The 50 best singles of the 1990s

Haven't I done this before? And very recently? Yes, but not exactly this. I'm weirdly drawn back to different versions of the same thing. I guess it's watching repeats of Top of the Pops and reading other people's opinions that make me want to refine it.

This will be a list of 50 hit singles in order. My one little rule is that everything has to have reached the UK Top 20 (a rule I will slightly break once). I will try to base it on my memories of the time, what felt like a significant single that got people around me talking, or really got me thinking, whether it got to Number 1 or Number 16.

A few significant singles I won't be including - Wonderwall (or anything by Oasis), Angels, Wannabe, Back for Good, Everything I Do. All just feel like they'd be a waste of a place, and the ones of them I do like, I don't like enough.

Getting it down to 50 is tricky, because there are a lot of singles from that time which bring back fond memories, & there are a lot of moments or trends that you feel need representing. It was the last time, I think, that the pop charts were part of the national conversation, and it is also, I think, the time with the most even spread of diverse genres at the highest reach of the charts.

So, there's about 80 other songs I could easily have included, but I've basically stuck with the first list I made.

50. Oh Carolina - Shaggy There were, in the early 90s, a lot of hits within the genre of pop-reggae/ragga - Shabba Ranks, Inner Circle, Snow, Shaka Demus and Pliers etc When I think of 1993, that's the main type of music I think about. Shaggy's first big hit is my favourite - a charming piece of work. I don't have many positive memories of 1993, but this song, ubiquitous at the time, brings a smile to my face. I have included this above Here Comes the Hotstepper, which shows what an agonising process this has been.

49. That's the Way Love Goes - Janet Jackson Watching old Tops of the Pops of the decade, there really are a lot of Janet Jackson hits, and, honestly, I think quite a lot of them are not that good - they're surprisingly twee and cheesy. I've never been completely convinced that she deserves her iconic, innovative status. But this was always a great single - much better, I think, than everything else she released in the 90s.

48. Sit Down - James At university in the late 90s, what normal men were listening to more than anything, I found, was that persistent strain of British mainstream indie that wasn't Britpop - Stone Roses (above all), The Charlatans, James, The Beautiful South. James have released almost 20 albums, and amazingly, their first Number 1 studio album came in 2024. Sit Down is much maligned, but I definitely think it's ok to like it, and I like it. It is the uncool dancefloor for people who can't dance, and that's just fine.

47. House of Love - East 17 Rather than Take That, I choose this little slice of joy by the other boyband. Though really, East 17 had more in common, at the start, with The Prodigy than Take That. Tony Mortimer could write a banging rave-pop tune. There are three or four others, which got higher in the charts, but this is the first and purest.

46. Stay - Shakespears Sister For some reason, I felt I had to choose between this and Goodnight Girl by Wet Wet Wet, and because I've talked about my weird affection for Goodnight Girl several times before, and because Stay is, by any reckoning, a more interesting, memorable chart-topper, it had to be this.

45. Nancy Boy - Placebo Brian Molko was one of the music press's primary villains of the late 90s. There were several articles wherein he clearly did not get on well with the interviewer and the headline was some pretentious pull quote, designed to make him look like an idiot. I certainly went along with it, and it was only a lot later I realised a lot of the Placebo singles were great fun. I was away when Nancy Boy came out, and only saw it on TOTP a few months ago. Not quite Bowie-doing-Starman incendiary, but must have been pretty thrilling at the time.

44. Ain't No (Ain't No Use) - Sub Sub There were so many female-vocal/male-producer dance tracks that hit the upper reaches of the charts throughout the 90s, a lot of which I hated, but even at the time, Ain't No Love (Ain't No Use) was a cut above. This narrowly beats out Set You Free by N-Trance.

43. Hyperballad - Bjork This was the single after Bjork had a weird Christmas smash with It's Oh So Quiet. Although it encourages littering in beauty spots, it's a marvellous song. Venus as a Boy is probably the other Bjork choice, but this is my favourite.

42. A Life Less Ordinary - Ash I saw this one again on TOTP recently, and remembered how much I loved it. Of course, Girl from Mars and Oh Yeah were the 90s Ash singles that really broke through, but I wilfully choose this, as I think it captures a very specific post-Britpop moment, where all the good bands might still have got bigger and better (but generally didn't) and shows Ash with their perfect combination of harmonious tunefulness, messy noise and high romanticism.

41. I Try - Macy Gray Another song which had a direct alternative I could have chosen as a piece of surprisingly moving, idiosyncratically voiced retro-soul, Give Me a Little More Time by Gabrielle, but I really liked the slow trajectory this song took to ubiquity.

40. Jump Around - House of Pain I had forgotten that House of Pain also did a song called Shamrocks and Shenanigans. What a thing. Both ludicrous and undeniable, Jump Around represents every American funky white-boy hit single (Under the Bridge. Butterfly, Drinkin' in LA) which just burrowed its way into everyone's head for months and years. But this is a song I have seen lots of different crowds of people go nuts to, and that puts it above and beyond.

39. Outside - George Michael Strange as it might sound, I'm not sure most people (including me) realised/remembered that George Michael was brilliant until this song. He was a huge star, but I think generally seen as the epitome of mainstream, even a bit boring. This response to his public arrest was not just a genuinely fine song, it was also very funny, very bold and groundbreaking.

38. Ebenezer Goode - The Shamen I don't know, I just remember how nuts it was that this was Number 1 for 4 weeks, how disconcerting the Gerry Sadowitz video was. It also represents the remarkably substantial early-90s genre of "UK rave single that had some pun which, if a 4-year-old heard it, they might not realise was about taking drugs, but everyone else would, haha, aren't we naughty". Nothing else as flagrant, catchy or popular as Ebenezer Goode in that genre.

37. Ray of Light - Madonna Needless to say, Madonna, being Madonna, had a lot of hit singles in the 90s, and Vogue was probably the biggest, Take a Bow is probably my favourite, but this is, I think, the most 90s Madonna hit.

36. Two Princes - The Spin Doctors It is quite gratifying to look up on Spotify an old track you used to like but don't hear much anymore, and see that it's got 600 million streams on Spotify, and think, ah yes, true catchiness is timeless (though just as often, streaming numbers are baffling and a song i think of as a big hit has pitiful numbers). Anyway, one of the all-time relentlessly catchy songs.

35. Waking Up - Elastica It's a bit tricky to know what to include from Britpop. Maybe Elastica are a band people want to have been better/bigger than they actually were. Maybe it's more honest to include Slight Return, Wake Up Boo, Inbetweener or Road Rage, but I think Waking Up is indeed a pretty cool song, and we want the kids to think the 90s were cool, after all.

34. Stars - Simply Red Talking of cool ... but again, just one of those songs which, as you get older, you just accept is very good - the song that sold the biggest album of the early 90s.

33. Unfinished Sympathy - Massive Attack One of three classic Massive Attack singles, which maybe I don't adore and venerate as much as everyone else does, but this one I do like a lot.

32. Sabotage - The Beastie Boys Sometimes I do think not enough rock bands realise that you can't really go wrong with a big, blatant, dramatic guitar-and-drums intro, and it took a hip-hop band to show them. But, equally, I suppose, Sabotage is one of those songs so simply great that once it had been done, it couldn't really be redone. Interesting, since it was the year of Definitely Maybe, Parklife, Dog Man Star, The Holy Bible, His'n'Hers, Dummy, that this is the only track I've chosen from 1994.

31. The Drugs Don't Work - The Verve Maybe I regret including this one rather than, say, Alright by Supergrass, who are a band people don't find embarrassing now unlike The Verve, but I still think this is, taken in isolation, an unusually sad, pretty song, to be a Number 1.

30. Can I Kick It? - A Tribe Called Quest There was a lot of really nice, jazzy, early 90s hip-hop, De La Soul or PM Dawn or Dream Warriors, even Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, but I think the most enduring single is Can I Kick It? Felt like it had a broader place in the culture almost as soon as it arrived. 

29. Torn - Natalie Imbruglia If you don't count Stefan Dennis' immortal Don't It Make You Feel Good, the best Neighbourspop single (let's say Kylie's later stuff is something different ...)

28. No Diggity - Blackstreet A ship called No Diiigity. I think this was one of the first songs that made me notice that "production" (whatever that is) exists, that several people had worked hard on this to make it a perfect-sounding record.

27. Three Lions - Baddiel, Skinner & the Lightning Seeds. Not much to say about this. The absolute worst singers, maybe apart from Noel Gallagher, to have a massive, enduring hit single. But Three Lions is probably, in the UK, the best known song that came out in the 90s, and people still aren't completely sick of it.

26. You Get What You Give - The New Radicals This timeless smash by the less reprehensible double-g bald Gregg. One of the least new, least radical, most triumphant songs of the decade.

25. You Oughta Know - Alanis Morissette You Oughta Know didn't actually make the Top 20, it only got to 22, but I'm not about to include Ironic, am I? I didn't think much of the rest of that album, but this is still great, a genuinely rocking outlier. And whenever I write it down, I am reminded that Morissette is a surprisingly difficult surname to spell.

24. Animal Nitrate - Suede This was the first time I heard Suede, the first song, I think, where I heard British indie rock and knew that what was I was listening to. This music was exciting at the time, and it's still pretty exciting. There are Suede songs I slightly prefer, but I think this is their greatest single, albeit it's really no better than Ebenezer Goode when it comes to "ooh, aren't we a card" titles ...

23. My Name Is - Eminem I think few people have been more delighted than me by the now-slightly-hackneyed fact that Chas and Dave play on this. This song was funny at the time, but it's still pretty remarkable that one of the two most relentlessly successful artists of the last quarter century is just a rude little guy who just keeps doing his rude little thing.

22. There She Goes - The La's The apostrophe in the name of the La's always bothers me, but I suppose The Las might be worse. This is another one where you look up the streaming numbers and go "oh yeah, people still like that nice song".

21. Bills, Bills, Bills - Destiny's Child Beyonce has been having hits for a long, long time, and I'm not sure anything is better than this, from 26 years ago. I guess this is the most 21st-century song on the list.

20. The Man Don't Give a Fuck - Super Furry Animals I'd personally go for Ice Hockey Hair but this is SFA's most noteworthy single, which really got people talking for a while, and is a wild joyride. It is a great and simple protest song. I couldn't really include B and S or The Beta Band, the other great late 90s EP bands, as they never had any kind of hit singles really, but this, though it didn't reach the highest echelons, was a single that made an impact.

19. Song 2 - Blur The two-minute second track on an album, the second single which reached Number 2. Very nice indeed. Blur had how many classic singles ... six maybe? But this is the biggest by far, globally. Albarn's career is full of triumphant changes of direction, recoveries from setbacks to show he's capable of way more. This simple universal thing is a perfect example.

18. Don't Let Go (Love) - En Vogue Not to be confused with that other similarly-themed En Vogue hit, Hold On. There's something of an epic scale to this song, a sense some grand, glorious drama is being enacted. Over the years, it's become one of my favourite singles. En Vogue's combined voices make one of the best noises.

17. Firestarter - The Prodigy Weird to think about this, now. I didn't really like it, it wasn't quite my thing, but I'd say it was this dominating the charts, even more than anything to do with Blur or Oasis, that made you feel that this was a moment, that alternative music was now a big thing. It holds up pretty well, I think.

16. Common People - Pulp Oh god, whenever Common People comes up I turn into the most boring man in the world. Maybe I was literally just a threatened do-gooding teenager going "well, actually, if I called my dad he most definitely could not stop it all, so there" and I built a whole theory about the song's imperfections on that. Common People does feel more apposite than ever in some ways, but I still feel I've betrayed everything I believe in by putting Pulp above Blur here. But there we go ...

15. Born Slippy.NUXX - Underworld It's really quite a beautiful thing, Born Slippy, a proper piece of desperate on-the-edge poetry which somehow became an anthem. One of those great 90s Number 2s (I think about 12 songs on this list stalled at Number 2 ...)

14. No Surprises - Radiohead I've put this a little higher than I thought I would. Radiohead, though not really thought of as a singles band, had four or five great, very successful singles. This one also had a great video. A staggeringly popular band, really, considering what they sound like.

13. No Scrubs - TLC No surprises, no scrubs, no dogs, no Irish. Released in the same year as Bills, Bills, Bills, and let's be honest, basically the same song, about trifling, good-for-nothing type of busters, but even more enduringly great and memorable.

12. Your Woman - White Town When you dig into it, this song is even better than you think it is - just everything about it is completely subversive and original. It is interesting that between 96 and 98 there were three pretty iconic indie one-hit wonder Number 1s by British Asians (one of them, which we'll get to, is not strictly a one-hit wonder, but they're certainly known to the wider public for only one song).

11. Mmmbop - Hanson No comment. Just is.

10. Never Ever - All Saints Again, since I've been watching the TOTPs from late 97, it's just remarkable how great All Saints are compared to how rubbish the Spice Girls are. I know that's unfair, because the Spice Girls were for young girls, and that's the most important audience, but still, in terms of singing, choreography, cool, music, clothes, it is just such a leap.

9. Nothing Compares 2 U - Sinead O'Connor The earliest one here, I think. The 2 and the U are so incongruous and a reminder that it's a Prince song

8. Groove is in the Heart - Deee-lite Another one from 1990 and famously a Number 2 by a handful of sales. Continues to be excellent and as fun as you'd want any song to be. Pleasingly, the top of Deee-Lite's Wikipedia page says "For the multinational auditor, see Deloitte".

7. Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana And this is, fact fans, the most streamed song of the 1990s, just ahead of Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls. The power of a riff and a scream can change lives.

6. Brimful of Asha - Cornershop I remember watching this on TOTP, in the TV room in my hall at university, and they played the original (also magnificent) slower version, and it really brought a few little bits of racism out in a few people, which was odd. The album version is a real epic.

5. Doll Parts - Hole When Pitchfork had their Best Albums of the 90s a couple of years, and Live Through This was ranked 8 ahead of Nevermind at 10, I thought "oh yeah, right" but, here we are, I've done the same thing. Courtney Love doing Doll Parts is the Top of the Pops performance that stands above everything else I saw on the show.

4. Would I Lie to You - Charles and Eddie If anyone has any resentment to this song's high position, let me reiterate that jealous minds, jealous minds, never satisfy.

3. A Design for Life - Manic Street Preachers God, I love these guys. But it was some moment this. Having been not that big really at the start of the 90s, such that, really, most people had probably not heard anything by them, the Manics had unwelcome fame in 1995 and 1996 and this was the first thing most people heard of them. Something so unignorable. 1st of 6 Top 2 hits, which is a lot for a band which always made such unfashionable music.

2. Yes - McAlmont & Butler Well, indeed, it did sound like a brand of cigarettes or an Edinburgh legal firm, but, still, they did this, the most 40-something online British guy's idea of the best song ever going. But I hold back from putting it at 1 because of ...

1. Doo Wop (That Thing) - Lauryn Hill The greatest song ever, so obviously Number 1.

Well, that's finished, and it's very mainstream, but good, I think. I will probably try to make a more interesting playlist of other 90s hits next, just pull together everything that I vaguely remember enjoying or have come to enjoy late which was, at least, Top 40 or so ...

And/or

I finished watching Andor last week and then went straight on, as many have done, to rewatching Rogue One.

Amongst the universally glowing official reviews, there's been a significant thread of media/TV/artsy middle-aged British Bluesky which has ostentatiously shrugged and said "what's going on/it's a bit boring/it's all procedure/Star Wars for grown-ups is pointless, the whole fun of Star Wars is that it's for kids".

The point is worth considering, especially as it echoes one made by this blog's regular reader. Is Andor a bit overhyped? Is its adult tone a considered shield against an absence of the kind of thrills which are and have always been the lifeblood of Star Wars?

Well, obviously, it's a big no from me. I did pay heed, while watching the first half of the second series, to the notion that maybe I was buying too heavily into it, that there were longeurs which may not pay off. But they did pay off..

The first thing I'd say about Andor is that, to me, this is the story. The main story. Andor, Rogue One, Star Wars. How the rebel alliance was formed, what kind of people they were, how tyranny operates, how people operate against tyranny, how they got the plans for the Deathstar, how the Deathstar got blown up. This direct line. A perfect story.

Of course, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi may also be "the story", but the line from Cassian Andor being recruited to the first Deathstar blowing up is a straight line, and all of it is "important".

That is not true of most of the other spin-offs, even when they try to connect to the main story. They're just dipping in, even Obi-wan Kenobi, a fun show that didn't really add any depth or understanding. 

So, to the counter the notion that Star Wars is best when it's for kids, well, they've tried that. Almost everything else since The Phantom Menace has been, very much, for kids, and it's been patchy at best. I could enjoy something like The Mandalorian for a while, but after a while, people who grew up with the original films but now prefer ... different ... types of films, will ask for good people who do bad things, bad people who are human, things going unspoken, some things that aren't completely explained, resonance with the real world, levity, pathos, that kind of stuff. That's what Andor went for, and what it achieved.

Needless to say, it tied up with Rogue One pretty well. You'd hope so, since the whole series had that to aim at. Rogue One I liked very much at the time, and still do, though it is an uneven film, where the compromises between being more grown-up and traditionally Star Warsy are pretty evident. Some of it is just ok, but is elevated by the "I'm afraid everyone dies" ending, which really is, for me, one of the best and most moving bits in all of Star Wars.

Anyway, there we go, Andor was excellent, particularly the third quarter of the second series. I don't really know if Star Wars has much more to give me, after that. but you never know. 

The Commitments

I watched half an hour of The Commitments recently. It is certainly one of that handful of films that I've happily rewatched or dipped into, and will never tire of.

I watched the film near the start of the 90s, read the book near the start of the 2000s, and watched the musical near the start of the 2010s. The film is best.

First, the book, though. Roddy Doyle's debut novel, written in 1987. It would be the first of a trilogy. I bought the trilogy in, I think, early 2002, when I was working at Blackwell's. It was on 3 for 2 "Irish Literature" deal and I got my 30% staff discount so, by my reckoning, The Commitments cost me about a pound. The other books I bought as part of that deal were Borstal Boy by Brendan Behan and Tony Cascarino's autobiography Full Time (the big reveal of Cascarino's fine book being, ironically, that the grandmother he, and everyone else, thought qualified him for Ireland was not actually Irish, so he gained 88 international caps on a false premise).

This was part of a period of general engagement with my "Irishness". I remember reading an article about The Commitments which tied it together with Van Morrison and Dexys and the idea of Celtic Soul, and I think I was disappointed a little, when I read the book, that Doyle doesn't actually go very deep on that, nor on the idea of the Irish as "the blacks of Europe" (in-famously, in the book but not, wisely, the film, he uses a stronger, less acceptable term).

It's a short, sweet, funny novel, but didn't really give me that much that the film (co-written by Doyle) hadn't already.

As for the stage show, that was very enjoyable too, but smoothed out plenty of the edges, of course. I remember that the focus was more on the lead singer Deco than the manager Jimmy, particularly because the guy playing Deco had a spectacularly good voice.

Which brings me to a thing that has long interested/perplexed me about the film. The lead character is the band's manager Jimmy Rabbitte. played by Robert Arkins. Arkins really carries the film, is on screen most of the time, has most of the memorable lines, does most of the acting that the film requires.

He'd never acted before. In fact, he was a singer who was lined up to play Deco, before the director Alan Parker heard Andrew Strong's spectacular voice, and cast him as Deco. So Arkins switched to Jimmy, who doesn't sing in the film, though he does over the opening and closing credits.

What perplexes me somewhat is that Arkins has never really acted again. I mean, he wasn't perfect -  watching it back, you can see there's plenty of happy amateurism from many of the young musicians - but he was good, charming, pulled off some memorable lines.

Many of the cast members of the film have gone on to great careers, but not the lead. I've always wondered why.

Anyway, what else about the Commitments? It did more than almost anything I can think of to defang swearing. It paved the way for a billion terrible versions of Mustang Sally. It has one of the two great "pretending to be interviewed while sitting in the bath" scenes of the late 80s/early 90s, along with Emilio Estevez in Young Guns, and what greater legacy is there than that?

James Mercer

I happened to watch a few old clips of The Shins, Broken Bells and James Mercer on youtube recently, and had a few thoughts.

I'm not saying The Shins were underrated, or that they underperformed. Clearly, the commercial boost that Garden State gave them was more than most indie bands receive. They had successive US Top 10 albums and are still very much one of the bands that come up regularly when people write about What was good in that era.

But, nevertheless, I'm still surprised how much I think, as if for the first time, whenever I reintroduce myself to James Mercer at work "Wow, that guy is good ..."

I saw The Shins twice (i think, or maybe it was three times) and really enjoyed them. I do remember, particularly the first time, and maybe the second time, Mercer, the frontman and sole constant member, hardly spoke to the audience, leaving those chores to a jovial sideman. It's not unheard of, but quite unusual.

When I watch clips of him performing on youtube, I'm struck by the seriousness, the concentration - he's not really giving anything, it's all self-contained, apart from the odd slightly self-conscious half-smile. You can describe it as a lack of "charisma" but I'm not saying that negatively. I imagine the songs need a lot of concentration. The voice is strong and supple, the lyrics are many and oblique, the melodies unusual. He's putting care into every syllable.

Because I've been thinking about football in these terms recently, in regard to players who just end up being overrated or underrated due to historical illiteracy and the cult of personality, I wonder if the same can be true about music and songs. Is Mercer actually one of the greatest singer-songwriters of all time, but just not recognised as such because of what should be entirely extraneous factors? It's probably a silly way to look at it, but just that thought, whenever I see him, with a guitar and a mic, singing one of his many songs, is "I do not see many other people doing this so well, so uniquely". His finest songs really seem like they have been put together, successfully, with a concerted effort to use sequences of notes other people don't use and sequences of words other people don't use, but in the service of beauty and coherence rather than ugliness and obscurity. That's pretty rare.

I remember now, I actually watched The Shins and The Decemberists in the same week in 2005. They were seen as pretty similar bands at the time (I enjoyed the fact that Mercer sang backing vocals on The Decemberists' 2024 comeback single). The Decemberists, who I've seen a few times since, were more crowd-pleasing and memorable. Colin Meloy really knows how to play a crowd. Nevertheless, I'd pretty substantially say I prefer Mercer's songs.

Another little thing from that Shins gig, which I'm not sure if I've mentioned before. My favourite "bit" at the time was towards the end of 'Saint Simon' when, having sung the line in a lower register earlier in the song, Mercer takes it up an octave to sing "Mercy's eyes are blue when she places them in front of you, nothing really holds a candle to the solemn warmth you feel inside of you" which I found a very beautiful, brilliant piece of song. I was disappointed because, in that concert, that was the one thing he didn't do. He just sang it again in the lower octave.

That reminded me of seeing Brian Wilson do Pet Sounds at the RFH a year or two earlier where my favourite bit in all of Pet Sounds, where he goes "Oh Caroline you ... break my heart", just a chillingly beautiful piece of melodic singing, but that was the one bit in the almost perfectly recreated album that was not recreated (I can't remember if he just stayed an octave down or he just didn't sing that bit at all).

And, in both cases, that was a good reminder that often, in music or anything, the best bits are the hardest bits to do. Wilson just didn't have the voice for that particular bit anymore. I imagine Mercer sometimes did and sometimes didn't. Better not to miss the note in a horrible way.

Anyway, there we go, that last bit was off-topic a bit. I hope there'll be another Shins album. 

And finally ... my favourite Number 1s

I might as well tie it all together.

Having now listened to all the UK Number 1s, I'll run down my favourite 25.

I made a nice little playlist of my top 5 from each decade and added a few others, to help me decide.

This is very loose, it really is just what I'm feeling this week, but I think it's a good snapshot of the most interesting songs that have achieved popularity over the last 70 years.

The order of things is already a bit different from the individual lists for each decade ...

1. Going Underground - The Jam. I think this must be my favourite, after all.

2. Diamonds - Rihanna. This is a much more transient choice. I just love it at the moment.

3. Why Do Fools Fall in Love? - Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers

4. Brimful of Asha - Cornershop

5. Dancing Queen - ABBA

6. Billie Jean - Michael Jackson

7. Would I Lie to You? - Charles and Eddie

8. Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon and Garfunkel

9. We Can Work it Out - The Beatles

10. Umbrella - Rihanna

11. With Every Heartbeat - Robyn ft Kleerup

12. There Must Be An Angel - Eurythmics

13. You Don't Have to Say You Love Me - Dusty Springfield

14. Like a Prayer - Madonna

15. Independent Women Pt 1 - Destiny's Child

16. Good Vibrations - The Beach Boys

17. Heart of Glass - Blondie

18. Nothing Compares 2 U - Sinead O'Connor

19. What Was I Made For? - Billie Eilish

20. Mack the Knife - Bobby Darin

21. Uptown Top Ranking - Althea and Donna

22. Concrete and Clay - Unit 4+2

23. Stand and Deliver - Adam and the Ants

24. Geno - Dexys Midnight Runners

25. The Promise - Girls Aloud

All the UK Number 1s of the .... 2020s (so far) - ranked

 OK, an unexpected pleasure. Just mainly good stuff. So much better than the previous decade, it's hard to describe. Not that many all-time classics, but so much less of the rank bad stuff that clogged up the higher reaches of the charts really from the late 90s all the way to the mid-2010s.

Saying that, we have to get through this first four.

77. 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.

76. LadBaby featuring Ed Sheeran and Elton John - Sausage Rolls for Everyone. This is much better. Only kidding.

75. LadBaby  - Don't Stop Me Eatin'. This is much better. Only kidding.

74. 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.

73. 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.

72. Lewis Capaldi - Wish You the Best. They do grate after a while, the Capaldi songs, I'm afraid.

71. 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.

70. 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.

69. Jack Harlow - Lovin on Me

68. Saint Jhn - Roses

67. Gayle - ABCDEFU. As we will continue to find out, they're very sweary, the young ladies of popular music.

66. Lewis Capaldi - Forget Me

65. Ed Sheeran - Shivers

64. 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.

63. Alex Warren - Ordinary. One of these modern blokes.

62. Sabrina Carpenter - Taste

61. Ed Sheeran - Bad Habits

60 Internet Money featuring Gunna, Don Toliver and Nav - Lemonade

59. Lewis Capaldi -Before You Go

58. 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.

57. Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding - Miracle

56. Elton John and Dua Lipa - Cold Heart (Pnau remix). Kind of works ok.

55. Drake - Toosie Slide

54. Taylor Swift featuring Post Malone - Fortnight

53. 24kGoldn featuring Iann Dior - Mood

52. Little Mix - Sweet Melody

51. Jawsh 685 and Jason Derulo - Savage Love (Laxed – Siren Beat)

50. Ariana Grande - Positions

49. DaBaby featuring Roddy Ricch - Rockstar. Definitely not the worst song called Rockstar.

48. Eminem featuring Juice Wrld - Godzilla. Eminem's ability to still have massive singles is actually pretty impressive, and this is a perfectly good single.

47. 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.

46. Hozier - Too Sweet. Hozier's enormous success it definitely one of those modern things I don't understand much. But fair enough.

45. Beyoncé - Texas Hold 'Em. Didn't like the album at all. This single is actually fine. but not good like Beyonce can be good.

44. Eminem - Houdini

43. Gracie Abrams - That's So True. A type.

42. Miley Cyrus - Flowers

41. 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.

40. Cardi B featuring Megan Thee Stallion - WAP. Yikes, well crumbs, well really ...

39. Lewis Capaldi - Pointless. When he sings "airs and graces", it's hard not to warm to him. Hymn to Richard Osman, this.

38. Joel Corry and MNEK - Head & Heart

37. 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.

36. 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.

35. Dave and Central Cee - Sprinter. Stylish, but not loveable.

34. Ed Sheeran - Eyes Closed

33. Charli XCX featuring Billie Eilish - Guess

32. 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.

31. Gigi Perez  - Sailor Song

30. Sabrina Carpenter - Please Please Please

29. Taylor Swift - Anti-Hero

28. Wham! - Last Christmas

27. Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande - Rain on Me

26. The Beatles - Now and Then. I thought this was rather good, all things considered.

25. 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.

24. Taylor Swift - Is It Over Now?

23. Chase & Status and Stormzy  - Backbone

22. Olivia Rodrigo   Drivers License

21. Eliza Rose and Interplanetary Criminal  - B.O.T.A. (Baddest of Them All)

20. Doja Cat - Paint the Town Red. Kid came home singing this. Radio edit. Mainly.

19. Lil Nas X  - Montero (Call Me by Your Name)

18. Nathan Evans, 220 Kid and Billen Ted - Wellerman. This is nice to listen to. There we go.

17. Olivia Rodrigo - Vampire. Kid came home singing this. Radio edit. Mainly.

16. Kenya Grace - Strangers

15. Sam Smith and Kim Petras - Unholy. This is a song with some pizzazz, I must say.

14. Olivia Rodrigo - Good 4 U

13. Dave - Starlight. I hope Dave dares to be great again.

12. Stormzy featuring Ed Sheeran and Burna Boy - Own It

11. 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.

10. Dua Lipa - Dance the Night

9. LF System - Afraid to Feel

8. 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.

7. 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.

6. Raye featuring 070 Shake - Escapism

5. 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.

4. 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.

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.

2. 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".

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.

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. 

All the UK Number 1s of the .... 1950s - ranked

Remember the 50s ... good times, they were. Men wore bowler hats and took part in comical long-distance car races, women played tennis and talked like a combination of Katharine and Audrey Hepburn.

Rock'n'roll began! Which was good. So the Number 1s from the 50s are surprisingly fun to listen to, and really, at times, feel rather thrilling.

There are also not that many, as it's only seven and a bit years, and some of them were Number 1 for a long long time. There is an odd phenomenon of the same song in different versions getting to Number 1 very near each other. The most marvellous of those is Answer Me by David Whitfield being replaced at Number 1 by Answer Me by Frankie Laine, which was replaced at Number 1 by Answer Me by David Whitfield. Answer me! Answer Me! Answer me, goddammit!!

Anywhere, there won't be so many derogatory comments here. There's little I absolutely hate. The pre-rock'n'roll stuff is sometimes a bit drab, but mainly in a forgivable way ...

93. The Stargazers - I See the Moon

92. The Dream Weavers - It's Almost Tomorrow

91. David Whitfield - Answer Me. Not as good as the Frankie Laine version ...

90. Pat Boone - I'll Be Home

89. Eddie Calvert - Oh Mein Papa

88. Eddie Calvert - Cherry Pink (and Apple Blossom White)

87. Don Cornell - Hold My Hand

86. Russ Conway - Side Saddle

85. Craig Douglas - Only Sixteen. The title makes it sound like it's going to be super-creepy, which it's not, but it's not great.

84. Johnnie Ray  - Yes Tonight Josephine. Moved a million hearts in mono, apparently, but not this one.

83. Slim Whitman - Rose Marie

82. Dickie Valentine with the Stargazers - The Finger of Suspicion

81. Winifred Atwell - Let's Have Another Party.  Very much the Jive Bunny records of their day.

80. The Stargazers - Broken Wings

79. Russ Conway - Roulette

78. Mantovani - The Song from Moulin Rouge. Until I heard this, I'd only known Mantovani as a rude rhyming slang word in Trainspotting ...

77. Vera Lynn - My Son, My Son. Gawd bless'er.

76. Tennessee Ernie Ford - Give Me Your Word

75. Pérez Prado and his Orchestra - Cherry Pink (and Apple Blossom White). Better than the Eddie Calvert version.

74. Ronnie Hilton - No Other Love

73. Eddie Fisher - Outside of Heaven

72. Dickie Valentine - Christmas Alphabet. Dickie Valentine sounds like it should be the name of a spiv friend of Walker in Dad's Army.

71. Guy Mitchell - Look at That Girl

70. David Whitfield with Mantovani and his Orchestra - Cara Mia. Class teacher on my PGCE was called David Whitfield. Once bumped him at a Decemberists gig. Don't think it's the same guy.

69. Frankie Laine - Hey Joe

68. Perry Como - Don't Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes

67. Andy Williams - Butterfly

66. Frankie Vaughan -The Garden of Eden

65. Guy Mitchell - Singing the Blues

64. Jimmy Young - The Man from Laramie

63. Ruby Murray - Softly, Softly. Talking of rhyming slang.

62. Frankie Laine - A Woman in Love

61. Eddie Fisher with Sally Sweetland  - I'm Walking Behind You. Talking of creepy titles.

60. Frankie Laine - Answer Me

59. Jerry Keller - Here Comes Summer

58. Conway Twitty - It's Only Make Believe

57. The Kalin Twins - When

56. Jimmy Young - Unchained Melody. Unchained Melody is a fabulous song, but this is not a great version. Did you know it's called Unchained Melody because it was on the soundtrack for a film called Unchained?

55. Cliff Richard and the Shadows - Travellin' Light

54. Lord Rockingham's XI - Hoots Mon

53. Guy Mitchell - Rock-a-Billy

52. Johnnie Ray - Just Walking in the Rain. Poor old Johnnie Ray ..

51. Winifred Atwell - The Poor People of Paris

50. The Johnston Brothers - Hernando's Hideaway

49. Kay Starr - Comes A-Long A-Love

48. Guy Mitchell - She Wears Red Feathers. Teetering on the brink of bad taste ...

47. Elvis Presley - A Fool Such as I / I Need Your Love Tonight

46. Michael Holliday - The Story of My Life

45. Alma Cogan - Dreamboat

44. Frank Sinatra - Three Coins in the Fountain

43. Tommy Edwards -  It's All in the Game

42. Tommy Steele - Singing the Blues. Still going, Tommy Steele. Pretty interesting wikipedia page. One of those people who was clearly massively famously for quite a long time but now not many people know about.

41. Anne Shelton  - Lay Down Your Arms

40. Johnnie Ray - Such a Night. Our mothers, crying, sang along, and who could blame them?

39. Doris Day - Secret Love

38. Shirley Bassey - As I Love You. From the hotel I always stay in Cardiff, you can see the row of small houses on Tiger Bay where Shirley Bassey was born and raised. She done well.

37. Elvis Presley - One Night / I Got Stung

36. Marvin Rainwater  - Whole Lotta Woman. Great name, Marvin Rainwater.

35. Paul Anka  - Diana. As far as I know, the only artist on the list who has done a version of Smells Like Teen Spirit, though, to be fair, wouldn't put it past Bassey either ...

34. Lonnie Donegan - Gamblin' Man / Puttin' On the Style

33. Kay Starr  - Rock and Roll Waltz

32. Lita Roza  - (How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?

31. Al Martino - Here in My Heart. The very first Number 1, and has a suitably grand introduction.

30. Jo Stafford  - You Belong to Me

29. Adam Faith - What Do You Want? You've got to have it, after all.

28. Jane Morgan - The Day the Rains Came

27. Elvis Presley - All Shook Up

26. Tony Bennett - Stranger in Paradise.  I was listening to this for about 20 seconds and thinking "wow, this guy, whoever it is, has a great voice", and, yes, that figures ...

25. Rosemary Clooney - This Ole House. Closemary Rooney.

24. Cliff Richard and the Drifters - Living Doll. The Drifters before they were The Shadows.

23. Perry Como - Magic Moments. Quality Street advert with Jeremy Rampling.

22. Dean Martin - Memories Are Made of This

21. Connie Francis - Who's Sorry Now

20. Tab Hunter - Young Love

19. Tennessee Ernie Ford - Sixteen Tons

18. Kitty Kallen - Little Things Mean a Lot. Just a whole bunch of nice, classic songs, at this stage.

17. Vic Damone - On the Street Where You Live. I would say, this could be better. It starts and ends too grand. Such a glorious song, but think I prefer a Nat King Cole version or such like.

16. Harry Belafonte - Mary's Boy Child

15. Connie Francis - Stupid Cupid / Carolina Moon

14. Bobby Darin - Dream Lover. Bobby Darin was Italian-American too, like nearly all the other singers.

13. Rosemary Clooney - Mambo Italiano. While Rosemary Clooney, despite her gleeful appropriation here, was not ...

12. Buddy Holly - It Doesn't Matter Anymore. The first ever posthumous Number 1, this ...

11. The Platters - Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

10. Lonnie Donegan - Cumberland Gap. Seen, i think, as the first UK rock'n'roll-adjacent Number 1. Ferocious bit of skiffle.

9. The Crickets - That'll Be the Day. Buddy brilliant, as they say ...

8. The Everly Brothers - All I Have to Do Is Dream / Claudette

7. Bill Haley & His Comets - Rock Around the Clock. Terrific song, this, even removing the context. I remember dancing to this at a wedding when I was about 8, just going absolutely nuts to it. That's the feeling.

6. Doris Day - Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera). I really liked, when i watched The Man Who Knew Too Much, that it's, like, key to the whole twisty dark plot.

5. Frankie Laine - I Believe. Secretly, when we were young men of values and used to sing the Christian songs and the folk songs and the protest songs, this was my favourite. It is like, say, What a Wonderful World, and Every Grain of Sand, a song that says "a world so beautiful must have a benevolent creator, and that is my comfort" and i think one can be very susceptible to that when you're transitioning to realising that the mundane things that you thought were just mundane when you were young are actually miraculous in their mundanity. Anyway, still have massive fondness for this stirring song of simple faith. The Frankie Laine version is decent, though not perfect - it took me on a search for an ideal version, and surprisingly, the best I found was by old Tom Jones. 

4. Bobby Darin - Mack the Knife. Not many more fun songs in history than this one.

3. Elvis Presley - Jailhouse Rock. I've often struggled to hear the Elvis Presley that everyone else hears, but I hear it on Jailhouse Rock. What a performance.

2. Jerry Lee Lewis - Great Balls of Fire. The awful human of the era, and i guess if i was being consistent I'd put it bottom, but, there we go, get's the Billie Jean pass of indestructible ubiquity.

1. Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers - Why Do Fools Fall in Love. So beautiful. A few months after Rock around the Clock, but really the first real sound of youth. Still not topped, really.

OK, 50s done, just the 2020s to go ... think they'll be pretty decent ...

All the UK Number 1s of the .... 2010s - ranked

As I said before I started, this was always going to be a more substantial task for me than the other decades. Particularly during the first half of the 2010s, I really disassociated from chart music, and it didn't find its way to me by osmosis as it would have done in previous decades.

So, in some ways, that's made it more interesting - discovering songs for the first time, seeing if I can spot trends from an unbiased perspective. But, unfortunately, a lot of the music is not interesting enough to be interesting. There is a lot of really terrible, and terribly samey, stuff here.

The good news is, I think, that it started to get better again in the second half of the decade, and I think the top of the charts in the 2020s is generally a lot better than it was in the 2010s, so it was not terminal.

I think the main "trend", as such, is that the dividing line between women doing good or, at worst, listenable, songs, and men doing horrible, vain, boring, creepy, songs is pretty unignorable. In some ways, I guess, twas ever thus, but a little good humour and tune lightens the load of a one-track mind in a way that a relentless squawk and absolute mind-numbing lyrics does not.

Not all men, you know, not all men.

So, we're going to start with quite a lot of some of the worst songs I've ever heard, and then there's going to be a pretty big chunk of popular and competent stuff I don't really like, and then at the top, there'll be a reasonable number of great pop songs. But not rock, or folk songs. There'll be none of those. 

245. The Black Eyed Peas - The Time (Dirty Bit). It seems absurd that the worst song of the decade is not Blurred Lines, for many reasons the most accursed track of all time, but somehow, I listened to this, and every fibre of my body screamed - "this is the worst piece of music I have ever heard. That must be recognised".

244. Robin Thicke featuring T.I. and Pharrell - Blurred Lines. The most accursed track of all time.

243. Lil Dicky featuring Chris Brown - Freaky Friday. About as funny as ...

242. Jason Derulo featuring 2 Chainz - Talk Dirty. You will be amazed at quite how many Number 1s Jason Derulo has. None of them are good.

241. Chris Brown - Turn Up the Music. No, I won't.

240. will.i.am featuring Britney Spears - Scream & Shout. I hadn't fully realised the extent to which William put out several of the laziest, most cynical, least imaginative songs in history over this period.

239. will.i.am featuring Cody Wise - It's My Birthday

238. LadBaby  -  I Love Sausage Rolls. The least said the better.

237. LadBaby  - We Built This City

236. Magic! - Rude

235. Tones and I  - Dance Monkey. The very oddness of this record perhaps deserves more respect, but, you know ...

234. The Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Choir  - A Bridge over You. All these ghastly feelgood charity choir things. This doesn't have Gareth Malone's name on it, but his fingerprints are on it

233. Post Malone featuring 21 Savage - Rockstar. Another terrible Malone. He seems like a nice fellow, Post Malone, but I cannot stomach his music.

232. Usher featuring will.i.am - OMG

231. Gareth Malone's All Star Choir - Wake Me Up

230. Pitbull featuring Kesha - Timber

229. Gary Barlow and the Commonwealth Band - Sing

228. Meghan Trainor - All About That Bass

227. Artists for Grenfell - Bridge over Troubled Water. The response to Grenfell was, I thought, beautiful and heartrending, and if this was an at-all decent record, it would be much higher, but it just isn't ... it is not a good song for the "my turn to emote" line-by-line treatment. It ought to be a smooth journey.

226. Pitbull featuring Ne-Yo, Afrojack and Nayer  - Give Me Everything. My offer is this ... nothing!

225. Ed Sheeran - Perfect. Eddie will not do as badly here as one might expect, but this one, I remember when I heard it, especially the "duet" version with Beyonce, and, jesus, horrendous.

224. Band Aid 30 - Do They Know It's Christmas?. One job too many, BG.

223. Military Wives with Gareth Malone  - Wherever You Are. Go suck a fuck, Malone.

222. The X Factor Finalists 2011 featuring JLS and One Direction - Wishing on a Star

221. Omi - Cheerleader

220. Jennifer Lopez featuring Pitbull - On the Floor

219. The X Factor Finalists 2010 - Heroes. I'm going to level with you. I haven't actually listened to this. I've listened to pretty much everything else, but I think I'm comfortable there are not surprises here.

218. Scouting for Girls - This Ain't a Love Song. The sad fact is, if you don't count Coldplay, this, from 2010 is the only (so, one presumes, last ever) Number 1 by a British "indie band". This! Scouting for Girls, the absolute nadir of landfill indie. Whatever happened to my rock'n'roll radio ...

217. Lily Allen - Somewhere Only We Know

216. Ne-Yo - Beautiful Monster. Ne-Yo has a nice voice, but his songs creep me out.

215. Ed Sheeran - Shape of You. As does this. The second most streamed song ever. 

214. Drake featuring Wizkid and Kyla - One Dance. I've dealt with this one before ... I mean, I'm actually afraid to say, in the light of its competition, I am finding it ... not that bad.

213. David Guetta and Chris Willis featuring Fergie and LMFAO - Gettin' Over You

212. Ben Haenow - Something I Need

211. Ne-Yo - Let Me Love You (Until You Learn to Love Yourself). See what I mean. Ick.

210. Joe McElderry - The Climb

209 - Ariana Grande - Break Up with Your Girlfriend, I'm Bored

208. Drake - In My Feelings

207. James Arthur - Impossible

206. Lukas Graham - 7 Years. I've read a lot of other people saying this song is unbearable - I didn't hate it that much the only couple of times I heard it, but I guess I'll trust the people on this one.

205. Jason Derulo - In My Head

204. Shawn Mendes - Stitches

203. Drake - God's Plan

202. Gabrielle Aplin - The Power of Love. Tepid M and S shite, really.

201. Duke Dumont featuring Jax Jones - I Got U

200. Storm Queen - Look Right Through

199. Duke Dumont featuring A*M*E - Need U (100%)

198. Sam Smith - Stay with Me

197. Bingo Players featuring Far East Movement  - Get Up (Rattle). Bingo Players featuring Far East Movement is an authentically impenetrable name for a chart-topping act. 

196. Iyaz - Replay

195. Sam Bailey - Skyscraper

194. DJ Khaled featuring Justin Bieber, Quavo, Chance the Rapper and Lil Wayne - I'm the One

193. Flo Rida - Good Feeling

192. Bruno Mars - The Lazy Song. Almost charming, but just not. I don't generally mind Bruno Mars, he's definitely got the skills, but just found this annoying.

191. Helping Haiti - Everybody Hurts

190. Tinie Tempah featuring Jess Glynne - Not Letting Go. Tinie Tempah another inescapable figure of the era.

189. Secondcity  - I Wanna Feel

188. Miley Cyrus - We Can't Stop. This is a pretty good song, but, I'm afraid I'm going to sound very grandfathery here, I find it's unabashed hedonism unsettling.

187. Jason Derulo - Don't Wanna Go Home

186. Flo Rida featuring David Guetta - Club Can't Handle Me

185. Sam Smith - Money on My Mind

184. Owl City - Fireflies. This is, also, I believe, in some sense, indie, in de bad sense.

183. Little Mix - Cannonball. Little Damien Rice ... ooozing bad energy.

182. Oliver Heldens and Becky Hill - Gecko (Overdrive)

181. One Direction - One Way or Another (Teenage Kicks)

180. Cher Lloyd - Swagger Jagger

179. Ed Sheeran - Thinking Out Loud

178. Clean Bandit featuring Demi Lovato - Solo. So low?

177. David Zowie - House Every Weekend

176. The Justice Collective - He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother

175. Ava Max - Sweet but Psycho

174. Shout for England featuring Dizzee Rascal and James Corden - Shout. Really, those were the times that they were.

173. One Direction - Little Things

172. Cheryl - Call My Name. I found Cheryl's Number 1s a little more fun than I thought they'd be.

171. Sak Noel - Loca People. As Bake-Off fans sometimes say ...

170. LMFAO featuring Lauren Bennett and GoonRock  - Party Rock Anthem. If you say so ...

169. Cheryl Cole - Promise This

168. Drake - Nice for What

167. Jason Derulo -Want to Want Me

166. Nico & Vinz - Am I Wrong

165. Dvbbs and Borgeous featuring Tinie Tempah - Tsunami (Jump)

164. will.i.am featuring Eva Simons - This Is Love. I've listened to the last five songs in the last week and I can't remember a single thing about any of them right now, so I think I may be being over-generous, as vague recollection should probably be a bare minimum for a spot in the coveted top 170.

163. Cover Drive - Twilight. This is perfectly nice, and it's good to see a cricket-related band name.

162. Rachel Platten - Fight Song

161. Lost Frequencies - Are You with Me

160. Wiz Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth  - See You Again

159. Sigma featuring Paloma Faith - Changing. Jeez, there are a lot of these ...

158. Route 94 featuring Jess Glynne - My Love

157. Calvin Harris and Alesso featuring Hurts - Under Control

156. JLS featuring Dev - She Makes Me Wanna

155. Nicole Scherzinger - Don't Hold Your Breath

154. Rita Ora featuring Tinie Tempah - RIP

153. Charlie Puth featuring Meghan Trainor - Marvin Gaye. In this big area of love ...

152. Pixie Lott - All About Tonight

151. Roll Deep - Green Light

150. B.o.B featuring Bruno Mars - Nothin' on You

149. One Direction - What Makes You Beautiful

148. Clean Bandit featuring Sean Paul and Anne-Marie - Rockabye

147. Bruno Mars - Just the Way You Are (Amazing)

146. Taylor Swift - Look What You Made Me Do. This was, a little remarkably, Swift's first ever UK Number 1, and the only one of this decade. Not a big fan of this one, to be honest.

145. Eminem featuring Ed Sheeran - River. Sounds like a good song, but just isn't.

144. One Direction - Drag Me Down

143. Ariana Grande featuring Iggy Azalea - Problem

142. Martin Garrix - Animals

141. The Saturdays featuring Sean Paul - What About Us

140. Olly Murs featuring Rizzle Kicks - Heart Skips a Beat

139. Dappy - No Regrets. The Dappy years ....no fun looking up Dappy's wikipedia, though ...

138. B.o.B featuring Hayley Williams - Airplanes

137. JLS - The Club Is Alive

136. Sam Smith - Writing's on the Wall

135. Psy - Gangnam Style. As less of a fan of fun than many people, I have few feelings about this song.

134. Bruno Mars - Grenade

133. KDA featuring Tinie Tempah and Katy B  - Turn the Music Louder (Rumble)

132. Sam Smith - Too Good at Goodbyes

131. Major Lazer featuring Justin Bieber and MØ - Cold Water

130. Calvin Harris featuring John Newman - Blame

129. Sam Smith featuring John Legend - Lay Me Down

128. David Guetta featuring Sam Martin - Lovers on the Sun

127. Rita Ora - I Will Never Let You Down. OK, we're finally into the territory where some of these are quite good and memorable.

126. DJ Fresh featuring Sian Evans - Louder

125. Olly Murs featuring Flo Rida - Troublemaker

124. Katy Perry - Part of Me

123. DJ Khaled featuring Rihanna and Bryson Tiller - Wild Thoughts

122. Adele - Hello. Weirdly long ago. I feel like it was Adele's new single. I don't pay much attention to Adele, for whatever reason.

121. Rixton - Me and My Broken Heart

120. The Wanted - Glad You Came

119. Calvin Harris and Sam Smith - Promises. Calvin's such a hit machine, he really is. Most of it is good but doesn't quite work for me, but the odd one really does, as we'll get to.

118. Benny Blanco, Halsey and Khalid - Eastside

117. Justin Bieber - What Do You Mean? And Bieber is definitely someone who has done all these massive hit singles and I've listened to them enough but none of them ever hold a proper place in my head.

116. Jess Glynne - Don't Be So Hard on Yourself. Having always been quite sniffy about Jess Glynne, I'd definitely say her records have got more oomph than a lot of the others.

115. Kesha - We R Who We R

114. Rihanna featuring Drake - What's My Name? Can even excuse Drake on this one.

113. Ellie Goulding - Love Me like You Do

112. Wiley featuring Ms D - Heatwave

111. Tulisa - Young

110. Calvin Harris - Summer

109. Mr Probz - Waves

108. Rudimental featuring Ella Eyre - Waiting All Night

107. Justin Bieber     Sorry

106. Wretch 32 featuring Josh Kumra - Don't Go

105. Calvin Harris featuring Florence Welch - Sweet Nothing. Pretty good actually

104. Years & Years - King. Insidious. And Olly Alexander was in Stuart Murdoch's film, so plus points for that.

103. Tinie Tempah featuring Eric Turner - Written in the Stars

102. Gotye featuring Kimbra - Somebody That I Used to Know. Couldn't bring myself to love this.

101. Jessie J featuring B.o.B - Price Tag

100. Yolanda Be Cool and DCUP - We No Speak Americano

99. Florence and the Machine - Spectrum (Say My Name)

98. The Script featuring will.i.am - Hall of Fame. Very Series 1 of The Voice around this point ...

97. Jess Glynne - Hold My Hand

96. JLS - Love You More

95. Example - Changed the Way You Kiss Me. Missed Example at the time. Or at least, I vaguely remember him previously in the music press as a somewhat indie rapper, and then he was having big hit singles, puzzlingly.

94. Sam and the Womp - Bom Bom

93. Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber - I Don't Care. Both quite bland singers, imo, but I didn't mind this.

92. Calvin Harris and Dua Lipa  - One Kiss

91. Katy Perry featuring Snoop Dogg - California Gurls

90. Calvin Harris featuring Pharrell Williams, Katy Perry and Big Sean  - Feels

89. Zayn - Pillowtalk

88. The Wanted - All Time Low

87. James Arthur - Say You Won't Let Go. I remember watching James Arthur's X Factor audition and I wouldn't have expected at that point he would write and record one of the most popular songs of all time. which is this fairly bland but pleasant ballad, which was apparently cribbed from a song by The Script.

86. Swedish House Mafia featuring John Martin - Don't You Worry Child

85. Maroon 5 featuring Wiz Khalifa - Payphone. Funnily enough, I loathed those first songs of Maroon 5 in the mid-2000s more than life itself - This Love, She Will Be Loved etc - perhaps because it was still worth it then, there was still lot of guitar music in the charts, and I wanted to be clear "not this guitar music!" By the time the likes of this and Moves Like Jagger came out, I guess I'd given up - it was a decent tune - I didn't listen to it enough to hate it. I once, erroneously, described Arcade Fire as the North American Coldplay, which they very much didn't turn out to be, but Maroon 5 are absolutely the American Coldplay, in a lot of ways. I will expand at a later date.

84. George Ezra - Shotgun. I know Ed Sheeran came first, but in some ways it was George Ezra who really broke the back of solo boys with catchy tunes and guitars being back at the top of the charts, which is really the thing again now. Look, I've seen a class of 6 year olds going nuts to this. It's ok in my book.

83. Rudimental featuring Jess Glynne, Macklemore and Dan Caplen - These Days. Broke through a bit, this song, which a lot of songs don't.

82. Sigala - Easy Love

81. Aloe Blacc - The Man

80. The Chainsmokers featuring Halsey - Closer

79. Matt Cardle - When We Collide. Mon the Biffy, as they say.

78. Sigma - Nobody to Love

77. Robbie Williams - Candy. Even RW was, by this point, a lesser enemy.

76. CeeLo Green - Forget You

75. Example  - Stay Awake

74. Little Mix - Wings

73. Clean Bandit featuring Jess Glynne - Rather Be

72. Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee featuring Justin Bieber - Despacito

71. Ariana Grande - 7 Rings

70. Jess Glynne - I'll Be There

69. Roll Deep  - Good Times

68. PJ & Duncan - Let's Get Ready to Rhumble. So many lyrics, I tell you, they had so many lyrics they were actually frightened to use them. Frightened, they were. Frightened. 

67. Lewis Capaldi - Someone You Loved. Fuck it, it's a nice song. Just staggeringly popular. And you know, he seems like a guy one should wish well.

66. Ed Sheeran - Sing. I guess this song was the first sign of the true scale of Sheeran's ambition (to fill the world with ok, slightly boring songs) ...

65. Take That - These Days. Generous, but i put it on a couple of days ago and it was better than i remembered.

64. 5 Seconds of Summer - She Looks So Perfect. Quite an earworm this.

63. Nero - Promises. I promise not to fiddle while Rome burns etc

62. Naughty Boy featuring Sam Smith - La La La. Quite good, this. I've generally found the Sam Smith songs a bit better than I thought.

61. Baddiel, Skinner and The Lightning Seeds - Three Lions. Even in 2018, when this went back to Number 1, it felt like quite a powerful thing. Southgate really did, or almost did, some good about national stereotypes and identity. Of course, the English man turned on him.

60. Olly Murs - Please Don't Let Me Go. Quite like Olly Murs, to be honest. Think he's got that Bradley Walsh "bit of a clown but actually good at everything" aspect to him.

59. Avicii vs. Nicky Romero  - I Could Be the One

58.Jessie J, Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj - Bang Bang

57. Adele - Someone Like You

56. Justin Bieber - Love Yourself

55. Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper - Shallow

54. DJ Fresh featuring Rita Ora  - Hot Right Now

53. Olly Murs - Dance with Me Tonight

52. Dizzee Rascal - Dirtee Disco. Would probably have been better as Dizzee Disco by Dirtee Rascal, but there we go. I suppose these things are thought through.

51. Ariana Grande - Thank U, Next

50. Dave featuring Fredo - Funky Friday

49. Lil Nas X  - Old Town Road

48. Justin Timberlake - Mirrors. Timberlake, rather like a male Katy Perry, has been cast to the critical and online wolves. The people love to see these people fail now. I can see it with Perry - the story of her being responsible for the death of a nun is not good vibes, amongst many other spectacular feats of tonedeafery - but i think Timberlake has been a bit harshly dealt with. He's funny! Dick in a box! I mean, come on ...He's pretty good at acting. And quite a few of his songs were pretty good. 

47. Labrinth featuring Emeli Sandé  - Beneath Your Beautiful.

46. Carly Rae Jepsen - Call Me Maybe

45. Coldplay - Paradise. Indie rock! Youth explosion! The new Radiohead! The new Jeff Buckley!

44. Diana Vickers - Once

43. Ed Sheeran featuring Stormzy - Take Me Back to London. This is pretty funny and endearing, I thought. I expect it got a few brickbats for cultural tourism or whatever, but i think it's pretty knowing and well judged.

42. Camila Cabello featuring Young Thug - Havana

41. Mike Posner - I Took a Pill in Ibiza. It's nice to hear lyrics, you know. Levels, sadness, regret, looking inward. I'm not saying this is a great song, but sometimes it's just nice to hear a song.

40. Cheryl - I Don't Care. They're quite fun, these songs by Cheryl. I didn't realise that. I thought they'd be bad. 

39. Cheryl featuring Tinie Tempah - Crazy Stupid Love

38. Eminem featuring Rihanna - The Monster. Rihanna is obviously great, but, with Eminem, I've heard enough of and read enough about his later stuff to know that he just don't got it anymore, but it's still the case that, on something like this, where he's doing the bare minimum but not too much, he's a great voice and flow, better than most.

37. Ellie Goulding - Burn

36. Lady Gaga featuring Beyoncé - Telephone. Beyoncé's only Number 1 of the decade, surprisingly, just a little guest slot. This was the decade where she was more into albums.

35. Ed Sheeran featuring Khalid - Beautiful People

34. Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello - Señorita

33. OneRepublic - Counting Stars

32. Rudimental featuring John Newman - Feel the Love

31. Professor Green featuring Emeli Sandé  - Read All About It. Funny how Emeli Sandé was everywhere and having countless hits and then it all stopped. 

30. Rita Ora - How We Do (Party). That's also slightly, though less, true of Rita Ora. I remember seeing these two (i think with the much-maligned Marquis de Mumford) singing Lean on Me at a concert for Grenfell which was on TV, and contrary what I'd thought would happen, Emeli Sandé's voice was decent, ok, a bit strained. and Rita Ora really sang the shit out of it. In a good way.

29. John Newman - Love Me Again

28. Jessie J - Domino

27. Alexandra Burke featuring Laza Morgan  - Start Without You

26. Pharrell Williams - Happy. Well you know, it's no Blurred Lines ...

25. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Wanz - Thrift Shop

24. Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars - Uptown Funk

23. Fun featuring Janelle Monáe  - We Are Young. I mean, if you come to this song expecting to hear the full extent of the untameable talent of Janelle Monáe, you'll be disappointed, but, you know, it's almost indie rock, and it certainly has a chorus.

22. Little Mix - Shout Out to My Ex. Another song with a chorus.

21. Rihanna - Only Girl (In the World). I'll go into more specifics later, but clearly Rihanna is the great pop singer of this decade.

20. Taio Cruz - Dynamite

19. Lilly Wood and Robin Schulz - Prayer in C. This is an odd one, a pleasant surprise. It's a "folk song" (not really) remixed, it talks about the seas covering the earth, which you don't get enough of in modern pop songs, and it is not all that good but makes a change.

18. Kiesza - Hideaway

17. Avicii    Wake Me Up

16. Tinie Tempah - Pass Out. One of those ones, a bit like Time to Pretend by MGMT, where the intro made the career.

15. Katy Perry - Roar. Firework was not a Number 1, but this was, and you know, it is a certain type of terrifying pop music. 

14. Daft Punk featuring Pharrell Williams - Get Lucky. You know the one, sing hallelujah come on, get lucky ... the streaming numbers on this are high but not as high as some. I suspect people listened to it in 2013 over and over and over and then were heartily sick of it for several years.

13. Clean Bandit featuring Zara Larsson - Symphony

12. Lady Gaga - Bad Romance. Also a Number 1 in 2009. Lady Gaga has had multiple Number 1s in three decades, which is pretty good going. For other monster artists, the 2010s are a little surprising. Just one Swift, just one Beyonce, no Weeknd, no Kanye West, No Kendrick Lamar, Cardi B or Nicki Minaj, nothing yet from Billie Eilish. There's also, as mentioned, no proper British "indie" bands. The two biggest British bands apart from Coldplay were the 1975 and the Arctic Monkeys, whose songs from AM have huge streaming numbers, but didn't make the Top 5 of the singles chart. They just tick over. Anyway, Bad Romance, good song, really ...

11. Rihanna featuring Calvin Harris - We Found Love. I remember seeing the two of them perform this on TV at the time and thinking "well, that's ... odd". It is an odd song for the biggest pop singer in the world to sing. It's basically just one line. It's a proper rave song, unapologetically. It is a good line, though, and I've read Harris saying that he was thinking of somewhere like Jumping Jaks in Dumfries ... which really adds to the poetry, imagining Rihanna in a desperate sticky small-town nightclub. Anyway, I read a long piece on this song a year or two ago which really described what a monumental euphoric floorfiller it was at the time, and that, ultimately, was the key to its success, that it really really got people dancing.

10. Lorde - Royals. Maybe, in a way, the most significant song on the list. I've heard it said that pop music started to get better, to regain its character and freedom, again from this point. But ... I've never exactly loved it, so I can't put it higher. All my favourite Lorde songs so far are from Melodrama, her second album (for me, one of the great albums of the century). I really hope her next album recaptures that.

9. Miley Cyrus - Wrecking Ball

8. Little Mix - Black Magic

7. Icona Pop featuring Charli XCX - I Love It

6. Ella Henderson - Ghost. Funny, really, how despite everything, so many very good pop songs did emerge from alumni of Simon Cowell shows.

5. Harry Styles - Sign of the Times. After seeing them form on The X Factor, I rather disdained One Direction and could hardly have hummed one of their songs when they were going. I knew Harry Styles was considered the cool and charismatic one, but not much else. I did read an interview with them in the Guardian towards the end of their time, and you could tell Styles was playing a whole different game to the others. This game. A better debut single than it had any right to be, his voice sounding utterly grown-up and self-possessed, and really just establishing that he would be the one to bet on. His later singles have been even better, but this was a start.

4. Stormzy - Vossi Bop. As I've said, what's often the glaring absence from the 2000s and 2010s pop music (though, thankfully, not 2020s) is lyricism. They don't even have to be good lyrics, just words which mean something. So, yes, I love Vossi Bop. I love "fuck Boris". I love hearing a sound like this at the top of the charts.

3. Dua Lipa - New Rules

2. David Guetta featuring Sia - Titanium. The two top songs are both written by Sia, and she also wrote Chandelier, so she was onto something good there. They have an old-fashioned grandeur, these songs. You can almost imagine Shirley Bassey or Barbra Streisand singing them.

1. Rihanna - Diamonds. I just read that Rihanna was trying to imitate Sia's vocal on the demo when she recorded it, which is interesting, because it's a remarkable vocal, almost tipping over into something comical, putting on different accents, but somehow magnificent. The contrast between the "shieen brieet lieke a diemond" and the hint of the Bajan West countty burr in the "you and oy" (maybe i'm exaggerating a bit ...)... anyway, in my opinion, Rihanna had the best Number 1 of the 2010s and almost the best Number 1 of the 2000s, but sadly has been almost completely quiet in the 2020s. We shall see ...

Talking of the 2020s, I think I'll do'em. Or half of them. And since I'm a completist, I'll do the 50s too. Why not? Both will not take all that long and, I think, will be quite enjoyable ...

I thought doing the 2010s would take longer, but it's been quite fun, even though there were very many despicable songs at the start.