The Week in Number Ones: Lewis Capaldi, Metro Boomin, and the Pretenders hit
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 presided over the rising hits from Raye and SZA on opposite sides of the Atlantic before diving into the first true one-hit wonder in the history of popular music, Chubby Checker.
Does anyone have any early guesses as to what will be the biggest hit of 2023? Trying to predict the success of singles at the beginning of the year is truly one of the more idiotic things you can do: there’s no telling who is even going to put out music, whether it’s going to be good, or what the general public will want to obsess over this year.
Let’s take a look back at last year. Will we get another Encanto-like cartoon hit? I don’t know much about the upcoming Disney animated film Wish, but that might have some killer soundtrack songs on it. Pixar has a new movie, Elemental, that’s coming out soon, but it’s not a musical. Maybe Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will have its own version of Post Malone’s ‘Sunflower’?
What else? Maybe another Drake single? Almost assuredly another Drake single. Could another single from Sam Smith’s upcoming LP, Gloria, go to number one? I don’t know, and the rest of the album slate for 2023 looks a bit dubious. It is just the beginning of the year, but it’s currently looking a bit bare. Maybe Miley Cyrus will get back to number one again. That would be cool.
This week, we look at the massive jump that Lewis Capaldi has had this week with ‘Pointless’ and jump into the all-star lineup that fills out Metro Boomin’s ‘Creepin’. Then, we take a look at when punk and new wave went mainstream in the UK with the Pretenders’ one and only number one hit, ‘Brass in Pocket’. All that and more as we round up the best chart news of the modern-day and recent past.
Current UK Number One: ‘Pointless’ – Lewis Capaldi
If you’re surprised to see Lewis Capaldi at number one this week, you’re not the only one. The English singer-songwriter wasn’t even in the top ten last week, with his newest single ‘Pointless’ sitting at a solid number 15. Sure, Capaldi is a massively popular artist with previous number ones, but it takes a bit of work to jump that many spots.
And yet, that’s exactly what Capaldi did. Leaping 14 positions over the likes of Taylor Swift, SZA, Central Cee, and previous number one holder Raye, Capaldi is now the king of the UK Singles Chart. Bugzy Malone might have had a song called ‘Out of Nowhere’ on the charts, but Capaldi is the man who emerged from the shadows this week.
So that’s Capaldi’s fourth number one single after ‘Someone You Loved’, ‘Before You Go’ and ‘Forget Me’. It’s also three number one singles in a row, which begs the question: is Lewis Capaldi one of the biggest stars in all of Britain right now? Seriously, who else has that kind of mojo? Not Harry Styles or even Taylor Swift. That’s the realm of Ed Sheeran and Adele right there.
It’s certainly a major boost for Capaldi’s upcoming sophomore LP, Broken by Desire to Be Heavenly Sent. God damn it, I’m starting to get kind of charmed by Capaldi. He’s not making the music that I listen to on a casual basis, but the guy seems kind of funny and way less of a dickhead than a bunch of other pop stars. Prove me wrong, Lewis, but I’m temporarily in your corner right now.
UK Singles Top Ten (Week of January 18th, 2023):
- ‘Pointless’ – Lewis Capaldi
- ‘Escapism’ – Raye ft. 070 Shake
- ‘Kill Bill’ – SZA
- ‘Anti-Hero’ – Taylor Swift
- ‘Messy in Heaven’ – Venbee & Goddard
- ‘Let Go’ – Central Cee
- ‘Made You Look’ – Meghan Trainor
- ‘Calm Down’ – Rema
- ‘Miss You’ – Oliver Tree & Robin Schultz
- ‘Out of Nowhere’ – Bugzy Malone & Teedee
Current US Number One: ‘Anti-Hero’ – Taylor Swift
Another week of ‘Anti-Hero’ at number one. Yawn. No offence to Taylor Swift (actually, I could say something offensive. She’s not going to read this. But I don’t want to mess with the Swifties: they scare me), but we covered pretty much everything around ‘Anti-Hero’ when it first landed at number one. When another wrinkly arises, maybe we’ll return to the world of Midnights.
For now, let’s turn our attention to the number five song in the US: ‘Creepin’. Headlined by Atlanta DJ Metro Boomin, ‘Creepin’ is more notable for being an all-star dense collection of some of the most popular figures in music at the current moment. The cameos, features and songwriting credits to ‘Creepin’ are wild.
The main draws to ‘Creepin’ are its main features: The Weeknd and 21 Savage. Both artists literally have the next two spots on the Billboard Hot 100 taken – The Weeknd’s ‘Die For You’ is at number six and 21 Savage’s collaboration with Drake, ‘Rich Flex’, is at number seven. Talk about striking while the iron is hot.
Just below the surface, everyone from Travis Scott to Enya is involved in some way with the track. Mario Winans’ 2004 single ‘I Don’t Wanna Know’ provides the basis for The Weeknd’s chorus hook, so that means P. Diddy gets a writing credit as well. If you’re bored and need something to do, try to make a family tree out of all the credits on ‘Creepin’. It’ll keep you occupied for a while.
Billboard Hot 100 Top Ten (Week of January 21st, 2023):
- ‘Anti-Hero’ – Taylor Swift
- ‘Kill Bill’ – SZA
- ‘Unholy’ – Sam Smith & Kim Petras
- ‘I’m Good (Blue)’ – David Guetta & Bebe Rexha
- ‘Creepin’ – Metro Boomin, The Weeknd, & 21 Savage
- ‘Die For You’ – The Weeknd
- ‘Rich Flex’ – Drake & 21 Savage
- ‘As It Was’ – Harry Styles
- ‘Bad Habit’ – Steve Lacy
- ‘Something in the Orange’ – Zach Bryan
This Week in Number Ones: ‘Brass in Pocket’ -The Pretenders (#1 on the UK Singles Chart, January 19th, 1980)
What was the first punk song to top the UK Singles Chart? It’s a question that has a surprisingly difficult answer and a whole lot of interesting stories behind it. What constitutes as punk? Can a band that was punk score a number one with a punk song? Do other related subgenres that flirted with the punk scene, including two-tone ska or new wave, count?
If you believe the conspiracy theories (which, as it turns out, actually have quite a basis in fact), the Sex Pistols’ ‘God Save the Queen’ should have hit number one, but the powers that controlled the UK Singles Chart made sure that Rod Stewart’s ‘I Don’t Want to Talk About It’ was on the top of the chart instead. From that moment on, it seemed like a doomed proposition to get any punk song at number one.
The Boomtown Rats scored a number one hit with ‘Rat Trap’, although the jaunty piano and saxophone lines weren’t exactly punk staples. Ian Dury and The Blockheads got to the top of the charts with their disco pastiche ‘Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick’, showing that if a punk wanted a number one song, they needed to wrap themselves up in something more conventional.
That’s what Chrissie Hynde probably took from the charts. As one of the original punks that hung around the nascent scene of the mid-1970s, Hynde had been England’s best-kept secret all throughout the punk explosion. After palling around with The Clash and the Sex Pistols and forming her own bands like Masters of the Backside and The Moors Murderers, Hynde still hadn’t made any real impact on music. The punk scene was dying, and Hynde had already spent half a decade trying to make it in music.
With one final kick, Hynde formed The Pretenders in 1978. Recruiting musicians from around the punk scene, including Pete Farndon, James Honeyman-Scott, and Martin Chambers. The group didn’t play punk rock – instead, a more melodic style of music came out of Hynde. It was the start of what would become new wave, and Hynde had finally found her place among the crowded London scene.
While the band’s debut did feature frantic rhythms and distorted guitars, Pretenders also featured a jangle-pop version of The Kinks’ ‘Stop Your Sobbing’, the bass-heavy funk jam ‘Mystery Achievement’, and the uptempo power pop thump of ‘Tattooed Love Boys’. Toward the end of the tracklisting, the album also had an honest-to-god pop smash in ‘Brass in Pocket’.
Filled with inside jokes, personal references, rhyming slang, and American terms like “Detroit leaning”, ‘Brass in Pocket’ was an enigma from its very first lines. But what never got lost in translation was the monster hook that sat at the centre of the song. With a light shuffling beat and Hynde’s commanding vocal performance, ‘Brass in Pocket’ was an obvious single, even if it lived outside the punk comfort zone that the band still lived in at the time.
With ‘Brass in Pocket’, The Pretenders became one of the first homemade punk bands to scare a number one hit. Just a few weeks later, The Jam scored the first (and probably the last) number one from the original wave of punk with ‘Going Underground’. By that point, most punks were looking to expand their musical palates. Hynde was among them, and with the Pretenders, she continued to score new wave pop hits that her a pioneering voice in music. ‘Brass in Pocket’ wasn’t punk, but it was about as close as punk ever got to the top of the charts.
UK Singles Top Ten (Week of January 19th, 1980):
- ‘Brass in Pocket’ – The Pretenders
- ‘With You I’m Born Again’ – Billy Preston and Syreeta
- ‘Please Don’t Go’ – KC and the Sunshine Band
- ‘My Girl’ – Madness
- ‘Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)’ – Pink Floyd
- ‘I’m in the Mood For Dancing’ – The Nolans
- ‘I Have a Dream’ – ABBA
- ‘Tears of a Clown’ / ‘Ranking Full Stop’ – The Beat
- ‘Day Trip to Bangor’ – Fiddler’s Dream
- ‘I Only Want to Be With You’ – Tourists
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