I made this list over a year ago, but I'm going to do it again, as there have been some great Number 1s since then. I'll leave in most of my original comments, and add a few more. New songs in bold.
The pop charts are not that lively these days in that lots of the same songs hang around for ages, but I think it is an era with a high end of pretty great singles, and great in a very accessible, universal way.
Nevertheless, we must begin with ...
96. LadBaby - Food Aid. I'd not actually listened to these before, just reasonably assumed how bad they'd be, but I actually listened to some of this today, and it's way worse than could possibly have been imagined. Just unbelievably bad to listen to. Makes me hate this country even more than i already do.
95. LadBaby featuring Ed Sheeran and Elton John - Sausage Rolls for Everyone. This is much better. Only kidding.
94. LadBaby - Don't Stop Me Eatin'. This is much better. Only kidding.
93. Michael Ball, Captain Tom Moore and the NHS Voices of Care Choir - You'll Never Walk Alone. Hahahahahaha. Probably my favourite band, Michael Ball, Captain Tom Moore and the NHS Voices of Care Choir.
92. David Guetta and Bebe Rexha - I'm Good (Blue). Aah look no, i couldn't stand this first time around, i don't want to revisit it.
91. Lewis Capaldi - Wish You the Best. They do grate after a while, the Capaldi songs, I'm afraid.
90. Ed Sheeran and Elton John - Merry Christmas. Ching-ching. I mean, all Christmas songs are ching-ching, but this really takes it to the next level.
89. Tion Wayne and Russ Millions - Body. I like the name Russ Millions, and I actually quite like the sound of this, but I found it wearing.
88. Jack Harlow - Lovin on Me
87. Saint Jhn - Roses
86. Gayle - ABCDEFU. As we will continue to find out, they're very sweary, the young ladies of popular music.
85. Lewis Capaldi - Survive
84. Lewis Capaldi - Forget Me
83. Ed Sheeran - Shivers
82. Mariah Carey - All I Want for Christmas Is You. I'm pretty certain that the main reason I still don't like this is that, when I was 15, I was shocked by the opportunism of it having been recorded in summer. Imagine. Hootenanny! But, there we go. The world may love it, but I still do not.
81. Alex Warren - Ordinary. One of these modern blokes.
80. Sabrina Carpenter - Taste
79. Ed Sheeran - Bad Habits
78 Internet Money featuring Gunna, Don Toliver and Nav - Lemonade
77. Lewis Capaldi -Before You Go
76. Adele - Easy on Me. Have hardly listened to Adele for more than ten years, but a few seconds of listening to this extremely Adele-like song, and I still find the vowels and the consonants annoying, I'm afraid.
75. Drake - Toosie Slide
74. 24kGoldn featuring Iann Dior - Mood
73. The Fate of Ophelia - Taylor Swift Too many annoying lyrics in this one.
72. Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding - Miracle
71. Elton John and Dua Lipa - Cold Heart (Pnau remix). Kind of works ok.
70. XMAS - Kylie Minogue
69. Taylor Swift featuring Post Malone - Fortnight
68. Little Mix - Sweet Melody
67. Jawsh 685 and Jason Derulo - Savage Love (Laxed – Siren Beat)
66. Ariana Grande - Positions
65. DaBaby featuring Roddy Ricch - Rockstar. Definitely not the worst song called Rockstar.
64. Eminem featuring Juice Wrld - Godzilla. Eminem's ability to still have massive singles is actually pretty impressive, and this is a perfectly good single.
63. MK ft Chrystal - Dior. The singer actually has a really nice voice, but there are far too many songs about brands these days.
62. Justin Bieber - Daisies
61. BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge Allstars - Times Like These. Don't mind this all that much, surprisingly. The song suits the treatment quite well, most of the singers don't over-emote, and, yeah, unlike that creepy Hollywood Imagine, it seemed quite a sweet gesture in those zoomy gloomy days.
60. Hozier - Too Sweet. Hozier's enormous success it definitely one of those modern things I don't understand much. But fair enough.
59. Beyoncé - Texas Hold 'Em. Didn't like the album at all. This single is actually fine. but not good like Beyonce can be good.
58. Eminem - Houdini
57. Miley Cyrus - Flowers
56. Ellie Goulding - River. Again, didn't mind this. I remember it got to Number 1 purely on the back of being on a playlist, which is rank. And I'm not really a fan of Ellie Goulding, but River is an all-time song, and not the kind of thing one really hears in the pop charts, and she sings it really carefully and appropriately, if those don't seem like extremely weird adverbs to use.
55. Cardi B featuring Megan Thee Stallion - WAP. Yikes, well crumbs, well really ...
54. Lewis Capaldi - Pointless. When he sings "airs and graces", it's hard not to warm to him. Hymn to Richard Osman, this.
53. Joel Corry and MNEK - Head & Heart
52. Ariana Grande - Hate that I Made You Love Me
51. Carolina Gaitán, Mauro Castillo, Adassa, Rhenzy Feliz, Diane Guerrero and Stephanie Beatriz - We Don't Talk About Bruno. And this was actually, fact fans, the first Disney film Number 1.
50. Noah Kahan - Stick Season. Now, this being, of pretty much all of the 73 years of UK Number 1s, the one song on the surface that looks closest to the kind of music I have generally liked the most - beardy, sensitive, somewhat rural American men with guitars doing gentle, harmonious, tunes -, is a source of bafflement to me. If this song had turned up halfway through a Fleet Foxes or Iron and Wine or Ray LaMontagne or Midlake or Band of Horses album, I don't think I'd have picked it out as a hit. I don't even hate it. It just sounds like a song. But it's a worldwide smash. Kids love it. Everyone loves it. Sometimes I don't get pop music.
49. Dave and Central Cee - Sprinter. Stylish, but not loveable.
48. Ed Sheeran - Eyes Closed
47. Charli XCX featuring Billie Eilish - Guess
46. Lola Young - Messy. It's good, it's just, there's a lot of swearing, and a lot of the same milieu about. It's a welcome milieu, but there are a lot of these about.
45. Sabrina Carpenter - Please Please Please
44. Taylor Swift - Anti-Hero
43. Sabrina Carpenter - Manchild
42. Wham! - Last Christmas
41. Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande - Rain on Me
40. Taylor Swift - Is It Over Now?
39. Benson Boone - Beautiful Things. I imagine this has inspired more awful karaoke versions than almost anything else in history. I'd give it a crack myself on a bad night.
38. The Beatles - Now and Then. I thought this was rather good, all things considered. But I much prefer Days We Left Behind.
37. Gracie Abrams - That's So True.
36. Eliza Rose and Interplanetary Criminal - B.O.T.A. (Baddest of Them All)
35. Chase & Status and Stormzy - Backbone
34. Olivia Rodrigo Drivers License
33. Doja Cat - Paint the Town Red. Kid came home singing this. Radio edit. Mainly.
32. Kenya Grace - Strangers
31. Olivia Rodrigo - Vampire.
30. Gigi Perez - Sailor Song
29. Dave and Tems - Raindance
28. Lil Nas X - Montero (Call Me by Your Name)
27. Sam Smith and Kim Petras - Unholy. This is a song with some pizzazz, I must say.
26. Harry Styles - Aperture
25. Nathan Evans, 220 Kid and Billen Ted - Wellerman. This is nice to listen to. There we go.
24. Olivia Rodrigo - Good 4 U
23. Dave - Starlight.
22. Stormzy featuring Ed Sheeran and Burna Boy - Own It
21. Sabrina Carpenter - Espresso. Why the 2020s is so much better than the 2010s is that the songs have words which people have put some thought into. Taylor Swift is a really precise lyricist, whatever else. You can tell she spends time on it. And others have followed suit. This song has just got some real turns of phrase in it, and that's what i want to hear in pop songs sometimes.
20. Djo - End of Beginning
19. Dua Lipa - Dance the Night
18. Taylor Swift - I Knew It, I Knew You. Very nice.
17. Sam Fender and Olivia Dean - Rein Me In Genuinely fascinated by how vastly successful this song is, looking like it's going to break all records for weeks at Number 1 in the UK. It is a properly a nice song, and has clearly tapped every nerve and every market that can reasonably be tapped.
16. LF System - Afraid to Feel
15. Olivia Dean - Man I Need
14. Billie Eilish - No Time to Die. I think, if I'm not mistaken, this was the first time Billie Eilish displayed her capacity for grandeur.
13. Huntrix/Ejae/Audrey Nuna/Rei Ami & KPop Demon Hunters Cast - Golden
12. Taylor Swift - Opalite
11. Kendrick Lamar - Not Like Us. Honestly, i have tried to hate this, found it deeply unedifying, but it is just the work of a master.
10. Raye featuring 070 Shake - Escapism
9. Kate Bush - Running Up That Hill. One of the greatest songs ever, and gives hope to all other great songs that they'll randomly, cos of a TV show, get to Number 1 40 years later.
8. Olivia Rodrigo - Drop Dead. I really like the music on this Olivia Rodrigo album. Lovely crisp indie-pop. Much prefer it to the last one.
7. Chappell Roan - Pink Pony Club. Of course, if Good Luck, Babe had, instead of stalling after several weeks at Number 2, snuck to Number 1 for just one week, it would be Number 1 on my list by a country mile, but Pink Pony Club is also, unquestionably, very enjoyable to listen to.
6. The Weeknd - Blinding Lights. Also good. The most streamed song ever. Will be the first song to 5 billion streams on spotify. I imagine, most times it has been streamed, people have thought, "yup, this is a good song".
5. Harry Styles - American Girls
4. Chappell Roan - The Subway
3. Harry Styles - As It Was. Yes, of course. But also, you know on Watermelon Sugar, when he's going "I just want to taste it, I just want to taste it", is that lifted from SFA's Smokin'? (i know that song took that from somewhere else but it's all pretty obscure ... has anyone else asked these key questions?).Anyway, As it Was. Good. I had Blinding Lights above it, but I definitely prefer As It Was. Sadder, dreamier.
2. Billie Eilish - What Was I Made For? A few years ago when mockney doofus and musical maestro Dan Abnormal got into trouble for saying he didn't really rate Taylor Swift's songs (and, more questionably, she didn't write them all by herself), but he loved Billie Eilish, at the time I thought "well, he probably hasn't listened much to either of them, he's probably just jetlagged and irritated" ... but now I think, having myself listened to them both an awful lot more, he had listened to them both and he knew exactly what he was talking about. It's not a slight on Taylor Swift, whose songs are often excellent, but they really and truly just don't have ... whatever Billie Eilish has ... let's call it depth. Depth is the simplest, best word, isn't it. Writing and performing a hack song for the Barbie song, Billie Eilish and her brother managed to make something with some real depth.
1. Raye - Where is My Husband Just one of the best singles of all time, I think. The album, sadly, less so, but what a hit.
Wowsers, that's it, that's all the Number 1s. I can't just leave it there. I'll hack together some kind of best-of, I expect.
