Julian_

A 6 week #1 and a #19 hit from 2020 going double platinum together…

“Tears” has similar retro vibes to “Espresso”, and indeed is my 2nd favourite Sabrina song behind that.

“Your Idol” is far and away the best Demon Hunters track in my view. Shame they skipped the intro which is brilliant. Glad to see it Top 5.

It probably only has 1 more SCR week so I doubt it.

This isn’t as strong as “Disease” or “Abracadabra” for me.

Sales are very low at the bottom of the Top 20 right now, which is why “Camera” didn’t fall further than #16.

Crazy ACR run for “Back To Friends” - closing in on the total sales for “Undressed”

I expect the gap would be 100k+ now.

Looks like another new Top 40 position covered for “Beautiful Things” - 33/40 now

I think morbid curiosity is a natural human reaction to an extent.

22Ozzy & Kelly Osbourne - ChangesScore: 1/10 20/12/2003 Ozzy And Kelly Osbourne Changes Peak: 1 Chart run: {1}-3-2-2-4-6-8-14-11-14-20-27-37-53-61-57->16 “Changes” was originally a 1972 Black Sabbath album track. Very unusually for them it featured neither drums nor guitars. The original is a very lovely heartfelt ballad. This was right in the middle of Kelly Osbourne’s fairly short lived pop career, and she had reached #3 with a “Papa Don’t Preach” cover and the Top 20 with “Shut Up”. By far her best single, the synth laden “One Word”, wouldn’t come until 2005. Anyway she had said to her father that he had done some songs for her siblings and should do something for her. This led to the decision to re-record “Changes” as a duet about their relationship, which Ozzy hoped would boost her career. So this was very much a case of the road to hell being paved with good intentions. Unfortunately the vocals on this cover managed to be fist clenchingly ghastly. You’d have thought the producers could have improved them somehow. Maybe they didn’t see the need. After all the single was a huge commercial success, reaching #1 the week before Christmas and making the year end Top 10. It also reached the download Top 10 just a couple of months ago following Ozzy’s passing. Fortunately it didn’t make the official chart as the streaming public thankfully listened to some of Ozzy and Black Sabbath’s good songs instead.

23David Sneddon - Stop Living The LieScore: 1/10 25/01/2003 David Sneddon Stop Living The Lie 1 Chart run: {1}-1-3-8-10-20-26-30-35-46-54-52-56-48-36-58-68-74->18 I actually agree with Last Dreamer that “Fame Academy” was a good series for talent. In some ways it was an antidote to the “Pop Idol” juggernaut that was more about coaching singer songwriters and aiming at longer term success than instant fame. The first series had Lemar who went on to have an impressive run of hits, pop rock girl Sinead Quinn and Ainslie Henderson who I all liked to an extent. The second series had Alex Parks who seemed to have huge promise though vanished quickly, James Fox who went on to do Eurovision and Alistair Griffin who had a few hits, including one with Robin Gibb. But of all the songs that could have ended up being the flagship winner’s release why did it have to be this? The lyrics are clichéd and embarrassing - rhyming “café” and “coffee” and “saviour” and “favour”, and there’s nothing remotely interesting or flowing about it musically. The vocals aren’t even that strong and don’t sound particularly engaged. It’s quite baffling that he won the show looking back, but even David himself had better songs available.

Funny you should say that…

And so we come to the year of “Finding Nemo”, Madonna and Britney’s kiss and the launch of iTunes. But who will have my favourite #1 of 2003? It was a year when single sales plummeted, and turnover at the top of the chart also dramatically slowed. With the biggest new release only doing about 30k in many weeks it became much more feasible for a huge smash to hang on for 2, 3 or 4 weeks. Like Roba. I am going to include the 1st #1 of the year even though it is a repeat of one of 2002s. That gives us 23 chart toppers: List of #1s Girls Aloud - Sound Of The Underground David Sneddon - Stop Living The Lie t.A.T.u - All The Things She Said Christina Aguilera - Beautiful Gareth Gates and the Kumars - Spirit In The Sky Room 5 featuring Oliver Cheetham - Make Luv Busted - You Said No Tomcraft - Loneliness R. Kelly - Ignition (Remix) Evanescence - Bring Me To Life Beyoncé featuring Jay Z - Crazy In Love Daniel Bedingfield- Never Gonna Leave Your Side Blu Cantrell featuring Sean Paul - Breathe Elton John - Are You Ready For Love The Black Eyed Peas - Where Is The Love? Sugababes - Hole In The Head Fatman Scoop featuring The Crooklyn Clan - Be Faithful Kylie Minogue - Slow Busted - Crashed The Wedding Westlife - Mandy Will Young - Leave Right Now Ozzy Osbourne & Kelly Osbourne - Changes Michael Andrews featuring Gary Jules - Mad World

A great winner which would be 2nd for me. I don’t love “Heaven” as much as you guys but I agree it’s a very inspired cover, turning an unremarkable song into something more. My version, based on the scores in my thread. It’s a very strong top half. 1 Eminem - Lose Yourself (9) 2 Pink - Just Like A Pill (9) 3 George Harrison - My Sweet Lord (9) 4 Liberty X - Just A Little (9) 5 Daniel Bedingfield - Gotta Get Thru This (9) 5 Girls Aloud - Sound Of The Underground (9) 7 Christina Aguilera - Dirrrty (9) 8 Aaliyah - More Than A Woman (9) 9 Las Ketchup - The Ketchup Song (Asereje) (9) 10 Sugababes - Freak Like Me (8) 11 Elvis vs JXL - A Little Less Conversation (8) 12 Sugababes - Round Round (8) 13 Daniel Bedingfield - If You’re Not The One (7) 14 DJ Sammy featuring Yanou and Do - Heaven (7) 15 Eminem - Without Me (7) 16 Darius - Colourblind (7) 17 Oasis - The Hindu Times (6) 18 Westlife - World Of Our Own (6) 19 Holly Valance - Kiss Kiss (6) 20 Gareth Gates - Anyone Of Us (Stupid Mistake) (5) 21 Will Young - Light My Fire (5) 22 Nelly featuring Kelly Rowland - Dilemma (4) 23 Will Young - Anything Is Possible / Evergreen (4) 24 Atomic Kitten - The Tide Is High (Get The Feeling) (4) 25 Enrique Iglesias - Hero (3) 26 Robbie Williams & Nicole Kidman - Something Stupid (3) 27 Blue featuring Elton John - Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word (3) 28 Ronan Keating - If Tomorrow Never Comes (2) 29 Will Young & Gareth Gates - The Long And Winding Road / Suspicious Minds (2) 30 Westlife - Unbreakable (2) 31 Blazin’ Squad - Crossroads (2) 32 Gareth Gates - Unchained Melody (1)

Going for Tweet - it has a nice rhythm to it but doesn’t really do much beyond that.

The Wombats are moving to the survivor dustbin next after a close battle. This was their biggest chart hit, peaking at #13 in January 2008 and spending 8 weeks in the Top 40. The band was formed in Liverpool and had a #1 album as recently as 2022. 5th: Wombats - Moving To New York 13/35 votes (37%) 6th: Janet Jackson - Doesn’t Really Matter 12/31 votes (39%) 7th: The Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale Of New York 8th: A1 - No More 15/29 votes (52%) 9th: Akon - Belly Dancer (Bananza) 10/26 votes (38%) 10th: Ronan Keating - The Long Goodbye 18/28 votes (64%)

“Rockstar” is pretty annoying and can go.

Belief only gets you so far, and The Tweenies are out. This spent 3 weeks at #9 in December 2001. It was part of a run of 6 Top 20 hits for the children’s TV stars. 8th: Tweenies - I Believe In Christmas 21/30 votes (70%) 9th: Blazin’ Squad - We Just Be Dreamin’ 14/31 votes (45%) 10th: Steve Brookstein - Against All Odds 11/25 votes (44%)

MGMT by miles and miles - how is it 3-3? 😅

#72. It’s been doing worse than I expected too - may even end up not making it.

Another tie 🧵

You can’t ask that and not have a guess surely.

Sugas would both be a little lower for me but they’re both excellent so no major complaints. “Freak Like Me” I think is the stronger of the two. I agree with Rich that it felt odd so soon after another cover of the song had been a Top 20 hit, but this one was a fantastically well executed mashup. I love one of the top 2 and really like the other.