2007 was the first year I was actively listening to the chart every Sunday and following throughout, I can probably recall a lot of random one week wonders from this period, I have great memories of the 'landfill indie' era in particular and there was some great music, I don't hold the number 1s in as high regard though, I think cos the runs there were all a lot longer, they all felt a bit more overplayed, and I recall preferring the runners up. There are still a good section I have come back round to though, though there is one huge hit I have never come to like and I feel there's a non-zero chance it could be number 1 here oops x

Anyway, correct bottom 2 here - X Factor 2007 was a huge step down, Leona's worldwide success would definitely replenish it for the next few years, but Leon Jackson winning was the nadir of a poor series with few bankable stars. It's not his fault, bless him, clearly just the Scottish/young lad vote taking over, but he's by far the worst singer that's ever won - he's just totally out of tune on When You Believe and overpowered by the song. His debut single being beaten to even number 2 by Geraldine McQueen and then getting dropped I think sadly sums up his legacy.

The additional Comic Relief singles definitely haven't aged well, I did quite like 500 Miles at the time as I was more inclined to that kind of humour, but not one that's aged well at all, much like a lot of British comedy of that time.

5 hours ago, Last Dreamer said:

My bottom 3 (no surprises) : Grace Kelly, Umbrella, Bleeding Love

What is it about them that makes you dislike them so much?

I don't love them all by any means, but it's difficult not to see objectively that they are well constructed songs within their styles.

Oh wow, that's pretty bad. Definitely bottom two worthy.

9 hours ago, Last Dreamer said:

My bottom 3 (no surprises) : Grace Kelly, Umbrella, Bleeding Love

That's a great trio of songs!

That's the beauty of taste in music though. We all have our own and it can be vastly different.

As aforementioned, the X Factor live tour that accompanied the 2007 series was the first concert my parents ever took me to as a kid, so I've heard Leon's version of 'When You Believe' live *_* I actually ended up seeing Rhydian live twice, on that tour and playing Teen Angel in a production of Grease Leon's winner's single is... unremarkable. He was a pretty mediocre winner, especially when the other options Rhydian and Same Difference were a lot more interesting. The only satisfying fact about his win is that we got Leona followed by Leon as champions. Sadly no Leo the following year... but Alexandra Burke did a Leonard Cohen song!!!

I was merely a primary school kid when that series aired, so latched on to Same Difference with their High School Musical-esque appeal. I was so ready to spend my pocket money on their winner's single... alas I got their album Pop the following Christmas instead and then soon moved on to whatever my next obsession would be.

I'd like Leon's 'When You Believe' to return to streaming for completeness but I can't say I have much desire to actually seek it out.

I remember watching Come Fly With Me at the time a few years later but don't recall actively seeking out Little Britain. I expect much of the 'punching down on minorities' humour won't have aged well. Honestly, both of the Comic Relief efforts this time were a step down compared to Tony Christie and McFly... as much as I usually enjoy Girls Aloud and Sugababes, but more on that later, of course. For now... Avril robbed!

@Jade, do you know what Same Difference's winners single would've been?

7 hours ago, Paddington James said:

@Jade, do you know what Same Difference's winners single would've been?

I'm not 100% sure but I assume 'When You Believe' was lined up for them as well, if Rhydian also performed it in the final

I guess it would make the most sense for them with the original being a duet

Not a surprising bottom 2! Leon will also appear in my rundown, but will it also be last?!!!

I know that '500 Miles' song was for charity but you have to draw the line somewhere.

The duet that Sugababes and Girls Aloud did at Comic Relief that year was better and I hated that.

Edited Monday at 16:042 days by montyj

16 Sean Kingston Beautiful Girls

#2s held off #1: Hey There Delilah (Plain White T’s); Ayo Technology (50 Cent, Justin Timberlake, Timbaland)

 

During the early months of 2007, after being discovered on then-rising video-sharing platform YouTube, 17-year-old Sean Kingston was swiftly signed to Sony Records and lined up for stardom. His choice of debut single was the crooning Beautiful Girls, a midtempo doo-wop number backed with the sample of Ben E. King’s 1961 classic Stand By Me. The song proved an instant success and in turn propelled Sean to immediate fame, spending 4 weeks at the top in the UK, and also reaching the summit in the USA, meaning Sean became the first artist born in the 1990s to reach #1 on the Hot 100!  

The song centres around Sean feeling mistreated and cheated on by the object(s) of his affection. He speaks of the insecurities and pitfalls of dating good-looking girls, including being told lies and driven to suicidal thoughts. The song’s lyrics are melodramatic if not juvenile but, to give it some credit, I have to admire a male-led song to touch on feelings of bad mental health and vulnerability in an era that was still brimming with toxic masculinity. That said, a 2025 re-read of the lyrics give incel vibes a little, no? Maybe it’s the lack of a balanced perspective – instead he sings at length about being the victim constantly (“I’m feeling slighted”, “you have me suicidal”, “they only wanna do you dirt”). And what even is the line about him “going away for a crime” back in 1999, when he was 9 years old? No wonder these girls aren’t staying Sean! Red flag. Red flag. Red flag. One of the worst aspects of this song though has to be Sean’s vocal. It’s more of a whine than anything else and detracts from an otherwise pretty harmless song. From the way he sings “girls” (guuuuurls) to the way he drags out the end of each line of the verses. His vocal delivery honestly puts me off to the point I never checked out any future releases from him lmao.

Despite the huge success of Beautiful Girls, he always struck me as an obvious one-hit-wonder at the time. The song definitely felt like the star, rather than he did. He would struggle to find another hit from his debut album but would bag a top 20 as a feature on Natasha Bedingfield’s Love Like This the following spring. It would take him another two years to crack the top 20 again as a lead artist (with Fire Burning), and a collaboration with Justin Bieber to crack the top 10 (with 2010’s Eenie Meenie). Sean's music career would soon fizzle out and nowadays he makes the headlines not for his music, but for his crimes and convictions. Him and his mother were convicted in March this year on wire fraud charges, after obtaining over $1 million dollars of items they fraudulently paid for! Looks like the beautiful girls had the right idea.

I can’t say either of the number twos to miss out from a week at #1 are an injustice. Ayo Technology left zero impression on me at the time, which is odd since I was into both Timbaland and Justin’s recent music. Hey There Delilah is probably my favourite of the two. It’s always a pleasant listen, especially on a summer day, but its never been an essential. If the Plain White T’s had reached number one, they’d have joined the undesirable club of acts having a #1 single but no other top 40 hit to their name. So maybe it was for the best...

I despise this song. Great placings so far!

Crap indeed, I'd also put it bottom three. For a year with few No.1s, there were still a handful of stinkers.

Oops at the fraud charges :/ I did enjoy Fire Burning (more for RedOne's involvement I expect) and didn't mind Love Like This, but generally he was not a great artist.

Beautiful Girls is atrocious, I'd be tempted to even rank it last tbh. Leon is bland but inoffensive, 500 Miles is not supposed to be good really, where as Beautiful Girls is just painful - I don't think he can sing, the lyrics are awful and in general it's just really corny - I'm not at all convinced that it's intentionally trying to deal with anything around men's mental health either, I think it just clumsily uses the word suicidal in a throwaway manner.

My favourite # 1 is obviously "Walk This Way", possibly it's # 15 here.

I'd have also put Beautiful Girls last, terrible song with questionable lyrical content (at best!) done by a terrible person. Really poor example of the pop-reggae fusion that was popular around this time and very whiny and throwaway besides, not even giving off good feelings like most of the good examples of such do - this is the sort of thing that makes Jason Derulo look like Bob Marley.

not like those 2 #2s are anything particularly amazing but I'll enjoy both of them if I hear them at least, 'Beautiful Girls' is negative enjoyment.

55 minutes ago, dandy* said:

Beautiful Girls is atrocious, I'd be tempted to even rank it last tbh. Leon is bland but inoffensive, 500 Miles is not supposed to be good really, where as Beautiful Girls is just painful - I don't think he can sing, the lyrics are awful and in general it's just really corny - I'm not at all convinced that it's intentionally trying to deal with anything around men's mental health either, I think it just clumsily uses the word suicidal in a throwaway manner.

Yeah you’re right, the “suicidal” line is more throwaway than anything else. I was just scraping the barrel for a positive. 😂 Definitely a worthy argument for ranking it last tbh. Actually, I’d rank my bottom 4 as equal amounts of s*** if I really could. 😋

Beautiful Girls is pretty heinous, actually might put it below 500 Miles overall, I agree the lyrics read even worse in 2025, but even at the time, it was just really bad singing over Stand By Me and the 'suicidal' mention was so out of place in the song, him and his mother being recently convicted does make that lyric of him going to prison aged 9 seem just a little more plausible 😅

On 21/12/2025 at 11:30, Scene said:

17 The Proclaimers feat. Brian Potter & Andy Pipkin (I'm Gonna Be) 500 Miles

#2s held off #1: Girlfriend (Avril Lavigne)

 

 

Comic Relief aka Red Nose Day was a biennial TV fixture on BBC One by 2007. The telethon was in its era of consistently rating around 10 million viewers and fundraising upwards of 60 million pounds. One of the most high-profile methods of fundraising was the Comic Relief single, born in 1986 when Cliff Richard decided to release a comedy version of his 50s hit ‘Living Doll’ for the cause. Though, it wasn’t until 1995 when the Comic Relief single would begin its streak of 9 consecutive #1 singles over a span of the next 12 years, headed by ‘Love Can Build a Bridge’, a collaboration between Cher, Chrissie Hynde, Neneh Cherry and Eric Clapton.

By 2005, we had the (mis)fortune of being treated to two Comic Relief singles at once. While McFly released ‘All About You/You’ve Got A Friend’ as the official charity track, Tony Christie teamed up with comedian-of-the-moment Peter Kay for a re-release of his 1971 #18 hit ‘(Is this the way to) Amarillo’. The song’s success eclipsed McFly’s release, becoming the UK's biggest-selling single of 2005.

The enormous success of Amarillo of course meant the same formula would be followed for the 2007 cause. To accompany the year’s official Comic Relief single, the Proclaimers re-released their 1988 hit ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’ alongside comedy sketch characters Brian Potter and Andy Pipkin (aka Peter Kay and Matt Lucas) as the comedy/throwback ‘unofficial’ alternative. The release proved a success, albeit not as mega as Amarillo, spending three weeks at the top and finishing the year as the eighth-biggest seller.

I’m not particularly keen on the original so it’s no surprise, with a couple of tone-deaf comedy characters thrown in the mix, this would land low lol. The comedy element is also lost on me: I’ve never really found Peter Kay funny and Andy was never among my favourite Little Britain characters. I don't really get the point of this collaboration, other than someone thinking two wheelchair-using characters singing "and I will walk..." repeatedly would be funny enough. It was an aspect that was completely lost on me at the time admittedly, but then I never cared to watch the video which captions the song as (I'm Gonna Roll) 500 Miles. I guess that's why Brian & Andy feature across the entire song here and not just confined to the music video like Peter Kay was in 2005. Was this really the standard for British comedy in 2007? To think ten years prior, we had French, Saunders and co. serving the iconic Sugar Lumps sketch/music video to pair with the Spice Girls' Comic Relief single, Who Do You Think You Are. Now that was my kind of comedy!

If the comedians had just stayed contained to the video, and the original was left untouched, it would definitely be a few spots higher. But yeah, this is unlistenable. They also blocked Avril Lavigne from getting her first ever number one with Girlfriend, which is enough to hate it (fundraising aside of course!).

Avril was incredibly unlucky to run into the path of Comic Relief. She had in fact managed to debut at #3 on the strength of downloads alone, TWO weeks before CD release. I remember hearing it announced on the chart show at the time and feeling certain she could climb a couple of spots to the top. All wasn’t terrible for Avril though, as she managed a singles chart personal best of #2 with Girlfriend, and her third consecutive UK #1 album in the spring. Follow-up single When You’re Gone also managed to give Avril a third top 3 hit in July.

This preventing Avril from her VERY deserved number 1 for her smash hit "Girlfriend" will never not disappoint me.

Absolutely vile, there's nothing remotely good about that

I did really like 'Fire Burning' though.

3 hours ago, Scene said:

16 Sean Kingston Beautiful Girls

#2s held off #1: Hey There Delilah (Plain White T’s); Ayo Technology (50 Cent, Justin Timberlake, Timbaland)

 

During the early months of 2007, after being discovered on then-rising video-sharing platform YouTube, 17-year-old Sean Kingston was swiftly signed to Sony Records and lined up for stardom. His choice of debut single was the crooning Beautiful Girls, a midtempo doo-wop number backed with the sample of Ben E. King’s 1961 classic Stand By Me. The song proved an instant success and in turn propelled Sean to immediate fame, spending 4 weeks at the top in the UK, and also reaching the summit in the USA, meaning Sean became the first artist born in the 1990s to reach #1 on the Hot 100!  

The song centres around Sean feeling mistreated and cheated on by the object(s) of his affection. He speaks of the insecurities and pitfalls of dating good-looking girls, including being told lies and driven to suicidal thoughts. The song’s lyrics are melodramatic if not juvenile but, to give it some credit, I have to admire a male-led song to touch on feelings of bad mental health and vulnerability in an era that was still brimming with toxic masculinity. That said, a 2025 re-read of the lyrics give incel vibes a little, no? Maybe it’s the lack of a balanced perspective – instead he sings at length about being the victim constantly (“I’m feeling slighted”, “you have me suicidal”, “they only wanna do you dirt”). And what even is the line about him “going away for a crime” back in 1999, when he was 9 years old? No wonder these girls aren’t staying Sean! Red flag. Red flag. Red flag. One of the worst aspects of this song though has to be Sean’s vocal. It’s more of a whine than anything else and detracts from an otherwise pretty harmless song. From the way he sings “girls” (guuuuurls) to the way he drags out the end of each line of the verses. His vocal delivery honestly puts me off to the point I never checked out any future releases from him lmao.

Despite the huge success of Beautiful Girls, he always struck me as an obvious one-hit-wonder at the time. The song definitely felt like the star, rather than he did. He would struggle to find another hit from his debut album but would bag a top 20 as a feature on Natasha Bedingfield’s Love Like This the following spring. It would take him another two years to crack the top 20 again as a lead artist (with Fire Burning), and a collaboration with Justin Bieber to crack the top 10 (with 2010’s Eenie Meenie). Sean's music career would soon fizzle out and nowadays he makes the headlines not for his music, but for his crimes and convictions. Him and his mother were convicted in March this year on wire fraud charges, after obtaining over $1 million dollars of items they fraudulently paid for! Looks like the beautiful girls had the right idea.

I can’t say either of the number twos to miss out from a week at #1 are an injustice. Ayo Technology left zero impression on me at the time, which is odd since I was into both Timbaland and Justin’s recent music. Hey There Delilah is probably my favourite of the two. It’s always a pleasant listen, especially on a summer day, but its never been an essential. If the Plain White T’s had reached number one, they’d have joined the undesirable club of acts having a #1 single but no other top 40 hit to their name. So maybe it was for the best...

There's 2 reasons I dislike this song...

1. My first bf's favourite song at the time - (we hate him chat)
   

2. It prevented the MUCH and I mean MUCH superior "Hey There Delilah" from reaching number 1