75 - 27/03/2006 Kanye West feat. Lupe Fiasco - Touch The Sky

Chart Run: 02-02-02-01-06-08-12-15-20-24-25-30-32-37 (14 weeks)

Each of Kanye West's first five singles charted at a higher position than the previous one, briefly broken by Heard Em Say falling short of the top 10 at the end of 2005, before Touch The Sky took him to the top spot for the first time. His Late Registration album was one I had purchased when it came out, but like a lot of rap albums I never really got into it and thought it was overly long and quite boring, but it had a great set of singles on it, with Touch The Sky being the final one of them, a song definitely amongst the most catchy and accessible of Kanye's, with Lupe Fiasco providing a great chorus to it, and after three weeks of being the runner-up made it to the top before a bumper release week which saw new entries in the whole top 5.

It's safe to say my listening to Kanye West has reduced with each passing year, still some great (largely early) songs, but a somewhat odious character I haven't given him much time for a while now. Touch The Sky is fine and still catchy but not a top tier song of his.

2026 Rating: 7/10
Songs kept from #1:

The Kooks - Naive

Naive was the fourth single from The Kooks debut album to chart for me, and entering at #2 it became comfortably their biggest hit, they would chart twice more from their Inside In/Inside Out album but never again. That initial run of singles are still ones which I listen to, I think Naive was definitely overplayed in various settings over a period of a couple of years, but I do think it's great now.

76 - 03/04/2006 Gnarls Barkley - Crazy

Chart Run: 01-01-04-03-04-04-04-05-07-16-17-18-24-29-36-40 (16 weeks)

The second of three #1 singles shared with the UK Chart comes in the form of smash hit Crazy by the duo Gnarls Barkley. I was definitely caught up in the hype and absolutely loved the song, how it came from nowhere, set history for being the first song to reach #1 on downloads alone and was the longest running #1 for a good few years! Cee-Lo Green had such a good voice suited to this type of music and worked really well with Danger Mouse's production. I did buy the album at the time and definitely had a period of loving it.

It feels like Gnarls Barkley were very much a thing that was of their time, given how huge Crazy was it didn't feel like I heard it in the years that passed as much as other stuff, and this song aside there have been very few times I've felt compelled to listen to them since. It's still a great song, but I don't love it as much as I did back in '06.

2026 Rating: 8/10

Songs kept from #1:

Franz Ferdinand - The Fallen, Islands - Rough Gem

A pair of absolute bangers here. Franz Ferdinand had a hugely successful debut album campaign, but struggled to follow it with their second album. I do really like You Could Have It So Much Better, but it was a poor choice of singles. Do You Want To (#11) and Walk Away (#15) both towards the bottom of it and neither close to matching the peaks of their previous singles, but the album's best song was still to come. Released as a double A side with L Wells The Fallen was unlucky to arrive on the same week as Crazy, I'd rank it #2 behind Take Me Out in their back catalogue.

It was a big couple of weeks for releases, with the first week being an entirely new top 5, with #3-5 consisting of Belle and Sebastian - The Blues Are Still Blue after getting into their album of that year, a blast from the past with the self-titled single Wigwam by Wigwam, a short lived duo consisting of Blur's Alex James and Betty Boo! The Zutons rounded it off with the lead single from their second album, Why Won't You Give Me Your Love. Other great entries into the top 10 were Death Cab for Cutie - Crooked Teeth, and The Fratellis first ever entry, Creeping Up The Backstairs.

77 - 17/04/2006 The Flaming Lips - The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song

Chart Run: 01-02-06-10-09-11-10-17-18-20-22-28-32-39 (14 weeks)

The Flaming Lips had a big early hit on my chart, featuring on The Golden Path with The Chemical Brothers, and followed it up with another #1 single when they returned. The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song became their 6th, final, and highest charting UK hit at #16 (going one place higher than The Golden Path (#17), which had also gone one place higher than Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots - Part 1 (#18)). It was a fun indie bop which I enjoyed a lot for a brief period, and was rare in being a song of theirs I did, their Yoshimi album is good but they're not a band I've got into much. They had three more minor solo hits for me, and one more top 10 in 2017 with Vessels.

The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song isn't something I listen to very often now, but it was a nice enough reminder of it, they're just not a band I've ever got into much.

2026 Rating: 7/10

Songs kept from #1: Infernal - From Paris to Berlin

The big Eurodance hit of the summer gets an unlikely runners-up spot here, surprised myself in checking! It was another all new top 3 with Australian rock band Wolfmother rounding it out with Dimension. Without having checked all the future ones, probably what I'd now consider to be the weakest top 3 of the year.