80. CIAO ADIOS- Anne-Marie (858,000)

 

 

PEAK POSITION: 9

YEAR: 2017

 

Anne-Marie’s follow up to the all-conquering “Rockabye” with Clean Bandit and a top 10 hit to boot. Co-written by her, she tells the story of saying goodbye to her cheating man (does that theme ever go out of style?) and apparently confused some listeners into thinking the chorus lyrics were “Shower the horse, I’m done”- which would at least have been interesting. Video shot in Marrakesh.

 

Lyrically it refers to the same relationship covered by “Alarm” “That was a song about me finding out that he cheated, but after a while you just think “You’re disgusting, you make me sick” and that’s what “Ciao Adios” is about”.

 

 

79. TEENAGE DREAM- Katy Perry (859,000)

 

 

PEAK POSITION: 2

YEAR: 2010

 

Seeing as we won’t get “California Gurls” thanks to Snoop Dogg’s appearance we’ll have to settle for the follow up. Another production of Max Martin, Dr Luke and Benny Blanco this was re-written several times until it was “kind of like feeling that way when you were a teenager: really emotional, really invested..... It's intense being in love and being a teenager” and saw Perry reflect on her past whilst gearing up to marry Russell Brand.

 

 

'Ciao Adios' is probably my favourite Anne-Marie solo single :wub: loved it at the time and it still holds up pretty well tbh.

Who allowed Anne-Marie into this countdown again. Gross. Get rid. :puke:

Who allowed Anne-Marie into this countdown again. Gross. Get rid. :puke:

 

Ciao Adios was the last decent thing Anne-Marie has released. Teenage Dream is one of the undisputed pop classics of the decade, have to wonder how many entries Katy has left? I can only think of 2 more that will have sold enough.

78. SAX- Fleur East (865,000)

 

http://i.imgur.com/wrXtQiD.png

 

PEAK POSITION: 3

YEAR: 2015

 

A lady who did X Factor not only once but twice, as part of Addictiv Ladies in 2005 (eliminated first in the live shows) then again in 2014 as a soloist. Her performance of “Uptown Funk” was so popular it became an i-tunes No 1 and caused the release of the original version to be brought forward by 5 weeks! Ending up as runner up in the series she was signed by Simon Cowell and the album followed a year later prefaced by this single which was also picked up by Asda for their adverts that Christmas. It remains her only hit.

 

 

77. LET YOU LOVE ME- Rita Ora (865,000)

 

 

PEAK POSITION: 4

YEAR: 2018

 

Released immediately prior to her second album this gave Ora a 13th UK top 10 hit which, according to Wikipedia, makes her the first act to achieve this as a British female soloist (several of these were as features and duets though so it’s debatable). To date it remains her final top 10 hit.

 

On the theme Ora confessed “It takes me a long time to open to someone in a relationship so it’s difficult to love me, and I keep myself very guarded and that’s what the song is about”.

 

 

2 more awful songs... Fleur deserved better than for her only hit to be such a tacky and blatant gimmick song but that's the now late Syco Records for you. (Not that her other songs are that much better but she had potential).

 

 

I was a little bit obsessed with 'Let You Love Me' that summer... 'Your Song' and 'Anywhere' were great little pop songs too (I presume both are still to come), it's a shame the album was a bit of a let down.

I liked Sax at the time but it's not aged particularly well and the ASDA overexposure does not help.

 

Let You Love Me is one of my favourite Rita singles! She was very consistent for a short time there.

I was a little bit obsessed with 'Let You Love Me' that summer... 'Your Song' and 'Anywhere' were great little pop songs too (I presume both are still to come), it's a shame the album was a bit of a let down.

 

She more or less released all the good songs as singles so I never really bothered with the rest of it after one initial listen.

I dread to imagine what the rest of the album is if some of those singles were 'the best songs' :basil:

 

(the first couple of singles were good tbf)

76. PARTY IN THE USA- Miley Cyrus (869,000)

 

 

PEAK POSITION: 37 (in the 2010’s)

YEAR: 2009

 

The first of those 8 tracks which charted before 2010 is this track famously co-penned by a pre fame Jessie J and intended for her debut album but passed up as it wasn’t “edgy enough”, some lyrics were re-written to reflect Cyrus’ personality and demographic and we got this. The track sold 116k in 2009 so is now approaching 1 million overall and was first performed at the Teen Choice awards in 2009 which caused minor controversy around the overly sexual performance given its audience. Clearly it’s now a fan favourite shifting steadily over the decade even if Cyrus is allegedly not keen on it now.

 

 

78. SAX- Fleur East (865,000)

 

Is it the impact week for “More and More” yet?

75. WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?- Rihanna (869,000)

 

 

PEAK POSITION: 6

YEAR: 2011

 

Was this Rihanna’s decade? Well she has a lot of entries on this list but only the third highest in terms of all ladies probably because, like Beyonce, she loves a collab. This again comes to us courtesy of Dr Luke and Calvin Harris who are all over this rundown.

 

 

74. READ ALL ABOUT IT PART III- Emeli Sande (869,000)

 

 

PEAK POSITION: 3

YEAR: 2012

 

Written as a continuation of the story told in the similarly titled Professor Green track (A No 1 from the previous year) on which Sande guested and co-wrote, she put her own spin on the story and came up with Part 3 (what happened to part 2?). She performed this at the Olympics as was rewarded with the song powering into the top 3, part 2 incidentally was an acoustic version done by Professor Green with a band called Fink.

 

73. EMPIRE STATE OF MIND (PART TWO)- BROKEN DOWN- Alicia Keys (873,000)

 

 

PEAK POSITION: 4

YEAR: 2009

 

And speaking of continuation records (or in this case an “answer” record) here’s Keys’ solo version of the Jay Z track she had co-written and guested on back in 2009. On writing she commented “I definitely wanted to give my version of it and my vision of how I see New York and how it feels to me. I wanted to do it for my style—more broken down, more on piano, more voice and intimacy—so that's what I did. I imagined, 'If I was able to sing this whole song, how would I do it?' So I just sat down at my piano and I kind of broke it down and started singing about New York as I see it, and it turned out great”.

 

This is the first of 19 tracks to spend over a year in the charts which we’ll cover!

 

How appropriate for those two to end up exactly next to each other!

 

(also happy the 'part 2' trend ended up dying pretty quickly as it was awful x (continued positivity from me in here I know :lol:))

72. THURSDAY- Jess Glynne (873,000)

 

 

PEAK POSITION: 3

YEAR: 2018

 

Glynne getting help on this track from Ed Sheeran and a song written about the perils of fame- "We spoke about the highs and lows of being famous and doing the job that we do. It was really cool because for me as an artist, I don't really work with that many artists, and obviously you never know how it is for someone else and you feel like you don't know whether that's just you”.