The Hit Parade

The CD single version of 'All Around The World' is actually longer than the album version at 9:38. The 7" and cassette versions use the 7-minute "video edit" but in 1998 I would surmise that the CD was the most popular format. The shorter radio edit was only released commercially on New Hits 98. The original single version of 'Hey Jude' is officially 7:11, although since it has such a long fade I suppose that depends how good your hearing is. Some people have claimed it was intentionally on second longer than 'MacArthur Park' (not a UK Number One but an unprecedentedly long pop hit at the time).

https://twitter.com/extreme_rice/status/849897381424443394

It's even cheaper on Amazon Italy.

OK, so the article says they won't release a winners single, but whoever wins will release a song after the final (as the winner evidently now has). That's... contradictory.

I'm sure Radio 2 were playing the Train song but they'll have dropped it by now.

Hey, they only triggered Article 50 a few hours ago.

If radio stations wanted to be experimental they already could, couldn't they? Indeed they could have played lots of the more unusual stuff that made the Top 10 in the past and most of them didn't.

Well, it's a cover of a Tavares song, though it's true that they didn't have the UK hit. Note to younger readers: 100 Ton And A Feather was a pseudonym for Jonathan King.

They have now: https://open.spotify.com/user/nowthats/play...ci308nplVkq9nT9 (21 tracks because of the double A-side) I noticed while doing it that the Spice Girls Greatest Hits has disappeared so presumably there's another best-of on the way.

Maroon 5 never stopped having hits though did they? They've been T40 every year since 2004, except 2006 and 2009. A couple more big names: Guns N Roses (from Sympathy For The Devil in 1995 to Chinese Democracy in 2008) Neil Young (his *only* UK Top 40 singles were Heart Of Gold in 1971 and Harvest Moon in 1993) And a name people might not be so keen to mention these days, but Rolf Harris had an even longer gap between Two Little Boys in 1969-70 and Stairway To Heaven. In fact Led Zep's two T40 hits were 10 years apart in 1997 and 2007, but they weren't new songs. Oh, and Mike Berry from Are You Being Served? also counts, having had hits in the 60s and then in 1980.

And the Drake album is download-only isn't it? So that will concentrate its sales on downloads whereas Ed's are split over two download versions and the three physical formats.

As did Steps of course. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers had two Top 40 hits in 1977, then a third in 1992. Tom Petty had a solo hit in 1989 but of course even that's a gap of more than ten years. In fact the Travelling Wilburys is almost like a club for people with long gaps: George Harrison had 'When We Was Fab' in 1988 but nothing until the re-release of 'My Sweet Lord' in 2002, and in terms of new tracks, not until 'Any Road' in 2003. Roy Orbison had almost 20 years between 'Penny Arcade' in 1969 and 'You Got It' in 1989. Even Bob Dylan's last two solo hits were in 1978 and 1995 (he also had a Number 41 single in 2010). Johnny Cash (whose first hit was a Bob Dylan song) had 27 years between 'One Piece At A Time' (1976) and 'Hurt' (2003) The Kinks had a gap between 'Supersonic Rocket Ship' in 1972 and 'Come Dancing' in 1983. Perhaps most surprisingly, Elvis had a gap between 'I Can Help' in 1983 and 'Twelfth Of Never' in 1995, though he had several T75 hits in the meantime. I like this game.

The Verve had over ten years between 'Lucky Man' in late 1997 and 'Love Is Noise' in 2008. Tom Jones had 10 years between 'Say You'll Stay Until Tomorrow' in 1977 and 'A Boy From Nowhere' in 1987 - in fact they entered exactly ten years apart so the gap between their T40 runs might have been slightly less, you'd have to check the chart runs.

No, Kylie had hits in 1998 (and most other years in the 90s).

I realised last night that my second-favourite band ever, XTC, just about did this with 'Senses Working Overtime' in early 1982 and 'The Disappointed' in 1992. Also, the Stone Roses had that comeback hit last year which was their first Top 40 since the 1999 remix of 'Fool's Gold' or if you don't count that, since 'Begging You' in 1995.

The difference is that that was a re-release of a single that had previously been a hit. Whereas the Beatles T40 comeback 'Baby It's You' had not previously been a single, although it was of course recorded in the 1960s. Kate Bush returned to the chart in 2005 for the first time since 1994. David Bowie's comeback hit 'Where Are We Now?' in 2013 was his first Top 40 since 2002. His old mate Lou Reed did it twice: from 'Walk On The Wild Side' to that version of 'Soul Man' with Sam Moore in 1987, and then from that to the remix of 'Satellite Of Love' in 2004... and both those solo hits originated from the same album too. I think quite a few acts have done it with Christmas songs.

What, in the 1970s?

Yeah, but how do you know whether somebody's listening to playlist because they've looked at all the songs on it, and decided they like them, or whether they've just seen the name of the playlist and think it sounds cool? What if somebody listens to a Best Of Ed Sheeran or Best Of David Bowie playlist? That's obviously a choice to listen to that specific act, even if not to specific songs. What somebody compiles a playlist of their favourite songs and I listen to it because I trust their taste? That's no different from when I used to buy singles that were recommended, except of course that it counts 150 times less. What about the playlist I'm listening to right now, which is the chart this week in 1994? Should that count? ...And all of that said, wouldn't cutting out streams from playlists proportionately increase the influence of album streams, which is exactly what everyone seems to be complaining about? I mean I can still see the case for it, it just wouldn't be what people seem to want now.

In the interests of balance, I did think this was one of the better articles, even if I don't agree with it all (be warned, it includes a close-up photo of Chris Evans) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-39265093

Oh well, if the bass player from Everything Everything says there's a problem then obviously something has to be done :rolleyes: (No disrespect to the band, I like a few of their songs, but he seems an odd person to ask).

...How would you do that without reading people's minds?

Yeah, the songs may not fit the 1950s definition of a single but even if they owe much of their current success to the album the fact is that they can be and to some extent are being consumed singly. Which is why they're not all being streamed equally.

I'm less sure about this; I've always thought that part of the reason why performances on the likes of X-Factor, SNTA, Graham Norton etc have so much impact is because they get seen by people who wouldn't watch a music-themed show.

And whilst I've never seen any figures on this (indeed I don't know whether there are any), I suspect that for that reason, people with paid accounts are more likely to use generic playlists for background music. I'm sure they're more likely to listen to complete albums, which is what really seems to be annoying everyone this week.

Yeah, at least two of the three things he says about 'Umbrella' are wrong. And as somebody who owns several albums by Stevie Wonder, I'm not exactly throwing my hands up in shock at the thought of somebody getting to Number One with a song that isn't their best.