Today’s Top 10

Today’s Top 10 – April 19th 1984

/ UK #1s blog / 15 Comments

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 Special AKA (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!

Today’s Top 10 – December 31st, 1999

/ UK #1s blog / 8 Comments

For my final post of the year, let’s go back twenty-six years. Back to the final day of the 20th century. The Millennium. I was thirteen and remember it well: the day long coverage on TV, the fireworks, the fear that society might collapse at midnight, that I got to drink sparkling wine…

But, did the final UK singles chart do justice to the millennium just past? Did it manage to sum up the sounds of a century? Did we go out with a bang? Well….

10. ‘Back in My Life’, by Alice Deejay (up 1 / 5 weeks on chart)

The record at #10 on this week sets the scene beautifully. This was the sound of the late nineties: a Dutch Eurodance ‘project’ with some basic beats, basic lyrics, and a basic ‘dancing in front of a waterfall’ video. It’s ‘basically’ a slightly harder-edged Vengaboys. This was the follow-up to Alice Deejay’s better (and better known) breakthrough #2 ‘Better Off Alone’, and had been as high as #4 in the charts in early December.

9. ‘Kiss (When the Sun Don’t Shine)’, by Vengaboys (up 1 / 3 weeks on chart)

Oops. Like summoning an evil spirit by the mere mention of its name, here are the Vengaboys. Following up their two 1999 #1s, ‘Kiss (When the Sun Don’t Shine)’ had made #3 a couple of weeks before this. It is a little less in one’s face compared to, say, ‘Boom Boom Boom Boom’. Which is maybe why it didn’t do as well… Or maybe Vengaboys fatigue had set in? In earlier posts, I posited a theory that disposable tripe like this was so succesful at the turn of the millennium because we were all worried that the world would end, and just wanted to party. The first two records in this Top 10 do seem to give my theory some credence…

8. ‘Say You’ll Be Mine’ / ‘Better the Devil You Know’, by Steps (down 1 / 2 weeks on chart)

No turn of the millennium chart would be complete without some Steps, an ever-present between ’97 and 2001. ‘Say You’ll Be Mine’ is a pleasant pop tune, but it’s nobody’s favourite Steps song. The video is a nice time-capsule of late nineties movie parodies: ‘Romeo + Juliet’, ‘Titanic’, ‘Austin Powers’, and a fairly daring recreation of the ‘hairgel’ scene from ‘There’s Something About Mary’.

Steps did love a double-‘A’, and on the other side of the disc was this camp cover of a Kylie classic. The devil horns and long red coats are, I’m just going to say it, iconic. They do not outdo Kylie’s version, but they stick so close to it that they can’t really go wrong. This record entered at a fairly lowly (by Steps’ standards) #7 in Christmas week, but would climb to #4 in the new year to keep up an unbroken run of Top 5 hits for the group.

7. ‘Cognoscenti Vs. Intelligentsia’, by the Cuban Boys (down 3 / 2 weeks on chart)

Right. Y2K might not have brought about the end of the world, but two minutes into this next record you will perhaps begin wishing for it. There’s a lot to unpack here. It’s based around a sped-up, soundalike sample of Roger Miller’s ‘Whistle Stop’, AKA the minstrel’s tune from Disney’s ‘Robin Hood’. It had been the soundtrack to one of the earliest internet memes, ‘The Hampster Dance’, and there was a copyright controversy which delayed the release date. It had been promoted on, of all places, John Peel’s Radio 1 show, and had been at #4 for Xmas. And in some ways this is perfect for our dawn of the 21st Century Top 10: striking, modern, rooted in internet culture, completely and utterly banal…

6. ‘Two in a Million’ / ‘You’re My Number One’, by S Club 7 (down 1 / 2 weeks on chart)

We’ve had Steps, let’s have S Club. ‘Two in a Million’ isn’t one of their classics, and I struggled to remember it even after the chorus came along. It’s a nice enough slice of medium-tempo soul pop, but let’s skip forward to the flip-side…

…because this sort of breezy, Motown-lite pop is what S Club excelled at. ‘You’re My Number One’ was like a warm-up for their massive smash ‘Reach’ the following summer, but I’m enjoying it more today because it hasn’t been overdone. And I’m not one for nostalgia, but by God that video – with it’s crap choreo, its tomfoolery, its outfits – is so of its time it hurts. This double-A would rocket up to #2 in the new year, keeping S Club’s 100% Top 5 record intact.

5. ‘Re-Rewind (The Crowd Say Bo Selecta)’, by Artful Dodger ft. Craig David (up 1 / 4 weeks on chart)

Peaking at #2 before and after the festive period, though slumping temporarily on this week’s chart, here is the sound of the new millennium. Those staccato 2-step garage beats would go on to be one of the sounds of 2000-2001, while seventeen-year-old Craig David would be the first big breakout star of the 21st century, scoring two #1s in the coming months. I wouldn’t say I love this as a piece of music, but as a scene setter few songs take you back to the turn of the millennium as effectively as this.

4. ‘Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo’, by Mr. Hankey (up 4 / 2 weeks on chart)

Clearly released with the Christmas number one in mind, here’s a cartoon character which Wikipedia nicely sums up as a ‘sentient piece of feces’. Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo had featured in a South Park episode way back in 1997, but a combination of the series taking off a little later in Britain, plus Chef’s success the year before, led to this release in late 1999. Mr Hankey, The Christmas Poo, He’s small and brown and comes from you… It has the sound of a classic fifties festive tune-slash-television theme and did, I will confess, raise a smile on these unwilling lips. It is not a patch on ‘Chocolate Salty Balls’ however, and was nowhere near as succesful. (Though it would obviously have been somewhat satisfying if this had peaked at number two…)

3. ‘Imagine’, by John Lennon (non-mover / 2 weeks on chart)

Many will be holding their heads in their hands at the thought of ‘Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo’ rubbing shoulders with ‘Imagine’. But I like to see this juxtaposition as the magic of the charts… Anyway, we all know ‘Imagine’, and would all probably be happy never hearing ‘Imagine’ again, despite it being a beautiful song. It had been re-released ahead of the new year, presumably with the aim of making it the millennium’s final #1. It fell a couple of places short, but this did mark the third occasion on which it had made the Top 10.

2. ‘The Millennium Prayer’, by Cliff Richard (non-mover / 6 weeks on chart)

This weird Top 10 sees arguably Britain’s two biggest pop acts represented in the Top 3, with Cliff joining a Beatle as the century drew to an end. It also sees one of the worst Top 2s of all time. I wrote all about Cliff’s final number one here, and have no wish to revisit it….

1. ‘I Have a Dream’ / ‘Seasons in the Sun’, by Westlife (non-mover / 2 weeks on chart)

Ditto the record that was at number one, Westlife’s fourth of their breakout year and the previous week’s Christmas chart-topper. I have tried to be as kind as possible about some of Westlife’s many #1s, and have enjoyed a couple, but this double-‘A’ is as syrupy, saccharine, and cynical as you can get. Read my full post on it here, and discover why I named it as one of my very worst number ones here.

What strikes me about this chart is how normal it is, considering the looming spectre of Y2K. I thought that would have been more of a theme in this Top 10 but, aside from Cliff and John Lennon, it’s mainly just a routine run-down of Eurodance, disposable pop and Christmas novelties. It’s refreshing , however, to see a festive chart that isn’t just a replica of the Spotify ‘Christmas Hits’ playlist, as the modern charts now are.

Our regular blog will resume early next week, where we left it in December 2002. I hope everyone has a great new year, and that 2026 is full of health, wealth and happiness… and great music!

Today’s Top 10 – November 26th, 1963

/ UK #1s blog / 18 Comments

The two earlier ‘Today’s Top 10’s I’ve done were pretty succesful. Thanks to all who had a look, liked and commented. I was wondering what to do with the feature going forward, and I think I’ll use it to take a deeper look at interesting periods in chart history. What can the Top 10 tell us about where pop music was at a particular time and place?

So, we’ve done the death of the ’60s, and we’ve done the Summer of Love. Now we turn to perhaps one of the most exciting times in modern popular music: late-1963. The moment when the sixties finally started to swing. Thanks, mainly, to the Beatles. But not, as this chart will hopefully prove, solely because of them. For those interested in significant world events, this was also the Top 10 on the week that JFK was assassinated.

10. Let It Rock / Memphis, Tennessee, by Chuck Berry – down 4 (7 weeks on chart)

But what’s this…? Two rock ‘n’ roll tunes first released in 1959. How the charts like to mess with us… The reason is tied to the times, though. The Godfathers of rock, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Chuck Berry, had inspired the new Beat groups that we’ll be meeting further up this chart. The Beatles early albums were full of Berry songs, while the Stones’ first hit had been a cover of ‘Come On’ earlier in 1963. Pye Records saw an opportunity, and released some of these influential tunes for the first time in the UK. Amazingly, this was Berry’s first ever visit to the UK Top 10. A runaway train might not be the most obvious topic for a rock ‘n’ roll tune, but this wasn’t Berry’s first time singing about a railroad. And the way he makes his guitar sound like a train horn is iconic.

It was paired with the more laidback ‘Memphis, Tennessee’, which had also been a hit in a version by Dave Berry & the Cruisers around the same time. It pulls the same trick as such classics as Gilbert O’ Sullivan’s ‘Clair’, and Brotherhood of Man’s ‘Save Your Kisses for Me’, by tricking the listener into thinking that the singer is singing about a girlfriend, when he is actually singing about a small child. Berry, though, consumate storyteller that he was, manages to do it in a far less creepy manner, making the song more about the messy break-up, and the father’s regret, than about dodgy double entendres.

9. I’ll Keep You Satisfied, by Billy J. Kramer & The Dakotas – up 2 (3 weeks on chart)

This one’s much more 1963. One of the big beat combos that had broken through earlier in the year (with another three to come higher up), and who had been at #1 just a few weeks earlier with the Lennon-McCartney tune ‘Bad to Me’. ‘I’ll Keep You Satisfied’ is another L&M composition and, while it would peak decently at #4, it isn’t quite as good. Still, it’s better than the Dakota’s next hit, the dubious ‘Little Children’. Watching the video above, the music may be (slightly) rocking, but Billy J. is giving good crooner energy. Nothing to worry grandma… yet.

8. I (Who Have Nothing), by Shirley Bassey – up 1 (9 weeks on chart)

A constant presence on the charts of the ’50s and ’60s: a bit of Bassey. This is three minutes of pure melodrama, as Shirley watches an old-flame woo his new girl. ‘I (Who Have Nothing)’ was adapted from an Italian hit, which was something of a theme in the early sixties. It’s a classic of its genre: an intro of swirling strings, quiet bits, and bits where she lets loose, belting out high notes like nobody else can. I always find Shirley Bassey somewhat lacking in subtlety, but then again – if you’ve got it flaunt it. If I could sing like her then I’d be belting out my Starbucks orders.

7. Blue Bayou / Mean Woman Blues, by Roy Orbison – down 3 (10 weeks on chart)

Another double-‘A’ side from an American rocker, who had been around since the ’50s. Unlike the Chuck Berry record, though, this was a new hit. ‘Blue Bayou’ is one of Orbison’s gentler numbers – for the Big ‘O’ could of course give Shirley Bassey a run for her money in the belting stakes – but it’s always been one of my favourites. Even as a young ‘un who had no idea what the hell a ‘bayou’ was. Linda Rondstadt recorded a famous cover in 1977, though that didn’t make the UK Top 10.

On the flipside of this disc was a cover of ‘Mean Woman Blues’, an Elvis track from 1957. Personally, while they are both fine singers, I prefer Elvis’s version. I prefer bombastic, overblown Orbison to rocking Orbison. On this record he tries out the famous Grrrrrr, which he’d use to great effect on his chart-topping ‘Oh, Pretty Woman’ the following year.

6. Secret Love, by Kathy Kirby – up 6 (3 weeks on chart)

We’re keeping an eye out for the bands that came along in 1963 and changed popular music forever. But for every beat combo that made it big, there were plenty of British women who were just as instrumental in making the sixties swing. Kathy Kirby’s name hasn’t lasted alongside the likes of Cilla, Dusty, Lulu or Sandie Shaw, but here she is, enjoying her biggest hit. Her take on ‘Secret Love’ starts off very bombastically, much like Doris Day’s chart-topping original from a decade earlier, but soon a groovy guitars-and-backing-singers beat takes over, nicely updating the song for a new era. Plus, she has a great voice, with a bit of bite to it. Kirby may have retired from showbusiness in the early eighties and died in relative obscurity, but for a while she was a huge name: representing the UK at Eurovision in 1965 (finishing as runner-up) and hosting her own television programme.

5. Don’t Talk to Him, by Cliff Richard & The Shadows – up 2 (3 weeks on chart)

Common knowledge would have it that with the arrival of the Beatles et al the career of Cliff Richard – the hottest star in the land just a year or so earlier – fell off a, well, cliff. But glance at any Top 40 from any random moment post-1962, and it quickly becomes clear that Cliff went nowhere. Okay, he didn’t hit #1 as regularly, but ‘Don’t Talk to Him’ was one of an astounding 33 Top 10 hits he achieved across the sixties. I’d never heard this before, but it’s actually a really good song, combining a latin rhythm with some very current, beat guitars. This could easily have been written and recorded by one of the acts a couple of places up this chart, proving that Cliff gave those young whippersnappers a stronger run for their money than the history books suggest. *Some sources disagree as to whether this was Cliff solo, or Cliff with the Shadows, but I’ve gone with the latter*

4. Be My Baby, by the Ronettes – up 1 (6 weeks on chart)

The first of two all-time great, hall of fame pop songs in this week’s Top 4. The fact that this never made it higher than number four is a shock, and I’ve already done a post on how this really Should Have Been a #1. Even on this chart, in the year that it was recorded, where girl groups like the Ronettes were common, ‘Be My Baby’ stands out as special. It would stand out as special on any chart, in any era, simply because it is better than 99.95% of anything else in the history of pop.

3. Sugar and Spice, by the Searchers – down 1 (5 weeks on chart)

Here we are then, a purely Liverpudlian Top 3. The Searchers had been the 3rd Merseybeat band to make number one that year, after the two acts ahead of them in this chart, with their cover of The Drifters’ ‘Sweets for My Sweet’. Although still on the candy theme, ‘Sugar and Spice’ was an original, written by producer Tony Hatch. The chiming guitars and harmonies, as well the almost skiffle rhythm section, are pleasant, almost proto jangle-pop. But within a year, once the Stones, Kinks and Animals started making the upper reaches of the charts, it would start to sound a bit safe. The Searchers had two much better hits to come: their majestic second #1 ‘Needles and Pins’, and their cover of ‘When You Walk in the Room’. Like so many Beat bands that didn’t, or couldn’t, write their own material, the Searchers’ chart shelf-life was limited.

2. She Loves You, by The Beatles – up 1 (13 weeks on chart)

The song that officially kicked off the swinging sixties? The way that ‘She Loves You’ barrels in, chorus-first, on a wave of tight guitars and precision drumming, and yeah yeah yeahs. In France, this style of Beat music literally became known as ‘Yé-yé’ (and surely everyone knows by now how Mr McCartney Senior thought ‘yes, yes, yes’ would have sounded much more proper…) It is utterly perfect pop, to rank alongside the Ronettes a couple of places below it on this week’s chart. Although they developed their sound so far beyond this, I would still rank ‘She Loves You’ in my personal Beatles Top 3. You can read my original post on it, as a number one, here. On this week in November 1963, it was on its way back to number one, having already spent a month there that autumn, and on its way to becoming the biggest-selling single ever, at that point, in the UK (where it remains the Fab Four’s highest seller). Also, the seven-week gap between its two runs at the top remains a record to this day.

1. You’ll Never Walk Alone, by Gerry & the Pacemakers – non-mover (7 weeks on chart)

The 4th Beat group in the Top 10 on this day sixty-one years ago, Gerry & the Pacemakers had made history by being the first act to make #1 with their first three singles. This was the final week of a month-long run for ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, and it would also be The Pacemakers final week on top of the charts. (You can read my original post on it here.) The fact that for only their 3rd single the band had turned to a cover of a song from a 1945 musical is telling. While the Beatles were just warming up, their contemporaries were often relying on covers (or on handouts from Lennon & McCartney). Plus there was the fact that for record labels and producers, rock and roll was still a very new thing, one that many were convinced wouldn’t last. It was seen as essential for bands to branch out, and to nurture a wider appeal.

Of course we know now that rock ‘n’ roll was here to stay, even if Gerry & The Pacemakers weren’t. ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ was also here to stay, and by the end of its initial chart run it had already been adopted by the crowd at Anfield as Liverpool FC’s unofficial anthem, to be belted out pre-match from here to eternity. The song returned to number one in a charity version by The Crowd, following the Bradford City fire, while it also made top spot for a third time in 2020 in a version featuring Michael Ball and the 100-year-old Captain Tom Moore, a phenomenon that can only be explained by how crazy we all went during lockdown. It is nothing short of a modern-day hymn, given the song’s role in the current British psyche.

I hope you enjoyed this flashback to Today’s Top 10 in 1963. What a snapshot of popular music that was, as Britain finally cast off the shadow of the War and started to get a little groovy. Up next we’ll return to 1999, and to a country just a few months away from the terrifying uncertainty of a new millenium. Would all the computers crash? Would planes start dropping from the sky…? Nobody knew, so confused and distracted were people that they kept buying Ronan Keating records in large quantities. Stress will do that to you…

Today’s Top 10 – July 28th, 1967

/ UK #1s blog / 18 Comments

Another trip back in time then, with my second ever ‘Today’s Top 10’ (we went back to 1970 a few months ago – check it out if you have the time). This time I thought we’d go back to the summer of 1967… AKA The Summer of Love, in which for a few months the hippy ideal looked like perhaps becoming reality. Three very famous flower-power anthems topped the charts that summer, and all three are on this chart, dated 26th July-1st August 1967. But was the rest of the Top 10 as awash with peace and love? Let’s find out…

#10 – ‘Death of a Clown’, by Dave Davies (up 13 / 2 weeks on chart)

We start with a couple of big climbers, as Dave Davies’ debut solo effort enters the Top 10 this week. ‘Death of a Clown’ often gets classed as a Kinks’ song, and in fairness it does feature all four Kinks playing on it, and it did appear on the album ‘Something Else by the Kinks’. But it charted as a Dave solo number, with Ray contributing the la-la-la refrain, sung by his then wife. Its subject matter is that old rock ‘n’ roll chestnut – the grind of endless touring: I’m drownin’ my sorrows in whisky and gin… Dave Davies, who often chafed under his big brother’s domination of the group’s songwriting, had hoped that this song’s success (it would peak at #3) might lead to a solo album, but it didn’t. As a starter for our 1967 countdown it doesn’t scream ‘Summer of Love’, but Davies’ cravate in the video below is possibly the perfect encapsulation of the phrase ‘baroque pop’.

#9 – ‘Up, Up and Away’, by the Johnny Mann Singers (up 17 / 3 weeks on chart)

A bit more like it, now. An appropriately high climb for the Johnny Mann Singers going ‘Up, Up and Away’ in their beautiful balloons. It’s hardly the height of psychedelia, and it has much more of an upbeat, cabaret cheesiness to it, but it could also serve as a metaphor for indulging in some mind-bending substances. Most of the world knows it as a hit for the 5th Dimension but their version didn’t chart in the UK, leaving the coast clear for composer/arranger Johnny Mann and his singers.

#8 – ‘There Goes My Everything’, by Engelbert Humperdinck (down 2 / 10 weeks on chart)

Hang around the charts of 1967 long enough, and sooner rather than later you’ll come across Engelbert Humperdinck. He had two monster #1s, ‘Release Me’ and ‘The Last Waltz’, with this #2 smash sandwiched in between. ‘There Goes My Everything’ had been a huge US country hit for Jack Greene, before The Hump brought it to the pop charts. There’s more than a whiff of ‘The Green, Green Grass of Home’, a massive success for Tom Jones a few months earlier. Not very ‘Summer of Love’ but, let’s be honest, who could say no to a night of passion with this magnificent pillow-lipped crooner.

#7 – ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’, by Procol Harum (down 3 / 10 weeks on chart)

Aha! Here we are then. One of the big three Summer of Love anthems, which had been at number one for six weeks and was now on its way down the chart. A stone cold, all-time classic which I’ve already named as one the Very Best #1s. Not much more to say, other than read my original post on it here, and give it a play regardless of how many times you’ve heard it before.

#6 – ‘See Emily Play’, by Pink Floyd (up 2 / 6 weeks on chart)

And if Procol Harum weren’t trippy enough, here is some true psychedelica from up and comers Pink Floyd. Written by founder member Syd Barrett, about a girl that he had seen in a forest while tripping on LSD. It is a deeply strange pop single, with lyrics about losing your mind, a demented harpsichord break, and a discordant, feedback-drenched solo. It was only their second single, and Barrett was opposed to releasing it as he didn’t think it was up to scratch. He would leave the band only a few months later, with mental health problems possibly brought on by drug use, and became a famous recluse. Pink Floyd meanwhile went on to release some of the biggest albums of the ’70s. They didn’t release many singles, though, and the next time they visited the Top Ten was with their surprise 1979 Christmas number one, ‘Another Brick in the Wall Pt. II’.

#5 – ‘She’d Rather Be With Me’, by The Turtles (up 2 / 7 weeks in chart)

Into the Top 5, with one of the decade’s great forgotten pop records, by one of the decade’s great forgotten pop groups. If the Turtles have made it into the public consciousness, then it’s for the single that they released just before this, the Billboard #1 ‘Happy Together’. Surprisingly for a song that constantly pops up in movies and on TV as shorthand for ‘The Swinging Sixties!’, ‘Happy Together’ only made #12 in the UK. Perhaps buoyed by that song’s greatness, ‘She’d Rather Be With Me’ went all the way to #4 later in August ’67. And for my money, it’s even better. Chunky production, unashamedly cheerful lyrics, cowbells, and a big, brassy marching band finish crammed into a little over two minutes. The Turtles would have one further Top 10, ‘Elenore’, which they wrote as a parody of ‘Happy Together’, but which manages to be even more ludicrously catchy.

#4 – ‘Alternate Title’, by The Monkees (down 2 / 4 weeks on chart)

Even The Monkees get into the spirit of the time, releasing a record as trippy as anything a better respected band might have put out. ‘Alternate Title’ is a very literal name for this record, as it was released elsewhere as ‘Randy Scouse Git’. (RCA refused to put it out in the UK with that name, as it sounded “somewhat rude to a British audience”.) Micky Dolenz had heard the phrase on the sitcom ‘Till Death Do Us Part’, which British audiences had somehow managed to watch without reaching for the smelling salts. If the Monkees were better respected, then the lyrics to this might warrant as much chin scratching as ‘American Pie’. It’s a bonkers record, with the verses telling the story of a party, referencing The Beatles (the four kings of EMI), the model – and Dolenz’s future wife – Samantha Juste (the being known as ‘Wonder Girl’), and Mama Cass in a yellow dress. The shouty chorus meanwhile represents the establishment yelling at the youth of the day (why don’t you cut your hair?!). And when I call it ‘bonkers’, I mean it in the best possible sense of the word.

#3 – San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair), by Scott McKenzie (up 2 / 3 weeks on chart)

On its way to the top, another anthem for the Summer of Love: an ode to the city where it all began. In fact, ‘San Francisco’ was written as promotion for the Monterey International Pop Festival, held in June that year. So it’s basically an advert… which isn’t super compatible with the hippy ethos, but hey ho. It worked, and young folks flocked to the city that summer, many with the requisite flowers in their hair. Of the three Summer of Love anthems, this one is perhaps the most stuck in that time, and hasn’t transcended to become an all-time classic. But it’s hard to argue with that sweet, wistful melody. Read my original post on it here.

#2 – It Must Be Him (Seul Sur Son Etoile), by Vikki Carr (up 1 / 9 weeks on chart)

Just to remind us that the singles chart is at heart a collection of songs ordered by cold, hard data, with no interest in the trends of the time, this was the #2 single as the Summer of Love reached its peak. American Vikki Carr provides the easy-listening filling between two hippy anthems, with a tune originally written and sung in French. In ‘It Must Be Him’, Carr – who has a lovely, strident voice – waits by the phone hoping her ex will call: Let it please be him, Oh dear God, It must be him, Or I shall die... I’d suggest Vikki might have played it a bit cooler, if only because all that talk of death and God probably brought this close to a BBC ban…

#1 – ‘All You Need Is Love’, by The Beatles (non-mover / 3 weeks on chart)

In the middle of a 3-week run at the top, this chart’s third, and perhaps ultimate, flower-power anthem. You can read my original post here. (I can’t remember what I wrote five years ago, but I’m sure it was largely positive!) Listening again now, I’m struck by how much fun this record is. From the opening bars of La Marseillaise, through Paul’s ‘all together now’s, the snatches of Bach, ‘Greensleeves’, and ‘In the Mood’, to brief glimpses of ‘Yesterday’ and ‘She Loves You’, the worthy message is dressed up in a lot of singalong fun. Brian Epstein, who would die just a few weeks later, described the band’s performance of the song for the ‘Our World’ television link-up as their finest moment.

So I’d say half the Top 10 for this week in July 1967 does the Summer of Love (and LSD) proud. The other half is more standard sixties: middle-of-the-road ballads, quality pop, and some high-grade crooning. Hope you enjoyed this detour, and I’ll do another one before the year is out.