In my post on ‘5 Colours in Her Hair’, I called it the perfect song for McFly to launch themselves with. Their second single, then, was the perfect song for McFly to announce that they were here to stay.
Obviously, by McFly (their 2nd of seven #1s)
1 week, 27th June – 4th July 2004
‘5 Colours in Her Hair’ was largely Busted under a different name, with a big nod towards the same pop punk sound; though with a much more melodic, classic rock influence. For ‘Obviously’ they keep the melodies strong, but this is much more of an understated record, balanced somewhere between power and jangle pop.
Can a song be instant, yet understated? If so, then this is that song. This made me a McFly fan, and started me on the path of buying every album, seeing them live three times, and buying each copy of Attitude magazine in which they shamelessly gay-baited us on the cover. It’s got a hell of a chorus, especially when Danny and Tom’s voices soar and intertwine towards the climax.
This is also a cut above Busted in terms of the lyrics, in which McFly prove that teenage boys can write songs about not getting the girl without sounding like spoiled toddlers. They’re in love with a girl, but have quickly come to the realisation that they aren’t good enough for her… Cause obviously, She’s out of my league, I’m wasting my time ‘cause she’ll never be mine…
The rest of the lyrics are either quite funny: the girl’s boyfriend is twenty-three, He’s in the Marines, He’d kill me… Or they’re endearingly clunky: I think the only reason they chose to run off to LA in the second verse is because it rhymes with that’s where I’ll stay… Their debut album, ‘Room on the 3rd Floor’ is full of similarly teenage lyrics, and is an LP I’ll always listen to fondly.
The one thing I’d change about this are the strings, which add strangely grand flourishes that a song this simple doesn’t need. Maybe they were worried the song was too subtle after 5CIHH, and wanted some more oomph, but it’s a bit much. In fact, that’s one of my few complaints with early McFly – an over-egging of the pudding in an attempt to prove themselves as a ‘proper’ band. It was worst on their second album, from which they’ll be scoring two more #1s soon enough.
Britney scores back-to-back chart-toppers for the second time in her career, with a track that’s the polar opposite to the throbbing ‘Toxic’.
Everytime, by Britney Spears (her 5th of six #1s)
1 week, 20th – 27th June 2004
Brit was never one for pure ballads. Her slower numbers – ‘Sometimes’, ‘Lucky’ – still had lots of poppy, Max Martin touches. ‘Everytime’ stands alone in her discography for how sparse it is. It’s held together by a music box riff, which is beautiful, and which deconstructs itself towards the end, just as if the box needed to be wound-up again. The song does build, slowly, with ominous strings, but it never feels cluttered.
Stripping the production back like that leaves the slightly scary proposition of Britney’s voice being front and centre. No, she’s not the best singer. And no, her voice is not in its element here (you can hear lines in the chorus where she has been, shall we say, digitally supported.) But I think it adds vulnerability, the fact that she holds back, doesn’t over sing, and is allowed to be imperfect.
It’s also helped now by what we know of Britney’s mental state over the past couple of decades. The inspiration for the song was her break-up with Justin Timberlake, an alleged abortion, and her anger at his #2 hit ‘Cry Me a River’ (which I guess makes ‘Everytime’ another answer song!) Tawdry speculation was rife – proving her point, really – and controversy ensued when the video appeared to show Britney killing herself in a bathtub, being rushed to hospital, and being reborn as a baby in the ward next door.
Let’s be bold, and call this a jewel in Britney’s discographic crown. But let’s also admit that it’s not among my very favourites of hers, because upbeat almost always trumps weepy for me, and because it’s hard to compete with a trio of all-timers like ‘…Baby One More Time’, ‘Oops…! I Did It Again’, and ‘Toxic’.
Let’s keep up the hyperbole though, and claim that Britney’s breathy delivery here invented the modern ‘cursive’ singing trend. Maybe the new-born baby in the video was actually Billie Eilish? And in the slightly odd falsetto parts, can I claim to hear Kate Bush…? Or is that hyperbolism taken too far?
‘Everytime’ was Britney Spears’ tenth UK Top 10 hit, and looked for a while like it might have been her last #1. She has one more to come, in eight years’ time, and a lot will happen to her between 2004 and then. And yet, she will keep churning out the hits – seven more Top 10s before that 2012 postscript, to be exact – and keep being, for better or worse, probably the most famous woman on the planet.
Having already covered the 40th to the 26th highest selling acts never to have had a UK #1 single (check out Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 if you missed them), and having already met names as illustrious as Bob Marley, Van Halen and Johnny Cash, what artists sit just shy of the Top 20?
25. Tina Turner
Biggest Hits: ‘River Deep, Mountain High’, with Ike Turner (#3 in 1966), ‘What’s Love Got to Do With It’ (#3 in 1984) & ‘We Don’t Need Another Hero’ (#3 in 1985)
One of rock ‘n’ roll’s great voices, great females, great survivors: Tina Turner. I did an entire ‘Never Had a #1’ post on her a few years back, so enjoy that at your leisure. Of her trio of #3s, I’m posting ‘River Deep, Mountain High’. Which is technically not a solo record – given that Ike is credited and Phil Spector’s touch is all over the production – but you try telling Tina that this is not her song. She sings it like the song is the ragdoll in the lyrics, and no way she’s giving it up for anyone.
24. Gloria Estefan
Biggest Hit: ‘Don’t Wanna Lose You’ (#6 in 1989)
Many of the acts in this Top 40 are US artists who sold bucketloads in their homeland but not so much elsewhere. And yes, Gloria Estefan is Cuban, but she moved to the US when she was two, so we can claim her for America whether she likes it or not! Anyway, she has multiple Top 10s and three #1s on the Billboard Hot 100, but never climbed higher than #6 in Britain.
‘I Don’t Wanna Lose’ you is a by-numbers late-eighties power ballad. For every classic power ballad that decade gave us, there are nine lesser examples. This is fine but largely unmemorable. Estefan’s voice is the best thing about it, by far. I was sorely tempted to post ‘Dr. Beat’ as her biggest hit (another #6, in 1984) but the OCC credits it to Miami Sound Machine, without a ‘ft.’, and rules are rules.
23. Genesis
Biggest Hit: ‘Mama’ (#4 in 1983)
Amazingly, one of only four British acts to feature in this Top 40 (they are all ‘classic rock’ groups, of one shade or another) Genesis took their time over singles chart success. Their first single release was in the late sixties, but it took until the late ’70s before they made the Top 10, and it was over fifteen years into their career that they had their biggest hit.
‘Mama’ is a deeply weird, synthy, sexy epic, about a young teenager’s obession with a much older prostitute. Phil Collins delivers the haha-ha-urgh refrain like the girl from ‘The Exorcist’, yet still has plenty of competition for the song’s creepiest moment. Personally, I think the intro is the eeriest part, with the industrial drum machine rubbing against some proper horror soundtrack synths.
22. Def Leppard
Biggest Hits: ‘Let’s Get Rocked’ (#2 in 1992) & ‘When Love and Hate Collide’ (#2 in 1995)
And straight away, here’s British act number two. For a band best know for ’80s hair metal classics like ‘Animal’, and ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’, it is disappointing that Def Leppard’s biggest hits are a couple of average #2s from the following decade.
I chose ‘Let’s Get Rocked’ as the video choice because I do admire their commitment to the clunky ‘rock’ innuendo (Let’s get the rock outta here…). And because the once cutting-edge CGI in the video is now utterly, utterly terrifying. Whereas ‘When Love and Hate Collide’ is a plodding power-ballad.
21. Earth, Wind & Fire
Biggest Hits: ‘September’ (#3 in 1978) & ‘Let’s Groove’ (#3 in 1981)
I am suprised that Earth, Wind & Fire are sitting so high up this list, above some legendary names and some huge-selling stadium rock acts. Seems that groove must count for something… Once again, they were much more popular in the US than across the Atlantic.
Since everyone and their dog has heard ‘September’, I’m going for the second of their joint-highest charting singles, the aptly named ‘Let’s Groove’. It’s got a filthy baseline, and great distortion on the opening vocals. It’s a perfect bridge between seventies disco and eighties synth pop. And there’s still the classic EW&F horns. What more do we need?
So, we’ve reached the halfway point in our Top 40. Twenty acts remain, and we’ll cover them in four further parts in the coming year or so. Of the twenty, two acts are British, one is Australian. The rest are American. Twelve are groups, with seven solo acts, and one duo. And only three females are left to appear – two as solo artists, and one as part of said duo…
Normal service is resumed on top of the charts. Sort of.
I Don’t Wanna Know, by Mario Winans (his 1st and only #1) ft. Enya (her 2nd and final #1) & P. Diddy (his 2nd of three #1s)
2 weeks, 6th – 20th June 2004
At least this isn’t a bitch-fest, with Mario Winans listing the ways his ex-lover has wronged him, cheated on him, done the dirty… In fact, the crux of the song is that ignorance is bliss: I don’t wanna know, If you’re playing me, Keep it on the low, Cause my heart can’t take it anymore… But it’s still a mopey break-up song, in a year that has already seen its fair share of mopey break-up songs. Forget ‘I Don’t Wanna Know’; make that ‘We Don’t Wanna Know’, Mario. Just keep it to yourself.
What makes this track actually quite interesting is the sample from Enya’s eerie ‘Boadicea’, which gives it a real obsessing-in-the-middle-of-the-night atmosphere. Winan’s knew the sample from the Fugees’ 1996 #1 ‘Ready Or Not’, but unlike on that track Enya actually agreed to re-record the sample, receiving a credit and a second chart-topper, sixteen years on from ‘Orinoco Flow’.
Listening now, I wonder how this record would have sounded if they had just stuck with the ‘Boadicea’ sample, and the piano line that enters later? Instead a fairly basic, jittery hip-hop beat comes in, and spoils the desolate feeling. I suppose it might have sounded too similar to ‘Ready or Not’ otherwise, but still. The middle-eight picks things up a bit, as Winans harmonises nicely with himself, but much of is bland and mushy.
I also wonder how this would have sounded without P. Diddy’s rap. Not just because he’s now persona non grata, but because it’s such a non-event. I guess, like the hip-hop beat, they asked him to phone it in and stuck it on because it was the done thing for an R&B track in the mid-‘00s, and because he was a name and Mario Winans wasn’t, rather than because it adds much to the song. Still, it is Sean Combes’ second of three UK #1s, all coming under different pseudonyms.
For Mario Winans, this was his only UK Top 10 as a lead artist. He is more prolific as a producer and songwriter, having worked with Destiny’s Child, Jennifer Lopez and The Weeknd, among various others. He is also the nephew of Bebe Winans, who guested on Eternal’s 1997 chart-topper ‘I Wanna Be the Only One’, and part of the extended (and apparently quite important in the gospel music world) Winans Family.
One other thing to note before we finish is that like the gruesome twosome he knocked off number one, ‘I Don’t Wanna Know’ inspired its own answer song. ‘You Should Really Know’ by the Pirates ft. Shola Ama, Naila Boss and Ishani (and Enya, of course) is actually quite good, with an interesting Indian flavour to it, and made #8 later in the year.
Sigh. Ready for Round Two of Britain’s Spring of Silliness?
F.U.R.B (F U Right Back), by Frankee (her 1st and only #1)
3 weeks, 16th May – 6th June 2004
Yes, after a month of Eamon’s whiny ‘F**k It (I Don’t Want You Back)’, his supposed ex-girlfriend Frankee had to have her say. There are two sides to every story… she announces in the intro. So far so stupid. But bear with me as I explain why this is the far better record.
‘F.U.R.B.’ is essentially the same song: same tune, same vaguely doo-wop melody, same amount of swearing. But whereas Eamon’s version was plodding and self-indulgent, Frankee’s version is sassy and, in places, pretty hilarious.
The sass is added very easily, by putting some synth blasts at the end of each bar to liven up the original’s treacly tempo, and by adding a couple more beats and clicks to the rhythm. And then by the fact that, lyrically, Frankee doesn’t go in for any moping. She goes for the low blows, and hits Eamon where it hurts. He was, it turns out, a crap shag.
You thought you could really make me moan, I had better sex on my own… and Fuck all those nights you thought you broke my back, Well guess what yo, Your sex was wack… I mean yes it’s childish, yes it’s tawdry, yes it’s vulgar. But I think a line like I do admit I’m glad, I didn’t catch your crabs is funny, and well-deserved after having sat through multiple plays of Eamon’s original.
And at one point there is a moment of precise critical clarity, when Frankee sings: If you really didn’t care, You wouldn’t wanna share, Telling everybody just how you feel… Exactly, Eamon! By writing an entire song about how much you don’t care, you’re showing the world that you really do! Idiot.
I feel there is a comment to be made here, on the power imbalance in male-female relationships. Why is the woman allowed to be rude post-breakup, while the man comes across as vindictive? If Eamon claimed Frankee was bad in bed then it would be very ungentlemanly. Frankee does it and it’s empowering. But also, do two songs as lowbrow as this deserve any deep analysis? Probably not.
Eamon denied that Frankee had ever been his girlfriend, but at the same time claimed he had auditioned her for the role of recording this answer song (he earned royalties for both), and welcomed her into “the world of ho-wop” (his words). Like Eamon, Frankee released an album off the back of this gimmick, but unlike Eamon she remains a gold-star one-hit wonder. She subsequently left the music business, and in 2016 joined the NYPD.
I recently called Usher’s ‘Yeah!’ the song of 2004. Maybe I should rethink that. Is there a song more of its time and place than this next number one…
F**k It (I Don’t Want You Back), by Eamon (his 1st and only #1)
4 weeks, 18th April – 16th May 2004
And can we lock it in a lead-lined vault, bury it in quicklime, and make sure it stays in 2004? Do we have to revisit these seven weeks in which the British record-buying public lost their collective minds, and made ho-wop a thing? Sadly yes. I can’t very well start skipping chart-toppers this far in.
Let’s start by grasping for positives. There is a grain of a retro doo-wop/soul melody here, and had the vocals, the lyrics, and the production, been handled differently then this might have been a nice song. Unfortunately, the vocals are thin and whiny, and the production a cheap, pre-set hip-hop beat.
And then there are the lyrics. I took Busted to task for their toxicity in ‘Who’s David’, but this is next level. Eamon’s ex-girlfriend is, at various points during the song, a whore, a burnt bitch, and a hag. Fuck all those kisses, They didn’t mean jack, Fuck you you ho, I don’t want you back… In total, I make it twenty uses of the F-bomb, alongside various other profanities, making this the sweariest number one ever at this point.
Now, I’m not a prude (the asterisks in the post title are me being a stickler for accuracy, as that is how the record was published); but this record is just relentlessly nasty. Couldn’t Eamon have been a little more inventive in his revenge, than bleating about how he had to throw all the presents she gave him out? I’m not against making a song about a break-up, if you really must – though I’ll always think it a bit self-indulgent – but did recording this make Eamon feel better? Really?
Of course, analysing this record on any level is essentially pointless. We all now know that it was a cynical marketing gimmick. Our very next post, involving Eamon’s ‘girlfriend’ Frankee and her answer song, will make that very clear. And to an extent it worked, as previously unheard of Eamon scored the year’s second-highest selling single. But it didn’t lead to any sustained success whatsoever, as his charmingly titled follow-up ‘I Love Them Ho’s’ stalled at #27, and was his only other Top 40 appearance.
We knew it all along. Busted were just the warm-up for the decade’s finest pop-punk, not-quite-a-boyband: McFly.
5 Colours in Her Hair, by McFly (their 1st of seven #1s)
2 weeks, 4th – 18th April 2004
I love McFly. I think they produced some of 21st century Britain’s finest pop songs. I have seen them live three times. I’ll admit right now, off the bat, that I will struggle to give an unbiased critique of any of their seven chart-toppers. But, having said that, ‘5 Colours in Her Hair’ is pretty far down my list of best McFly singles, let alone my list of best McFly tracks (unlike most pop groups, McFly’s albums weren’t full of filler).
At the same time, this song was probably the best way to launch the band: a breakneck, surf-rock track with a stupidly catchy doo-doo-doodoo-doo hook, and lyrics about a loner with a sexy attitude (inspired by the dreadlocked Susan Lee from Channel 4 drama ‘As If’). This was the McFly manifesto for most of their first three albums, a period that would produce those seven #1s, as well as an unbroken run of fifteen Top 10 hits.
It’s also got that cheeky chappy energy we saw with Busted’s ‘Crashed the Wedding’ and, to a lesser extent, Sam and Mark. The video is a zany Monkees/Beach Boys/Beatles pastiche, and the I’d like to phone her ‘cause she puts me in the mood… is nicely naughty. The main thing that has never sat well with me is the Everybody wants to know her na-ee-a-ee-a-ee-ame hook, which I always thought was annoying and forced.
Having called them pop-punk in the intro, I’m going to retract that claim. Busted were more Blink-182, pop-punk adjacent. McFly had a far wider ranging sound, paying unapologetic homage to British pop and rock from the ‘60s and ‘70s, while Tom Fletcher and Danny Jones were the more talented songwriters (though Busted’s James Bourne, to give him his due, did co-write this record). The B-side to ‘5 Colours in Her Hair’ was a cover of the Kinks’ ‘Lola’, with Busted, while the first time I saw McFly live they announced that they were going to play a new song they had ‘been working on backstage’, before launching into ‘She Loves You’.
I might go as far as to name ‘5 Colours in Her Hair’ my 6th favourite of McFly’s seven number ones. Though it would rise up the rankings if we include the heavier version that they re-recorded for the US release of their debut album. That’s the version I would choose to revisit these days. It should be noted too, that this song managed two weeks at number one, an impressive feat given how later McFly singles tended to collapse in their second week of release.
Every year has one number one that sounds utterly of that time. (In fact, that would be an interesting exercise, to go back through each year and choose one chart-topper to represent it…) Anyway, here is 2004’s.
Yeah!, by Usher (his 2nd of four #1s) ft. Lil’ John & Ludacris
2 weeks, 21st March – 4th April 2004
Compare and contrast ‘Yeah!’ with ‘Toxic’, the other contender for ‘song of the year’. ‘Toxic’ is timeless, while ‘Yeah!’ remains stuck in its time and place. But maybe I’m biased, as I was always going to be Team Britney, and to lean towards fun female pop. ‘Yeah!’ is the male equivalent though, in that it set the tone for boy-led, R&B/hip-hop pop for much of the rest of the decade.
It’s all homies, shawties, and booties – three lyrical must haves for a song of this type – and a chorus that is just Yeah! repeated twelve times. Not that the lyrics of ‘Toxic’ were Shakespearian; but this is really dumb. Musically it is equally simplistic, with a relentlessly memorable air-raid syren synth that runs, unwavering, from start to finish, complemented by what sounds like a phone ringing off the hook. This was one of the first hit records to bring crunk – a danceable subgenre of hip-hop from the Southern US – mainstream, and certainly the first UK #1 to do so. (It is, I think, one of only two crunk #1s, and is by far the lesser of the two…)
Also bringing the crunk is the appearance of Lil John, one of the godfathers of the genre, though he does little more than repeat what Usher sings, and shout ‘Yeah!’. (Considering that some artists have sung entire choruses on recent chart-toppers and not received a credit, Lil John can consider himself very lucky.)
I’m sounding pretty down on this record, when I do actually quite like it. And, considering that it instantly drags me back to being eighteen, it does hold some nostalgic weight. What saves it is the appearance of Ludacris, a rapper who enlivens any song he appears on. He never sounds like he’s taking his job seriously – and I mean that as a compliment, as he doesn’t have a serious job (though most rappers would argue otherwise…) He manages to keep his rap clean, but also delivers potentially one of the filthiest lines in chart-topping history: These women all on the prowl, If you hold the head steady, Imma milk the cow…
I’m just amazed that this was Luda’s only number one single, as ‘ft. Ludacris’ feels as common a ‘00s suffix as ‘ft. Jay-Z’. As for Usher, this was his second number one, over six years on from his teenage debut. Listen to ‘U Make Me Wanna’ then this back to back, and you’ll hear how much US R&B changed either side of the millennium. He won’t have to wait anywhere near as long for his third chart-topper.
In going through the chart-toppers of the time, I was always a bit down on the early to mid-eighties. 1980 was a great year for #1s, one of my favourites, but between 1982 and ’86 things went a bit gloopy.
And yet. Multiple sources claim 1984 as the best year in pop music history. Rolling Stone, Billboard, and the BBC have all pushed the theory, among several others. And on the surface you can see why: Prince, Madonna, Michael Jackson all at the peak of their powers, Springsteen’s ‘Born in the USA’, the rise of MTV, ‘the second British Invasion’…
There’s only one problem with this. It’s all very US-centric. It didn’t seem to translate back across the Atlantic, at least in terms of number one singles. But maybe if we zoom out a little, and take a random Top 10, I might become a mid-1980s convert. Here then, is the UK Top 10 as it stood on this day in 1984, AKA forty-two years ago.
10. ‘Wood Beez (Pray Like Aretha Franklin)’, by Scritti Politti (up 7 / 8 weeks on chart)
A bit of a litmus test at #10, because this is as 1984-sounding as it gets. I know very little about Scritti Politti, other than they’re the sort of band you might name drop as eighties-by-numbers, like Kajagoogoo or Blancmange. And I’ll admit that this track isn’t converting me to their cause. It’s got an interestingly funky bassline and synth riff, but the vocals are buried in the mix. And where the hell does Aretha Franklin come in…? (Okay, there’s a line in the bridge that alludes to ‘Say a Little Prayer’) Part of my problem with mid-eighties pop is that it took itself very seriously, and I’d say this is an issue here. But this was Scritti Politti’s breakthrough record, and first of two UK Top 10s.
9.‘Nelson Mandela’, by The SpecialAKA (non-mover / 6 weeks on chart)
This is a bit more like it. Nelson Mandela was already twenty-one years in captivity when the Specials released this, and brought his name to the wider British public’s attention. Jerry Dammers, who wrote the song, had only found out who Mandela was the year before, when he attended his first anti-apartheid rally. Around the same time as Margaret Thatcher – ever on the wrong side of history – denouncing him as a terrorist.
As protest songs go this is very danceable, with lots of authentic African musical influences. One of the backing singers was Caron Wheeler, who would go on to provide lead vocals for Soul II Soul’s 1989 #1 ‘Back to Life’. It was released as the Special AKA, as The Specials had technically split in 1981, with three members going on to found Fun Boy Three. This was the band’s first Top 10 hit since ‘Ghost Town’, and would be their final UK Top 10.
8. ‘Ain’t Nobody’, by Rufus & Chaka Khan (up 5 / 4 weeks on chart)
Vaulting up into the Top 10 this week, a bona-fide classic. If someone cites a track like this as an example of 1984’s musical pedigree, I will wholeheartedly agree. #8 was this record’s peak, which feels low, though Chaka Khan would outdo it with a chart-topper later in the year.
The enduring popularity of ‘Ain’t Nobody’ is proven by the fact that it has returned to the upper reaches of the UK charts on five occasions over the years through various covers, remixes and samples, including a belated appearance at #1 through LL Cool J in 1997, and a re-peak for Chaka at #6 when re-released in 1989.
I will admit, though, that I always though the ‘Rufus’ credited on the record was a man, Rufus Khan… Chaka’s brother, or husband, perhaps…? Colour me surprised to learn today that Rufus were a funk act with three Top 10s on the Billboard Chart. At least I don’t get paid for this…
7. ‘Glad It’s All Over’ / ‘Damned on 45’, by Captain Sensible (down 1 / 5 weeks on chart)
Captain Sensible, founder of the Damned (releasers of officially the first ‘punk’ record in 1976), had maintained a side solo career since the late-seventies, and had scored an unlikely chart-topper in ’82 with a cover of ‘Happy Talk’. He was also a committed pacifist, and ‘Glad It’s All Over’ refers to the Falklands conflict (more South Atlantic than ‘South Pacific’), making for two protest songs in this week’s hit parade. As nice as the sentiment is, this is a fairly pedestrian number. It could do with some punkish spit and vinegar…
Luckily then we have the flip-side of this double-A. It’s a riff on the popular ‘Stars on 45’ singles, but with a medley of around fifteen Damned and Captain Sensible tunes (including a reprise of ‘Happy Talk’). I’m not going to claim that it works particularly well, or that I enjoyed all seven and a half minutes of it, but at least it injects a bit of variety into this Top 10!
6. ‘People Are People’, by Depeche Mode (down 2 / 4 weeks on chart)
In some ways, Depeche Mode are as ‘eighties synonymous’ as Scritti Politti. However, Depeche Mode outlasted their new-wave roots to become one of Britain’s most succesful chart outfits. I’ve already covered them in my ‘Never Had a #1’ series, as one of the non chart-topping acts with the most Top 10 singles, and this #4 hit remains their joint-highest hit.
Why? Well, I’d say contrast this clanking, choppy, industrial hook-filled track to the weedy ‘Wood Beez’ further down the chart. Yes it’s very of its time in terms of its sound and production – your tolerance for harsh mid-eighties synths will determine if that’s a positive or not – but it’s undeniably catchy. And it’s another somewhat political number: People are people so why should it be, You and I should get along so awfully…?
5. ‘I Want to Break Free’, by Queen (up 13 / 2 weeks on chart)
Breaking into the Top 5 this week, and on its way to a #3 peak, it’s one of Queen’s most famous songs. Famous because it’s a catchy hit, but probably more so because the band do drag in the ‘Coronation Street’ inspired video. In the US this video is widely blamed for ‘ending’ their career – until Wayne’s World resurrected them in the early ’90s – as Reagan-era Americans just couldn’t handle men in dresses (luckily we now live in much more enlightened times…) I don’t know if that narrative is all completely true, as Queen were never guaranteed hit makers in the States, with some smashes alongside a lot of misses. It was banned by MTV, though.
And it could be argued that this is yet another political statement of a song, and not just because of it’s gender-bending. In South America and, in particular, South Africa the I want to break free… refrain was taken up in various fights against repression.
4. ‘Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)’, by Phil Collins (up 4 / 3 weeks on chart)
Two classics of the decade in a row then, as here comes eighties chart mainstay Phil Collins with one of the ultimate power-ballads, in an era chock full of fist-clenchers. The moment before the second verse, when the drums come clattering in, is hard to deny even if you find the rest of the song overwrought.
I’d say that this song has lasted far longer in the public imagination than the Rachel Ward and Jeff Bridges film of the same name, the soundtrack to which this comes from. We have of course already met a cover version of this at #1, from Mariah Carey and Westlife, and we have another chart-topping cover to come very soon. Can’t wait!
3. ‘A Love Worth Waiting For’, by Shakin’ Stevens (down 1 / 5 weeks on chart)
Of course, Britain’s highest selling singles act of the entire decade had to put in an appearance! Shakey might have been beyond his ’81-’82 heyday here but he was still good for a big hit, and this one had been at #2 the week before.
Without doing any research on it, I was convinced that this must be a cover of an oldie by someone like Emile Ford. But no, it’s an original. Which in my opinion makes all the cheesy old rock ‘n’ roll flourishes less enjoyable. Had Emile Ford released this in 1959, I’d have enjoyed it. For Shakin’ Stevens to have churned it out in 1984 feels… meh. Still we can’t knock Shakey too much. This was his 13th of twenty-five career Top 20 hits, and he remains a legend of British pop.
2. ‘You Take Me Up’, by The Thompson Twins (up 1 / 4 weeks on chart)
Like Scritti Politti, the Thompson Twins exist to me as an act that evoke a distant vision of the mid-eighties, rather than as an act I’ve ever really listened to. I can’t help but pin this song as the biggest disappointment in this entire Top 10. In 1984, the year in which I was promised Prince, Madonna, Springsteen and/or Michael Jackson, I ended up with Scritti Politti and the Thompson Twins.
No, I don’t particularly like this. The overwrought vocal delivery, the clunking beat, the processed harmonica… All very of their time. I think that this might also be political in theme, especially going by the video featuring chain gangs, and lyrics about working in a factory. What was it about the 1980s that made everyone take themselves so seriously?
1. ‘Hello’, by Lionel Richie (non-mover / 7 weeks on chart)
Speaking of taking things a bit too seriously… My original post on Lionel Richie’s ‘Hello’ details why I dislike this song, and why I named it as one of my Very Worst Number Ones. It really is tripe. I’ve never been able to enjoy it ironically even, like so many power ballads of the time, because there is nothing, not even a glimmer, in this song (and the preposterous video) to suggest that it isn’t intended as 100% sincere. Yet here it stands, in its fifth of six weeks at #1.
Lionel Richie is a name that sits in the eighties pantheon, at least, alongside Phil Collins and Queen elsewhere in this countdown. They were perhaps what I might have expected to find in this Top 10. Of course, a random week does not sum up an entire decade, but this hasn’t gone any way to explaining why 1984 is considered by many to be the Best Year in Pop Music History.
What is interesting, though, is the fact that two of these songs are overtly political, while three more can be argued to have political (or at least somewhat provocative) themes. That’s half the Top 10! Apartheid and the Falklands conflict are mentioned explicitly, while it’s clear that the Cold War and the Thatcher government were on many musicians’ minds (either side of this Top 10 we had ’99 Red Balloons’ and ‘Two Tribes’ hitting the top of the charts…) I’m not one to argue that pop music shouldn’t be political, as art will always end up reflecting the values of the people making it, but at the same time I’m not one to accept something ‘deep’ as automatically being ‘better’. The mid-eighties does feel like a time when pop acts tried to go ‘deep’, for better or worse. Compared to modern pop music this feels unusual. But also, look ten years further back, to the mid-seventies and the height of glam, and you’d see a chart full of shallow but catchy pop. These things are never linear.
One other notable thing about this chart is that there is only one chart-topping single in it, but seven of the acts in the Top 10 are chart-topping acts.
So, if 1984 has not proven itself to be my favourite year for music, then what is…? In terms of chart-toppers – which is what this blog is all about after all – I have a Top 3, and a definite bottom. I’m planning to reveal them in a special post when we get to the 1000th #1. In the meantime, let me know what your best musical/chart-topping years are!
Are you ready to cut some shapes? Cause this time, we gonna get funky…
Cha Cha Slide, by DJ Casper (his 1st and only #1)
1 week, 14th – 21st March 2004
I can truly see the appeal of a song that comes with a step-by-step, foolproof, IKEA-style guide to the dance. ‘The Timewarp’ springs immediately to mind. I’m an okay dancer, when freestyling, but get very stressed when following a routine (see my post on ‘Saturday Night’).
So, for DJ Casper to introduce this record with we’re gonna do the basic steps… is on one level helpful. But that’s all this record is. Three plus minutes of some very basic steps. Slide to the left… Slide to the right… Two hops this time… Hands on your knees… Even I can keep up. Okay it gradually speeds up, throws in some freezes, reverses, and something called a ‘Charlie Brown’; but it gets very repetitive, very quickly.
The ‘Cha Cha Slide’ has an interesting, and protracted history. DJ Casper, a prominent figure in the Chicago ‘stepping’ movement, wrote it in 1998 as a step aerobics routine for his nephew, a personal trainer. This chart-topping version is technically the ‘Casper Slide Part 2’, as Part 1 was just the steps performed to a track called ‘Plastic Dreams’, to which DJ Casper didn’t have the rights. So he recorded a new, fairly rinky-dink version with something called the Platinum Band. This version was released in 2000, making #83 in the US, but growing organically through local radio and mobile discos, not to mention exercise classes, to the point that it was released worldwide four years later.
And here we are. I don’t hate this, because it’s an old-fashioned novelty, and it feels like a while since we had a proper novelty number one. Was the last one ‘The Ketchup Song’, or even DJ Otzi’s ‘Hey Baby’? But also, like I said, it’s repetitive. On first listen, I checked the time remaining twice, so eager was I for it to finish. It just keeps going… And that’s only the single edit. The original is six and a half minutes long!
Despite DJ Casper’s long stepping career, this was his only real hit record (the name ‘Casper’ came from his penchant for wearing all-white, like the friendly ghost). In fact, the UK and Ireland were the only two countries where he ever had a follow-up hit, with his take on ‘Oops Up Side Your Head’. We really do love a novelty.
The story of this song’s creation, its long road to success, and its annoying nature, remind me of Fatman Scoop’s ‘Be Faithful’ from a few months earlier. Though ‘Cha Cha Slide’ is a lot more wholesome and kid-friendly. Speaking of ‘wholesome’, we have to finish on the Christian version of this record – The Bible Slide – which is so bad nobody can work out if it’s a parody or not. This time, we’re gonna get holy…
The UK Number Ones Blog 