The Saturdays going all Caribbean matching Sean Paul. Not sure that was needed... I'll be honest I barely remember this one and it's not thrilling me as I play it again. Defintiely lower-end of my ratings for the year, what did 2013 Me think of it? He thinks a peak of 63 in his personal charts was about right, and I think he was being generous... They had better.

I like both of those but won't grumble with the positions. Counting Stars I especially like the 'take that money watch it burn' part near the end, but mostly it was so overplayed that I don't check it much now.

What About Us is decent, but definitely not an essential Saturdays track for me. Glad they finally got a UK No.1 but I doubt it would even be in my top ten of their songs. They had some stellar album tracks as well as great singles like Higher, Up and Ego that should have peaked higher. I don't really get how it imploded so quickly after this with the ill-advised follow up Gentleman and a couple more singles. You'd have thought getting the No.1 would have been a major boost for them.

'What About Us' being The Saturdays most popular song is insane.

The fact Una has performed every other Sats single (and even album tracks) at her solo gigs and ignored their number 1 single just shows even the group members don't love it. It also just doesn't work live at all and some of their TV performances of it have been the worst of their career. I'm grateful they got their long overdue #1 and I'm still baffled how it opened with 114K and was the fastest selling song of the year at that point but then fizzled out and became a bit of a non number 1 after that. Not only that but they had their first number 1 single and their career trajectory actually went downhill after that and somehow were selling less albums than ever before.

Honestly, The Sats have one of the most bizarre and frustrating careers ever.

In agreement with everyone here. Good for The Saturdays finally getting a #1 and it's ok a song but hardly one of their better songs to do it with and tbh I don't really remember it much either lol.

Ahhh I love it (maybe a bit moreso at the time), I have similar memories to 'I Could Be The One' and it was nice to finally see them get that long-awaited #1. Such a shame they f***ed it up so royally immediately afterwards.

For their only number 1 (finally) it’s a very poor effort even with the ledge Seany Paul.

They had much better songs - Up in particular.

What people need to remember about the Saturdays was that at this point they were just desperate for a no.1. They were a popular group but this came so long after their peak because they threw everything at it to get that no.1 status. At the time I compared it to 911 bagging a no.1 with A Little Bit More, and looking at the comments here, it looks like I was right.

I think Counting Stars is probably my favourite to appear so far. I don't go out of my way to listen to it but it's definitely very catchy and it's obvious why it was so popular.

20 Under Control - Calvin Harris & Alesso Feat. Hurts

Number one for 1 week

Year end number 114

Number 2 watch -

Let Me Go - Gary Barlow

Under Control is Harris paired with Swedish DJ Alesso and features vocals from Theo Hutchcraft which are credited to his duo Hurts. The song was the first single from Harris's fourth studio album, Motion and the second single from Alesso's debut Forever. It became Harris's fifth number-one single, and the first for both Alesso and Hurts.

Look, I love a lot of Calvin’s hits, especially his earlier successes, but I have to admit there are a few less impactful dance music ‘by numbers’ in their midst, and this is one of those. The position in the end of year chart perhaps points to its lack of a longstanding footprint. Musically the Harris hallmarks are there, euphoric EDM, epic drops and I do like the change up to male vocals, I was certainly a fan of Hurts in the early 2010s. It does however have a feel of Harris repeating his successful formula again, with diminishing returns, I’m afraid it just doesn’t stand out much for me.

But we’ll certainly see Harris’ influence on the music of this era throughout this list.

5

Quiz -

1. Answer - Jay-Z

2. Which 2012/13 hit duet reached a new peak in the UK top 10 this year?

This really one of the weaker Calvin productions for me. The vocals also don’t add much. Similar ranking for me at place 23.

05. One Republic - Counting Stars (22)

08. Eminem Feat. Rihanna - The Monster (24)

10. Jason Derulo Feat. 2 Chainz - Talk Dirty (28)

20. Avicii & Nicky Romero - I Could Be The One (23)

21. The Saturdays Feat. Sean Paul - What About Us (21)

23. Calvin Harris & Alesso Feat. Hurts - Under Control (20)

24. Robin Thicke feat. T.I. & Pharrell Williams – Blurred Lines (31)

25. Will.I.Am Featuring Britney Spears - Scream & Shout (26)

27. Sam Bailey - Skyscraper (27)

28. One Direction – One Way or Another (Teenage Kicks) (30)

29. PJ & Duncan – Let's Get Ready to Rhumble (29)

30. James Arthur - Impossible (25)

Not so many from the bottom missing now, but still awaiting my #31.

Agree “Under Control” is decent but unremarkable. I don’t like “What About Us” at all, but I only enjoy a few Saturdays songs.

My bottom song (a dance song) is also still to come.

But Under Control I would rank similarly to you if not lower. Nice for Hurts to get a credit on a No.1 but that should have been the epic Wonderful Life, not this near enough nothing of a song.

30 minutes ago, gooddelta said:

My bottom song (a dance song) is also still to come.

Wondering whether we have the same one.

Oh dear, I’m getting a bit worried there is one (or maybe it’s more than one) dance record that I’m ranking highly but everyone else hates.

And looking at previous comments I think there are going to be some appearing soon that also won’t be popular decisions! 😬.

You better not all be gunning for my joint favourite song to be your bottom dance song! 🤣

2 hours ago, Jaz13music said:

Oh dear, I’m getting a bit worried there is one (or maybe it’s more than one) dance record that I’m ranking highly but everyone else hates.

And looking at previous comments I think there are going to be some appearing soon that also won’t be popular decisions! 😬.

It’s possible we love the same one, so I’ll stick up for you 😆

I'll be one of the few who really likes Under Control here. Certainly compared to two of the other dance #1s left on this list.

Great vocal and euphoric.

Edited 6 hours ago6 hr by TheSnake

'Under Control' is easily forgotten and has that non-#1 energy, but I do enjoy it anytime I hear it. It never got overplayed which certainly helps.

19 Happy - Pharrell Williams.

Number one for 4 weeks (total)

Year end number 85 (1 in 2014)

First a point of order. As I discussed at the very start of the thread, Happy was number one in a week in which both all of the sales,  and the chart were announced in 2013, and even though the OCC present it as a week ‘ending’ in 2014, I think that makes it a 2013 number one?!

So, arriving at number one at the very end of the year, was this juggernaut of a song. A song this big leaves a large footprint, so there’s a lot to get through here.

It was, obviously, released off the back of the soundtrack of the movie Despicable Me 2, and interestingly, considered its success, was the only single taken from it. The soundtrack was first released in July 2013 and the single only followed in the November, alongside a music video. It also, later served as a lead single from Pharrell’s second solo album Girl in 2014.

Williams originally wrote the song for CeeLo Green and he felt Green's recording of the song was better, but Green's record label, decided against it since he was on the verge of releasing his own Christmas album. I haven’t yet sought out his version but I can see how that would work.

The music video was billed as being "the world's first 24-hour music video." It consists of the four-minute song repeated multiple times, with various, often famous, people dancing around Los Angeles and miming along. An associated website allowed users to dip into any of the 360 four-minute sections.

To highlight just how popular this song was, if only to remind myself, here’s some mega statistics :-

• The most downloaded song in UK history

• Total UK (true) sales of over 1.93 million

• The 9th best ‘selling’ single of all time in the UK

• Spent a record equaling, at the time (thanks Rein Me In!), 3 separate spells at UK number one in a single chart run

• Number one in 22 different countries and in most of the English speaking world, including the US, UK, Canada, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.

• It was the best-selling song of 2014 in both the United States with 6.45 million copies, and in the United Kingdom with 1.5 million copies sold in that year.

• The song was Billboard’s number-one single for 2014.

• It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song. It lost to Let It Go.

• It was the most successful song of 2014 worldwide with 13.9 million units (sales plus equivalent streams).

• At the Grammys it won Best Music Video, and a live rendition of the song won Best Pop Solo Performance.

• The music video was nominated for    Best Male Video and Video of the Year at the MTV Video Music Awards.

• It was Pharrell’s 3rd 2013 UK number 1, the most of any artist that year.

The most downloaded song in UK music history, really only took off properly in 2014. For the era it had a relatively gradual climb up the charts through December (71<30<4<2<1) increasing popularity as it went. And obviously the success of the film helped massively, but I think it was so ubiquitous that it would probably still have been huge without that.

So you’d think a song with such success would be a great one wouldn’t you? Maybe groundbreaking musically? Sonically exciting? Or lyrically expansive?

However, as is often the case with songs that are so successful crossing over to the mainstream public it comes across as quite bland, if not a bit boring. Perhaps some of that comes from overplaying but it feels like a limp pastiche of 60s pop and soul but with no oomph. It’s a nice enough uptempo and very catchy soul/ Motown tribute, and has a quite sparse arrangement, which I usually like. Just programmed drums, bass, simple keyboard and the signature ‘happy’ clapping, along with Pharrell’s admittedly great exuberant falsetto and a group of backing vocalists. I’m a big Pharrell fan and it was great to see him have so much success in 2013 at the age of 40.

I like the positivity in both the lyrics and sound and its celebration of lighthearted fun in music and life in general. But it really does come across as what it is, a children’s song from a children’s film. Lyrics like ‘Clap along if you feel like that’s what you wanna do?’ are hardly inspiring, and ‘Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof’ just makes no sense. And it keeps on running back the chorus without any bridge, it’s so repetitive…

And maybe I’m just a miserable old git but singing ‘happy’ over and over and over doesn’t really make me happy!

5

Quiz -

12.  Answer - Beauty And A Beat - Justin Bieber & Nicki Minaj

1. Which female pop icon released her self-titled visual album with absolutely zero prior announcement in December 2013?