What Do You Mean is one of Beiber's best songs, much preferable to 'Sorry' which was also a hit during that Beiber era. Its better than the other #1s you mention around at the time; Fight Song and Easy Love (the latter rather like the aforementioned Eric Prydz - Call On Me being a remix of an old song but not as good as Call On Me imo). Turn The Music Louder was also not very good, all three artists on that song have much better songs - Katy B - basically all her debut album, Tinie Tempah - Written In The Stars (one of the best #1s of the 10s I think) and KDA - Human Stone and Just Say.

Fight Song is the only one of the three (excluding What Do You Mean) that I actually remember :lol:

We stay in the 2010s for the number 22 and the highest-placed song from television talent show graduates. It’s One Direction’s debut hit What Makes You Beautiful which topped the chart in 2011 and finishes as the third highest song from the most recent decade.

 

One Direction can be said to be the epitome of a manufactured band. The five members all failed as individual contestants on 2010’s X Factor but were then brought together to form a band. The people responsible even made sure that all five members were good-looking in their own way to ensure the band appealed to as wide an audience as possible.

 

The release of their debut single was, naturally, delayed until they could promote it on the next series of the show. Equally predictably it went straight to number one, replacing Pixie Lott’s All About Tonight. It was to be one of six songs in seven weeks to keep Maroon 5 and Christina Aguilera’s Move Like Jagger from the top spot. Thankfully it is a decent enough pop song so it finishes just outside the top twenty. What Makes You Beautiful was itself replaced after just a week by Dappy’s No Regrets, a song that would have finished comfortably in the bottom ten.

 

Three other talent show alumni were in the top ten that week including Olly Murs with Hearty Skips A Beat, featuring Rizzle Kicks. Rizzle Kicks were also in the chart in their own right with Down With The Trumpets and the chart also included Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds with AKA What A Life and Adele’s Set Fire To The Rain.

 

One Direction had to wait a little over a year before Little Things gave them a second number one. By the time they split up (or went on hiatus to give the official version), they had accumulated a total of four number one singles. The members’ solo careers have resulted in varying degrees of success. Harry Styles has been the most successful of the five. His current album, Fine Lines, has been in the top ten since it was released late last year and has, therefore, accumulated almost as many weeks in the top ten (37) as all five of of One Direction’s albums put together (41).

 

wow, unexpected! Of course the most important thing when creating a boyband is they should all be of a similar height. The boyband that lost to Girls Aloud just looked ridiculous! I was generous and charted this one. Peaked at 59, and that's the absolute most-generous I could be. It wouldnt even make my top 100 compared to everything in my chart this week :P One towards the bottom end for me - their solo stuff has been so much better.... :heart:

 

Ive listed the 63 songs that topped my birthday charts (including my birth-day) and there are some truly appalling ones in there and some truly brilliant ones in there, a bunch of christmas classics, and a lot of novelty songs of variable quality. I might run it for a quick laugh after you've climaxed. I presume the climax will be your birthday and you'll slot in WAP somewhere retrospectively (last place sounds good to me...)...? :)

I'm not sure about 1D's solo stuff overall, but Harry Styles' solo material is definitely better than 1D's output. That said, I'd much rather listen to One Direction than, for example, the equally manufactured but less testosterone-fuelled Spice Girls.

 

The prospect of WAP being number one on my 60th is looking all too real :cry: It could be the one that finally relieves Ride On Time of last place.

 

A top 63 may be a rather eccentric number but go for it :D

The prospect of WAP being number one on my 60th is looking all too real :cry: It could be the one that finally relieves Ride On Time of last place.

 

A top 63 may be a rather eccentric number but go for it :D

I think Cardi & Meghan would prefer a top 69 to be honest.

 

EDIT: What Makes You Beautful is still my fave 1D single. It's something that Beatles could have released if they were a new group in 2011. :P It's epic imo and if this was my countdown it would have been a serious contender for number 1. :wub:

Edited September 3, 20205 yr by Jason

I think Cardi & Meghan would prefer a top 69 to be honest.

Ooh err :lol:

The last one before we get into the top twenty is also the last birthday number one before I entered my 20s. It’s the 1979 chart-topper from The Police, Message In A Bottle with its classic line about sending out a ness-oh-ess. Message In A Bottle was Sting and co’s third hit single and their first number one. Four more chart-toppers followed in the next four years. As one of the earlier singles, it dates from before the time when they got rather boring and samey.

 

Message In A Bottle entered the chart at number eight and climbed to the summit the following week, displacing Gary Numan’s Cars. If that song had held on for another week, it would have been in the top twenty of this list.

 

The highest new entry that week was Blondie’s brilliant Dreaming. The first chart of the last year of my teens also included The Prince, the debut single from Madness, another excellent debut Gangsters by The Special AKA, Dave Edmunds’ Queen Of Hearts and his Rockpile bandmate Nick Lowe’s Cruel To Be Kind. Having mentioned the highest new entry, I also feel the need to mention the lowest, at number 40. It was the sublime The Loneliest Man In The World by The Tourists featuring a pre-Eurythmics Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox.

 

Message In A Bottle spent three weeks at the top before being replaced by The Buggles’ Video Killed The Radio Star, the song that was later used to launch MTV. After The Police split rather acrimoniously, Sting went on to enjoy a successful solo career as well as getting a reputation for being somewhat earnest in his political campaigning. They re-formed in 2007 to embark on a reunion tour before going their separate ways again.

 

Wasn't expecting to see The Police on this countdown after One Direction. Thought 1D would be lower and The Police higher on your countdown than they are. message In A Bottle is good but yes maybe a bit overplayed, I think Walking On The Moon is my favourite The Police song that I know.

 

What Makes You Beautiful is OK but not as good a boyband debut as The Wanted's 'All Time Low' which I actually think is a great song (OK the Wanted did go downhill in quality after it). Rizzle Kicks' Down with the Trumpets was a good song

 

The prospect of WAP being number one on my 60th is looking all too real cry.gif It could be the one that finally relieves Ride On Time of last place.

 

Yes I can't really see anything else being #1 for your birthday at the moment. Joel Corry and MNEK's current #1 you would place between the Police and One Direction I think on your list if it stayed at #1 for your birthday, or maybe just behind One Direction? :unsure:

 

 

 

Wasn't expecting to see The Police on this countdown after One Direction. Thought 1D would be lower and The Police higher on your countdown than they are. message In A Bottle is good but yes maybe a bit overplayed, I think Walking On The Moon is my favourite The Police song that I know.

 

What Makes You Beautiful is OK but not as good a boyband debut as The Wanted's 'All Time Low' which I actually think is a great song (OK the Wanted did go downhill in quality after it). Rizzle Kicks' Down with the Trumpets was a good song

Yes I can't really see anything else being #1 for your birthday at the moment. Joel Corry and MNEK's current #1 you would place between the Police and One Direction I think on your list if it stayed at #1 for your birthday, or maybe just behind One Direction? :unsure:

That's probably about right for Head & Heart.

A year has passed since I broke my nose. :D

 

1979 was the best year for no.1 singles. Message In A Bottle is a good song but looking at the list from that year,I'd put nine others ahead of it.

A classic this one, I got back from my first-ever mega-holiday in the SW USA courtesy Freddie Laker and this was the first new major release in the UK for my last year at Uni. The Police were huge with student lads, 2 of my mates were on the ground floor of a student block adjacent me and we'd all bought the single, so we decided to test our record players speed accuracy by simultaneously starting the single at the same time and playing loud. It didn't take long to show that all 3 decks soon drfited off on their own variation of 45rpm, and it was a huge joy to the girls in the rooms upstairs (ground floor rooms were for male students only for safety reasons). Not.

 

An anecdote for every record, me :kink:

A year has passed since I broke my nose. :D

 

1979 was the best year for no.1 singles. Message In A Bottle is a good song but looking at the list from that year,I'd put nine others ahead of it.

 

I think there's a strong case for 1979 being the best year for pop music. Of course every generation of music-lovers thinks their own era is the best, but this year had so many genres on fire at the same time and sowing the seeds for the future to boot.

A year has passed since I broke my nose. :D

 

1979 was the best year for no.1 singles. Message In A Bottle is a good song but looking at the list from that year,I'd put nine others ahead of it.

I'd certainly put eight of them ahead of it. Maybe you included One Day At A Time :lol:

One Day At A Time was certainly the odd one out that year.

A year has passed since I broke my nose. :D

 

1979 was the best year for no.1 singles. Message In A Bottle is a good song but looking at the list from that year,I'd put nine others ahead of it.

 

 

One Day At A Time? ;)

One Day At A Time was certainly the odd one out that year.

 

 

Great song. Had a bet with my mum that it wouldn't be a No.1 when it first came out and lost. LOL.

Into the top twenty, then, and another dip into the 1980s. Two of the bottom three places were occupied by songs from this decade but just two others have appeared so far. Six of the top twenty, therefore, are songs that were considered by some to be acceptable in the ‘80s. The first of them, Culture Club’s Karma Chameleon, is at number twenty.

 

John Peel’s description of Boy George as a Brian Clough lookalike (see above) did nothing to stop Do You Really Want To Hurt Me going on to top the chart in 1982 and stay there for three weeks. The next two singles, Time (Clock Of The Heart) and Church Of The Poison Mind, both reached the top three, thereby installing Culture Club as one of the big names of the early 80s.

 

Karma Chameleon was the second single from Culture Club’s second album Colour By Numbers. It was released in early September 1983 with the album following in October. The single entered at number three and was announced as the new number one on my birthday the following week, ending the three-week run for UB40’s version on the Neil Diamond-penned Red Red Wine.

 

New Order’s classic Blue Monday was also in the top forty that week, heading for the top ten six months after it first entered the chart. Two places behind it that week was the same band’s Confusion. Also in the top forty were David Bowie’s Modern Love, Wings Of A Dove by Madness and The Kinks’ massively underrated Come Dancing.

 

Karma Chameleon spent six weeks at the top, selling well over one million copies to become the best-selling single of 1983. Culture Club had four more top ten hits before Boy George chose to pursue a solo career. They re-formed in the late 1990s and reached the top ten once again. Karma Chameleon’s run at the summit was ended by Billy Joel’s only UK number one U[town Girl, a song later brutally murdered by Westlife. By then, Colour By Numbers had become their first (and only) number one album.

 

Loved it at the time, topped my chart, but in retrospect its not even in the best 4 tracks on the fab colour by numbers. In order they are miss me blind, victims, church of the poison mind, its a miracle. Not sure it would make my top 20 of your number 1s, tho top 30 likely. :)

Loved it at the time, topped my chart, but in retrospect its not even in the best 4 tracks on the fab colour by numbers. In order they are miss me blind, victims, church of the poison mind, its a miracle. Not sure it would make my top 20 of your number 1s, tho top 30 likely. :)

I prefer Victims to Karma Chameleon but including that wasn't an option :lol:

The band at number nineteen are a prime example of an act whose first top forty hit was almost criminally bad but who then followed it up with a string of much better singles. The Scissor Sisters (none of whom are sisters and none of whom are called Scissor) made their top forty debut in early 2004 with a diabolical cover of Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb. After that was a hit, they followed up with Take Your Mama and then Laura. The latter had been a very minor hit before Comfortably Numb but didn’t reach the top forty until afterwards.

 

In September 2006, they released I Don’t Feel Like Dancing, their first single since the beginning of the previous year and one co-written by Elton John. This piece of deliciously camp pop entered at number four and climbed to the summit the following week, displacing Justin Timberlake’s Sexy Back. It stayed there the following week to top the qualifying chart.

 

The highest (and best) new entry of that birthday chart was The Killers’ When You Were Young, the first hit from their second album Sam’s Town. Other highlights that week included Muse’s Starlight, Arctic Monkeys’ Leave Before The Lights Come On and two songs that went on to suffer massively from over-exposure, The Fratellis’ Chelsea Dagger and Snow Patrol’s Chasing Cars.

 

When You Were Young climbed to number two the following week and stayed there for the week after that, both times behind I Don’t Feel Like Dancing. When Scissor Sisters’ four-week reign came to an end it was, sadly, too late for Brandon Flowers and co. The new number one was Razorlight’s America. I Don’t Feel Like Dancing proved to be the peak of Scissor Sisters’ UK chart career. They haven’t returned to the top ten since then.