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.
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.
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