I haven't said where the rest of The Script's output would have finished :lol:

 

:lol:

generally rated higher than Mr Blobby, but not quite in the same league as Bob The Builder I'd suggest :heehee:

:lol:

generally rated higher than Mr Blobby, but not quite in the same league as Bob The Builder I'd suggest :heehee:

I think Mr Blobby would have struggled to reach the top 60 even if there were only 60 songs that qualified :lol:

Like a lot of my contemporaries in 1972, I was listening to glamrock bands such as Slade and Sweet. My older sister, on the other hand, was - again like so many of her contemporaries - more interested in Donny Osmond and David Cassidy. In the run-up to my birthday that year, there was a very good chance that one of those four artists would be at number one.

 

The week before my birthday saw Slade at number one for a third week their third chart-topper (and second of the year) Mama Weer All Crazee Now. T Rex the biggest threat, sitting at number two with Children Of The Revolution but David Cassidty was also in the running with How Can I Be Sure at number three.

 

So, my twelfth birthday dawned with Slade at number one but with a new chart due to be unveiled at lunchtime. Given that the winner of that race is at number 42 in this list, you can probably guess that David Cassidy climbed to the top to get his first number one single. How Can I Be Sure is a bit slushy (even at eleven or twelve I thought that) but it’s by no means terrible.

 

Cassidy made his name (and set many teenage hearts aflutter) playing Keith Partridge in The Partridge Family. They were in the chart that week with the Nei Sedaka song Breaking Up Is Hard To Do. The Sweet were in the top ten with Wig-Wam Bam. Among other highlights were 10CC’s Donna, Jackie Wilson’s I Get The Sweetest Feeling, Mott The Hoople’s All The Young Dudes and Derek And The Dominos’ Layla. Just to complete the set from the opening remarks, Donny Osmond was in there too with Puppy Love which had spent five weeks at number one in the summer.

 

Two slightly bizarre songs were also in that top forty. Hot Butter were on their way down with Popcorn but Lieutenant Pigeon climbed sixteen places to number four with Mouldy Old Dough. Two weeks later, the latter song replaced Cassidy at number one.

 

What a fabulous top 40 that was,I'm just looking at it now. You could add to those already mentioned : Virginia Plain by Roxy Music, You're A Lady by Peter Skellern and Goodbye To Love by The Carpenters.

What a fabulous top 40 that was,I'm just looking at it now. You could add to those already mentioned : Virginia Plain by Roxy Music, You're A Lady by Peter Skellern and Goodbye To Love by The Carpenters.

Yes, those three could easily have made my list of "also in the top forty". On top of that, Silver Machine dropped out of the top forty that week. They don't make charts like that any more :lol:

I know I'm biased but that week was an epic chart/ Of the ones listed above, the following topped my chart during 1972:

 

Wig Wam Bam

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Goodbye To Love

Donna

Popcorn

 

and since then the following have topped my chart as reissued hits:

 

Children Of The Revolution

I Get The Sweetest Feeling

Layla

Virginia Plain

 

with Mott The Hoople guaranteed a chart-topper if I get an excuse to chart it again.

 

By the time Darlin David had died, I'd long gotten over my annoyance with his slushy teen-girl-aimed solo career and realised that How Can I Be Sure is a brilliant song, and his is the definitive version (even over Dusty! :o ). it's one of my "Go To" broken-heart sweeping ballads to sing and cry along to when I'm down and looking for some pathos relief, and has of course toped my chart, being one of my all-time faves and what have you :) PS I adored The Partridge Family show, especially the Danny & Ruben Kincaid banter and above all the pop songs (I was 12 when it came out, on TV in Singapore too!). The skunk on the tour bus was my fave episode. By series 3 I was a mature 14 and it all seemed a bit silly.... :lol:

At number 41 is the 2009 number one from Taio Cruz, Break Your Heart. It was his seventh top forty hit but the first to get to number one. I wasn’t over-impressed with his first six hits but this one was a distinct improvement. It went straight to the top of the chart (as number ones tended to do at the time), replacing Pixie Lott’s Boys And Girls. It’s three-week run at the top was ended by Chipmunk’s dreadful Oopsy Daisy.

 

In the lead up to the chart, there was a lot of hype about the fact that Cliff Richard and the Shadows had a new single out, a cover of Singing The Blues. It was being talked up as the last chance for Cliff to get a number one in the noughties to add to his chart-toppers in each of the five previous decades. Fairly predictably, it fell some way short. Thirty-nine places short to be exact.

 

Also in the chart that week were Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ Empire State Of Mind, Temper Trap’s Sweet Disposition and Muse’s Uprising. Much lower down the chart Elbow’s One Day Like This was having one of its pre-2012 runs.

 

Into the top forty then, and it’s time for something a bit silly. Eiffel 65’s Blue (Da Ba Dee), from 1999, ought to be a song I really disliked. It’s rather repetitive, not exactly a musical masterpiece and the lyrics are largely banal. Somehow, though, those factors combine to give it a certain charm. While it finishes in the bottom half, it can (just) claim to have managed a mid-table placing.

 

So, an Italian band finished bottom of the bottom third and another one is bottom of the middle third. The act at the bottom of the top third will not be from Italy. There had already been a hint that the song would be big when it entered the top forty as an import. When it got an official UK release, almost a year after it had been released in some parts of Europe, it went straight to number one.

 

Perhaps I am judging Blue (Da Ba Dee) more kindly because of the song that topped the chart the week before. That was Vengaboys with We’re Going To Ibiza! That song was a supposedly updated version of Typically Tropical’s Barbados which topped the chart in 1975. The original song was a bit naff but fun. The Vengaboys effort was diabolical. Eiffel 65 spent three weeks at number one before Christian Aguilera’s debut hit Genie In A Bottle took over, also having charted as an import before its official release.

 

The top forty in the week Eiffel 65 secured my last birthday number one as a thirty-something also included Tom Jones and The Cardigans’ Burning Down The House, Supergrass’s Moving and Bob Marley’s Sun Is Shining. There are now just two more number ones from the 1990s unaccounted for.

 

At number 39 we have the first appearance by an act with two songs in this list. With a total of 21 number ones (including re-issues) and 80 weeks at the summit, it is hardly surprising that Elvis Presley topped the chart on my birthday twice. Unfortunately, neither of the songs are exactly his finest work. Its initial chart run suggests that the record-buying public (as it then was) agreed in the case of the first song.

 

By the time Moody Blue was released in March 1977, Elvis’s career was a long way past its peak. He was still able to get top ten singles - indeed, Moody Blue reached number six - but he hadn’t had a number one in the UK since The Wonder Of You in 1970. The follow-up to Moody Blue, Way Down, was released in August and spent the first two weeks of its chart run outside the top forty. It looked like being the first Elvis single since a version of You’ll Never Walk Alone in 1968 not to make the top forty.

 

Then, on 16 August, Elvis died. Had he been able to put off his death for thirty years, it would have led to a rush to download some of his classic songs such as Jailhouse Rock, Return To Sender or Hound Dog. However, this was a time when you could only buy what was in the record shops on the day. Most old singles were not obtainable at all. So, people went out and bought Way Down instead even though it wasn’t very good. By the time of my birthday chart over a month later, Way Down, in its fourth of five weeks at number one, was still the only Elvis song in the chart although a tribute, I Remember Elvis Presley by Danny Mirror, was in the chart.

 

In the first chart after Elvis’s death, Way Down climbed all the way to number four. The following week it replaced the slightly odd Float On by The Floaters at the top. It was eventually replaced at the beginning of October by David Soul’s slushy Silver Lady.

 

Unusually for the time, there were two instrumentals in the top five in my birthday week and, even more strangely, they were both by French acts.. Magic Fly by Space (not to be confused with the 1990s Liverpool band of the same name) were in their third week at number two with the delightfully strange Magic Fly and Jean-Michel Jarre’s Oxygene Part IV was at number four.

 

Jean-Michel Jarre is the son of film composer Maurice Jarre and, in a further link with the film industry, was once married to actor Charlotte Rampling. The top ten that week had two songs from film soundtracks - Bond Theme Nobody Does It Better by Carly Simon and Down Deep Inside by Donna Summer. Summer had a second song, I Remember Yesterday, lower down the chart.

 

Twenty-two years before Sun Is Shining entered the chart (see above), Bob Marley was in the top forty with Waiting In Vain. Other highlights were Gary Gilmore’s Eyes by The Adverts, Looking After Number One by the Boomtown Rats and Mink Deville’s Spanish Stroll.

 

Hall of Fame is a decent enough number 1 I think. I really liked Public Enemy 'Harder Than You Think' at the time, one of the anthems of the summer of 2012, it still sounds great.

 

Break Your Heart is certainly better than Taio's 'Dynamite' imo (the latter got quickly tedious). Pixie Lott's song Boys and Girls wasn't great but Mama Do I liked. Like the Saturdays Up before it it was a strong pop debut that was better than many of the artist's later songs.

 

I quite liked Blue (Da Ba Dee) at the time, more than 'We're Going To Ibiza'. 'Genie In A Bottle' is a good pop song with a bit of atmosphere to the production. It is certainly a lot better than 'Dirrty' in my opinion. The Sun Is Shining remix I remember liking at the time.

 

I don't know Way Down much but it sounds quite good. I like Magic Fly, Oxygene and Nobody Does It Better.

 

The David Cassidy song isn't great but yes it sounds like there are some good songs in the chart at the time like Layla, I Get The Sweetest Feeling, All The Young Dudes, Mama Were All Crazy Now (its a bit annoying how Slade mispelt their hits so I will cite the normal English title!) and of course a very early synthpop/dance hit Popcorn. The Sweet are good but Wig Wam Bam isn't one of their best songs in my opinion. Donny Osmonds song Puppy Love is very cheesy and I am not a fan but Children Of The Revolution by T Rex is very good.

Edited August 16, 20204 yr by Flopiday

I quite liked Taio Cruz stuff as a rule, and liked 3 of them a lot. This one though peaked at 50 in my charts, so it's towards the bottom end of your birthday list for me! :D Eiffel 65 peaked at 44, so it's marginally better and it sounded quite good for at least 8 weeks before it got annoying.

 

Elvis is special. Way Down had been struggling to go top 20 for years with anything other than reissues, cheesy covers and his final bit of cheesy disco, the oldies were generally fab and the newies generally rubbish. Way Down was at least Elvis in his upbeat rocking mode, and his first new decent rocker since Burning Love in 1972. So in that sense we all got lucky this was his new track when he died or we might have had to endure the torture of appalling stuff like My Way or My Boy on top. Both had been done better before by Frank Sinatra and Richard Harris to underline just how much of a self-parody he'd become...

I've only heard Elvis's version of My Way a couple times and won't be upset if I never hear it again. The Elvis songs that spent at least five weeks at number one are All Shook Up, A Fool Such As I, It's Now Or Never, Wooden Heart, Good Luck Charm, The Wonder Of You and Way Down. I'd rank Way Down as clearly seventh out of seven in that list.

Hall of Fame is a decent enough number 1 I think. I really liked Public Enemy 'Harder Than You Think' at the time, one of the anthems of the summer of 2012, it still sounds great.

 

Break Your Heart is certainly better than Taio's 'Dynamite' imo (the latter got quickly tedious). Pixie Lott's song Boys and Girls wasn't great but Mama Do I liked. Like the Saturdays Up before it it was a strong pop debut that was better than many of the artist's later songs.

 

I quite liked Blue (Da Ba Dee) at the time, more than 'We're Going To Ibiza'. 'Genie In A Bottle' is a good pop song with a bit of atmosphere to the production. It is certainly a lot better than 'Dirrty' in my opinion. The Sun Is Shining remix I remember liking at the time.

 

I don't know Way Down much but it sounds quite good. I like Magic Fly, Oxygene and Nobody Does It Better.

 

The David Cassidy song isn't great but yes it sounds like there are some good songs in the chart at the time like Layla, I Get The Sweetest Feeling, All The Young Dudes, Mama Were All Crazy Now (its a bit annoying how Slade mispelt their hits so I will cite the normal English title!) and of course a very early synthpop/dance hit Popcorn. The Sweet are good but Wig Wam Bam isn't one of their best songs in my opinion. Donny Osmonds song Puppy Love is very cheesy and I am not a fan but Children Of The Revolution by T Rex is very good.

I think the fact that you don't really know Way Down is because it isn't played very much. That, in turn, is because there are so many better Elvis songs to play.

 

Slade's misspellings were quite amusing in their own sweet way :lol: And I agree that Wig Wam Bam is not one of Sweet's best but it is still a decent tune although very much of its time.

On to number 38 and another song that suffers from being massively over-played. Survivor’s Eye Of The Tiger, number one in 1982, was the theme tune from the third Rocky film and not a tribute to a curry house in Bournemouth (which may, or may not, still be there). The original intention was to use Queen’s Another One Bites The Dust but the producers were unable to get the necessary permission. If they had succeeded, Queen might have appeared in this list (and higher than number 39). As it is, none of their 21 weeks at number one happened at the right time for them to qualify.

 

Eye Of The Tiger went to number one in August, replacing Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ Come On Eileen. Come On Eileen is another song that has been somewhat over-played, but I think it still sounds pretty damned good. By the time of my birthday, Eye Of The Tiger was in its fourth and final week at the summit before it was toppled by Musical Youth’s Pass The Dutchie. If you can name Survivor’s other chart hit, you might want to consider applying to be on Ken Bruce’s Popmaster quiz one day. It was Burning Heart which reached number five in 1986.

 

The top three that week was completed by The Bitterest Pill (I Ever Had To Swallow) by The Jam at number two with Dire Straits’ epic Private Investigations at three. Lower down the chart we had Depeche Mode with Leave In Silence, What by Soft Cell, a new entry for Culture Club’s Do You Really Want To Hurt Me and a reissue of The Animals’ House Of The Rising Sun. A new version of the latter song co-ordinated by Arthur Brown (of Crazy World fame) has recently been released to raise funds for the Help Musicians charity. Culture Club’s Top Of The Pops debut was hosted by John Peel who memorably described Boy George as a Brian Clough lookalike.

 

I've only heard Elvis's version of My Way a couple times and won't be upset if I never hear it again. The Elvis songs that spent at least five weeks at number one are All Shook Up, A Fool Such As I, It's Now Or Never, Wooden Heart, Good Luck Charm, The Wonder Of You and Way Down. I'd rank Way Down as clearly seventh out of seven in that list.

 

Mum loves Elvis and I grew up on him, loved him too until around mid 1973 then his new stuff got on my nerves, but I still adored the oldies. I find my tastes have changed over the years - I was mad on The Wonder Of You, these days I'd prefer Way Down, so I'd rate it 4th of 7 - have to bear in mind those of us that went into shock and remorse when he died still associate Way Down with that event. And then the nauseating aftermath I associate with I Remember Elvis Presley and Elvis' My Way - you are SO lucky to have only heard it twice :lol:

The Bitterest Pill is one of the Jam's best songs, now that's a pity it didn't go to #1. Eye of The Tiger is a decent song but I am not really a fan of film soundtracks, especially ones a bit cheesy like Eye of The Tiger as I can't really take the song seriously on its own without thinking of the film. I suppose Harold Faltermeyer's Axel F is an exception.

Axel F is a good tune.

Eye Of The Tiger is still going in Bournemouth, and the record still makes the charts. Never saw the film, bought the record, topped my chart, and yes I agree overkill has reduced it's initial charms for me too. I'll take any of the other tracks you list, every one of 'em! Prob about the right chart position in your list, barring some real shockers posting high (there's been a bit of a lack of 60's so far, so if Ken Dodd crops up you may have some explaining to do :lol: )

 

I keep getting urged to go on Ken Bruce, but I was on Mike Read's Radio 1 Pop Quiz in 1986 and swore I would never torture a listening nation again.....

 

 

I just know that if I ever went on Popmaster, I wouldn't like either of the options for bonus questions! Still, I got 33 in one round today :D

Axel F is a good tune.

 

Ding-Ding!