On 11/05/2025 at 01:40, Highway Unicorn said:

• Don McLean, ‘Crying’

• Michael Jackson, ‘One Day In Your Life’

• Bucks Fizz, ‘The Land of Make Believe’

• Shakin’ Stevens, ‘Oh Julie’

• Bucks Fizz, ‘The Camera Never Lies’

• Jim Diamond, ‘I Should Have Known Better’

• Robin Beck, ‘First Time’

• Wet Wet Wet, ‘Goodnight Girl’

• Outhere Brothers, ‘Don’t stop’

• Peter Andre, ‘I Feel You’

• Boyzone, ‘A Different Beat’

• Michael Jackson, ‘Blood on the Dancefloor’

• Bewitched, ‘To You I Belong’

• Dizzee Rascal's ‘Holiday’ and Roll Deep's ‘Good Times’ are painfully generic recession pop songs, they sound like the types of songs that a film would make about that period.

• There's been talk about reality winners being too ordinary, but can anybody hum Fame Academy winner David Snedon's ‘Stop Living the Lie’

I think you mustn't have lived through the 80s or 90s if you haven't heard of most of those songs. Even if you despised the artist or acts or had no interest in pop music, they were pretty ubiquitous songs, particularly the 80s ones you listed and are definitely not ordinary! 😃

Edited May 12May 12 by Ongarboy

I would say either Gary Barlow “Forever Love” or David Sneddon “Stop Living The Lie”. Can’t say I’ve ever heard them and they’re both pretty bog standard, ordinary, songs.

Also 911 “A Little Bit More” could be a consideration I haven’t seen mentioned. A bland cover which doesn’t add much to the original and didn’t hang around for long:

I’m going to agree about Forever Love. Pointless default number 1, when it was on the TOTP re-runs I realised I had erased it from my memory.

Dull indeed.

Interesting to see the interpretation of an ordinary #1 being a song that's dull and boring. Here's how my Oxford dictionary & thesaurus defines 'ordinary':

"normal or usual"; "standard, conventional, typical, common, commonplace, customary, habitual, everyday, regular, routine, established, run-of-the-mill, unremarkable, unexceptional"

On 07/05/2025 at 18:25, gasman449 said:

Would have to pick one by an artist who isn't very remarkable e.g not a huge name and the song itself doesn't have any kind of gimmick/cultural impact.

I agree with this, and wouldn't choose 'Forever Love' for this reason (the first solo single from a member of Take That was quite a big deal at the time), as well as that I wouldn't say it sounds like a typical big hit of around that time.

31 minutes ago, jimwatts said:

Interesting to see the interpretation of an ordinary #1 being a song that's dull and boring. Here's how my Oxford dictionary & thesaurus defines 'ordinary':

"normal or usual"; "standard, conventional, typical, common, commonplace, customary, habitual, everyday, regular, routine, established, run-of-the-mill, unremarkable, unexceptional"

I agree with this, and wouldn't choose 'Forever Love' for this reason (the first solo single from a member of Take That was quite a big deal at the time), as well as that I wouldn't say it sounds like a typical big hit of around that time.

On the other hand, it’s the epitome of a safe bland MOR ballad. Musical beige.

Now that’s ordinary to me.

42 minutes ago, jimwatts said:

"normal or usual"; "standard, conventional, typical, common, commonplace, customary, habitual, everyday, regular, routine, established, run-of-the-mill, unremarkable, unexceptional"

Doesn't this just describe Forever Love?

It was exactly what everyone expected as a Gary Barlow solo single.

Even the fact that Gary became the first Take That member to have a solo #1 was ordinary. Now if it had been Jason or Howard that would have been a different matter.

Gary Barlow writes and records a boring ballad and it makes #1.

Unremarkable.

(I take the point that it was made a big deal of at the time... But it was a news story and nothing more, surely)

I came to this thread to say Orson - No Tomorrow, but saw this was suggested almost instantly.

So I will post one that I don't think has been mentioned and probably wouldn't, but I genuinely stand by it...

Lola Young - Messy.

The current number 1, it is very dull and boring. All of the westlife songs. I didn't know bucks fizz did the land of make believe, I thought it was allstars as i used to love All stars land of make believe as a kid.

Edited May 12May 12 by kimberley88

5 hours ago, ChrisJK said:

Doesn't this just describe Forever Love?

It was exactly what everyone expected as a Gary Barlow solo single.

Even the fact that Gary became the first Take That member to have a solo #1 was ordinary. Now if it had been Jason or Howard that would have been a different matter.

Gary Barlow writes and records a boring ballad and it makes #1.

Unremarkable.

(I take the point that it was made a big deal of at the time... But it was a news story and nothing more, surely)

I suppose it depends on whether descriptors such as “dull” and “boring” are considered to be synonyms with “ordinary”. To me they skew a bit more negative. I feel like an ordinary song would be more straight down the middle, not really making you feel either which way (neither boring nor interesting), it’s just there being unremarkable.

I think it would be fair to say that a ballad from Gary Barlow as his debut single was expected, and in that sense it would seem ordinary. But if people feel it was notably boring, to the point it’s memorable for being so, does that make it ordinary? (!)

8 hours ago, Viper* said:

So I will post one that I don't think has been mentioned and probably wouldn't, but I genuinely stand by it...

Lola Young - Messy.

I think the most interesting thing about this song is that in the age of trending in the other direction, it's a massive smash hit that's inexplicably nearly 5 minutes long. It doesn't qualify in the UK but it's actually a highly interesting #1 hit in Australia because I'm almost certain it topped the charts because of a music poll it didn't even win (I wrote about it on Reddit)

On 08/05/2025 at 18:23, 777666jason said:

Agreed TYIB getting there and the more memorable Jessie hold on not was the only interesting thing about it

And TYIB was only ever really the pre-Christmas chart topper, the week before (13/12/1998) the Christmas 1998 chart. In a sense, it's more of a warm-up for what was to come later on.

agree that "Ordinary" doesn't mean "Bad", that's why all those evil covers by Westlife, Boyzone etc don't fit. Same for Ed's Perfect.

for me Ordinary means Vanilla basically, which Forever love is :D

As it's something @Mangø suggested earlier on in the thread, I'll make a poll, just for that song and see how much it divides opinion. I think it could be interesting to see the outcome.

I only listened to 'Forever Love' for the first time the other week and it almost put me to sleep! 😅

13 hours ago, AaronTM said:

I would say either Gary Barlow “Forever Love” or David Sneddon “Stop Living The Lie”. Can’t say I’ve ever heard them and they’re both pretty bog standard, ordinary, songs.

How can you never have listened to them but branded them "bog standard, ordinary"?

1 hour ago, awardinary said:

As it's something @Mangø suggested earlier on in the thread, I'll make a poll, just for that song and see how much it divides opinion. I think it could be interesting to see the outcome.

That's not what I suggested, or at least not what I meant to suggest! I was thinking a poll of a selection of songs mentioned.

Easy. The most ordinary #1 is the most common song to make number one. That is Unchained Melody, and I would say the 4th one to make number one...

So we have our winner, which is:

Gareth Gates - Unchained Melody

This topic can now be closed. 😜

3 minutes ago, Juranamo said:

Easy. The most ordinary #1 is the most common song to make number one. That is Unchained Melody, and I would say the 4th one to make number one...

So we have our winner, which is:

Gareth Gates - Unchained Melody

This topic can now be closed. 😜

It's by the Pop Idol runner up and was the 2nd biggest seller of the 2000s behind the winner's single...and one of the first number ones that showed how big reality TV would be on the charts for the next 10 years (not just the winner being a massive success)... those are pretty distinctive features if you ask me!

Also I think Do They Know It's Christmas has now overtaken Unchained Melody if you count LadBaby's. Even if you don't it's tied with You'll Never Walk Alone anyway!

It is interesting that Gareth Gates has #1 versions of both Unchained Melody and Spirit In The Sky. 2 of the only songs which went to #1 in 3 or more different iterations!

2 minutes ago, gasman449 said:

It's by the Pop Idol runner up and was the 2nd biggest seller of the 2000s behind the winner's single...and one of the first number ones that showed how big reality TV would be on the charts for the next 10 years (not just the winner being a massive success)... those are pretty distinctive features if you ask me!

Also I think Do They Know It's Christmas has now overtaken Unchained Melody if you count LadBaby's. Even if you don't it's tied with You'll Never Walk Alone anyway!

I know that, I was just pointing out one way in which we could remove all subjectiveness. 🙈

Food Aid has different lyrics, so I wouldn't choose that, but "Do They Know It's Christmas?" by Band Aid 30 can fight for the crown, I guess!

And "You'll Never Walk Alone" definitely has an argument here too!

Though I will stand by Gareth Gates 'Unchained Melody' as there was no Charity ensemble version of it, making the song just that bit more ordinary (4 regular artists (or their team) chose to record it!)

Edited May 13May 13 by Juranamo