The Week in Number Ones: Rihanna, SZA, and Chicago 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, it was all Taylor Swift all the time as pop’s biggest name unleashed Midnights and took over every single pop chart. We dove into the overwhelming popularity of Swift and traced her world-conquering power all the way back to ear-wormy and weirdly controversial ‘Shake It Off’.
It’s time for everybody’s favourite recurring segment: ‘Where Is Mr. Brightside on the UK Singles Chart This Week?’ Listen, in my opinion, it’s a bit of a slow week for new music – Taylor Swift is dominating, and the two biggest new songs are covered down below. Without anything else of major consequence, I’m going to indulge myself with my favourite part of this column.
You know the deal: The Killers’ iconic single ‘Mr. Brightside’ has continued to stay in the top 100 since its original release two decades ago. It easily holds the record for the longest run on the UK Singles Chart, and yes, if you go over to the chart at this very second, you’ll find the song charting somewhere.
This week, ‘Mr. Brightside’ is sitting at a solid number 82. That’s the same position as it was last week, so it’s holding strong with its 339th week on the chart. Yup, you read that right: ‘Mr. Brightside’ has been in the top 100 (non-consecutively) for over six and a half years. Nobody is even close to matching that record, so when people got in a tizzy over Taylor Swift’s record-breaking accomplishments last week, make sure to remind them who the real champions of record-breaking chart runs are: The Killers.
This week, we shine a light on Rihanna’s return to pop music with her Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack addition, ‘Lift Me Up’. Over in America, we see another return as SZA hops back into the charts with her long-since-viral track ‘Shirt’. We also take some time to track the descent of American rock band Chicago from muscular jam-rock titans to wimpy power-ballad peddlers. All that and more as we round up the best chart news of the modern-day and recent past.
Current UK Number One: ‘Anti-Hero’ – Taylor Swift
Do you know how long it has been since Rihanna released a solo single? Six years. All the way back in 2016, the final solo single to be released from that year’s Anti was ‘Love on the Brain’. Since then, the N.E.R.D. collaboration ‘Lemon’ and the PartyNextDoor pair-up ‘Believe It’ have featured Rihanna, as have songs from Kendrick Lamar, SZA, and Future, but there haven’t been any solo joints.
That ends now, as Rihanna’s contribution to the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack has officially hit the charts. ‘Lift Me Up’ is everything you’d want in a movie tie-in: it’s anthemic, grandiose, and catchy. The track can be considered a tribute to Chadwick Boseman or a powerful anthem of self-reliance if you want to see it that way.
The other way to see ‘Lift Me Up’ is as a generic power ballad. It’s certainly not going to rank near the top shelf of Rihanna’s work, but that’s probably because her top shelf is damn near legendary. For what it is, ‘Life Me Up’ is a perfectly good, if somewhat generic, movie theme. Is that a harp in the backing track? Hey, that’s pretty cool!
Really, this track could have been four minutes of pure silence. It’s new Rihanna music, for godsakes. That’s all any of us really care about, and that’s good enough to land it in the top five on both sides of the Atlantic. Alright, now it’s time for more new music from Rihanna, right? Right?!?
UK Singles Top Ten (Week of November 9th, 2022):
- ‘Anti-Hero’ – Taylor Swift
- ‘Unholy’ – Sam Smith & Kim Petras
- ‘Lift Me Up’ – Rihanna
- ‘Forget Me’ – Lewis Capaldi
- ‘Miss You’ – Oliver Tree & Robin Schulz
- ‘Lavender Haze’ – Taylor Swift
- ‘Hide and Seek’ – Stormzy
- ‘Snow on the Beach’ – Taylor Swift ft. Lana Del Rey
- ‘Cuff It’ – Beyoncé
- ‘Psycho’ – Anne-Marie & Aitch
Current US Number One: ‘Anti-Hero’ – Taylor Swift
After a historic week where Taylor Swift owned all top ten positions on the Billboard Hot 100, things have calmed down a reset to largely what they were pre-Midnights. Swift still has four of the top places to her name, including remaining at number one with ‘Anti-Hero’, but the previous chart hits like ‘Unholy’, ‘Bad Habit’ and ‘As It Was’ are making returns to their prior places.
So instead of looking at the top ten, let’s go just outside to number 11, where we see R&B superstar SZA. The world has known about her new chart hit ‘Shirt’ for a long time. Well, maybe not the entire world, but certainly anyone who has been on TikTok over the last year (which is quite a largely number of people) has heard a snippet of the track.
The official release of ‘Shirt’ has been two years in the making. Back in October of 2020, SZA first dropped a snippet of the song that soon became TikTok fodder. Fans and casual viewers helped make ‘Shirt’ a hit before it was even released, and when we look back on pop history, the track could be used as a case study of why social media trends and crazes were so instrumental in creating hit songs.
With two years of hype, dance challenges, and fan-led naming campaigns, the actual release of ‘Shirt’ is only slightly underwhelming. Basically, if you’ve heard the snippet that’s been going around for two years, you’ve already heard the best part of the song. Still, it’s always welcome to get a new SZA song in the world, especially when it’s one that’s been percolating for exactly 24 months.
Billboard Top Ten Singles (Week of November 12th, 2022):
- ‘Anti-Hero’ – Taylor Swift
- ‘Lift Me Up’ – Rihanna
- ‘Unholy’ – Sam Smith & Kim Petras
- ‘Bad Habit’ – Steve Lacy
- ‘As It Was’ – Harry Styles
- ‘Lavender Haze’ – Taylor Swift
- ‘Midnight Rain’ – Taylor Swift
- ‘I Like You (A Happier Song)’ – Post Malone ft. Doja Cat
- ‘Bejeweled’ – Taylor Swift
- ‘Super Freaky Girl’ – Nicki Minaj
This Week in Number Ones: ‘If You Leave Me Now’ – Chicago (#1 on the UK Singles Chart, November 13th, 1976)
Believe it or not, there was a time when the band Chicago was cool. OK, maybe not “suave and sophisticated” cool, but certainly at the cresting wave of an ultra-popular new genre of music. As the 1960s came to a close, rock fans wanted something more. They wanted to stretch out, smoke up, and just see some of their favourite musicians noodle away for hours on end. They wanted the jams!
Of course, the band that was at the forefront of this movement was the Grateful Dead. With extended improvisations and an amicably heady atmosphere, Dead shows could extend to four hours long and beyond. But the Dead weren’t alone in their explorations. Prog leaders like Hawkwind were testing their own limits of interplanetary travel, while conventional rock bands like Led Zeppelin and Cream were taking their own improvised journeys that could stretch out to as long as 30 minutes for a single song.
Over in the windy city, a group of R&B and jazz nerds wanted to play rock music. They had a full horn section and three singers with incredibly distinct voices, but they had no stage presence and no concept of succinct songwriting. They did have insane musical chops, extended song suites, and a willingness to test the limits of rock and roll.
And then they threw it all away to chase trends. I’ll stand up and say it: Chicago is a good band, but they’re also a band that lost their way. If you go back to their debut, 1969’s Chicago Transit Authority, there are time signature-bending jams, free-form guitar, and wild percussion breakdowns all over the place. It’s the kind of record that still sounds great and could compete with any of the new rock bands on the scene at the time.
The bluesy vocals and stinging lead guitar of Terry Kath were the major draws of the band at this time. His rip-roaring style and love of jamming pushed Chicago into a harder and funkier territory. Still, his fellow band members preferred mellower and more traditional styles when it came to songwriting. Another major factor was that, while his vocals were prominent, bassist Peter Cetera hadn’t fully overshadowed the band by this point.
The signs were there. 1970’s Chicago II had the ballad ‘Colour My World’ during the epic ‘Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon’ song suite, along with a big, fat Cetera ballad at the album’s conclusion, ‘Where Do We Go From Here’. Clearly, the band, and Cetera specifically, had a talent for slower songs. Even better, those were the songs that were more likely to get picked up by pop radio.
By 1976’s Chicago X, Cetera and fellow cheeseball Robert Lamm eased the band into adult contemporary territory. Kath was all but checked out, having descended into drug and alcohol abuse that limited his contributions. For their only number one song in the UK, Kath didn’t even contribute guitar on ‘If You Leave Me Now’, having grown sick of the balladry that had taken over the group. Instead, producer James William Guercio recorded the guitars that appeared on ‘If You Leave Me Now’.
Even more egregiously, Guercio opted to use orchestra arrangements on ‘If You Leave Me Now’, despite Chicago already having a more-than-competent horn section. The result is soft rock schlock that can still boil your blood if it catches you off-guard. As someone who finds themselves defending Chicago as a band that’s more than just their wimpy ballads, ‘If You Leave Me Now’ certainly makes it hard.
It didn’t matter: ‘If You Leave Me Now’ was a number one hit in the US and the UK. From that point on, Chicago fell off a cliff and never recovered. Kath’s death in 1978 permanently removed any menace or soul from the band, and Cetera began taking the lead as their foremost balladeer. Chicago might not have been “cool” before ‘If You Leave Me Now’, but they at least had a diverse catalogue with some truly kickass songs. After ‘If You Leave Me Now’ hit big, Chicago was permanently lost to the sea of soft rock, never to return again.
UK Singles Top Ten (Week on November 13th, 1976):
- ‘If You Leave Me Now’ – Chicago
- ‘Mississippi’ – Pussycat
- ‘You Make Me Feel Like Dancing’ – Leo Sawyer
- ‘Don’t Take Away The Music’ – Tavares
- ‘When Forever Has Gone’ – Demis Roussos
- ‘Hurt’ – The Manhattans
- ‘Play That Funky Music’ – Wild Cherry
- ‘Howzat’ – Sherbert
- ‘Summer of My Life’ – Simon May
- ‘Love and Affection’ – Joan Armatrading
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out New Music Newsletter
All the latest New Music from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.