Numbers up to 1

OK, bowing to popular demand, I'm going to take another little break from writing about individual songs, as I've conducted another exhaustive study so that you don't have to.

This one is extremely satisfactory, actually. Much more so than pretending I'd heard every album ever in order to list the Greatest Albums of All Time. In this case, I was inspired by looking up recent hits when doing my post on 'With Every Heartbeat' by Robyn. I realised that, though I, like a lot of people my age, have become dismissive of the pop charts and of what a Number 1 single is worth, there were still plenty of Number 1s of the last 10 years that I like in some way.

And the Number 1 single really is the definition of the pop side of pop music - it is the song that most people in the country are into, at that given point, like it or not. And, you know what, Britain's taste really is not that bad.

Like I said, this study was much more satisfactory than the one on Great Albums. There are an infinite number of albums, there have been just over 1200 UK Number 1 singles since the dawn of the chart in the early 50s, and I've heard the vast majority. So I can decide and I can assess. I was born in 1978 so some of my understanding of before that might be limited, but I have at least read an awful lot about popular culture before that. My understanding of the context of those songs may not be perfect, but it's not worthless.

So, I really spent my time on this one. I went through every single Number 1 and chose those ones I liked or knew were really worth something - I tried to be as objective as possible (oh i know i always say that!). I ended up with about 240 i would assess - pleasingly, there's a pretty good spread across the decades. You might say there shouldn't be, that Number 1s in the 60s and 80s were way better and more meaningful than they are now, which is kind of true, but the thing is there is a much quicker turnover over the last 20 years or so, so there are simply more to choose from, so no wonder there were still a few good ones in there.

I decided upon my criteria, and again, I think the criteria for something like this can be more satisfactory than for what is a great album. I called them
IMPACT
POPULARITY
X FACTOR
CATCHINESS
ARTISTRY
but those words incorporate various other things, so a song's impact can be very different from its popularity (eg Everything I Do I Do It for You). "X-Factor" left some room for personal taste, i was just thinking about things that might make a song special to my ears.

An apology in advance - my main aim in this was to avoid having a list of "The Nation's Greatest Number 1" which had 'Bohemian Rhapsody' near the top. Here, for example is the recent official poll. But I failed, as you will see. Despite having not been able to suffer my way through 'Bohemian Rhapsody' for the best part of 20 years (after a brief, infantile love for it) I could not, in all conscience, ignore its claims. And if anyone should complain, heaven forfend, that personal prejudice has led to a pretty low showing from Elvis, it's in fact that, surprisingly, a lot of the really great Elvis songs (Hound Dog, Heartbreak Hotel, Love Me Tender, Suspicious Minds) didn't get to Number 1.

Anyway, my results may disappoint, who knows. I'm going to list a full 100 (because there really have been a lot of good ones, and it would be churlish not to), and again, where songs have scored the same, I'll just use my own taste to separate them.

The score is out of 100, and the top score was 95. Here we go

1		Billie Jean - Michael Jackson
2		Crazy in Love - Beyonce featuring Jay-Z
3		Good Vibrations - Beach Boys
4		Hey Jude - Beatles
5		Umbrella - Rihanna featuring Jay-Z
6		Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen
7		Satisfaction - Rolling Stones
8		Going Underground - The Jam
9		Paint it Black - Rolling Stones
10		Stand and Deliver - Adam and the Ants
11		Can't Get You Out of My Head - Kylie Minogue
12		Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon and Garfunkel
13		Somebody That I used to Know - Gotye featuring Kimbra
14		You Really Got Me - The Kinks
15		Rock Around the Clock - Bill Haley and the Comets
16		Stan - Eminem
17		Day Tripper/We Can Work it Out - The Beatles
18		Liike a Prayer - Madonna
19		Dancing Queen - ABBA
20		Great Balls of Fire - Jerry Lee Lewis
21		That'll Be the Day - Buddy Holly
22		Ashes to Ashes - David Bowie
23		Crazy - Gnarls Barkley
24		Ticket to Ride - The Beatles
25		Come on Eileen - Dexys Midnight Runners
26		All the Things She Said - TATU
27		Back for Good - Take That
28		You've Lost That Loving Feeling - The Righteous Brothers
29		She Loves You - The Beatles
30		Do They know it's Christmas - Band Aid
31		Lose Yourself - Eminem
32		Baby One More time - Britney Spears
33		Don't You Want Me - The Human League
34		A Hard Day's Night - The Beatles
35		Town Called Malice - The Jam
36		The Promise - Girls Aloud
37		Someone Like You - Adele
38		Video Killed the Radio Star - Buggles
39		Yellow Submarine/Eleanor Rigby - The Beatles
40		I Bet You Look Good .... - Arctic Monkeys
41		I Feel Love - Donna Summer
42		Independent Women - Destiny's Child
43		Ghost Town - The Specials
44		Cars - Gary Numan
45		Prince Charming - Adam and the Ants
46		It Wasn't Me - Shaggy featuring Rikrok
47		Bleeding Love - Leona Lewis
48		Call Me Maybe - Carly Rae Jepsen
49		It's a Sin - Pet Shop Boys
50		A Brimful of Asha - Cornershop
51		Ignition - R, Kelly
52		With Every Heartbeat - Robyn featuring Kleerup
53		Two Tribes - Frankie Goes to Hollywood
54		Killing in the Name - Rage Against the Machine
55		Toxic -Britney Spears
56		Under Pressure - Queen and David Bowie
57		I Don't like Mondays - The Boomtown Rats
58		Heart of Glass - Blondie
59		Patience  - Take That
60		Mr Tambourine Man - The Byrds
61		West End Girls - Pet Shop Boys
62		Sound of the Underground - Girls Aloud
63		If This Ain't Love - Spiller featuring Sphie Ellis Bextor
64		Three Lions - Lightning Seeds
65		Geno - Dexys Midnight Runners
66		Make Me Smile (Come up and See Me) - Steve Harley etc
67		A Whiter Shade of Pale - Procol Harum
68		Leave Right Now - Will Young
69		Jailhouse Rock - Elvis Presley
70		Firestarter - The Prodigy
71		Country House - Blur
72		Space Oddity - David Bowie
73		Hit Me With your Rhythm Stick - Ian Dury and the Blockheads
74		Nothing Compares to U - Sinead O'Connor
75		Stay - Shakespears Sister
76		Merry Xmas Everybody - Slade
77		Relax - Frankie Goes to Hollywood
78		Careless Whisper - George Michael
79		Gangsta's Paradise - Coolio featuring LV
80		Imagine - John Lennon
81		I Will Survive - Gloria Gaynor
82		Waterloo - Abba
83		Down Under - Men at Work
84		I Feel Fine - The Beatles
85		The Drugs Don't Work - The Verve
86		Sunday Girl - Blondie
87		Vincent - Don McLean
88		Metal Guru - T.Rex
89		Cum on feel the Noize  - Slade
90		What a Wonderful World - Louis Armstrong
91		Let's Dance - David Bowie
92		MMMBop - Hanson
93		Every Breath you Take - The Police
94		Help  - The Beatles
95		Things Can Only Get Better - D.Ream
96		Tainted Love - Soft Cell
97		Forget You - Cee-Lo Green
98		Everything I Do (I Do it for You) - Bryan Adams
99		Bad Romance - Lady Gaga
100		Without You - Harry Nilsson

 You all know most of those, don't you, so I don't have to provide links to them, do I? Just missing out on the Top 100 were some real crackers like Get Off My Cloud, Don't Look Back in Anger, Uptown Top Ranking, House of Fun ... so I was frankly very tempted to fiddle my scoring.

Anyway, any injustices in there? There could be even more Beatles in a way. I love late Beatles hits like 'Get Back' and 'The Ballad of John and Yoko' but perhaps they're less iconic as Number 1s.

I'm going to try and think of more lists/studies I can set my geeky mind to. I know that that's not what music is about, but hopefully it's informative and gets your own mind working a little.