The story behind the song: “I Remember You”. Frank Ifield’s recording of “I Remember You” was the best-selling single of 1962 in the UK. It was #1 for 7 weeks, from late July until mid-September. The song was written over 20 years earlier, in 1941, by Victor Scherzinger and Johnny Mercer. Mercer wrote the words… Continue reading The story behind the song: “I Remember You”
I was at a funeral the week before last. It was in Harlesden, a place I had not visited for over 20 years. The deceased was the sister of an old college friend. I had invited him to something last month but he couldn’t make it. His sister was very ill, and she died at… Continue reading A funeral changes everything
Last year, in this piece, I listed all the Double A Sided singles that made it to the top of the UK chart. There were 47 different releases in the list, the last of them in 2007. There are unlikely to be any more now that the singles charts are based primarily on streaming. Double… Continue reading The 4 EPs that made it to #1
The Album Charts here in the UK are not what they used to be. This page on the Official Chart Company website, “All The Number 1 Albums”, lists every chart-topping album going back to the first official chart in 1956. It shows how things have changed in the intervening decades. In the early years there… Continue reading The Album Charts are not what they used to be
An earlier piece on this Blog (“Double A Sides at #1”) reflected on changes in how the UK charts are compiled. The Double A Sided single played a big part in chart history. In recent years, with the figures based mainly on digital downloads and streaming, Double A Sides have rarely featured in the Top… Continue reading 15 questions about Double A Sided #1s
My daughter is taking her Mock GCSE exams this month. When she started senior school she did well enough in her initial assessments to be selected for Mandarin classes. She was in the “MEP” (Mandarin Excellence Programme), a pathway that offered extra tuition in the language and the prospect of an extended trip to China… Continue reading Word of the week: Milord
When I was growing up it was easy to understand how the UK singles chart was compiled. It was based on the sale of vinyl records. There were stories about how the charts could be manipulated because sales figures came from a sample of record shops and these shops could be targeted by pluggers or… Continue reading Double A Sides at #1
If you are into your chart trivia you will probably know the titles of the shortest #1s in UK chart history. They consist of just two characters: “If” (Telly Savalas, 1975) and “19” (Paul Hardcastle, 1985). Recently I asked my son which songs Sara Cox had played on her “Half Wower” slot between 6.30 and… Continue reading More Chart Trivia: #1s with the shortest combination of song title and artist
Just over 30 years ago, in the autumn of 1992, the #1 single in the UK was “Ebeneezer Goode” by The Shamen. The chorus, as you may recall, includes words that sound like “Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode, ‘e’s Ebeneezer Goode”. Or, if you prefer, “E’s are good, E’s are good, ‘e’s Ebeneezer Goode”. The E… Continue reading Got any salmon?
Following on from this earlier piece (“Stuck at 3, the 1970s”) here is a list of all the artists that made it to #3 in the UK, but no higher, during the 1980s. These are releases that entered the chart between January 1980 and December 1989. Unlike my “Stuck at 2” lists (which you can… Continue reading Stuck at 3, the 1980s
The Compartments 