General Election playlist: Every UK number one from past election days
With so much vitriolic rhetoric flying across party lines over the last few weeks, months, well years actually, we thought we’d lighten the mood on this election day and bring you a playlist perfect for any General Election shindigs you may have on tonight.
We’ve pulled together every number one from every election year since the charts began to bring you one hell of a playlist chock full of bonafide bangers.
It can be very easy to get disenfranchised with the state of politics and the divisions it has recently been causing with an ever-increasing and always devastating effect. But with the polls closing in a matter of hours, if you’ve voted already now is the time to sit back and reflect on the past and hope for the future.
If you haven’t yet cast your vote then what the bloody hell are you doing? Get out there.
Below is a complete playlist of the songs which reached number one on the day of previous elections. It’s an eclectic mix, as you might expect. While traversing the mercurial magic of 20th-century music sees spots on the playlist for Suzi Quatro, Roy Orbison, Shakespeare Sisters and other great acts, it all ends with a bit of a bump for the now virtually invalid charts, ending with that earworm to end all earworms, ‘Despacito’.
Alas, we don’t make the rule, we just make the playlists. Find the full list below and the playlist below that.
- 1955 – Conservative win – ‘Stranger in Paradise’, Tony Bennett
- 1959 – Conservative win – ‘Only Sixteen’, Craig Douglas
- 1964 – Labour win – ‘Oh Pretty Woman’, Roy Orbison
- 1966 – Labour win – ‘The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine No More’, The Walker Brothers
- 1970 – Conservative win – ‘In The Summertime’, Mungo Jerry
- 1974 – Labour win – ‘Devil Gate Drive’, Suzi Quatro
- 1974 – Labour win – ‘Kung Fu Fighting’, Carl Perkins
- 1979 – Conservative win – ‘Bright Eyes’, Art Garfunkel
- 1983 – Conservative win – ‘Every Breath You Take’, The Police
- 1987 – Conservative win – ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’, Whitney Houston
- 1992 – Conservative win – ‘Stay’, Shakespeare Sisters
- 1997 – Labour win – ‘I Believe I Can Fly’, R Kelly
- 2001 – Labour win – ‘Do You Really Like It’, DJ Pied Piper
- 2005 – Labour win – ‘Is This the Way to Amarillo’, Tony Christie & Peter Kay
- 2010 – Conservative win – ‘Once’, Diana Vickers
- 2015 – Conservative win – ‘See You Again’, Wiz Khalifa
- 2017 – Conservative win – ‘Despacito’, Luiz Fonsi, Daddy Yankee, Justin Bieber
