Last spring I was musing over a No 1 single from 1971 that almost nobody seems
to remember.After George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord and before T.
Rex’s Hot Love, the bestselling single in Britain was Baby
Jump by Mungo Jerry. Ring any bells? Thought not. Curious to know if
anyone else was mystified by its disappearance into a pop cultural black
hole, I googled “Baby Jump” and came across a blog called Popular. Here,
dozens of people had posted, wondering if 45s were being rationed that week
in 1971; there were dark mutterings about a postal strike. Only one person
remembered the song. This was manna for a pop obsessive; Popular quickly
become an obsession.
The aim of Popular is to dissect and discuss every No 1 since the singles
chart began in 1952. Started in 2003 by Tom Ewing, a longtime presence in
the world of music blogs, Popular covers two, three or four new entries,
chronologically, each week: Ewing writes an essay on each, awards a mark out
of ten, and stands back to watch the sparks fly.
“I thought I’d write something about Al Martino’s Here In
My Heart, the first No 1, and just kept going,” he says. He awarded
Martino four out of ten, which he now thinks was a little generous. Then he
merrily downloaded the next few No 1s — Eddie Fisher, Kay Starr, Jo
Stafford, the Stargazers — and began to write about the lot.
“I was writing at a fair clip early on and I got lots of links and lots of
hits. I assumed I’d give up, not see it through, for quite a while. But my
justification for Popular, of learning about what’s popular, has kept it
interesting. Now, short of being hit by a bus, I think I’ll complete it.”
After six years, Ewing is just about to reach the halfway point. He has just
written about the 549th entry, Phyllis Nelson’s 1985 slow-dancer Move
Closer, describing it as “a private moment, almost uncomfortably
intimate”. When Ewing began Freaky Trigger, the parent blog to Popular, in
1999, it’s a safe bet that he never thought he’d be evaluating this
Casiotone-led smoocher.
“Well, one thing I like is that you don’t get a choice about the music; you
have to grit your teeth and write. It appeals to my hairshirt side."
Rather than adding to the weight of words on critics’ favourites, Ewing
reckons that it somehow “feels purer to write about the most popular records
of their era”. He is beguiled by the fact that “for one week in 2001, Rui Da
Silva’s Touch Me was the most popular record in the country.
That’s all that links the songs, so as the name hints it’s an examination of
the changing nature of popularity. Also, most hit records are novelty
records; there’s almost always something there that’s a gimmick, even if
it’s an awesome or moving one.”
Born in Surrey 36 years ago, Ewing grew up with the event-led pop of the
mid-Eighties — Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Band Aid — soundtracking his
childhood. At a time when a single seemed capable of ending famine, or at
least altering high-street fashion, it’s hardly surprising that he ended up
with unshakeable faith in the primacy of the single,and the charts — “a
device to sell newspapers that conquered my world”.
His favourite records are from these formative years, though his self-imposed
rule about not discussing Popular’s future entries until they are posted
prevents him from naming too many: “Things had to be good to stand out in a
morass of worthy records. It was a hard time to be flashy and stupid and
silly.”
Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart — flashy, stupid and
very silly — narrowly missed out on a maximum score. “In the Eighties there
was more at stake, and some stunning, polarising records. Each era of
Popular has provided me with a different challenge. Much of the Fifties is
like a foreign language; the Seventies are a spiritual elder brother; the
Eighties are when I grew up. In the Nineties I was fighting a battle — is
this rubbish or not? Am I the wrong age for pop?”
There is a loyal group of people who add to Ewing’s entries, dipping in and
out depending on their memories of the songs, frequently altering opinions
as they rake over material that may seem familiar in a rock-historical
context but has a different dimension when placed cheek by jowl with Bucks
Fizz, Clive Dunn or Chicory Tip. “It’s a two-way thing for me as well,”
Ewing admits. “Jimi Hendrix is an example of someone I didn’t really get
before, but the comments gave me a route into Hendrix. Popular has also got
me into the Stones, music that’s appreciated by an albums crowd. The most
difficult ones for me to write are where the songs are good but I’m not
enthused, especially if they’re thought of as important No 1s.”
At times like this, Ewing is more than aware of the comments crew that will
pounce on his posting. “I want to say, ‘Sod it, you lot deal with this’.
With the Animals’ House of the Rising Sun I tried to justify
not liking it. That and Hey Jude. But with something like Candy
Girl by New Edition there’s clearly stuff to say.” New Edition — the
first home of Bobby Brown — are barely remembered now but, as Popular notes, Candy
Girl was the first No 1 to include rapping.
Popular has as many comments on its more lacklustre entries as it does for Do
They Know It’s Christmas or Bohemian Rhapsody. A dire
country lament called No Charge, which made the Canadian J J Barrie a
chart-topper in 1976, has generated more comment than any other. Admittedly,
most of this relates to the birth of punk, as the Sex Pistols’ legendary
Lesser Free Trade Hall gig in Manchester occured during the seven days that
Barrie’s miserable narrative was top of the pops.
No Charge, incidentally, scored two out of ten. There is a select band
of Popular entries that have scored just one, including the Stargazers’
Muppet music-hall soundalike I See The Moon from 1954, Petula Clark’s
hideous 1967 ballad This is My Song, and, more controversially, Don
McLean’s sentimental but very pretty Vincent. Though people are
always keen to defend these unloved hits, Ewing thinks that only one of them
is argument-proof: “You’d have to be mental to argue in favour of There’s
No One Quite Like Grandma [St Winifred’s School Choir, 1980]. But some
people are outraged when I give something a nine instead of a ten. The mark
is arbitrary. What I want is for people to vehemently disagree.”
Every so often, someone involved in the making of the record has left a
comment. Marco Pirroni, the guitarist with Adam and the Ants, wrote about
the band’s entries under the pseudonym of the Wolfman. The entry for the
Overlanders’Michelle, a No 1 in 1966, became a reunion for
ex-members of the band and their fans. Mitch Murray — the writer of Georgie
Fame’s rather corny Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde — read the
comments on the song “with interest and amusement”, generously adding that
many “were fair and well-made. But at the time I was in the business of
writing hit songs and I can’t apologise for that — especially as millions of
people all over the world bought the record and made it No 1 in so many
countries.”
Eventually Popular could become a book, though Ewing is quite happy keeping it
as a blog, and as an irregular club in Waterloo: the set for the next club
night will be voted for by the readers. [ As Popular heads inexorably
towards the Nineties and the post-Britpop eras of Westlife and X Factor,
you can’t help but worry that the blog, and its writer, might lose momentum.
“I’m aware that in 1985 we’re beyond the golden age,” Ewing says sadly.
“What I’d like is for Popular to become something more like a review-led
Wikipedia than a blog.”
Getting to No 1 used to be like playing in the FA Cup Final: you became a
national celebrity. With the passing of Top of the Pops, who knows
who is currently the singles king or queen? “Sometimes I think I’m the only
person who blasted cares about what gets to No 1 these days,” Ewing says.
“But I do care because I know that, in the future, I’m going to have to put
my finger to the keyboard and write about it.”
www.freakytrigger.co.uk/popular.
Club Popular is at the Horse Bar, Westminster Bridge Road, SE1 (020-79286277)
on Oct 2 (7pm)
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