The Week in Number Ones: Krown Jewelz, Taylor Swift, and the Sex Pistols
Welcome back to The Week in Number Ones, where all the biggest chart movers from the US and UK charts get condensed into one article. Last week, we went in on Toosii’s ‘Favorite Song’ and Fifty Fifty’s ‘Cupid’ before turning our attention to Pet Shop Boys’ timeless chart-topper, ‘West End Girls’.
This week is all about non-number ones. That might seem slightly counterintuitive for a column specifically dedicated to writing about number one songs, but there’s a bit of method to the madness here. Emphasis on “madness”, because the pop charts are driving me absolutely ape shit. It’s not uncommon for songs to have long shelf lives on the pop charts, but that makes it particularly difficult to find something new to write about week in and week out when the choice of songs is always the same.
If you want the perfect illustration of this, take a look at the song sitting at number ten on the UK Singles Chart this week: Harry Styles’ ‘As It Was’. For a grand total of 58 weeks, ‘As It Was’ has been somewhere on the UK Singles Chart, most of it in the top ten. If I had been paying attention, we could have celebrated the one-year anniversary here, but unlike the rest of the world, I haven’t listened to ‘As It Was’ willingly since last summer.
Styles has a long way to go if he wants to nab the title of the longest song to stay on the charts. That record belongs to The Killers’ ‘Mr. Brightside’, which has notched an astounding 361 weeks on the UK Singles Chart. Wonderfully, this lets us do another instalment of my favourite recurring segment: ‘Where Is ‘Mr Brightside’ This Week’? The answer: number 69. Nice.
This week, we look at Krown Jewelz and their first singles chart entry in the UK, ‘Scrap The Monarchy’. Over in the US, we’ll revisit the world’s biggest current superstar, Taylor Swift, after a new appreciation was born from seeing her live. Then, we’ll investigate the most controversial non-number one of all time: the Sex Pistols’ ‘God Save the Queen’, and the inner machinations that kept it from topping the British charts in 1977. All that and more as we round up the best chart news of the modern-day and recent past.
Current UK Number One: ‘Miracle’ – Calvin Harris & Ellie Goulding
Ah, the coronation. A massive global event or a gigantic sham in order to preserve an outdated and largely unpopular family of conniving power-hungry sodomites? You decide! The general feeling around the crowning of King Charles here in the US has been apathetic at best. The dude probably won’t be around all that long, so why get invested (if I just cursed everyone and he lives to 101, my apologies)?
Considering how big of an event the changing of the guard in the royal family should be, there hasn’t been much in the way of blowback or snarky responses. Luckily, there has been at least one notable one: ‘Scrap The Monarchy’ from previously unknown act the Krown Jewelz. A potent kick out at the ridiculousness, pomposity, and irrelevance of the British royal family, ‘Scrap The Monarchy’ might sound a bit familiar to British pop listeners.
That’s because the Krown Jewelz are actually Kunt and the Gang, or The Kuntz, or just Kunt, the British comedian and musician whose shots at British politicians have been hilarious and pointed. Surely you’ve heard their list of family-friendly hits: ‘Boris Johnson Is a Fucking Cunt’, ‘Boris Johnson Is Still a Fucking Cunt’ and ‘Prince Andrew Is a Sweaty Nonce’. The first two were top five hits in the UK and the latter was a top 20 hit, so Mr. Kunt is a certified pop hitmaker.
With that in mind, you can probably guess as to the content of ‘Scrap The Monarchy’ – a wonderfully profane and sharply-barbed takedown of King Charles III. Great moments in history always need a court jester to bring everything back down to earth, and in these strange times, Krown Jewelz/Kunt and the Gang/The Kuntz are doing the lord’s work.
UK Singles Top Ten (Week of May 18th, 2023):
- ‘Miracle’ – Calvin Harris & Ellie Goulding
- ‘Daylight’ – David Kushner
- ‘Eyes Closed’ – Ed Sheeran
- ‘People’ – Libianca
- ‘Calm Down’ – Rema
- ‘Wish You The Best’ – Lewis Capaldi
- ‘React’ – Switch Disco & Ella Henderson
- ‘Cupid’ – Fifty Fifty
- ‘Scrap the Monarchy’ – Krown Jewelz
- ‘As It Was’ – Harry Styles
Current US Number One: ‘Last Night’ – Morgan Wallen
There is absolutely nothing new under the sun in the US. I can tell you that from being on the ground here in the good ol’ U, S, and A: things just kind of seem like they’re in a holding pattern. The pop charts are always a funny reflection of real life, and this week, that’s especially true. That’s because all ten songs from last week’s top ten are once again in the top ten this week. The only difference is that Toosii’s ‘Favorite Song’ and The Weeknd’s ‘Die For You’ switched positions. Yay.
So instead of any relevant pop chart news, I’m going to use this section to discuss my newfound appreciation for Taylor Swift. Along with a group of friends, I trekked up to Philadelphia to see what can only be described as the hottest concert of 2023: Taylor Swift’s ‘The Eras Tour’. The women I went with were all experts, and as the lone man and lone non-Swiftie, I was originally going just to see the massive stadium show.
But then I thought that I might as well go in deep. So I did: by listening to every song that Swift has recorded up to this point. That took a full week of dedicated listening, and when I came out the other side, I was involuntarily combining songs together from across her catalogue as the people around me begged me to stop quoting from them. Say what you will about the music itself: Swift really knows how to craft memorable lyrics. The number of times I’ve said, “Next chapter!” or “Nice!” this week is truly astronomical.
The experience didn’t just prepare me for whatever surprise songs were played (‘Forever & Always’ and ‘This Love’. Shout-out to the Saturday show) but also gave me a new appreciation for Swift’s songbook. I wouldn’t necessarily go as far as to say I’ve joined the front lines of the Swifties, but it’s probably fair to say I’m now a convert beyond the Indie Rock Approved™️ confines of Folklore and Evermore. So now every time I see ‘Anti-Hero’ hanging around the top ten, I feel like I appreciate it a little bit more. ‘Stay Stay Stay’ still blows though. I will not apologise for that.
Billboard Hot 100 Top Ten (Week of May 20th, 2023):
- ‘Last Night’ – Morgan Wallen
- ‘Kill Bill’ – SZA
- ‘Flowers’ – Miley Cyrus
- ‘Ella Baila Sola’ – Eslabon Armando X Peso Pluma
- ‘Calm Down’ – Rema & Selena Gomez
- ‘Creepin’ – Metro Boomin, The Weeknd & 21 Savage
- ‘Un x100to’ – Grupo Frontera X Bad Bunny
- ‘Favorite Song’ – Toosii
- ‘Die For You’ – The Weeknd & Ariana Grande
- ‘Anti-Hero’ – Taylor Swift
This Week in Number Ones: ‘I Don’t Want to Talk About It / The First Cut Is The Deepest’ – Rod Stewart or ‘God Save The Queen’ – Sex Pistols [disputed] (#1 on the UK Singles Chart, June 11th, 1977)
It was the perfect storm of disobedience. In order to protest Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee, the Sex Pistols were going to take London by force by trekking out to the Thames and playing their incendiary new single, ‘God Save The Queen’, at full volume. Part protest, part publicity stunt, and all anti-monarchy, the ploy also had a wonderfully unintended consequence of shooting ‘God Save The Queen’ straight to the top of the charts. That’s when the BBC stepped in.
Life was moving pretty fast in the world of the Sex Pistols. After just one year of being together, the punk band had already caused a musical revolution in Britain. They seemed on the verge of a true cultural coup, having riled up the powers that be enough to get mainstream press attention. Was this the band that was to bring down the monarchy and the government of the UK once and for all? Not quite, but they had a hell of a time trying and left a massive influence for their troubles.
But starting during the week of May 21st, 1977, the BBC launched what remains the most egregious case of censorship and history-changing that the institution had ever successfully pulled off. After banning ‘God Save The Queen’ proved to be an insufficient way of making the single disappear, the BBC decided to shape the narrative against the Sex Pistols. The official UK Singles Chart was organised and run by the BBC, and though it was supposed to be an objective reflection of sales in the music industry, the BBC could theoretically put anything they wanted at the top of the charts. So who was the stooge who was going to be used as a patsy against the Sex Pistols: Rod Stewart.
To be fair, Stewart’s double A-side single ‘I Don’t Want to Talk About It’ / ‘The First Cut Is The Deepest’ was already threatening to top the charts when the BBC saw an opportunity. When it reached number one on May 21st, ‘God Save The Queen’ had yet to be released. By the end of the month, it was poised to go all the way to number one.
That’s when the BBC (allegedly) got involved. By June 11th, it seemed like a given that ‘God Save The Queen’ would go to number one. With the celebrations of The Queen’s Silver Jubilee happening concurrently, The BBC made a rule change that lasted one week: shops that sold their records could not have those numbers counted toward the official charts. Since ‘God Save The Queen’ had largely only been available in Virgin Megastores, that crippled the official chart sales, even though Virgin claimed that their surplus of singles for ‘God Save The Queen’ had sold out. Stewart’s single, meanwhile, was still available.
While it wasn’t considered the official chart, the NME singles chart recognised ‘God Save THe Queen’ as the true number one. The purposeful obstruction wasn’t officially acknowledged until 2001, when BBC News referred to ‘God Save The Queen’ as having “reached number one in the UK” while discussing the single’s controversial cover art in an article. While it wasn’t an official acknowledgement of the BBC’s attempts to rewrite history, it was a tacit admission that the Sex Pistols were dangerous enough to censor and subvert in 1977.
UK Singles Top Ten (Week of June 11th, 1977):
- ‘I Don’t Want To Talk About It’ / ‘The First Cut Is The Deepest’ – Rod Stewart
- ‘God Save The Queen’ – Sex Pistols
- ‘Lucille’ – Kenny Rogers
- ‘A Star Is Born (Evergreen)’ – Barbra Streisand
- ‘Ain’t Gonna Bump No More’ – Joe Tex
- ‘Show You The Way To Go’ – The Jacksons
- ‘You’re Moving Out Today’ – Carole Bayer Sager
- ‘The Shuffle’ – Van McCoy
- ‘Good Morning Judge’ – 10cc
- ‘Halfway Down the Stairs’ – The Muppets
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