The Week in Number Ones: Libianca, Morgan Wallen, and Nena
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 got some major delayed reactions when The Weeknd took his seven-year-old song ‘Die For You’ finally hit number one in America. We also looked at the Phoebe-Bridgers-ification of pop with Lizzy McApline’s ‘Ceilings’ and went back in time with the nostalgic Four Seasons hit ‘December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)’.
You know that there’s no major news going on when I’m continuing to think about the Oscars for a second week in a row. I won’t bore you with the details, so here are the highlights in order of importance: Everything Everywhere All At Once, major disrespect toward both The Banshees of Inisherin and Tár, and a major triumph for ‘Naatu Naatu’. There, that’s it: you’ve caught up with the 95th Acadamy Awards.
This week, we wade into the waters of reality singing stars as both Libianca and Morgan Wallen dominate the charts on both sides of the Atlantic. Then, we take a trip to West Germany, where a Rolling Stones concert inspired one of the best new wave anthems of all time, ’99 Luftballons’. All that and more as we round up the best chart news of the modern-day and recent past.
Current UK Number One: ‘Flowers’ – Miley Cyrus
It’s 2023, and today was the first time I have ever written about the winner of a reality singing competition in this column. I actually had to go back and make sure I hadn’t written about Kelly Clarkson at some point, but alas, I had not. That makes Libianca the first “first” of mine in 2023. What time to be alive.
Libianca competed in the 21st (!) season of the American vocal competition The Voice. Country star and current Mr. Gwen Stefani, Blake Shelton, scooped her up and shepherded her to the competition’s top 20 contestants. She didn’t end up winning the show, but she did manage to nab a major label contract with 5K Records, owned by major music conglomerate Sony. And thus, now we have her debut single, ‘People’.
Remember when people used to get really mad at individuals who became famous on reality shows? Well, that’s now a completely bygone era, given the absolute rarity of people who actually become legitimately famous. Go ahead, name me someone who has won American Idol in the last decade. The only other current reality singer pop star I can name is Morgan Wallen – but more on him in a minute.
‘People’ certainly isn’t a bad song: it’s dreamy and lush and slightly reggae-tinged. Is it the greatest song on the earth right now? No. Is it way better than the standard singles that come from winners of reality singing shows? A hundred per cent. Maybe these singers are starting to emerge in a more prominent fashion these days. Now’s as good a time as any: bring The X Factor back, you cowards.
UK Singles Top Ten (Week of March 15th, 2023):
- ‘Flowers’ – Miley Cyrus
- ‘Boy’s a Liar’ – PinkPanthress
- ‘Die For You’ – The Weeknd & Ariana Grande
- ‘Kill Bill’ – SZA
- ‘Sure Thing’ – Miguel
- ‘Calm Down’ – Rema
- ‘Ceilings’ – Lizzy McApline
- ‘People’ – Libianca
- ‘As It Was’ – Harry Styles
- ‘Players’ – Coi LeRay
Current US Number One: ‘Last Night’ – Morgan Wallen
Like some kind of curse that I can’t shake, I once again find myself talking about Morgan Wallen. In case you missed it, I’ve written about America’s favourite country-pop superstar quite a bit over the recent months. But the strangest part about this ongoing saga is that Wallen’s story isn’t an eye-rolling blip in pop culture anymore. Instead, it’s looking like a major shift.
Once more with feeling: Morgan Wallen is an American country singer who is, commercially speaking, probably the genre’s biggest artist at the moment. He’s got an easy “bro dude” charm that has enthralled millions of white people country fans across the country. He was also caught saying the n-word and has a dubious history with Covid-19 safety. While Wallen himself has attempted to smooth over these controversies, the real news was that his fanbase dug their heels in as the rest of the world came down on him.
Whether he likes it or not, Wallen is currently the face of a pop culture divide that grows bigger every day. The reaction against “wokeness” and “cancelling” has benefitted Wallen as his fanbase pushed him to become an even bigger star. In America, the world of country music usually exists in a vacuum, with only brief appearances on the pop charts. Wallen just got his first number-one pop chart topper. He actually has five different songs in the top ten. And it’s all because Wallen’s fans backed him up.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing? At present, it’s kind of hard to tell. Has the reaction against Wallen been unfairly harsh? Was it not harsh enough? Is Wallen truly repentant for his misdeeds, or is he riding the wave of notoriety as far as it takes him? Is it possible that he can be both? That’s a lot of weight to put on a goofy-ass butt rock/country pop song like ‘Last Night’, but hey, that’s what comes with having the most popular song in America.
Billboard Hot 100 Top Ten (Week of March 18th, 2023):
- ‘Last Night’ – Morgan Wallen
- ‘Flowers’ – Miley Cyrus
- ‘Kill Bill’ – SZA
- ‘Die For You’ – The Weeknd & Ariana Grande
- ‘Boy’s a Liar, Pt. 2’ – PinkPanthress & Ice Spice
- ‘Creepin’ – Metro Boomin, The Weeknd & 21 Savage
- ‘Thought You Should Know’ – Mogan Wallen
- ‘You Proof’ – Morgan Wallen
- ‘Thinkin’ Bout Me’ – Morgan Wallen
- ‘One Thing at a Time’ – Morgan Wallen
This Week in Number Ones: ’99 Red Balloons’ – Nena (#1 on the UK Singles Chart, March 17th, 1984)
It all started with The Rolling Stones. As they toured behind Tattoo You in 1982, the Stones returned to West Berlin, the city that was protected by Allied forces until 1989. At that point, a standard ending to each concert featured a massive release of multi-coloured balloons, often while the band played ‘Satisfaction’. There’s a great video of the display while the band played the Hampton Collesium in 1981: while Jagger gets approached by a fan, Richards removes his Fender Telecaster Custom and proceeds to beat the fan with it.
Anyway, back to West Berlin. In the crowd that night was German guitarist Carlo Karges, who had only just joined the band Nena a year earlier. Karges wondered what would happen if the hyper-vigilant East Berlin military saw unidentified flying objects entering their airspace. An object as innocent as a balloon could trigger something horrible and potentially world-ending. That’s a heavy thought to have during ‘Satisfaction’.
Karges brought the idea to keyboardist Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen, and together the pair composed ’99 Luftballons’ for Nena. Complete with an infectious funk-pop keyboard riff and a manic energy that highlights the punk energy that still existed in mid-1980s new wave, ’99 Luftballons’ was the hit single that propelled Nena onto the world stage. In fact, demand for the song was so great that the band were convinced to record an English-language version of the track.
Whether it was pressure from the band’s record label, Epic Records, or simply the band themselves wanting the song to succeed in English-language markets, ’99 Luftballons’ became ’99 Red Balloons’. The English version wasn’t a direct translation of Karges’ German lyrics. Instead, Irish musician Kevin McAlea was tapped to write a new version of the song. McAlea chose to make the song’s lyrics more thematic and less tied to a specific story, although both versions share the same final message and McAlea decided to keep the reference to Star Trek‘s Captain Kirk.
Almost immediately after the English-language version of the track was released, Nena themselves expressed dissatisfaction with the English quasi-translation. Since the English version was specifically released in the United Kingdom, American singles were going to be imports no matter what. It was up to American audiences to decide which version of the track they liked the best.
Strangely enough, American audiences preferred the original German-language version of the single. The opposite was true in the United Kingdom, where the English-language version began climbing the charts. During the same week in March of 1984, ’99 Luftballons’ was poised for a chart-topping run in America while ’99 Red Balloons’ was doing the same in the UK. Ultimately, ’99 Luftballons’ stalled out at number two in America, stuck behind Van Halen’s sole number one hit, ‘Jump’.
But in the UK, ’99 Red Balloons’ went all the way to number one. Although Nena remained highly successful in Germany, only one other single, ‘Just a Dream’, brushed the lower rungs of the charts in both the UK and US. The band Nena ceased to exist in 1987, with the band’s eponymous lead singer continuing to score chart hits and tour in Europe to this day. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989, making ’99 Luftballons’ officially a relic of the Cold War era. But it’s remained fondly remembered, whether you choose to sing the German or English version of the song.
UK Singles Top Ten (Week of March 17th, 1985):
- ’99 Red Balloons’ – Nena
- ‘Joanna’ / ‘Tonight’ – Kool and the Gang
- ‘Street Dance’ – Break Machine
- ‘Wouldn’t It Be Good’ – Nik Kershaw
- ‘Hello’ – Lionel Richie
- ‘Relax’ – Frankie Goes to Hollywood
- ‘Jump’ – Van Halen
- ‘An Innocent Man’ – Billy Joel
- ‘Somebody’s Watching Me’ – Rockwell
- ‘The Music of Torvill and Dean’ – Richard Hartley and the Michael Reed Orchestra
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