The Best Song on the Word Magazine's "20 Worst UK Number One Singles"

Oxide & Neutrino are going to walk this, aren't they... but I'm going with "Don't Cry For Me Argentina".

"Bound 4 Da Reload" - Oxide and Neutrino (1 week)

CHOON

i bought a ticket to the world

I'm not rockist BUT... most of these are actually rubbish.

Not sure if I'd be entertained by an "OMG controversial choicez!" list, or whether that'd just be smug and annoying from the sort of mag that still cares about what Elvis Costello is doing nowadays.

oxide and neutrino or... lou bega i guess.

there have been far worse than a lot of these.

O&N is entirely decent for what it is, as are Lou Bega and Spandau Ballet. Pure pop and noveltyish hits will never be as offensive as utter mediocrity passing itself up as Important and Genuine, as in Blunt and the ghastly Sandi Thom. Out of the two I think I'll go for Blunt as it's more ubiquitous.

easiest choice ever, "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" soars above the rest

Oh shit, it's best song, I thought it was worst. Should read thread titles way more carefully.

ah fuck i just made the same mistake. and i too voted blunt.

Fuck, voted Prydz

I'm voting for Starship because I remember how epic it sounded the first few times I heard it.

Voted Spandau. Seems a bit harsh having them in there ahead of, say, anything by Westlife.

I would have thought Lou Bega counted as novelty hit?

I kind of blew it with (a) the confusing best/worst phrasing, and (b) not putting "POLL:" in the subject line - apologies.

"Call On Me", natch.

Starship.

Lets do a thing:

"You're Beautiful" - James Blunt (5 weeks)
Alice does a brilliant impersonation of James B. "Hello, I'm Captain James Blunt! Look look here's my sword" total crackup.

"Changes" - Ozzy and Kelly Osbourne (1 week)
When this hit, she always referred it as "Daddy song" so how can I be nasty?

"My Ding-a-Ling" - Chuck Berry (4 weeks)
Hey, payback for chuck! Never had another hit tho.

"Don't Cry for Me Argentina" - Julie Covington (1 week)
This is not bad, as far as musical theatre goes. If "I knaa him sowell" had been here....

"(Everything I Do) I Do it For You" - Bryan Adams (16 weeks)
16 weeks! How did we live?

"True" - Spandau Ballet (4 weeks)
99% of the people who love this have no idea about what it's actually about (Pill popping soulboys on Brighton beaches)

"Ebony & Ivory" - Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder (3 weeks)
It's OK.

"We Will Rock You" - Queen and 5ive (1 week)
Now, This is poor.

"I Have a Dream/Seasons in the Sun" - Westlife (4 weeks)
So is this.

"Dancing in the Streets" - David Bowie and Mick Jagger (4 weeks)
You know, I don't remember anyone hating this at the time. It's a quickly made charity record. So, it's novelty.

"Call on Me" - Eric Prydz (4 weeks)

"Holler" - The Spice Girls (1 week)
"Mambo No. 5" - Lou Bega (1 week)
"Every Loser Wins" - Nick Berry (3 weeks)
"Pure and Simple" - Hear'Say (3 weeks)
"One Day at a Time" - Lena Martell (3 weeks)
"Bound 4 Da Reload" - Oxide and Neutrino (1 week)
"Candle in the Wind 1997" - Elton John (5 weeks)
"Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" - Starship (4 weeks)

"I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker" - Sandi Thom (1 week)
Again, this spoke to Alice, who can still do this at a cracking acapella rate.

Word fails me.

Presumably, overleaf is "Word Magazine's 20 best number ones"

Worst/best thread poll to follow?

I have a better idea.

"True" is brilliant, so it's got to be that one.

In truth, I can't be arsed.

Anyway, the Casualty one clearly gets my vote since it represents everything Word Magazine and David "I hate liberals" Hepworth are against.

The Beatles won that EMTV poll...

I know it did. Thanks to all eleven voters.

"True" - Spandau Ballet (4 weeks)
99% of the people who love this have no idea about what it's actually about (Pill popping soulboys on Brighton beaches)

I had no idea either. Good fact.

Song still shite however

indeed. can't blame me for not listening.

Worst moment in pop as of today: Tony Hadley dressed as Eamon de Valera bawling "Listening to Mar-VAIN!"

Every time the camera panned round to them on TOTP, it felt exactly like when you walked into an estate agents and all the agents would turn and look at you expectantly.

"You're Beautiful" - James Blunt (5 weeks)
Alice does a brilliant impersonation of James B. "Hello, I'm Captain James Blunt! Look look here's my sword" total crackup.

Alice? Who the fuck is Alice? (that should be on this list as well, thinking about it.)

Didn't make number one, though.

Alice = http://www.go-quick.com/AliceAcGuitar.JPG

Never heard of this magazine. It's a bag of shit for cloth-eared old wankers then, is it?

Lou Bega, because it was played incessantly over and over again on the radio while I was working as a painter/plasterer...

"jump up and down, move it all around"
"BRUCE TURN OFF THAT FUCKING RADIO BEFORE I DROP IT IN A TIN OF MAGNOLIA GLOSS!!!"

BEST, THIS IS A POLL FOR BEST

Lou Bega purely for that scene in The Royle Family

IF BOUND 4 DA RELOAD DOESN't WIN THIS YOU FUCKERS ARE DEAD TO ME

So many hateful songs in that list though. Most execrable moment has to be the key change for the final chorus in Westlife's cover of "Seasons In The Sun" - I didn't think it could be done, but they managed to make a dreadful song even worse.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I love "True." I don't care what the lyrics are about.

"Don't Cry for Me Argentina" is the best song here by miles light years.

FUCK, I misread the title and voted for Bowie/Jagger. FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK.

Had forgotten abt Everything I Do thanks to Wet Wet Wet band, and I STILL have to hear that one every so often, so why write about Adams now?

I'm not sure what a "novelty single" is if Lou Bega isn't one (as much as yr Eiffel 65s or whoever, whose absence is I'm guessing only due to novelty) but I'm glad it's here because it's probably the thing on the list I'd be most pleased to hear now. Remember trying not to like it at the time for all manner of spurious rockist reasons but failing. Hhhwhuh!

O SHIT GUYS I MISREAD THE BALLOT AND VOTED FOR THE BNP

This poll will have really weird results. I probably shouldn't attempt a "worst song from their list of the 20 Best number 1s" (which is also featured in the magazine).

http://b2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/01445/26/45/1445075462_s.jpg

Please to tell what these stupendous boring fuckwits' best 20 number 1s is.

It was Don't You Want Me Baby by Human League Band.

Really? They going for the "OOH we so controversial look no geetars" angle?

Or were you yanking my chain mike? Cos I am very hungover and can't cope and I'd've had cash money on "Like a Rolly Stone"

No, you were right the first time.

"Yes, I think you'll find we're quite modern really, we embrace the synthesiser..."

Word magazine: proudly embracing 1981.

(The thing is, for all its continuation-of-1985-era-Whistle-Test-by-other-means counter-revoulutionary Hepworth-Ellenism, Word magazine is the only music mag which I still buy regularly.)

ah you know I'm a big fat cynical music journalism agnostic, I'm sure they're alright on the stuff they care about

It's an honest and reasonably independent-minded magazine, which does an able job of representing its particular perspective. It might not be my perspective, but it's clearly defined, and I can meet it halfway.

Nice of them to link my blog on their website, I'll give them that.

Well, their online editor is an old-school first wave blogger with singular taste; we have occasionally nodded at each other over the years. (Fraser from Blogjam)

and Likey Rolley Stoney not number oney.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

"One Day at a Time" - Lena Martell (3 weeks)
Dingbod own up

"I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker" - Sandi Thom (1 week) 1

We're not leaving until the boy responsible owns up.

I would be more worried by the 4 people who thought james blunt had the best song

Spandau Ballet would have deserved to win, but I don't quite understand what Eric Prydz was doing in the list either.

I must have missed these results.

"Every Loser Wins" - Nick Berry (3 weeks) 0

Ooh, look everybody: Irony.

LOL at 20 people voting for "True". Twats.

Not as bad as the 25 retards voting for Eric Prydz.

And no, I voted for the Casualty one as clearly stated above. Must have been Desmond Carrington lurking.

this poll is retardo because many of the voters thought it was for 'worst' on the list.

Surely its the people voting who are retardo seeing as it clearly reads 'Best' in the title?

I would be the retardo twat who created the poll with the confusing headline and also voted for Spandau Ballet.

But we like you anyway

no i mean the poll results (and yeah by extension YOU, electors of ilx) are retardo, not the starter.

It's a shame that this poll didn't work out so well, but maybe next time it'll be a kind of lesson and people will be a bit more careful with what they vote for? I suppose it's not all that important, but I hope so.

I suppose, in a sense, the result was right: It was the best song.

The song being "Valerie" by Stevie Winwood.

It's a shame that this poll didn't work out so well, but maybe next time it'll be a kind of lesson and people will be a bit more careful with what they vote for? I suppose it's not all that important, but I hope so.

-- Michael Philip Philip Philip philip Annoyman, Thursday, April 10, 2008 12:10 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

i would otm this but you have a way of being a total dick about things, it's really uncanny.

I am biting my tongue here. I will not rise to this. Not this time.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/content/images/2007/08/03/newmanandbaddiel_1_396x222.jpg
left to right: Michael Philip Philip Philip philip Annoyman, banriquit,

"Three Times A Lady" by The Commodores is the worst British #1 of all time, edging out "Mull Of Kintyre" by a flatulent parp.

"Valerie" by Steve Winwood is DLT's idea of what eighties pop was like.

I am biting my tongue here. I will not rise to this. Not this time.

banriquit also thinks Alex McLeish is quite a good manager.

And that's the knockout punch right there, he won't be getting up from that