Popular: My Top 25 Regrets

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

As most of you know I run a blog called Popular, whose quixotic aim is to review, in order, every record to get to No.1 in the UK - currently I'm on 1967. Some discussion in the comments box led me to ask myself about songs that I wish had got to No.1, and I came up with this list of the 25 songs I most regret not making it. The criteria was:

- must have got to No.2
- must be something I really like, i.e. would certainly get 8 or more if written up on Popular
- should be something that would have let me write about things I otherwise might not get the chance to

There are plenty of things that fulfil 2 of these criteria but not 3. Here are my 25 tracks that tick all 3 boxes. Some of them are pretty obvious, some maybe not. There is a bias against the 50s, 60s and early 70s because I know them far less well.


Teddy Bears - To Know Him Is To Love Him
Beatles - Penny Lane/S Fields Forev
Stevie Wonder - Yester Me Yester You Yester Day
Mr Bloe - Groovin With Mr Bloe
Elvis Costello - Oliver's Army
M - Pop Muzik
Squeeze - Up The Junction
Janet Kay - Silly Games
Diana Ross - Upside Down
Kim Wilde - Kids In America
Laurie Anderson - O Superman
Imagination - Just An Illusion
Bardo - One Step Further
Phil Collins - Against All Odds
Wham - Last Christmas
Spagna - Call Me
Pet Shop Boys - What Have I Done To Deserve This? (this is pushing criteria #3 but it's just too good)
The Pogues ft Kirsty Mac - Fairytale of NY
Salt N Pepa - Push It
SL2 - On A Ragga Tip
N Trance - Set You Free
Pulp - Common People
Daft Punk - One More Time
Scooter - Ramp! (The Logical Song)
Rachel Stevens - Some Girls


Obviously I still could write about all of these, and I have written about some, but it's - choke! - not the same...

Comments

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Bomb The Bass - Beat Dis
Technotronic - Get Up Before Teh Night Is Over
Right Said Fred - I'm Too Sechsy
Crystal Waters - Gypsy Woman

And that's just the early nineties...

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

what a great compilation that would make.

i would love to read your thoughts on these tracks.

a good question perhaps: which occasion of a song stalling at #2 were you most disappointed by? i'm trying to think. i was disappointed about The Prodigy's 'Everybody In The Place' not making it but then it felt quite unexpected for it to jump that high at all (at this point many people figured they'd be one hit wonders). i think there may be better examples though.

'Justified And Ancient' would've been a great Christmas #1. As would Madonna's 'Justify My Love'!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Probably not "Hanky Panky" though. Dere god I saw the video for that on TMF's King and Queen ov Pop weekend (back 2 back Madge and Jacko arrrgh) and it was FRIGHTENING.

[steviespitfire.livejournal.com]

I've really enjoyed your writing on The Beatles on Popular, Tom. I'd love to hear you write about PL/SFF.

All of these songs are fantastic, and I echo stevem's question. One More Time is probably my biggest disappointment. Though, I like the idea that if it had gotten to No.1 it would have stayed there forever and changed the world...

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

The excitement of One More Time going in at #2 was ruined a bit for me on account of me being disappointed with it at the time.

Blk hit o'space!

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

It would surely have gone into NEGATIVE NUMBERS!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

One More Time is my favourite single of the last 20 years so yes I was a bit disappointed.

PL/SFF is a hard one to do - two contrasting tries at capturing childhood experience in a song, not to mention all the production flummery, though as with Good Vibrations the question is "what's it for". My hunch is it would have got a 9, more for "Fields" than "Lane" (though in general I'm a MacCartney fellow)

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

i was going to say it's been years since i cared about the exact placing of a single, but the whole Rachel S scandal was vvv annoying.

i think there might be a bias towards "should have been number 1 FOR XMAS" sort of thing.

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

The solution is obvious: once you get to the end of Popular (on the schedule I have just created for you in my head, that's around the start of June), you go back to whenever the hell it was and start with the #2 hits.

I'd recommend not going beyond #10 hits, as people will start to drift away by then.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

There is no end of Popular, that's the point! (Okay, obv 1000 is a nice round number)

The pickings must get thinner at a certain position, the bulk up again, EG probably more songs that peaked at #20 than #10

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

It sounds almost as if you have a list of things and want views on which of them to choose. If only there was a techonology that could help...

Is Common People pushing #3 a bit as well, considering that it's going to end up on the 100 of the 90s?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

No, cos the two projects aren't really related. I would like another shot at writing about CP cos I seem to remember I did quite badly last time.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Oh, I thought you wrote about the context (vis-a-vis Britpop's false dawn) and the track well, I'm really fond of that piece as I probably said before.

Some others

[rechabite.livejournal.com]

Ten number twos I'd find it very hard not to give at least 9:

Petula Clark - Downtown (10 - the pre-emptive answer record to How Soon Is Now?)
Faces - Cindy Incidentally (such a 1973 collapse of a glorious mess!)
Kinks - All Day And All Of The Night (harder and punkier than You Really Got Me; cynosure Dave Davies' guitar solo which Changed Everything)
Rolling Stones - Brown Sugar (unheralded twin to Groovin' With Mr Bloe)
Barry Ryan - Eloise (10 - MacArthur Park as co-written by Van Dyke Parks and Lionel Bart)
Sparks - This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both Of Us (10 - Changed My World)
Stardust - Music Sounds Better With You (10 - Made My World)
T Rex - Ride A White Swan (as Steve Harley recently commented, in awe, when playing it on Radio 2: "THIS started something, didn't it?"
Keith West - Excerpt From A Teenage Opera
Who - My Generation

PS

[rechabite.livejournal.com]

oh, and Keith West and the Who would also get 10s (Made Me Aware Of A World and How Could You Not Give It 10?, respectively). Curious when I think that there are maybe half a dozen actual number ones which would get my full 10.

chart!

[anthonyeaston.livejournal.com]

i still continue to be shocked that anderson made it to no 2 in the uk, o superman just seems so weird to me. is it hte most tradtionally hiart avant thing to make it to the charts?

i am equally shocked that common people didnt make it

Re: chart!

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

i still don't think i've ever heard 'O Superman' but this can't be right

Re: chart!

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

MBVs tremelo ep got just inside the top 30. (i think) does that count?

i remember o superman being in the chart - it was great! even little (9 yr old me?) could tell!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Truesteppers ft Victoria Beckham - Out Of Your Mind

[damnspynovels.livejournal.com]

Supermen Lovers - Starlight

[umlauts.livejournal.com]

Murder On The Dancefloor.
Lovefool.

The two best Number 2 singles EVAH.