Please see Part 1 here!
Part 2: 20 – 1
20. Imagine – John Lennon
Imagine if John
hadn’t been killed. This song might genuinely have forever been condemned to
being a poor performer in the charts. Not even a released single when it first
surfaced (1971), it then only made number 6 in 1975 before the mourning of a
nation revived it in 1980 to become one of his best loved compositions. Another
track that has become a Christmas / New Years anthem due to the timing and
circumstances of its 1980 release.
19. Happy – Pharrell Williams
This one will
continue to rise up the list as it’s still in the charts at the time of
writing. A remarkably simple effort from Pharrell in creating a track that is
popular whether you’re aged 3 or 93… and all done without the help of Robin
Thicke or Nile Rodgers. Clap your hands.
18. Last Christmas / Everything She Wants – Wham!
Possibly the
greatest number 2 ever (don’t!), possibly one of the best Christmas songs ever
and possibly the slickest remix ever (check out the Last Christmas Pudding
Mix). In fact the only disappointment for me is that Everything She Wants wasn’t released elsewhere in the year in it’s
own right as that song is just so Wham! at their best.
17. (Everything I Do) I Do It for You – Bryan Adams
Yet another song
carried along by the success of a hit film. Overplayed? Perhaps, but not quite
worn out like I will Always Love you
has become. You can’t knock 16 weeks at number 1 though, so well played to the
Canadian Canadian.
16. Believe – Cher
Wow! Cher ’s voice on this. Not done using a vocoder as was
originally thought, but by rigging an auto tune machine to warp 3 sets of her
vocals. Innovative. And then Madonna did it.
My main memory
of this is going to an awful nightclub in Crawley, West Sussex and hearing it
played four or five times an hour. Strong song with a good video too.
15. Evergreen – Will Young
An early effort
of the yearly X-Factor song that reduces the once revered Christmas chart to a
farce every year. Nothing against Will Young, but he did far, far better songs
after this one.
14. I Want to Hold Your Hand – The Beatles
The song that
really broke the Beatles into the American market. Not many better intros to a
song than heard on this zippy belter.
13. Barbie Girl – Aqua
Novelty songs –
you gotta love ‘em eh!? Well no not always. It’s harmless, poppy fun, but I’m
not over bothered with it. Aqua could
do a job though, and I politely refer you to Turn Back Time, as heard in the soundtrack to Sliding Doors. See!?
Get a song in a movie and it’s a sure fire chart scorcher.
12. I Just Called to Say I Love You – Stevie Wonder
Now if this
‘ode’ had come out nowadays, would it have been a hit? Would it be renamed?
Maybe: I Just
Texted 2 Say I luv U - LOL
11. Unchained Melody – Robson & Jerome
There must be a
million different covers of this song, and whilst R&J (a bit like an old version
of Ant & Dec) did their best, no-one is gonna convince me that the
Righteous Bros effort isn’t the definitive cover.
10. Mary's Boy Child – Oh My Lord – Boney M
And into the top
ten we go. Again, the Christmas sales probably helped this one make the list,
and I suppose if you can rework a traditional slumber seasonal carol into a
pseudo Christmas Disco multi million seller, then you must be doing something
right. Oh My Lord indeed.
09. Love Is All Around – Wet Wet Wet
Another cover,
another song from a movie soundtrack, so obviously another multi million
seller. In fact ‘The Wets’ might have sold even more, but they actually ordered
the cessation of production of units whilst they were still at number 1.
Apparently this was because they didn’t want to condemn the song to the over
played graveyard (too late)
More likely they
didn’t want the embarrassment of being replaced at the top by Whigfield’s Saturday Night…
08. She Loves You – The Beatles
Now we’re
cooking. 18 weeks in the top 3 alone, and this included TWO different spells at
number one, with a few weeks gap in between hitting the summit. No other song
in chart history has had quite the storyline that the chart run of She Loves You has. The tragedy is that
the version we all know is in fact a splice of more than one recording and is
the reason why when the Remastered Stereo albums box set was released, SLY was
one of the only songs not actually presented in crisp stereo. This for me is
singularly the saddest tale in the history of the British charts. Still, it
didn’t put millions off buying the song I suppose!
07. Rivers
of Babylon
Controversy
klaxon. This was another double A-side (though originally was a plain old A and
B-side), yet you never hear ‘Brown Girl…’
played on the radio. Like ever.
Is there a race
reason behind this? A bit of research suggest it’s nothing of the kind, and is
based on a West Indian children’s song – a bit like Ring of Roses, which has its own history. As a child, I loved
singing and dancing to it, and still prefer it any day to the original A-side.
So dammit DJ’s of the UK
06. Relax – Frankie Goes to Hollywood
Like many people
possibly, I had no idea what the lyrics to this belter were referring to at the
time of release, but does it really matter? Songs inferring sex have been
around since the Edison Phonograph. Mary had a little Lamb indeed.
In fact well
over half the songs in this top 40 have at least subtle sexual overtones (or
undertones), so get over yourselves and be happy and gay.
05. You're the One That I Want – John Travolta
& Olivia Newton-John
Wow a second
entry from the same film. I’m running out of characters, so see Summer Nights blurb from Part1!
04. Mull of
Kintyre – Wings
As a child I
think this came on to my radar before I knew who The Beatles even were.
I like to
imagine Lennon hearing about this song the day before it was released…
The Lennon Diaries, Thursday
November 10th 1977:
‘Pfft – Just heard about Macca’s latest! ROTFL… Bagpipes and a
beach in Scotland
03. Bohemian Rhapsody – Queen
It’s hard to
knock this one, but I’m still not sure about combining two chart runs (1975
& 1991) to elevate it up the list. I wasn’t keen on Queen until poor young
Freddie passed on, but their music was everywhere in the aftermath of his death
and one couldn’t help but admire what they’d contributed to British music. When
clubbing at The Event II (blimey another RIP!) nightclub in Brighton in
the 90’s, this was frequently referred to as the club’s ‘anthem’. I’m still not
convinced by this, but maybe it was helped by the additional tie in with the
film ‘Wayne
02. Do They Know It's Christmas? – Band Aid
Just when you
thought we’d done Christmas to pieces, along comes the biggest one of them all.
What’s not to
like? Always likely to remain a classic at Christmas, and that’s a good thing.
It won’t be a popular view, but I liked the 1989 SAW version too. Not keen on
the Band Aid 20 version though, as even I could’ve done Bono’s line better than
he did. It’s all going to charity though so we can’t knock it.. and then there was Band Aid 30...
#feedtheworld
#feedtheworld
01.
Candle in the Wind 1997 – Elton
John
Elton John’s
music was heard everywhere for weeks after the death of Diana PoW, and upon his
performance of the rewritten song at her funeral, the inevitable charity
release followed. They couldn’t make enough copies of the single fast enough. I
remember eventually buying it about a month after its release, simply because
it was sold out everywhere.
The funeral
version differs slightly and is better in my opinion (and you’ve had enough of
those lately), but the irony is that Diana herself might have preferred another
of Elton’s songs given the choice, as she had cited his early single ‘Your
Song’ as one of her all time favourites.
So what are the
themes in this list to guarantee a huge seller?
·
Christmas
·
Movie soundtrack
·
Sex
·
…and – rather morosely – death.
And what one
don’t they play on the radio? The children’s song
So I’ll leave you
with this final thought:
Go download baby
and Show Me Your Motion
XxX
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