number one singles

1005. ‘Get Right’, by Jennifer Lopez

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Like ‘Goodies’ a few weeks earlier, this is a song I remember from the time, but that I haven’t properly heard since it left the charts…

Get Right, by Jennifer Lopez (her 2nd of three #1s)

1 week, from 20th – 27th February 2005

Unlike ‘Goodies’ however, it is not with fondness that I remember ‘Get Right’. I remember it being distinctly irritating. Perhaps, more than twenty years on, it is time to reassess?

But the high-pitched, looped horn riff is just as confronting as I remember it. It sounds like the mating call of an exotic bird. Not being nineteen, and not being determined to have strong opinions on anything and everything, I can sort of admit that it has a wonderful funkiness to it. It makes you move. Though it could have done with occasionally changing key, or varying notes slightly. Especially by the time the ‘solo’ comes along, and just it’s twenty seconds straight of the same bloody horns.

Not that the horns don’t have an illustrious history to them, as a sample from ‘Soul Power ‘74’, by Maceo & the Macks, AKA James Brown’s backing band. But the riff that makes up the entirety of ‘Get Right’ is a tiny fraction of the free-styling saxophone on that record, which had been trimmed to the sample used here by Usher, in an unreleased track named ‘Ride’.

What of J-Lo, belatedly appearing on her second UK number one, after so many of her classic early ‘00s hits had failed to make top spot? I’d say this song could be sung by anyone, really. While not a spectacular vocalist, I think Lopez is someone whose voice can be easily recognised. But not on this one, for some reason. She even sounds a little strained, as if maintaining this sort of intense funk for four minutes is beyond her.

So, consider this record reassessed. Partly, at least. I like it more than my teenage self did, though would still label it as something I’d have to be in the mood for. And there are certainly better J-Lo tunes that didn’t make it to #1. But her longevity is impressive, with three chart-toppers stretched out over a decade or more.

As I mentioned, this isn’t the first forgotten number one of 2005, and we’ve barely made it to spring. ‘Goodies’ was a nice rediscovery, as was ‘Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own’, which would surely be a great Pointless answer when listing U2 #1s. Once again we have to recognise that poor record sales were allowing for some interesting chart-toppers. Is this the most forgotten period in UK chart history? In fact we’re in the middle of a run of eleven one-weekers – the second longest such run in chart history – and I’d also challenge anyone to hum the chorus of our next number one…

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1004. ‘Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own’, by U2

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U2 end a seventeen-year chart-topping career with an understated, and perhaps forgotten, little gem.

Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own, by U2 (their 7th and final #1)

1 week, from 13th – 20th February 2005

Understatement is all relevant, of course, and for many acts this would count as a bombastic power-ballad. By U2’s standards though, it is gentle and stripped-back. It had been written around five years earlier, about Bono’s father, who died from cancer in 2001. (The line: It’s you when I look in the mirror, And it’s you when I don’t pick up the phone…taps so sharply into many father-son relationships.) According to the band, the song went through a lot of workshopping, away from a traditional Irish sound to something more contemporary. And I’m glad they spent the time to bring it to fruition.

It still has a folksy feel, especially in the intro, which reminds me of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Man of the World’. Bono’s vocals are impressive – possibly his best performance on any of their chart-toppers – especially in the middle-eight, in which the song switches to something more predictably soaring. The Edge’s guitar chimes in trademark fashion, and we get briefly swamped in over-production, before ending on a sparser note.

I suppose it would be a lot to expect the biggest band in the world™ not to give in to that glossy sheen, when they have unfettered access to the best equipment and producers, but I would be interested to hear an even more restrained version of this ballad. Not that this gets spoiled by the production, not at all, but it’s a tempting thought. We have the low sales climate of early 2005 to thank for U2 enjoying two #1s from the same album for the first time, and their first chart-topper that isn’t a lead single. Not for the first time in the last couple of years a grim situation for the record industry has led to some interesting chart hits. This is also one of the longest-titled number one singles, from one of the shortest-titled chart-topping acts.

Actually, despite often being down on U2, and Bono in particular, I have enjoyed almost all of their six number ones, with one notable exception. Not counting their feature on ‘Take Me to the Clouds Above’, I would rank them thusly, in ascending order. ‘Beautiful Day’ >>>>>>>>>>>> ‘The Fly’ > ‘Discotheque’ > ‘Sometimes You Can’t Make It on Your Own’ > ‘Desire’ > ‘Vertigo’. Because, at the end of the day, rock bands are at their best when they rock.

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1003. ‘Like Toy Soldiers’, by Eminem

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In which Eminem redeems himself after the execrable ‘Just Lose It’. A bit, at least…

Like Toy Soldiers, by Eminem (his 6th of eleven #1s)

1 week, from 6th – 13th February 2005

Things I like about this song are: A) The clever title. It is ‘like’ ‘Toy Soldiers’, the 1989 #5 hit for Martika that it samples. While Eminem’s acolytes that he refers to in the lyrics are like toy soldiers for him, in his many beefs with various other rappers. B) The sample I think is inspired, and it lends a soaring quality to the chorus. C) The added marching drumbeat, and the fact that Martika’s voice is pitched slightly faster and higher than the very plodding, power-ballad original. It improves it, in my opinion.

The fact that it’s taken six chart-toppers for Eminem to make such prominent use of a sample is surprising, given hip-hop’s love for ‘borrowing’ beats. Musically some of Eminem’s #1s have been a little lightweight, even a bit rinky-dink (‘Without Me’ is great, but it’s all about the lyrics not the production); while this one is way more impressive musically than lyrically.

So yes, what I don’t particularly like about this record are the lyrics. Not because they’re offensive, or provocative. More because they’re boring. They’re a five minute explanation of a disagreement between Eminem, 50 Cent, and Ja Rule. As a teacher, it sounds a lot like hearing a naughty kid try trying to explain why something isn’t their fault and how life is unfair: We actually tried to stop the 50 and Ja beef from happenin’, Me and Dre had sat with him, Kicked it and had a chat with him, And asked him not to start it, He wasn’t gonna go after him, Until Ja started yappin’ in magazines how we stabbed him…

I mean. I really couldn’t care less. Grown men – very rich grown men – acting the fool like kids in a playground. Anyone over the age of fifteen shouldn’t be allowed to have ‘beef’ with anyone. Grow up. By the end of the song, Eminem is calling for a truce in whatever rap battles have been going on, how he’s going to be the bigger man. And yet. Any five-second Google search throws up any number of post-2005 beefs that Eminem has rapped about.

Because, in hip-hop, beefing sells. All the posturing, the not backing down, the having your homies’ backs, is a huge part of the genre’s image. And I don’t want to sound too much like a middle-aged white guy (which I unmistakeably am), but I’ve never really seen the appeal of this side of rap music. And it leads to lop-sided songs like this, where I grow bored in the middle of every verse, as Eminem drones on about how nothing’s his fault, waiting for the far better chorus to swing by again.

‘Like Toy Soldiers’ brings to an end Eminem’s imperial phase. Seven #1s in less than five years, yet he won’t score another number one as lead artist until 2013. He won’t be absent from the charts – and in that time he’ll score one of the biggest non-chart topping hits of all time – but a mix of time away due to addiction and uneven output will mean he isn’t as untouchable as he once was.

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1002. ‘It’s Now or Never’, by Elvis Presley

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At the end of my last post, I claimed that ‘It’s Now or Never’ wasn’t particularly good. Which was a bit harsh, I suppose…

It’s Now or Never, by Elvis Presley (his 21st and final #1)

1 week, from 30th January – 6th February 2005

The problem I have with ‘It’s Now or Never’, both in its original eight-week 1960 run at number one and now, is that there are better Elvis songs which deserve to have been his biggest selling hit. ‘It’s Now or Never’ is catchy, eminently singable, and Elvis belts it out like no other; but it is essentially a novelty. It is an old Italian melody, ‘O Sole Mio’, tarted up as a pop song. It is better remembered nowadays as a Cornetto advert.

It also marked the launch of Elvis Mk II: the operatic, corny movie Elvis, who was being rinsed for every cent by Colonel Parker. Which in hindsight isn’t something to be celebrate. However, it also launched probably the most successful chart-topping run of any artist in British chart history. In just over two years (November 1960 to December 1962), Elvis scored nine chart-toppers, and racked up forty-one weeks in pole position. I’m sure I contended with all that in my original post on the song, published back in 2018. 

I’m also a bit down on ‘It’s Now or Never’ because this rerelease ensured that it was my nineteenth birthday #1. Which means it stands out like a sore thumb in my ‘Birthday #1s’ playlist… It’s far from being my worst birthday #1 – and maybe one day I’ll do a post on them – but I’d rather have had ‘Jailhouse Rock’ or ‘One Night’. Or even better, ‘Goodies’: an actual contemporary piece of music from January 2005.

‘Goodies’ withstanding, Elvis came very close to replacing himself at number one three times, with four consecutive number ones. Which it goes without saying would have been a record. In any case he became only the third artist to replace themselves at #1, after the Beatles and a posthumous John Lennon. But as winter turned into spring, and singles sales slowly picked up, none of his subsequent thirteen re-releases troubled top spot.

In fact, I remember at the time it was quite an interesting way to judge the overall health of the singles market. Assuming the Elvis rereleases always sold just over the 20k mark, the more singles that finished above him meant a more robust chart. From memory, I think the lowest he charted that spring was #5.

Here then ends the ultimate chart-topping career. Twenty-one of the buggers. Yes, some will complain that he has been helped by remixes and releases, and that without them he’d have remained tied with the Beatles on seventeen. But we have to treat these releases as ‘new’ #1s, with new packaging and new catalogue numbers. As we did when ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and ‘My Sweet Lord’ returned to the top. It’s been an interesting interlude, this Elvisenaissance, that’s for sure. But as much as I do love a bit of Elvis, I’m glad we’ll be returning to more contemporary #1s after this. 

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1001. ‘Goodies’, by Ciara ft. Petey Pablo

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On to the next one thousand number ones, then. And after two weeks of Elvis oldies at the top of the charts, we are happily dragged back into the 21st century with this one.

Goodies, by Ciara ft. Petey Pablo (their 1st and only #1s)

1 week, from 23rd – 30th January 2005

It is a startlingly modern record, one of those that feels like a fast-forward button being pressed. ‘Goodies’ is crunk, or crunk&B, making this the second such chart-topper after Usher’s ‘Yeah!’ But whereas that song was very pop, with a dumb, hooky chorus; ‘Goodies’ makes the listener work a bit more hard to reveal its appeal.

At first it is sparse, with a Lil’ John-a-like rapping over an arrestingly annoying high-pitched whistle riff. It is not an intro that makes friends. But slowly elements are added: Ciara’s breathy vocals, the stabbing synths (the one element of the song that ties it to ‘Yeah!’), a twangy guitar line, and it develops into a fine pop song.

There are enough weird bits here for three or four songs, and it potentially could have been messy, but everything hangs together well. I particularly like the twangy riff (always a sucker for a guitar, whatever the genre) and the bridge, where Ciara switches to an impressively operatic falsetto. And Petey Pablo is an upgrade on Lil John: same southern drawl, less inane shouting.

It’s odd. ‘Goodies’ is not the type of record that is guaranteed to be a hit with me, but I remember it fondly from the time and listening to it now I am coming to the opinion that it is a lost classic. Maybe I’m just glad to have a proper pop song to write about, not the charity singles/X factor dross/Elvis re-releases that we’ve contended with in recent weeks, but I do think ‘Goodies’ deserves to be as well, if not better, remembered than our other crunk #1. It conjured up a steamy, southern US summer’s day in gloomy British January. And, for those who complain about the usual sexualisation found in this type of music, Ciara here offers a more wholesome alternative: If you’re lookin’ for the goodies, Keep on lookin’, ‘Cause they stay in the jar…

This was nineteen-year-old Ciara’s debut and, in the UK at least, biggest hit. It was the first of her five Top 10s, though she hasn’t particularly troubled the charts since the end of the ‘00s. In the US she remains more of a name, releasing her latest album just last year. For Petey Pablo meanwhile, this was by far his biggest British hit, his music career being interrupted by a spell in jail for bringing a stolen gun onto a plane.

‘Goodies’ was a day away from being my nineteenth birthday number one, and a good birthday chart-topper it would have been. Instead, I had to settle for yet another Elvis re-release, and not even a particularly good one…

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1000. ‘One Night’ / ‘I Got Stung’, by Elvis Presley

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(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…

1000 Number Ones Down… Your Favourite and Least Favourite Number Ones – The Results!

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Over four hundred votes have been cast, and the results are in. Thanks to everyone who took the time to choose their favourites, and their least favourites, from my shortlist of thirty. I’ll now run down the top five Best and Worst #1s of all time. Official. No debate.

A couple of observations before I do so, though. I was interested to see that twice as many votes were cast for ‘Best’ as were cast for ‘Worst’. Which means our readers are a more positive bunch than I gave them credit for, preferring to think only on uplifting things. Or, they just didn’t bother scrolling down to find the second poll…

Also, because so many votes were spread across just thirty songs, the results are extremely close. There are lots of ties, with the Top 10 split by only five votes!

Let’s do the worst first. Honourable mentions go to ‘Everything I Do (I Do It for You)’, a song I hate but that I felt others were less harsh on. Yet it finished in 9th place, and I now feel vindicated. Also, well done to the one (1!) person who voted for ‘C’est la Vie’. Everyone else who didn’t? What are you like?

Anyway, the Top 5 worst #1s of all time are…

5. ‘Unchained Melody’ / ‘White Cliffs of Dover’, by Robson and Jerome – Yep, granny-baiting garbage, and the start of Simon Cowell’s near twenty-year reign of terror over the UK singles charts.

4. ‘There’s No One Quite Like Grandma’, by the St. Winifred’s School Choir – More (quite literally) granny-baiting garbage. I’d have this a couple of places higher, personally, but I’m happy enough that it’s in a tie for third-place.

3. ‘F**k It (I Don’t Want You Back)’, by Eamon – Our readers are not fans of ho-wop, apparently. My most recent Worst #1 rightfully takes its place in the Top 3, tied with St. Winnie’s.

2. ‘No Charge’, by J.J. Barrie – The previous winner of Worst of the Worst when I did this poll four years ago. I worried that ‘No Charge’ might have been overshadowed by more recent horrors. But no, this sanctimonious bilge only drops one place. For what it’s worth, this is my least favourite #1 of all time.

1. ‘Let’s Party’, by Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers – Your official Worst of the Worst, by quite some margin too. I’m not sure I agree. Sure, I named it as one of my worst; but it is upbeat, and throwaway, and almost tolerable. It was the third Jive Bunny #1 in less than six months though, and presumably people’s patience had run out. Plus, it does feature Gary Glitter.

On to the five best. Before we do so, a shout-out to ‘Your Woman’, which finished in 6th place above various better-known luminaries. A weird record that I love, but that I didn’t expect to have such widespread appeal. Also to the one song not to receive a single vote in this poll: my very first Best #1, Johnnie Ray’s ‘Such a Night’. Poor old Johnnie Ray, as Dexy’s once sang… I assume this is because it is a song from 1954 which nobody has ever listened to, but I urge you to check it out here as it is a swinging classic.

Finally, a mention for the surprise winner of my last Best of the Best poll: ‘Baby Jump’, by Mungo Jerry. This time it collapses to joint second-last….

On with the Top 5 Best #1s of all time…

5. ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’, by The Rolling Stones – Can’t argue with this. Even if, looking back, I do wish I had chosen ‘Get Off Of My Cloud’ as the Very Best Stones #1. It’s not better than ‘Satisfaction’ as such, it’s just not as over-played.

4. ‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’, by Marvin Gaye – Another sixties classic, with which I cannot argue. Interestingly neither of these records featured at the top of the list in my earlier poll. Technically this is joint second, along with the next two records. How Crowdsignal settles tie-breaks I do not know, but it has this in fourth.

3. ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’, by Sinead O’Connor – This one was way down the rankings until the end of the week, when a flurry of late votes sent the classic weepy into joint-second.

2. ‘Crazy in Love’, by Beyoncé – Our most recent Very Best chart-topper, and proof that not all our readers are stuck in the seventies and eighties. I’m really glad that a ‘modern’ (okay, yes, it’s twenty-three years old) pop song has managed to rank alongside these oldies.

1. ‘I Feel Love’, by Donna Summer – Officially the undisputed best number one single of all time. This is the only record to remain in the Top 5 from my last poll, ascending one place to win by a single vote. ABBA are out (now 10th), The Beatles are out (now 16th), and Blondie are out (now 8th). Donna Summer remains. Disco rules. We feel love.

Thanks again for voting. I hope you agree with the results. If you don’t, have at it in the comments. See you tomorrow as we end our week of anniversary celebrations by finally reaching the 1000th number one single!

What Does It Mean to Be Number One…?

/ UK #1s blog / 12 Comments

For our fourth guest post of the week, Keith (AKA nostalgicitalian) is pondering a philosophical point that all music lovers will have contended with at some time… The enduring popularity of terrible songs.

My friend Stewart, over at The UK Number Ones Blog reached out a while back and asked if I’d participate in a guest feature. By the time this posts, his site will have almost reached its 1000th number one song. This guest post is to help celebrate that amazing achievement.

Stewart gave us guest writers a lot of freedom. We could write whatever we want, as long as it has a connection to the “top of the charts.” With that being said, let’s pause for a moment and define “number one.”

According to Merriam-Webster: “Number one most commonly refers to the primary, most important, or highest-ranking person, thing, or priority in a given group.” I like this definition a little bit better: “Something that is first in rank or highest in quality.”

In other words, a number one song should be something of high quality. It should be the “best” song on the chart, but that isn’t always the case. You can glance over every Billboard Hot 100 chart and see for yourself here.

As I looked over the charts, I found that there were plenty of songs that had me wondering, “Just how did that piece of garbage go to number one?!” For starters, here is a quick list of number one songs from the 1960’s that left me shaking my head: ‘Alley Oop’, ‘Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini’, ‘Mr. Custer’, ‘Sukiyaki’, ‘Dominique’, ‘Ringo’, ‘Winchester Cathedral’, and ‘Honey’.  Some of them were number one for multiple weeks! 

I realize that some of those would be considered novelty songs. Novelty songs would begin to fade from the chart in the ’80s, but there were still some that hit number one in the ’70s.  Who can forget ‘The Candy Man’, ‘My Ding-a-Ling’, ‘The Streak’, and the awful ‘Disco Duck’?  Maybe I should rephrase the question to read “Who would like to forget them?” When you go back to the definition, is Disco Duck “something that is first in rank or highest in quality?” I highly doubt it! 

In 1996, the ‘Macarena’ was number one for a whopping fourteen weeks!  For what it is worth, it was a dance craze (much like ‘The Twist’ in the ’60s, which also went to number one).  It played at weddings and parties as well as on the radio.  It truly was popular, but was it really the best song of 1996?  There were only nine number one songs that year. You could argue that ‘One Sweet Day’ from Mariah Carey & Boyz II Men (11 weeks) or ‘Because You Loved Me’ from Celine Dion (6 weeks) were better songs, but musical tastes are subjective.

While I don’t find myself listening to much “current” music, there are certainly songs that fall into that category that I like.  However, I will offer one more song that I cannot believe spent multiple weeks at number one. Consider 2020’s ‘The Box’ by Roddy Rich. It contains many uses of the F-word and the N-word, and references to female genitalia, sexual acts and sexual innuendo. This was an 11-week number one song.

If a number one song should represent the “highest in quality,” and considering the songs presented above, does a song reaching number one really mean anything? I used to believe it did, but looking back I’m not so sure. One is just a number.

Keith writes about music, pop culture and life at nostalgicitalian.com. Thanks again Keith, for an original take on our topic. And for not giving in to nostalgia, and for pointing out that crap songs have been around for just as long as good ones!

I think this post is the perfect companion for our ongoing polls, in which you can choose your ‘best’ and ‘worst’ from my own favourite and least-favourite chart-toppers. Well over three-hundred and fifty votes have been cast so far, and it is still very tight at the top of both polls. Every vote counts! Results will go out on Sunday.

The Billboard Hot 100 Vs The UK Singles Chart

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Our next guest post comes from another long-time follower, who joined our journey sometime around the late 1950s. Max (aka Badfinger) blogs on music and pop culture at powerpop.blog, and has kept up with our wanderings through the charts even though we left his preferred ’60s and ’70s eras behind a while back. Today he’s writing about a lost hit from that time, and how it highlights the differences between the charts on either side of the Atlantic…

When I was growing up, my sister had this single. It was cracked, so she taped the B-side with scotch tape, and I would listen to it over and over. Of course, it went like “Crimson and Clov-CLICK-er.” But I didn’t care; it was a great song to me even with the hideous CLICK.

Now to the subject of the post. I’ve always been fascinated by how some bands could be huge in one country and barely make a dent in another. In America, we missed out on a lot of British acts like T. Rex, Status Quo, and Slade. At the same time, the UK never fully embraced some major American artists such as CCR, Bob Seger, and Grand Funk Railroad. They were certainly known there, but they never enjoyed the kind of success they had back home. I always wondered about that in bands and songs.

While I was writing up this song up a few years ago and typing out the chart position of it, I was shocked when I saw a blank in the UK chart position. I thought the source was wrong, so I emailed Stewart; no dice, it didn’t chart. This song is one of those records that proves the charts don’t always make sense. Tommy James and the Shondells were no strangers to success in the UK. ‘Mony Mony‘ had reached No. 1 there. But when it was released in early 1969, it failed to chart at all.

Part of the problem may have been that the song was unlike anything else on the radio at the time. It moved at a slower pace at mid-tempo. The tremolo effects on Tommy James’ voice and guitar gave it a dreamy sound. American audiences loved it. British listeners may have found it a little too different, bubblegum, or old hat. The UK music scene was changing quickly in 1969. Harder rock bands and progressive groups were starting to get more attention.

There is also the possibility that the record simply did not receive the promotion it needed. Maybe ‘Crimson and Clover’ (released January 1969) came too close after ‘Mony Mony’ (March 1968). Tommy James was always a bigger act in the United States and Canada than in Britain. In those days, radio play and television appearances could make a huge difference. If a record was not pushed hard enough, a song could get lost among dozens of new releases arriving every week. Of course, there was always the opposite, such as Ian Dury and the Blockheads, ‘Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick’, and many others that hit number 1 in the UK and did nothing here.

Just so everyone knows, I’m not knocking the UK for it not charting. It’s just amazing to me, though, how one song can be so big in one country and flop in the other…either way! Whatever the reason, Joan Jett actually charted Crimson and Clover in 1982 at #60 in the UK, and her version peaked at #7 in America and #4 in Canada. At least it made an appearance in the UK Charts!

Thanks again, Max. Everyone else be sure to check out his blogs, through which I’ve discovered so many songs over the years. And don’t forget to vote for the Best and Worst #1s! Results out on Sunday!