The Week in Number Ones: Beyoncé, KSI, and ‘Ghostbusters’ chart
Welcome back to The Week in Number Ones, where all the biggest movers from the US and UK charts get condensed into one article. After a much-needed two-week hiatus, this column is back, and I’m sure the charts have undergone a complete stylistic transformation since I’ve been away from my computer!
OK, not really. But in a way, we are getting a bit of a throwback on both charts this week. Central Cee’s TikTok barnburner ‘Doja’ contains a sample of Eve’s 2001 hit ‘Let Me Blow Ya Mind’, while over in America, DJ Khalid is contrasting the Bee Gees with Drake and Lil Baby with ‘Staying Alive’. Thankfully, I don’t have to talk about either of these songs at length yet, but they’ll both get shoutouts down the line.
This week, KSI fires up the hype machine, Beyoncé returns to her reserved spot at the top of the charts, and we get to the bottom of who actually wrote ‘Ghostbusters’. As we round up all the best chart news of the modern-day and recent past, all that and more.
Current UK Number One: ‘Afraid to Feel’ – LF System
You know, we could spend this section talking about the number five song in the UK right now, ‘Doja’, but I’ll save the major analysis of that for if the song hits number one. Here’s the quick and dirty synopsis: the track is hilarious, Central Cee probably has his heart in the right place, and if it were any longer than its compact 1:30 run time, it would be a much, much worse song.
Instead, let’s talk about KSI. The YouTuber-turned-rapper-turned-amateur boxer-turned-professional boxer has two bouts scheduled for the end of this month. That wouldn’t be too notable except that they’re taking place on the same day. Putting aside the concussion protocol, this decision is undeniably one of the best examples of a stunt that is as brilliant as it is stupid.
The fights will collectively serve as KSI’s second-ever professional boxing match after defeating Logan Paul in 2019. One will be against fellow British rapper Swarmz, while the other will be against Bulgarian professional boxer Ivan Nikolov. Because boxing is only as good as the hype that surrounds it, KSI decided to drop a new single ahead of the match.
Weirdly enough, ‘Not Over Yet’ isn’t a traditional hype song or diss track but a breakup song that mixes high-energy house beats with more traditional pop hooks. An appearance Tom Grennan comes and goes without any real impact, and the track putters out as quickly as it arrives. As a pop song, ‘Not Over Yet’ is middling at best, but as a canny piece of marketing, it is the perfect piece of cross-promotion to keep the interest in this fight high.
It appears to be working, too. Debuting at a solid number four this week, ‘Not Over Yet’ could theoretically have enough momentum to land KSI his first number one by the time that the fight happens later this month. A number one track has been elusive for the YouTuber, with previous singles ‘Don’t Play’ and ‘Holiday’ topping out at number two, but maybe this is the time for KSI to reach the peak of his collective cross-media powers.
UK Singles Top Ten (Week of August 18th, 2022):
- ‘Afraid to Feel’ – LF System
- ‘Break My Soul’ – Beyoncé
- ‘Green Green Grass’ – George Ezra
- ‘Not Over Yet’ – KSI ft. Tom Grennan
- ‘Doja’ – Central Cee
- ‘Last Last’ – Burna Boy
- ‘Crazy What Love Can Do’ – David Guetta/Hill/Henderson
- ‘Late Night Talking’ – Harry Styles
- ‘I Ain’t Worried’ – OneRepublic
- ‘B.O.T.A’ – Eliza Rose/Interplanetary
Current US Number One: ‘Break My Soul’ – Beyoncé
Not too long ago, a cocky young man wondered whether Beyoncé had lost some seismic impact on pop music because her first album-specific single since the Lemonade era failed to go to number one immediately. Obviously, that man was me, and obviously, that was an idiotic position to take because doubting Beyoncé never works out.
‘Break My Soul’, the lead single from Beyoncé’s number one album, is now also at number one. The dance-heavy track returns to the less-grandiose visions of unity and historical importance that the singer has taken on in recent years. Instead of taking on the ills and evils of the world, ‘Break My Soul’ keeps its goals simple: don’t let your job get you down. Oh, and also, wear a mask.
That’s not to say ‘Break My Soul’ is a simple track. It’s just a reminder that Beyoncé was, and is, one of the best purveyors of catchy-as-hell celebratory pop music. Whether you want to look deeper is up to you – that would have been to your detriment on Lemonade, but it seems a bit more OK on ‘Break My Soul’. Let loose, have a good time, and let it all go.
There is a long and storied history of artists with simultaneous number one songs and albums. That list includes the likes of Harry Styles, Drake, and Future from this year alone. Beyoncé accomplished this feat back in 2003 when ‘Crazy in Love’ and Dangerously in Love were both at number one, and now Queen Bey has done it again. The moral of the story: don’t sleep on Beyoncé, even if she’s sleeping well at night.
US Billboard Hot 100 Top Ten Singles (Week of August 20th, 2022):
- ‘Break My Soul’ – Beyoncé
- ‘As It Was’ – Harry Styles
- ‘About Damn Time’ – Lizzo
- ‘Running Up That Hill’ – Kate Bush
- ‘Staying Alive’ – DJ Khalid ft. Drake & Lil Baby
- ‘Bad Habit’ – Steve Lacy
- ‘Wait For U’ – Future ft. Drake & Tems
- ‘Sunroof’ – Nicky Youre & Dazy
- ‘First Class’ – Jack Harlow
- ‘Bad Decisions’ – Benny Blanco, BTS, & Snoop Dogg
This Week in Number Ones: ‘Ghostbusters’ – Ray Parker Jr. (#1 on the Billboard Hot 100, August 18th, 1984)
Ray Parker Jr. was struggling. He had been offered the opportunity to write the song for what was sure to be the biggest comedy film of the year, but he was tasked with doing so in only a matter of days. Even more frustrating was that Parker was explicitly instructed to include the title of the film as the song’s title. That would have been all well and good had this been Splash or Police Academy, but Parker had to write a song about something that had never existed before. How the hell do you write a song around the word ‘Ghostbusters’?
“To me, that was an impossible song to write,” Parker explained in a 2012 interview on the British talk show Loose Women. “The first thing they said was ‘I want it up-tempo, I want this, I want that.’ And I said, ‘Oh, that’s easy, I’m a musician, I can cut it.’ Then he says I want the word ‘Ghostbusters’ in it… I’m like, ‘How am I going to sing Ghostbusters in a song? I’m ruined here; it’s never going to happen!”
When Parker says he’s a “musician”, that’s underselling things a bit. Throughout the 1970s, Parker was one of American music’s most prominent session men. Just about every prominent American artist had worked with him, including Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, and Diana Ross. Parker was previously a guitarist for both Stevie Wonder and Barry White, and his chicken-scratch playing can be heard on the 1971 number one hit ‘Want Ads’ by Honey Cone. Parker even had the jazz chops to hang with the likes of Herbie Hancock and, briefly, Miles Davis.
So Parker had the ability and talent to churn out a theme song. What he needed was something to get him started. This is where the story becomes a bit controversial, based on facts, conjecture, theories, and pure coincidence, but let’s start with Parker’s version.
“It came from TV,” Parker explained. “There was a commercial that came on TV; I think it was insect [exterminators] — those guys that come and spray. I was half asleep, and they had those packs, and they spray like this. To me, it looked just like the Ghostbuster pack. Then the number came on the screen, and I said, ‘That’s what I saw in the movie!’ So I thought, ‘What I am going to say is, ‘Who you gonna call’ and let everybody else say ‘Ghostbusters!’ I never say the word ‘Ghostbusters’”.
However, almost immediately after its release, people started pointing to a different inspiration: Huey Lewis and the News. Around the same time that Parker was frantically writing ‘Ghostbusters’ last minute, Lewis had a top ten hit with the buzzy new wave single ‘I Want a New Drug’. Both ‘Ghostbusters’ and ‘I Want a New Drug’ had undeniable similarities, including the main guitar riffs and basslines throughout each track, and almost as soon as Ghostbusters was released in the summer of 1984, Parker found himself in the middle of a lawsuit between him and Lewis.
“There were about 10–15 people involved in the lawsuit. Everyone claimed they wrote that song,” Parker claimed in a Reddit AMA in 2016. “I had a wonderful lawyer who didn’t tell me anything about any of the lawsuits, so I don’t know anything.” But according to director Ivan Reitman in a 2014 oral history for the film’s 30th anniversary, ‘I Want a New Drug’ was supposed to be used in the film before Parker wrote ‘Ghostbusters’.
“I was a big Huey Lewis fan, and I put in ‘I Want a New Drug’ as a temp score for screenings,” Reitman claimed. “And it seemed to be a perfect tempo, and we cut the montage to that tempo. When it was time to mix the movie, someone introduced me to Ray Parker Jr., and he comes back with a song called ‘Ghostbusters’ that has basically the same kind of riff in it. But it was a totally original song, original lyrics, original everything”.
Parker and Lewis eventually settled out of court. When Lewis breached their confidentiality agreement by discussing the lawsuit on an episode of Behind the Music in 2001, Parker wound up suing Lewis and gaining “a lot of money” out of the whole ordeal.
The actual authorship and inspiration behind ‘Ghostbusters’ quickly added an interesting wrinkle to the story of the song. Still, the truth was that ‘Ghostbusters’ would have been a smash with or without the Lewis angle. Ghostbusters wasn’t quite the highest-earning comedy of 1984 – it stalled at number two behind Beverly Hills Cop. But it was the second highest grossing film that year (also behind Cop) and helped establish the summer as prime-time blockbuster territory.
From that wave, Parker’s ‘Ghostbusters’ did what Lewis’ ‘I Want a New Drug’ couldn’t: it reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. 1984 was the peak of film themes topping the Billboard chart, with Kenny Loggins’ ‘Footloose’, Phil Collins’ ‘Against All Odds (Take a Look At Me Now)’, Deneice Williams’ ‘Let’s Hear It For the Boy’, and Stevie Wonder’s ‘I Just Called to Say I Love You’ all hit number one that year as well. Hell, even Prince had some cross-promotional hits with ‘When Doves Cry’ and ‘Let’s Go Crazy’ both appearing in Purple Rain.
Of all those tracks (barring the Prince songs), ‘Ghostbusters’ very well could be the best-loved and most fondly remembered of all the movie themes from 1984. It remains a staple at Halloween parties and is inextricably linked with its parent film, still one of the most popular comedies of all time. Every time a new version of Ghostbusters gets made, you can be sure to hear a new version of ‘Ghostbusters’ coming along with it. Not bad for a song born out of procrastination.
Billboard Hot 100 top ten (Week of August 18th, 1984)
- ‘Ghostbusters’ – Ray Parker Jr.
- ‘What’s Love Got to Do With It’ – Tina Turner
- ‘State of Shock’ – The Jacksons
- ‘When Doves Cry’ – Prince
- ‘Stuck on You’ – Lionel Richie
- ‘I Can Dream About You’ – Dan Hartman
- ‘Missing You’ – John Waite
- ‘Sad Songs (Say So Much)’ – Elton John
- ‘Sunglasses at Night’ – Corey Hart
- ‘If Ever You’re In My Arms Again’ – Paebo Bryson
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