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

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

20. Carpenters

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

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

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

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

19. Bob Dylan

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

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

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

18. Dire Straits

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

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

17. The Doors

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

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

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

16. Santana

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

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

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

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