Sorry maybe it’s getting a bit harsh singling out the lowest scorer haha - The Millennium Prayer had scores of 4, 7, 8, 10, 12, 15 and 18 so 7/30 put it in their bottom half.

I’ll be your clown or your puppet or your April fool,

Cut my hair I’ll even wear a mask

 

3rd - Long Haired Lover From Liverpool - Little Jimmy Osmond

 

 

2nd - 1952-1979 heat

 

Average score: 29.63

Highest score:

40 Dan, Jade, jimwatts

Lowest score:

10 Popchartfreak

 

Number one for 5 weeks in December 1972 / January 1973 and a million seller, this held off “Solid Gold Easy Action” by T Rex and “The Jean Genie” by David Bowie. This was Jimmy Osmond’s only solo chart topper but he had a #4 follow up with “Tweedle Dee”, and The Osmonds would later reach the top with “Love Me For A Reason”. Jimmy remains the youngest ever chart topper at the age of 9 years and 8 months.

 

Now this song had first been recorded by its writer, Christopher Kingsley. I’ve checked his version out and it’s perfectly tolerable, sung by a man with a gentle voice at the correct pitch. Mummy Osmond apparently heard the song and decided it would perfectly suit her youngest son. I’m not sure quite how she came to that conclusion, because the lyrics might be sweet but they are clearly about adult romantic love. Aside from being in questionable taste, Jimmy’s very strident and unbroken voice really makes this record an unpleasant listen, and somehow the chirpiness with which he tackles it makes it grimmer still. In a very tight Top 3 this was within 20 points of victory, and its lowest score of 10 was the highest lowest score for any song. However, unlike the Top 2 its average fell just shy of the 30 mark.

Should've won :puke2: yeah okay he was just a kid but that record is insufferable 😭

Seems I was extremely kind to Cliff as it was in my lower half top 20 :kink: not that I think it's good or anything but yeah.

 

'Long Haired Lover From Liverpool' I went to re listen to for this actually and immediately realised why it's here. His voice is enough to make my ears bleed on it. 'Puppy Love' >>>>

Edited November 13, 20222 yr by Roba!

This climbed to the top on its second week which was incredibly rare at the time and no other songs would do so until the “Cha Cha Slide” in 2004.

 

Bob The Builder managed it in 2000.

This climbed to the top on its second week which was incredibly rare at the time and no other songs would do so until the “Cha Cha Slide” in 2004.

 

Bob The Builder actually managed to climb to #1 at Christmas the following year, and in doing so prevented Westlife from getting Christmas #1. One of the greatest chart moments of the 21st Century, seconded maybe by Rage Against The Machine in 2009. *.*

 

The Cliff record is definitely a contender for the worst number 1 of all-time, however because I hardly ever heard it or remember ever hearing it I can't seem to hate it more than Cher Lloyd's absolute abomination of a number 1 single for some reason. Maybe that's also because it's almost a so-bad-its-actually-funny type record. I remember at the time The Big Breakfast were running a phone-in to find out if anyone under the age of 50 had bought it and nobody called up. :lol:

The whole 'victim' narrative plays out quite well with the general public though because they love an underdog so I can see why it massively increased sales each week for 4 weeks.

 

Didn't he get really angry at the time because Radio 1 refused to playlist it (Cliff cancelled)? Oh yeah, can imagine it fitting RIGHT IN along with Wamdue Project and Liquid Child..

^ Yep thanks both for correcting me on that particular fact fail! But climbing to #1 was still very rare.

None of the top three here were in the top 15 of my vote. :ph34r:

 

Long Haired Lover From Liverpool is still quite painful to listen to though (I had to watch an older Jimmy Osmond perform this live once, not by choice, but at least his voice was more bearable by then!), quite surprised that The Stonk and Sausage Rolls For Everyone are the top two!

That was my 5th worst song - just irritating and annoying.

20 points from winning - oh so close! That song and its performance don't have any redeeming features - it wasn't even for charity!

 

I lost the rest of my remaining top 7 in the last couple of days with The Streak (+35), Grandma (+34) and You'll Never Walk Alone (+37). For the other two, No Charge (+20) and The Millennium Prayer (+12), don't get me wrong, I think they're both pretty poor as well, but at least there's some authenticity in the former, while for the latter you probably had to follow the charts at the time to appreciate the underdog angle, because R1 playlisted everything back then and you could usually predict the #1 single weeks in advance, so for something to go completely against that was rare.

 

I gave the final two songs +33 and +29 and it's going to be very close anyway. I would not have expected The Stonk to come this far!

The Stink more like. I'm pleased that's still to come and Ladbaby so a deserving top 2 x

Well that was the other one I thought would probably win it if Millennium Prayer didn't and again it would have been a well deserved winner. The song itself is a load of old shit but with that vocal on top of it- eek.

 

 

Happy anniversary everybody! Long live the charts. :cheer:

 

One of our Top 2 scored 903 points (average 30.10), and the other scored 907 (average 30.23).

That’s my top 2 gone so obviously I was hoping one of those would win. The Stonk would be my preferred winner now but I’m thinking that Ladbaby may win through everyone being old enough to have endured it.

Jimmy was just a little kid brought on stage by his elder brothers and is entirely blameless. I think fans of Liverpool FC bought the record (my little brother certainly did because it mentioned Liverpool) as well as Osmond fans and older music fans who liked the ragtime vibe. I got fed up with it quite quickly and it will never be forgiven for stopping T.Rex and Bowie topping the chart with 2 classic glam tracks. Tweedle Dee was way better though, quite amusing. I am not ashamed :P I bought it!

A few thank yous before the final reveal:

 

Thank you to everyone who’s commented in the threads, and to anyone else including guest members who have just been reading. :)

 

Thanks very much to all of you who voted in the final and / or the heats. I know this was a much more labour intensive rate than some to vote in as many of the songs are (justly) forgotten and I insisted on ranking every song. And obviously researching the songs you didn’t know wasn’t necessarily pleasurable. And it’s generally more fun voting for things you actually like. So thank you!

 

Thank you also to those who commented in the nomination threads, including the ones I created much earlier in the year. Your feedback was vital for revising the lists.

 

Thank you very much to those in the Number One listening group who had to put up with me going on about what was and wasn’t going to make the dreaded “list” every week.

 

And thanks very much to Ed for helping a lot with the nominations and also for sharing the workload of running the rate with me, which is always much more than expected, particularly if you do a commentary on all 100 of the shortlisted songs as they drop out (which I hope you have enjoyed).

 

Since I first had this idea 9 months ago I have thought many times that it might well not work for various reasons - the nominations lists might not be comprehensive enough, there might not be enough interest and there might be too much recency bias. And none of those worries came about so thank you all. And being able to finish on the anniversary date was the icing on the cake!

I remember at the time The Big Breakfast were running a phone-in to find out if anyone under the age of 50 had bought it and nobody called up. :lol:

 

That's funny but it's ridiculous to read into that. A hundred under 50's can phone in and they just ignore them and claim nobody did. You wouldn't pull a stunt like that in the first place if you liked the song. They obviously hated it and just wanted to ridicule it using the "Young people GOOD. Old people BAD" narrative that we have to put up with in Western countries.

 

I'm 30 now and I like the song.

Everyone’s here, and now the dog’s got the trifle bowl

This is pure family goals

 

2nd - Sausage Rolls For Everyone - LadBaby / Ed Sheeran / Elton John

 

 

2nd, 2007-2022 heat

 

Average score: 30.10

Highest score:

40 AH Gold, …ready for it, Alex!, detonate

Lowest score:

7 Mangø

 

Number One for a week in December 2021, this was the 4th and maybe not the final Christmas chart topper for Ladbaby. It had a 1-29 chart run but this was better than their previous year’s 1-78 run; probably the Sheeran presence helping the track pick up a few streams. It was Ed’s 4th #1 of the year and 13th in total; and Elton’s 2nd of the year and 10th in total. Of course it was a reworking of “Merry Christmas” by Ed and Elton which it both knocked off #1 and was knocked off by. The fact that it pushed “Merry Christmas” down to #2 in Christmas week meant that the chart show was essentially playing the same song twice in a row at #1 and #2; that had happened in 2008 with “Hallelujah” but I don’t think it had ever happened with some of the same artists being on both records.

 

I’m not sure if the pain of this having happened so recently together with the fact that we’ve had a quadruple whammy of Ladbbaby and there could still be more to come makes us more ill disposed to this song than we would be otherwise. The original “Merry Christmas” received a mixed reception itself and clearly adding lyrics about sausage rolls, a theme already done not very amusingly 3 times, and LadBaby’s rather rough and ready vocals, this was never going to be a record to be treasured. Nonetheless, having gone through all the effort of running this competition, I am quite glad that something less fresh in our minds has pipped it at the post.

Well you can play a fiddle with a lump of cheese

Or make the Taj Mahal out of mushy peas

 

1st - The Stonk - Hale & Pace / The Stonkers

 

 

Winner, 1980-1995 heat

 

Average score: 30.23

Highest score:

40 Popchartfreak, Uls2000

Lowest score:

5 Jason, Bré

 

Number One for a week in March 1991, this was the only hit for Gareth Hale (the unfunny one with the moustache), Norman Pace (the unfunny one without the moustache), or the charity supergroup known as The Stonkers. Brian May, Roger Taylor and David Gilmour all appeared on the track, a fact of which I’m sure they all love to be reminded. It feels fitting that our winner has something controversial surrounding it, though it’s nothing to do with the record itself of the artists involved. The single was released as a double A side with “The Smile Song” by Victoria Wood, but shockingly the OCC do not credit the Victoria Wood track, which unlike its twin release is a nice and fun novelty song. I was delighted to find this petition for that to be corrected, though looks like it’s been running for a couple of years without success: https://www.change.org/p/official-charts-co...e-uk-number-one. I feel like I have done my good deed of the day on the anniversary of the charts by adding to this petition.

 

So this stonkingly, stinkingly terrible record is based around some sort of imaginary dance craze, though I don’t think it’s clear in any way what “stonking” entails, or to which bodily appendage called a “conk” one is supposed to attach a red nose. I’ve mentioned the FreakyTrigger reviews before - he has a write up on every Number One single until 2003 and his piece on this one is well worth a read: https://freakytrigger.co.uk/popular/2011/03...pace-the-stonk/ Pleasingly he seems to approve of our winning pick: “it’s the only number one whose badness induces a reflex physical response, a kind of skin- creeping sensation of shame and repulsion”.

 

So thanks very much again for voting and humouring me in my little endeavour. I hope you’ve enjoyed it and I think I’ll mark the end with a glass of red from Sainsbury’s as I’d rather be a plonker than a stonker.

Well if it wasn't JLS who got my 40 points then my 39 winning is the correct winner for me. No redeeming factors to it whatsoever for me. Comically and utterly STUNK. Ladbaby was my 38 too for that matter. Enough with the Sausage Rolls and tagging Ed and Elton, the latter of which gurgling wasps as we speak. I'd have taken Ed and Elton's Christmas song of their own as number 1 over this and I'm not even mad on that either!

 

Thanks Julian and Ed for hosting this, was good following along.

Edited November 14, 20222 yr by Roba!