Madonna, her first since ‘Vogue’. She will be back soon, though, with a chart-topper under her own steam. Did anyone at the time imagine that we would have to wait so much longer for another Gary Barlow chart-topper, though? The album, ‘Open Road’, produced just one further Top 10 hit, while his second solo album in 1999 produced none. He won’t trouble the top spot for a decade, until Take That have their spectacular comeback, and won’t manage his final solo #1 for another fifteen years.
I have been, and probably still am, a bit harsh on Gary Barlow. Yes, he’s written some great pop songs. But though he’s finally achieved his goal, and ascended to the British pop pantheon, better late than never, he’s no Cliff, Elton, or George Michael. No Robbie Williams either, the man who will be taking the mantle of Britain’s Biggest Pop Star from under his former bandmate’s nose, very soon.
What’re you looking at? snaps Madonna at the start of her seventh, and perhaps most iconic number one. You of course, Madge. You.
Vogue, by Madonna (her 7th of thirteen #1s)
4 weeks, from 8th April – 6th May 1990
At this point, Madonna was hitting at a rate of one #1 per year. 1989’s chart-topper, ‘Like a Prayer’, gave us Madonna the shocker, the church baiting provocateuse. 1990’s chart-topper was the other side of her coin: Madonna the trend-setter, the cultural chameleon (or bandwagon jumper, if you’re not a fan…) For she was off to the ballrooms of Harlem…
‘Vogueing’ as a dance movement had grown there during the 1980s, among black and Latino gay communities. The sudden, sharp movements were supposed to be an impersonation of Egyptian hieroglyphs, or of a star changing poses in a photoshoot for, yes, ‘Vogue’. Madonna had been introduced to it by her own dancers and choreographers. (*Insert complaints about Madonna milking the gay community for her own commercial advantage* Not that I’d at all agree: this was perhaps the start of ‘gay’ culture going mainstream, at the height of the AIDS epidemic, and Madge has always been open about her support of LGBTs.)
Like ‘The Power’, the record it replaced at the top, ‘Vogue’s slick house rhythm doesn’t sound instantly danceable. But it creeps up on you, until two minutes in you realise that you’re shimmying. The tinny drums that lead up to each verse and chorus are very Hi-NRG (dare we say, very SAW?) and the short sharp horn blasts keep you on your feet. By the time she yells the Get up on the dancefloor! line, you’re there. Meanwhile the lyrics are fairly generic dance: Let your body move to the music…You’re a superstar, That’s what you are… etc. etc.
Of course many people at the time, unfamiliar with gay ballroom culture, would have assumed that the title referred to the fashion magazine. Madonna nods to that too, in the spoken word section, as she lists various women with an attitude and fellas who were in the mood from Hollywood’s golden age, on the cover of a magazine. And, just in case this record wasn’t gay enough, it includes the line: They had style, They had grace, Rita Hayworth, Gave good face…
Unlike ‘Like a Prayer’, ‘Vogue’ isn’t from a classic album. It’s the final track, tacked on to ‘I’m Breathless’: the soundtrack to the prohibition-era movie ‘Dick Tracy’. The follow-up single was the ridiculous ‘Hanky Panky’ (nothing like a good spanky!) But ‘Vogue’ has long-outlasted both album and film, to rank alongside Madonna’s very best songs. Whereas I didn’t enjoy listening to ‘Like a Prayer’ as much as I thought I would; the past hour has brought me to realise just how good ‘Vogue’ really is.
Believe it or not, this is the last we’ll be hearing from Madonna for eight whole years. She only has two #1s in the 1990s (while she has as many in the ‘00s as she managed in the ‘80s). Not that she’s going anywhere: aside from those two #1s, the decade will bring her a staggering twenty-two Top 10 hits, including four #2s. And ‘Vogue’, a number one in thirty countries and to date her biggest-seller worldwide, kicked it all off.
And so we arrive at the biggest female pop star du jour, with her first big comeback. Setting herself up, in the process, to polarise and provoke throughout the 1990s and beyond…
Like a Prayer, by Madonna (her 6th of thirteen #1s)
3 weeks, from 19th March – 9th April 1989
It had been a couple of years without any new music from Madonna. In modern terms that’s a pretty normal, even fairly short, break (cf. Rihanna). But since the dawn of pop, stars had been expected to churn out several hits a year. That’s just one way in which this comeback monster hit feels like a game-changer: Madonna’s in charge from now on, setting her own schedule.
After an attention-grabbing guitar intro, a door slams shut. Life is a mystery, Everyone must stand alone, I hear you call my name, And it feels like home… Is she talking about God, or a boy? Or is God the boy? In comes the beat, and to be honest it’s quite predictable late-80s production: dance-pop synths with a squelchy bass. It’s catchy, it’s got a great hook, it would have been a big hit even without…
The video. Madonna cavorting with Jesus. Black Jesus. Burning crosses. Sexual Assault. A wrongful imprisonment. Racism… I’m not 100% sure what Madonna was going for, other than a checklist of things she knew would piss certain people off, but it did the job. The Catholic Church was up in arms, Pepsi (who used the song in an advert) was boycotted, MTV was the only TV channel to show the video… And of course it was a global smash hit.
From this distance, the controversy seems out of proportion: Madonna and Jesus barely kiss, while in the end she does the right thing and goes to the police… And the lyrics aren’t that outrageous either. Sure there’s a bit of innuendo – I’m down on my knees, I wanna take you there… – but ‘love as a religious experience’ is not exactly a new and shocking theme. And yet, as the recent Sam Smith controversy has shown, certain types are always poised and ready to get worked up over a music video.
‘Like a Prayer’ peaks for me when the gospel choir take over. And I don’t mean that as a slight on Madonna’s voice, as this is one of her better vocal performances. But it’s a bit too long as ‘just’ a song, without the video to distract. I wouldn’t have this in my Top 5 Madonna songs, personally. Whether that’s harsh, or testament to the strength of her long career, I’m not sure. I’d also put ‘Papa Don’t Preach’, and ‘Like a Virgin’, above it in the attention-grabbing stakes.
But there’s no denying this song’s reach and impact. I described it above as a ‘game changer’ in terms of inventing the idea of the pop star ‘comeback’ single. Then there’s the statement video. And the creative control that Madonna was clearly exercising. There’s a clear line from Madonna to pretty much every female pop star since: Christina, Britney, Gaga, Taylor Swift have all had their big statement pieces, their ‘I’m in control now’ moments. Is it too much to suggest then, that ‘Like a Prayer’ was the moment that the modern female pop star was born?
As we’ve just passed the 600th number one, having covered thirty-five years of British chart-topping singles, it might be worth looking back at every other hundredth #1. See if they show us anything worth noting about popular music tastes. The first #1 was famously ‘Here in My Heart’, a pre-rock power-ballad by Al Martino. And as #1 singles hung around for ages in the fifties, by the time we got to the 100th it was already 1960: Anthony Newley’s fey and clipped ‘Do You Mind?’. The 200th was The Beatle’s ‘Help!’, so that’s definitely a marker, but the 300th was Tony Orlando and Dawn’s ‘Knock Three Times’, which marks nothing but the British public’s undying love for a cheesy, easily-digestible jingle. 400th was Julie Covington’s ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’, a complete outlier, though one that could be used to argue the evergreen popularity of showtunes, and the 500th was Nicole’s ‘A Little Peace’, one of many Eurovision-winning number ones.
It would have been cool if those six singles had tracked a direct course through rock ‘n’ roll, Merseybeat, psychedelia, glam, disco and new wave but alas, the charts never do what you want them to. There’s always a German teenager just around the corner, ready to sing about love and peace. The 600th chart-topper was probably the most ‘of its time’, along with the 1st and the 200th: T’Pau’s storming new-age power-ballad ‘China in Your Hand’.
Which is interesting because, for me, the 1980s has been the decade that, in chart terms, has had the least clear trajectory. Since rock ‘n’ roll wiped out the traditional, pre-rock dinosaurs, everything that’s followed has made way for something else. Certain genres borrowed from the past (glam, for example) but in ways that felt very new. But since new-wave wiped the slate clean, in a way, in 1979, things have gotten more jumbled up.
The New-Romantics were a glossier new-wave, and then the drowsy MOR middle years of the decade went glossier still (just with more saxophones). Everything’s been getting smoother, and better-produced, but doesn’t seem quite as new. Maybe that’s it from now on: there won’t be a musical movement with the heft of rock ‘n’ roll, or disco. It’ll just be smaller reinventions of older ideas… With one big exception, which we’ve already seen flashes of at the top of the charts: hip-hop.
Anyway, that was an unscripted diversion. What have we seen over the past thirty chart-toppers, before we dish out some awards? In no particular order: the end of Wham!, the first soap-star-slash-pop-star, the first and only hair metal #1 from Europe, and the first and only ‘80s-indie #1 from The Housemartins. There’s been this frightfully modern-sounding thing called ‘house music’ from Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley and M/A/R/R/S, the now obligatory charity record in Ferry Aid, and a couple of classic re-issues from Jackie Wilson and Ben E. King. Boy George launched a solo career, and George Michael went and duetted with theAretha Franklin. Michael Jackson kicked off the ‘Bad’ era with an underwhelming lead single. Oh, and there was the third coming of The Bee Gees. While soundtracks have provided plenty of chart-toppers from the likes of Berlin, Starship, Los Lobos and Madonna.
Speaking of Madonna… She has been the dominating force over this last thirty, claiming four chart-toppers along the way: ‘Papa Don’t Preach’, ‘True Blue’, ‘La Isla Bonita’ and ‘Who’s That Girl’. That’s a truly noteworthy level of domination that few artists achieve. And few artists split opinion like Madonna either, for reasons I won’t go into here (that’s a can of worms and a half…) But I’m team Madge. Even when she’s terrible – and she can certainly be terrible – she’s never boring.
One other noteworthy movement, before we get onto the awards, is that we have entered the age of SAW. Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman have produced three of the past thirty chart-toppers – the fun ‘Respectable’, the bland but worthy ‘Let It Be’, and the timeless classic/crock of crap (delete as appropriate) that is ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ – and there are plenty more where they came from over the next few years. Love or hate them, SAW are the tinny, brassy sound of the late-eighties, and that’s where we have our sights firmly set…
To the awards, then. The ‘Meh’ Award for all-round dullness and forgettability is up first. I found Boris Gardner’s reggae smoothy ‘I Wanna Wake Up With You’ pleasant but snoozy, while Nick Berry’s ‘Every Loser Wins’ was bland verging on terrible. Boy George did nothing particularly innovative on his ‘Everything I Own’ cover, while sounding like he’d been awake for two weeks straight. But I tend to always give this one to dull ballads. Therefore I’m changing it up and awarding it to Madonna herself, for ‘Who’s That Girl’. Had it been her only chart-topper then I’d probably have let it off the hook. Except it came hot on the heels of ‘La Isla Bonita’ and sounded near-identical – the lazy sound of a pop idol being spread too thin.
There are some middling candidates for The WTAF Award: it was weird (but fun) to suddenly have ‘Reet Petite’ popping up as a Xmas #1, swiftly followed by ‘Stand by Me’. ‘La Bamba’ too was a chart-topping single that few could have predicted. But I’m going to go with a song that sounded genuinely weird, especially on the flip-side. M/A/R/R/S’s house crossed with alt-rock double-‘A’ ‘Pump Up the Volume’ / ‘Anitina (First Time I See She Dance)’ was a truly exciting, unnerving, eyebrow-raising moment on top of the charts.
And now the biggies. The 20thVery Worst Chart-Topper. I’m not going to beat around the bush. There were two real stinkers, one of which was Chris de Burgh’s ridiculously simpering ‘Lady in Red’. But that is no competition for the truly heinous ‘Star Trekkin’’, by The Firm. I didn’t get the joke. I didn’t get the song. I’ve never seen ‘Star Trek’. I never want to think about that song again. It wins.
The Very Best Chart-Topper, then. I’d like to give a shout-out to The Communards (and Sarah Jane Morris) for their Hi-NRG take on ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’. It’s a great tune, but it drops out of the running and leaves me with a conundrum. Pet Shop Boy’s ‘It’s a Sin’ is one of the best singles of the decade, with a resonance that goes beyond just being a brilliant pop song. In normal circumstances it would easily win. But then a bloody Levi’s advert went and threw a huge spanner in the works, sending ‘Stand by Me’ to #1 twenty-five years later than it should have done.
Do I stick with rewarding current trends and styles? Can I ignore the re-released elephant in the room? I did name Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ as a ‘Very Best’, but that was re-released a mere six years after its original run. Do I cheat, and make it a tie…? Or do I invent a one-off category of ‘Honorary Best Chart-Topper’, for those that would probably have won it in their own space in time? This is my baby and I make the rules, so… Yes! Pet Shop Boys are the winners, Ben E King is not ignored!
To recap the recaps, then:
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.
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
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
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
Madonna scores her 4th chart-topper within twelve months, joining a very exclusive club…
Who’s That Girl, by Madonna (her 5th of thirteen #1s)
1 week, from 19th – 26th July 1987
The ‘4-in-a-year club’ are The Beatles, Elvis, The Shadows, Slade and, um, Frank Ifield (do shout at me if I’ve forgotten anyone else!) and one thing you might notice about those five acts are their… well, their manhoods. Yes, Madonna is now officially (probably) the most successful female in chart history!
The sad thing is that, for such a ‘big’ #1, ‘Who’s That Girl’ is a bit of a non-event. It is ‘La Isla Bonita’ Part II, a watered down and remixed version of her previous chart-topper. The intro in particular, with its drum riff, is nigh on identical; while the subsequent latin-funk synths are, if not identical, then heavily influenced by their predecessor.
Plus, there’s even more Spanish thrown in this time. Quién es esa niña…? Señorita, más fina… Who’s that girl? I wasn’t a huge fan of ‘La Isla Bonita’, and it’s therefore inevitable that I’m even less a fan of this diluted version. There’s nothing wrong with it, blandness and lack of originality aside, but it’s well overshadowed by the bolder moments in Madonna’s back-catalogue. And out of her thirteen chart-toppers, it’s the one I’m least familiar with (I could probably have attempted the title line from memory, but that’s it…)
It’s from the soundtrack to a film of the same name. A ‘screwball comedy’, as Wikipedia puts it, that presumably nobody has watched since 1987. And that’s about all there is to write on this most slight and forgettable of #1s. To be fair, in order to achieve four chart-toppers in a year you need a combination of massive popularity and a winning formula. Nobody would deny that at least one of Elvis’s, or The Shadows’, or Slade’s four #1s was a re-tread… ‘Surrender’, ‘Dance On’, ‘Skweeze Me Pleeze Me’… While the sound of 1962-3 was Frank Ifield’s yodel popping up, time and again. The one act who managed to sound new and fresh with every single song was The Beatles, but there’s no point in competing with them…
Perhaps Madonna knew she was treading water at this point, because she took 1988 off and drew a line under what we’ll call Madge MK I. In two years’ time, when she scores her next chart-topper, she’ll be a different beast altogether!
Four Madonna number ones down; four very different sounds from the soon-to-be Queen of Pop…
La Isla Bonita, by Madonna (her 4th of thirteen #1s)
2 weeks, from 19th April – 3rd May 1987
‘La Isla Bonita’ is a Latin-funk tune, with a nice strong bass line, some horn blasts and a sharp Spanish guitar. Everything is fine-tuned, and tight. It has a gloss to it, a modernness to the production, that suggests Madonna had available to her the best studios and equipment. It’s got a steady beat, but it’s still likely to fill a dancefloor.
Except, yeah… I don’t love this one. It’s my least favourite of the four so far. Something about it feels gimmicky to me. Why is she singing in Spanish, for a start? Como puede ser verdad, she purrs in the intro. How can it be true…? If Madonna knows one foreign language, surely it’s Italian?
Anyway, Madonna has fallen in love. Not with a Cuban hunk, rather with an island. I fell in love with San Pedro… Tropical island breeze, All of nature wild and free, This is where I long to be, La isla bonita… Problem is, when non-Latina stars go Latina, they tend to resort to these cliches of warm breezes and Spanish lullabies.
To be fair to Madonna, ‘La Isla Bonita’ may have been her first attempt at Latin music, but it was far from her last. She has a love for it that goes beyond mere musical shapeshifting. Problem is, Madonna is a bit of a trendsetter. She opened the floodgates for every female pop star going to have a ‘Latin phase’: from Lady Gaga to Geri Halliwell. And I’m a traditionalist: no woman has done Latin nonsense better than Rosemary Clooney back in 1955!
So, to me, ‘La Isla Bonita’ feels like a default chart-topper from the biggest star in the world. It was the fifth single to be released from the ‘True Blue’ album, and you have to be pretty darn popular to get the fifth single off your album to number one. This was her 3rd of four #1s between the summers of 1986 and 1987. Again, not many artists manage four chart-toppers in a year.
I was amazed to see that this was Madonna’s 4th most listened-to song on Spotify, above ‘Like a Virgin’, ‘Like a Prayer’ and ‘Vogue’. It just feels like such an average moment in her back catalogue… Not terrible – far from it – but nowhere near her best. Rolling Stone has it as her 40th best song, apparently, and that sounds much more reasonable.
The UK Number Ones Blog 