The Week in Number Ones: Beyoncé, Glass Animals, and ‘Monster Mash’ go big
Welcome back to The Week in Number Ones, where all the biggest movers from the US and UK charts get condensed into one article. Last week, we took our now-weekly dig at Ed Sheeran, thanks to the success of his Pokemon-collaboration ‘Celestial’ and wondered out loud why the US and UK charts were so phenomenally different. We also dove into the moment that The Police ascended from genre-hopping underground rockers to mainstream pop stars with ‘Don’t Stand So Close to Me’.
Earlier this week, Little Simz walked away as the big winner at the Mercury Prize award ceremony. In reality, the decision had been made last September, but because the original ceremony coincided with Queen Elizabeth II’s death, the new award presentation night got moved over to October.
You probably don’t need me to tell you this, but Sometimes I Might Be Introvert is a wonderful album. Filled to the brim with jazz-rap beats and socially conscious verses, Little Simz rises to the occasion and produces the best album that she’s ever made. There was some stiff competition, including great albums by Yard Act, Self-Esteem, and Wet Leg, but it was Simz’s night to celebrate.
In terms of chart success, we’ll just have to wait and see if there is such a thing as a Mercury Prize bump. Last year’s winner, Arlo Parks, saw a brief return to the top 40 album chart when her album Collapse Into Sunbeams won the prize last year. Sometimes I Might Be Introvert peaked at number four on the album charts last year, so we’ll stay tuned next week to see if it goes on another run, thanks to its recent accolade.
This week, we take a look at Beyoncé’s second run up the singles chart this year with ‘Cuff It’, congratulate Glass Animals on breaking records with ‘Heat Waves’, and get in a particularly spooky state of mind as we dig into ‘Monster Mash’. As we round up all the best chart news of the modern-day and recent past, we have all that and more.
Current UK Number One: ‘Unholy’ – Sam Smith and Kim Petras
It might be strange to consider, but Beyoncé might be a bit of a slow-burn artist nowadays. I already got my apologies out to the Bey-hive a couple of weeks ago when we covered the ascension of ‘Break My Soul’, but there’s still something a bit odd about waiting this long for a Beyoncé song to threaten a chart-topping run.
‘Cuff It’ has seen a recent resurgence on the charts, and we all can probably guess why that is: TikTok. Again, I have no want or desire to know the inner workings of TikTok – I’m sure it’s an evil force that’s slowly corroding our democracy or something like that. I’m just on there for the animal clips. But a lot of people are there all the time, and when a small bit of Beyoncé’s disco jam hits just the right audience, it’s destined to blow up.
‘Cuff It’ was one of my favourite tracks from Renaissance, mostly because I’m a sucker for the Nile Rodgers brand of disco funk that the track is rooted in. There’s also a strong strain of white R&B courtesy of Teena Marie’s ‘Ooo La La La’, which is prominently sampled throughout the track. Basically, it’s Beyoncé taking some of the best pieces of music from across the history of old-school dancefloor bangers and crafting something new out of it. That’s a recipe for success if I’ve ever heard one.
So could ‘Cuff It’ make a run to number one? Maybe – it doesn’t have far to go, even the songs ahead of it have slightly more of a cultural foothold at the moment. But I can only reiterate something that I had to learn the hard way: never doubt Beyoncé. You do so at your own peril.
UK Singles Top Ten (Week of October 19th, 2022):
- ‘Unholy’ – Sam Smith & Kim Petras
- ‘I’m Good (Blue)’ – David Guetta ft. Bebe Rexha
- ‘Forget Me’ – Lewis Capaldi
- ‘I Ain’t Worried’ – OneRepublic
- ‘Cuff It’ – Beyoncé
- ‘Super Freaky Girl’ – Nicki Minaj
- ‘Under the Influence’ – Chris Brown
- ‘Bad Habit’ – Steve Lacy
- ‘Psycho’ – Anne Marie & Aitch
- ‘Big City Life’ – Luude & Mattafix
Current US Number One: ‘Bad Habit’ – Steve Lacy
Longevity records are all over the place these days. Thanks to the ways our listening habits have changed in the streaming age, songs are sticking around on the charts a lot longer than they used to. Harry Styles’ ‘As It Was’ managed to become the fourth-longest-serving number one in the history of the Billboard Hot 100 a couple of weeks back, and it could very well break that record at some point (it’s only at number three this week, and it also has the record for most separate ascensions to number one, so don’t count it out).
But for this week’s longevity record, we turn our attention to British indie pop darlings Glass Animals. This week, their unkillable crossover track ‘Heat Waves’ broke the record for most total weeks on the Hot 100 with 91 weeks floating around the chart. That’s nearly two full years of chart dominance by one song. ‘Heat Waves’ first landed on the chart in January of 2021, and a full year later, the song finally ascended all the way to number one in March of 2022.
The previous record holder was none other than The Weeknd, whose ‘Blinding Lights’ lasted an incredible 90 weeks on the chart. ‘Blinding Lights’ has since dropped off the chart, but ‘Heat Waves’ hasn’t. In fact, it’s currently sitting at number 21, meaning that it would take an act of god for the song to completely disappear from the chart next week. Who knows how long the song will continue its run on the Hot 100, but however long it stays now will be a new record.
Of course, this isn’t nearly the longest time that a single song has lasted on a mainstream pop chart. That distinction goes to our old friends The Killers. ‘Mr. Brightside’ has lasted an unbeatable 336 non-consecutive weeks on the UK Singles Chart, a feat that will likely never be broken. It’s so astronomical that it’s inspired its own recurring segment in this column (just for the record, it sits at number 73 this week). ‘Heat Waves’ is way behind that record, but I suppose crazier things have happened with inescapable pop songs.
US Billboard Hot 100 Top Ten Singles (Week of October 22nd, 2022):
- ‘Bad Habit’ – Steve Lacy
- ‘Unholy’ – Sam Smith & Kim Petras
- ‘As It Was’ – Harry Styles
- ‘I Like You (A Happier Song)’ – Post Malone ft. Doja Cat
- ‘You Proof’ – Morgan Wallen
- ‘I Ain’t Worried’ – OneRepublic
- ‘Sunroof’ – Nicky Youre & Dazy
- ‘Super Freaky Girl’ – Nicki Minaj
- ‘The Kind of Love We Make’ – Luke Combs
- ‘Vegas’ – Doja Cat
This Week in Number Ones: ‘Monster Mash’ – Bobby ‘Boris’ Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers (#1 on the Billboard Hot 100, October 20th, 1962)
This year, we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the one inescapable song at every Halloween party: ‘Monster Mash’. Six decades ago, an entrepreneurial young singer named Bobby Pickett took his love of horror films, mixed it with the then-modern wealth of dance crazes spreading across sock hops and school dances, and produced what might still be the most popular and well-known novelty song of all time.
Before we get into ‘Monster Mash’, a quick sidebar on the history of novelty songs on the Billboard Hot 100. We could spend all day talking about how much people in the UK love their novelty hits (just as a taster, here are some artists that have hit number one in the UK: Bob the Builder, Mr. Blobbby, Flat Eric, and Baz Luhrmann). The US loves a good novelty track too, and some of them are still all-time classics, like ‘Yakety Yak’ and ‘Surfin’ Bird’.
But most are wretched, including chart-toppers like Ray Stevens’ ‘The Streak’, Chuck Berry’s ‘My Ding-a-Ling’, and Rick Dee’s ‘Disco Duck’. Novelty songs get extremely prevalent around the holidays, which is why you can’t go to a grocery store after September without hearing ‘One Eyed Purple People Eater’ or ‘Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer’. Humanity must pay for its sins by subjecting itself to the nonstop onslaught of novelty tracks that make up our holiday playlists.
Of all those novelty songs, ‘Monster Mash’ has just the right amount of charm, no matter what Pam Beesly might think. As a doo-wop singer, Pickett was playing gigs at night while trying to make it as an actor by day. One night, Pickett did a Boris Karloff impression while his band played the early rock and roll song ‘Little Darlin’ by The Diamonds. That’s all it took for Pickett to get the idea for ‘Monster Mash’. Fellow novelty artist Gary S. Paxton, best known for producing the number one hit ‘Alley Oop’, helped Pickett record ‘Monster Mash’ with a group of session musicians that included future Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Leon Russell.
We won’t go all the way down the rabbit hole of dance crazes, but in the strange time in-between 1950s rock and roll and the emergence of The Beatles, teenagers got their kicks by kicking to an array of different dances, most of which had specific songs. Some of the most famous include Chubby Checkers’ ‘The Twist’ and Little Eva’s ‘The Loco-Motion’, but it was Dee Dee Sharp’s ‘Mashed Potato Time’ that served as the inspiration for ‘Monster Mash’ (Potatoes. Mash. Get it?).
‘Monster Mash’ became one of the most resilient songs in the history of the pop charts. Back when the word “re-entry” meant almost nothing, ‘Monster Mash’ was one of the first songs to see a major resurgence in popularity every Halloween. It originally hit number one during the spooky season in 1962, but also made runs in 1970 and 1973. In the UK, the song peaked at number three in 1973, a full decade after its original release. That same year, the song hit number one of the Canadian pop charts. Now that we’ve reached the streaming age, ‘Monster Mash’ notched its 38th week on the Billboard Hot 100 last year just as the Halloween season ended. Chances are good that the song will ascend once again this year, proving just how irresistible doing the Monster Mash continues to be 60 years later.
Billboard Hot 100 Top Ten (Week of October 20th, 1962)
- ‘Monster Mash’ – Bobby ‘Boris’ Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers
- ‘Sherry’ – The 4 Seasons
- ‘Do You Love Me’ – The Contours
- ‘He’s a Rebel’ – The Crystals
- ‘I Remember You’ – Frank Ifield
- ‘Patches’ – Dickey Lee
- ‘Ramblin’ Rose’ – Nat King Cole
- ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’ – Gene Pitney
- ‘Green Onions’ – Booker T. and the MGs
- ‘Let’s Dance’ – Chris Montez
