Back in the days, I used to imagine what the first No 1 would be in the year
2000. Something electronic, for sure — a bit like Chicory Tip, maybe, but on
jet-bikes. I wasn’t far off. It turned out to be Westlife’s version of Seasons
in the Sun.
Any day now, the 1,000th No 1 will be with us — this week’s I’ll
Stand By You by Girls Aloud is No 997 — and it arrives at a rather
poignant moment, as Top of the Pops is shunted sideways to BBC Two
after a 40-year run as pop’s TV flagship. Moreover, the charts themselves
will be compiled differently, no longer based just on counter sales but on
downloads, ringtones and possibly ringpulls.
Anyone over 25 will recall the thrill of the new chart rundown on a Sunday
night (or Tuesday lunchtime if you’re a little greyer). Getting to No 1 did
not come easy. Frequently there would be a novelty record keeping The Who,
Bowie, Blondie or the Human League off the top. A glance at the full list of
997 to date shows all manner of Ken Dodds, Engelberts and Lena Martells
hogging the limelight. It was a battle, all ebbs and flows and unexpected
highs and lows. If you get right to it, the charts were like football.
This changed in the early Nineties, when the major labels finally worked out
how to manipulate fan bases to obtain the highest possible chart position.
In fact, it happened the very day that Innuendo by Queen (try humming
it) went straight to No 1. Very quickly, records no longer climbed
gradually, and the week-of-release chart position became the one that
counted. When Frankie Goes to Hollywood scored No 1s with their first three
singles in 1984 it made the Nine O’Clock News. When Aqua did it
a dozen years later, no one blinked.
Curmudgeonliness aside, there is no small pleasure in looking at the almost
complete list of 1,000. The Beatles and Elvis stand like twin giants, the
Liverpool and Arsenal, 35 No 1s between them, while Westlife’s mind-numbing
12 chart-toppers (seven out of their first seven releases, ten out of their
first eleven) make them the Man U of the charts.
There’s Al Martino starting off the whole show in 1952 with Here in
my Heart, swiftly followed by Jo Stafford, Kay Starr and Frankie Laine,
whose I Believe holds the record for most weeks at the top — 18 in
1953. That imposter Bryan Adams managed only 16 with his bloodless Robin
Hood ballad. But at least Adams’s weeks were consecutive — Big Frankie, a
true gent, took a couple of short breaks to give his showbiz friends Eddie
Fisher and Mantovani some time at the top.
The days before rock’n’roll are not unlike the baggy-shorted amateur years of
the early FA Cup — for Old Etonians and Royal Engineers read Winifred
Atwell’s Poor People of Paris and Eddie Calvert’s Oh
Mein Papa. Everyone took their time to get to No 1.
But once the game went professional, as Rock Around the Clock shot to
No 1 in 1955, all kinds of records were there to be broken. The longest No 1
was, unsurprisingly, Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, but the
shortest? Step forward Adam Faith: the hiccupping fit that was What Do
You Want clocked in at just one minute and 36 seconds. He fought to beat
his own record with his only other No 1, Poor Me, in 1960 but could
only manage one minute 42 seconds.
First reggae No 1? Desmond Dekker’s Israelites. First beat group?
That’ll be Gerry and the Pacemakers and their unforgivingly chirpy How
Do You Do It?, which headed off the Beatles’ From Me to You
at the pass. Least likely No 1? Mungo Jerry’s tuneless neanderthal stomper Baby
Jump, which surely got to No 1 in 1971 only as a result of the goodwill
surrounding the band after their previous hit, In the Summertime.
Circa 1978 or 1979 arguments raged in the Smash Hits letters page about
whether the Sex Pistols’ God Save the Queen (only No 2 in the Guinness
Book of Hit Singles but No 1 in the NME) or the Boomtown Rats’ Rat
Trap was the first punk No 1. The idea of Bob Geldof’s hilarious
Springsteen pastiche being considered punk in any way seems rather quaint
now.
Although indefinite revivals of Band Aid threaten its supremacy, the king of
No 1s is Unchained Melody, which has reached the top courtesy of the
unholy quartet of Jimmy Young, Robson and Jerome, the Righteous Brothers and
Gareth Gates. People who read Record Mirror rather than the Guinness
book would claim a fifth member of this clan — blind Al Hibbler, who sang
the original version and was neck and neck with young Jimmy Young in the
1955 charts. It’s a shame that the Mississippian Hibbler’s version doesn’t
get played more often, as he was apparently well known for his unusual
growling and studied Cockney inflections.
Plenty of major acts scored not even a solitary No 1. These include
Liverpool’s favourite son before Beatlemania, Billy Fury, even though he had
29 hits — the aptly named Halfway to Paradise stalled at No 4.
There was no ultimate pleasure either for Nat “King” Cole, REM, Brenda Lee,
Little Richard, Robert Palmer or The Who. And in Britain Janet Jackson has,
to date, charted with 38 records and not once hit the peak. She can seek
inspiration from Gene Pitney, who had to wait a full 28 years from his first
hit in 1961 to score a No 1 with a rerelease of Something’s Gotten Hold
of My Heart, by which time his image had changed from eager young
college boy to browbeaten Steve Martin lookalike.
Then there are the poor saps who fell agonisingly short not once, not twice,
but thrice in a row. This fate seems to have befallen only Darts, who
achieved this miserable stasis in 1978 with Come Back My Love, The Boy
from New York City and It’s Raining. The latter was actually a bona
fide, blue-eyed soul beauty for those in search of such guilty pleasures. It
may well have gone one step further had its singer, one Bob Fish, not
carried such an un-pop moniker and not looked like a thuggish insurance
clerk.
Darts’ three No 2s were held in purgatory by, respectively, Abba’s Take
a Chance on Me, Boney M’s Rivers of Babylon and the
Commodores’ Three Times a Lady — all irrefutable standards,
whether they float your boat or not. You don’t see Bob Fish bleating (or
making open-mouthed silent protests) about his misfortune on I ♥ 1978,
or wherever. Bob Fish has more dignity than that.
Fish certainly has more dignity than Ultravox, who never tire of telling us
how their hideous Vienna was kept off pole position for four straight
weeks by Joe Dolce’s Shaddap You Face. At the time, the very
height of New Romanticism, you could feel some sympathy: Vienna
seemed somehow important, a Bo Rhap for the legwarmer generation, an
airy choux pastry of a 45 crushed under foot by a novelty so cod that even
Pizza Hut has never dared to appropriate it. But “tssk” went Midge Ure, and
14-year-olds nationwide shook their heads solemnly.
Some 23 years of well-timed “Gotta no respect!” gags later I feel somewhat
differently: Dolce has inadvertently headed off many a minor family crisis;
while Ure went on to co-write Do They Know It’s Christmas,
which — and I believe Morrissey is in agreement with me here — is the worst
song ever written, ergo the worst No 1 ever.
Elvis, as in almost all aspects of world history, remains the king. Eighteen
No 1s puts him one ahead of the Beatles. What’s more, such seismic singles
as Heartbreak Hotel, Hound Dog, King Creole, In the Ghetto and
Suspicious Minds are among nine El hits that landed one place short of the
summit.
Most record companies are keeping their release schedules under wraps, hoping
to unveil a secret weapon that will capture the coveted 1,000 slot. BMG,
though, are going all out and rereleasing an Elvis No 1 a week for the first
18 weeks of 2005. So will All Shook Up, His Latest Flame or Way Down
become the milestone 1,000th hit in January or whenever? Or will it be a new
kind of music, fusing electronica, Baroque beauty and a beat that just won’t
quit?
Some chance. Steel yourselves for an X Factor contestant singing Unchained
Melody. In the words of the 240th No1, by Long John Baldry, let the
heartaches begin.
MY TOP THREE
David Sinclair
Diamonds Jet Harris & Tony Meehan (1963). Dark and moody,
a guitar odyssey with glamour, mystery and menace.
Honky Tonk Women The Rolling Stones (1969). The Stones’ last and most
inspired No 1. A classic from the moment that lurching cowbell introduced
the languid beat and swaggering, open-tuned riff.
Firestarter Prodigy (1996). Mordant celebration of social deviance that
was original, dramatic and totally hardcore.
MY TOP THREE
Steve Jelbert
Tired of Waiting for You The Kinks (1965). Meaningless but
heartfelt lyric, with irresistible nasal whine and a heartstoppingly weedy
thrash into the final chorus.
Bad Moon Rising Creedence Clearwater Revival (1969). Openly plundered
from the sound of Elvis Presley’s Sun sessions, 15 years before.
Ghost Town The Specials (1981). Brilliant and eerie ode to better times
that couldn’t last. The right record at the right time.
MY TOP THREE
Lisa Verrico
Another Brick in the Wall Pink Floyd (1979). This seemed like
the ultimate rebel record when I was at primary school.
Pump up the Volume M/A/R/R/S (1987). It didn’t sound like any song I’d
ever heard before and was the start of my decade-long dedication to dance
music.
The Real Slim Shady Eminem (2000). A debut single that launched the
career of the 21st century’s first pop superstar.
