#1s nobody remembers

Outhere Brothers 'Dont Stop (Wiggle Wiggle)'
Robson & Jerome 'I Believe'
Gina G 'Ooh Aah Just A Little Bit'
Deep Blue Something 'Breakfast At Tiffany's'
Peter Andre 'I Feel You'
Boyzone 'A Different Beat'
Dunblane 'Knockin On Heaven's Door'
LL Cool J 'Aint Nobody'
Gary Barlow 'Love Wont Wait'
Boyzone 'All That I Need'
Billie 'Because We Want To'
B*Witched 'Rollercoaster'
B*Witched 'To You I Belong'
911 'Little Bit More'
Blondie 'Maria'
B*Witched 'Blame It On The Weatherman'
Boyzone 'You Needed Me'
Westlife 'If I Let You Go'
Manic Street Preachers 'Masses AGainst The Classes'
Westlife 'Fool Again'
Billie 'Day & Night'
Corrs 'Breathless'
A1 'Take On Me'
Steps 'Stomp'
Hearsay 'The Way To Your Love'
Robbie Williams 'Eternity'
Blue 'Too Close'
Westlife 'World Of Our Own'
Ronan Keating 'Tomorrow Never Comes'

i really cant remember how these ones go at all so they are the winners in my eyes (and ears)

Outhere Brothers 'Dont Stop (Wiggle Wiggle)'
Deep Blue Something 'Breakfast At Tiffany's'
Peter Andre 'I Feel You'
Boyzone 'A Different Beat'
LL Cool J 'Aint Nobody'
Gary Barlow 'Love Wont Wait'
Boyzone 'All That I Need'
B*Witched 'To You I Belong'
B*Witched 'Blame It On The Weatherman'
Boyzone 'You Needed Me'

Ones I actually can't remember how they go:

Robson & Jerome 'I Believe'
Peter Andre 'I Feel You'
Boyzone 'A Different Beat'
LL Cool J 'Aint Nobody'
Gary Barlow 'Love Wont Wait'
Boyzone 'All That I Need'
B*Witched 'Blame It On The Weatherman'
Boyzone 'You Needed Me'
Westlife 'If I Let You Go'
Westlife 'Fool Again'
Robbie Williams 'Eternity'

LL Cool J's one is easy to imagine at least - heavy Chaka Khan sample with predictable rap by LL about how good he is at sexin it...clearly his worst single ever (tho his new Neptuned one's alright)

1990 to 1995:

Pato Banton with Ali & Robin Campbell - Baby Come Back
Take That - Sure (hardly even there: dropped *right* down after the fans had bought it)
Manchester United squad & Status Quo - Come On You Reds (WTF?)
Stiltskin - Inside
Tony Di Bart - The Real Thing
The Bluebells - Young At Heart (such a bizarre thing to reissue at all, let alone hit #1)
Jimmy Nail - Ain't No Doubt
Vic Reeves and the Wonder Stuff - Dizzy
Hale and Pace and the Stonkers - The Stonk (I mean, WHAT THE FUCK? yes, I know, Comic Relief, but even so.)
Partners In Kryme - Turtle Power

I'd've thought Doop might trouble a few memories, but it holds a very special place in mine...

It's easy to forget 90's #1 hits because there aren't that many "Totally Rad 90's" comps out yet- let's look at the UK charts of the the two most anthologised eras, the 60's (starting at 1964 to be fair- who the feck would remember the Cliff Richard wannabes?) and the 80's:

60's:

"Diane", The Bachelors

"Juliet", The Four Pennies

"You're My World", Cilla Black

"I'll Never Find Another You", The Seekers

"The Minute You're Gone", Cliff Richard

"Where Are You Now (My Love)", Jackie Trent

"Long Live Love", Sandie Shaw

"Tears", Ken Dodd

"The Carnival Is Over", The Seekers

"Michelle", The Overlanders

"Distant Drums", Jim Reeves

"This Is My Song", Petula Clarck

"Let The Heartaches Begin", Long John Baldry

"Cinderella Rockefella", Esther & Abi Ofarim

"I Pretend", Des O' Connor

"I've Gotta Get A Message To You", The Bee Gees

"Lily The Pink", Scaffold

"Two Little Boys", Rolf Harris

80's:

"Coward Of The County", Kenny Rogers (A C&W #1 in the UK in 1980?? Far out...)

"Togheter We Are Beautiful", Fern Kinney

"What's Another Year?", Johnny Logan

"Use It Up And Wear It Out", Odyssey

"Feels Like I'm In Love", Kelly Marie

"Woman In Love", Barbara Streisand

"Shaddap You Face", Joe Dolce Music Theater (all I know about this is that it prevented Ultravox from getting to #1- cheers!)

"This Ole House", Shakin' Stevens

"Green Door", Shakin' Stevens

"Seven Tears", Goombay Dance Band

"I Don't Wanna Dance", Eddy Grant

"Save Your Love", Renée & Renato

"I Should Have Known Better", Jim Diamond

"I Know Him So Well", Elaine Paige & Barbara Dickinson

"Move Closer", Phyllis Nelson

"Frankie", Sister Sledge

"If I Was", Midge Ure

"A Good Heart", Feargal Sharkey

"The Chicken Song", Spitting Image

"I Want To Wake Up With You", Boris Gardiner

"Every Loser Wins", Nick Berry

"Star Trekkin'", Firm

"China In Your Hand", T'Pau

"The First Time", Robin Beck

"Too Many Broken Hearts", Jason Donovan

I don't know any of these, and I've spent far more time watching "totally 80's/golden 60's" infromercials than could possibly be healthy...

Daniel isn't missing out on much (and, like him, I have seen far too many Teleshopping sequences), but "I've Gotta Get A Message To You" is pretty good. Makes me think that all the "lost masterpiece" talk about some early Bee Gees album or whatever might not be wrong.

the TOTP performance of "Together We Are Beautiful" is so old-fashioned ***even for then*** that VH1 are too embarrassed to show it in full when they do their "number 1s of the 80s" marathons. Actually, that leads us to another possible thread altogether ...

certainly the Ninja Turtles (or Hero Turtles as the prudish old BBC called them)

No, actually, it really was "Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles" for the first few seasons (which is endlessly frustrating when trying to sing along to the reruns), then it went to "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" (dunno if the BBC accepted that.) The first few episodes are must sees, btw, because they show how incredibly lo-fi this future multi-million marketing marvel really was in the begining- they constantly mess up which turtle is supposed to have which voice...plus, there's a truly surreal and very disturbing scene in which Michaelangelo first encounters Krang, and is just appalled by the fact that he's talking to, well, a talking brain. It's one of the scariest things I've ever seen on TV, only heightened by the fact that when he tries to tell it to the rest of the Turtles they don't believe him and act like he just smoked too much weed (not in so many words but it was implicit.)

Then there was the latter era, after TMNT popularity waned, when (apart from getting a crappy token minority character and replacing Shredder with some idiotic alien) they made a new theme song which qualifies as the worst attempt at getting "legitimate" since N'Sync's "Pop". Instead of the snappy "teenage mutant ninja turtles, teenage mutant ninja turtles", it was now:

"TEENAGE. MUTANT. NINJA. TURTLES."

And worst of all, the pure genius of "when the evil Shredder attacks/these Turtles boys don't cut him no slack" got turned into the awkward and awful "when the evil Shredder attacks/Turtles fight back!" No matter, since as mentioned previously, Shredder didn't have much of a chance to attack anymore anyway...

you *want* to find out what Nick Berry, Jim Diamond and Robin Beck sounded like, Daniel!? Are you sure about that?

Positive. I (heart) embarassing tunes that I can loudly belt out when ppl tell me music was so much better in 1966/1974/1985 what have you...

RPC: the "early Bee Gees album" you need to hear is "Odessa." Preposterously classic (though "Cricklewood Green" has its moments too).

Re: Jim Diamond - "I Should Have Known Better" is admittedly tripe, though probably unique in that it's "i-yi-yi-yi-yi" motif turned up in the record which knocked it off the top, FGTH's "Power of Love."

"I Won't Let You Down" by PhD, however, is one of the greatest pop singles ever made; in its almost hymnal expression of faith it is very nearly on a par with Hot Chocolate's "Put Your Love In Me."

If I let you go was westlife's best song.

Tony DiBart is a good call, as are the B*Witched ones that aren't C'est La Vie. But come, on, this lot?

Gina G 'Ooh Aah Just A Little Bit'
Deep Blue Something 'Breakfast At Tiffany's'
Billie 'Because We Want To'
Blondie - 'Maria'
A1 'Take On Me'

I remember Don't Stop (Wiggle Wiggle) and its followup, Boom Boom Boom. Probably the worst pair of number one singles ever. I'm not sure many people will remember 'Colourblind' or most of the Atomic Kitten ones in a few years time.

Daniel: You have your first listen of Star Trekkin' ahead of you. I envy you. On the other hand, you also have two Shakin Stevens' singles, so maybe I don't.

Boom Boom Boom rules! Though I'm may be a little nostalgic due to that boot of it and "Let's push things forwards."

Freak Like Me OWNS the version of this thread from ten years hence.

Be glad, be very glad. The Bermudians down the hall when I lived in rez LOVED this song to death. It probably resides on every college residence network this side of the puddle.

Safety Dance
Obscurre? How unfortunate. We all need more visions of medival dancing midgets permantly fried into our brains/brians. Its not even there best single or album.

Possible Follow-up Songs for One-Hit Wonders

But then in its balance of genius and utter naffness (I mean, Julio Iglesias at #3? Chas and Dave at #2? But simultaneously "Just An Illusion" at #2, "Give Me Back My Heart" at #4, "Papa's Got A Brand New Pigbag" at #3) there has never been a year like 1982. One fatally wonderful September week, "The Message" and a Vivian Ellis cover (Sting's "Spread A Little Happiness") were climbing simultaneously (Grandmaster Flash got higher - ha!). I wish the charts were still like that.

as for the forgotten number ones, VH1's Worst Number 1s sequences give you a good primer - I'd forgotten how Nick Berry's "Every Loser Wins" video is seemingly trying to make the Grand Union Canal look like Venice, the cod-operatic intro to Stiltskin's "Inside" (the "Let's Go To San Francisco" or "The Main Event" of grunge, surely) and even after such a short time I'd barely recalled that Hear'Say had a second chart-topper. The funny thing is that most of the songs are better than many of those in their "I Can't Believe It Wasn't Number 1" sequence, which attempts to stir up moral outrage at the fact that Bon Jovi and Nickelback didn't get to the top. Something I *would* find unwatchable would be an accurate list of the worst ever Number 1s, namely a long sequence of Oasis, Robbie Williams, Boyzone and Westlife videos.

Hear'say's long-forgotten second number one is a serious bone of contention round these parts because we lost the pub quiz by one point last week and one of the questions we got wrong was who had a number one with "the way to your love". I just don't forget number ones of the 80s or early 90s, but there are more forgotten number ones now than there were then and it cost me £30-worth of free booze. Bah.

And I'm one of those people who could hum "Daddy's Song" twenty years after only ever hearing it on "film 68" or whatever it was then at the age of seven.

I remember it. So it's not like no-one remembers it.