The Week in Number Ones: Toosii, Fifty Fifty, and Pet Shop Boys
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 took a look at the deep-voiced TikTok star David Kushner and his hot single ‘Daylight’ before highlighting just how massive Bad Bunny is right now. We also took a dive into ABBA’s ‘Waterloo’, the unlikely Eurovision winner that established ABBA as a massive pop music juggernaut.
Earlier in the week, country legend Dolly Parton announced her first proper rock and roll album, Rockstar. The lineup for the album borders on insanity, with just about everyone who has ever picked up an electric guitar providing something to the massive 30-song LP. Even some deceased individuals, like Lynyrd Skynyrd singer Ronnie Van Zant, are participating.
The pedigree involved in the making of Rockstar is top shelf, so in the spirit of this column, I thought it’d be fun to see how many artists have number one songs from the Billboard Hot 100 to their names. First and foremost is Parton herself, who managed to snag two chart toppers with ‘9 to 5’ and ‘Islands in the Stream’, her duet with Kenny Rogers.
Richie Sambora has four thanks to his stint with Bon Jovi, while Sting has one with The Police’s ‘Every Breath You Take’. The Wilson sisters have two with Heart, Steven Tyler has one with Aerosmith, and Stevie Nicks has one for writing Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Dreams’. Even though he’s not making a posthumous appearance, Prince does still count, thanks to Parton’s take on ‘Purple Rain’. Prince has five number ones, even though ‘Purple Rain’ isn’t one of them.
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts have one with ‘I Love Rock and Roll’ and so does Bob Seger with the Beverly Hills Cop II song ‘Shakedown’. Miley Cyrus has two, including the recent chart-topper ‘Flowers, while Pink has a whopping four (she’s helping Parton cover The Rolling Stones’ ‘Satisfaction’; The Stones have eight number ones). Kevin Cronin has two with REO Speedwagon, Debbie Harry and Chris Stein have four with Blondie, and Elton John has nine.
Led Zeppelin never got a number one, but Parton’s ‘Stairway to Heaven’ duet partner Lizzo has two. Simon Le Bon also has two with Duran Duran, while Michael McDonald splits his two between The Doobie Brothers hit ‘What a Fool Believes’ and his duet with Patti LaBelle, ‘On My Own’. That leaves us with The Beatles, who have a massive 20 number ones. Paul McCartney has nine outside of the group, counting his chart toppers with Wings, and Ringo Starr has two solo number ones. That’s a lot of chart-topping star power for one album.
This week, we dive into the K-pop success of Fifty Fifty and investigate the song posted up just outside the top ten in America, Toosii’s ‘Favourite Song’. After that, we look at a wildly diverse 1986 and how a pair of British synth-pop scientists landed a chart-topper with Pet Shop Boys’ ‘West End Girls’. 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
If nothing else, working on this column for as long as I have has given me a newfound appreciation for foreign-language acts. Just last week, I was a bit astounded at how ignorant I was of the Spanish-speaking sect of pop music. Similarly, I had always known how big of a deal K-pop was around the world, but we’re still in the era of breaking records for certain acts.
Case in point: South Korean girl group Fifty Fifty has landed their single ‘Cupid’ in the top ten of the UK Singles Chart. That in and of itself is kind of a big deal – there have been plenty of other K-pop and J-pop groups who have snuck some songs into the top ten, but they’ve all been boy bands and male groups. Fifty Fifty are now officially the first girl group in K-pop to land a top ten single in the UK.
The bigger deal has to do with how quickly Fifty Fifty went from relative unknowns in Britain to major pop-music figures. After just four months of release, ‘Cupid’ helped Fifty Fifty become the K-pop fastest group to enter the UK Singles Chart. Yeah, not BTS – Fifty Fifty.
The English version doesn’t even feature the entire group – only half of Fifty Fifty appear on the version of ‘Cupid’ that is currently climbing up the charts. Still, this counts as a watershed moment for music as a global force. The idea that America and Britain are the only superpowers for pop music is completely antiquated, and if you’re not bowing to your K-pop overlords, now might be a good time to do so.
UK Singles Top Ten (Week of May 11th, 2023):
- ‘Miracle’ – Calvin Harris & Ellie Goulding
- ‘Daylight’ – David Kushner
- ‘People’ – Libianca
- ‘Wish You The Best’ – Lewis Capaldi
- ‘Calm Down’ – Rema
- ‘Eyes Closed’ – Ed Sheeran
- ‘React’ – Switch Disco & Ella Henderson
- ‘As It Was’ – Harry Styles
- ‘Cupid’ – Fifty Fifty
- ‘Tony Soprano 2′ – Nines
Current US Number One: ‘Last Night’ – Morgan Wallen
Well, the Billboard Hot 100 is completely boring this week. Nothing in the top four spots has changed from last week, including the insufferable Morgan Wallen holding tight to the number one spot like it’s a paycheck from a cancelled show. Every song from last week’s top ten is still in this week’s top ten, giving me some weird deja vu and a short list of things to talk about.
So let’s talk about the number 11 song in the US this week: Toosii’s ‘Favorite Song’. First off, great title, man. Not only is it begging for trouble, but someone already beat you to the punch: Chance the Rapper and Childish Gambino kind of cornered the market with the self-aware ‘Favorite Song’. What does Toosii bring to the table that Chance and Donald Glover couldn’t? Not much.
If you’re feeling like this is weirdly out of place, then you’re right. ‘Favorite Song’ came out back in February and was explicitly a Valentine’s Day song. Is it sweet to hear someone rap about how they’re the perfect partner and will treat someone right? I guess, but it’s also schlocky and boring. Why did we dig up this track a few months past its expiration date and throw it on the pop charts?
Once again, I will avoid trying to understand the logic and reasoning behind why certain songs become hits at certain times on TikTok. Don’t ask me, and don’t ask TikTok: they don’t know either. But with a top ten stuck in some weird time loop, I guess people have to look backwards to find new material instead of forwards.
Billboard Hot 100 Top Ten (Week of May 13th, 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
- ‘Die For You’ – The Weeknd & Ariana Grande
- ‘Boy’s a Liar, Pt. 2’ – PinkPanthress & Ice Spice
- ‘Anti-Hero’ – Taylor Swift
This Week in Number Ones: ‘West End Girls’ – Pet Shop Boys (#1 on the Billboard Hot 100, May 10th, 1986)
1986 was a wild year on the American pop charts. Here’s a full list of all artists who reached the top of the charts that year, in order: Lionel Richie, Dionne Warwick, Elton John, Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston, Mr. Mister, Starship, Heart, Falco, Prince, Robert Palmer, Pet Shop Boys, Whitney Houston (again), Madonna, Patti LaBelle, Michael McDonald, Billy Ocean, Simply Red, Genesis followed immediately by Peter Gabriel, Peter Cetera, Madonna (again), Steve Winwood, Bananarama, Berlin, Huey Lewis, Janet Jackson, Cyndi Lauper, Boston, The Human League, Bon Jovi, Peter Cetera (again), Amy Grant, Bruce Hornsby, and The Bangles.
I’m no math guy, but 33 different artists in 53 weeks is an insane number. Dionne Warwick’s collaboration with Elton John, Gladys Knight, and Stevie Wonder, ‘That’s What Friends Are For’, spent the longest time at number one with four weeks at the top of the chart. For most acts, the average was either one or two weeks. Music fans were ravenous for pop songs and they were willing to look anywhere for it. As a result, a mini-British Invasion happened again on the American pop charts, throwing old and new artists alike to the number one spot.
The first group to get their foot in the door was the Pet Shop Boys. Made up of synth-pop masterminds Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, the duo were already a concern in their home country. Formed by two electronica nerds, Pet Shop Boys emerged after the initial British wave of synthpop had already died down and faded away. Neil Tennant will always be a hero to people in my profession because, well, he was in my profession as a writer and editor for the British music magazine Smash Hits before he leapt over into being the talent instead of interviewing the talent.
The band had a number of songs that were hits in waiting: ‘It’s a Sin’, ‘I Want a Lover’, and ‘Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money)’ chief among them. But they also had one song that they knew could be a global smash if they recorded it right. ‘West End Girls’ was atypical for the British synth scene, with its DNA more closely connected to American hip-hop and house music than it was to anything coming from London clubs. Tennant even attempts to rap himself, coming off as cool and detached to match the song’s mysterious sound.
The first version of ‘West End Girls’ was indeed an underground hit in America when it was first released in 1984. Produced by Hi-NRG figure Bobby O, the original version of the track is more reliant on outdated synth sounds but is otherwise mostly similar. The primitive version of ‘West End Girls’ was all well and good, but the Pet Shop Boys wanted more for the song. With a new EMI record deal, the duo paired up with producer Stephen Hague to rerecord the track.
Adding icier synth string lines and a funkier, the new version of ‘West End Girls’ had an allure and sleekness that the original couldn’t match. Pet Shop Boys finally had their perfect version of the track, complete with cowbell, traffic noises, and a trumpet solo. It was a fatalistic track that didn’t even try to appeal to the mainstream, and yet its intoxicating sound was enough to make it a major cross-continental hit.
Pet Shop Boys were never meant to be pop superstars anyway. Both members valued their privacy and relative anonymity, rendering their chances of becoming US pop stars nil. The duo kept cranking out hits in the UK, but apart from their 1987 Dusty Springfield collaboration ‘What Have I Done To Deserve This?’, Pet Shop Boys never threatened to make it to the top of the US charts again.
That might be for the best: in the tapestry that was 1986 number one songs, ‘West End Girls’ has weirdly become one of the songs that’s most impervious to the passage of time. Still sounding as sleek and enticing as it did on its original release, there’s very little in the way of goofy production or outdated technology in ‘West End Girls’. It still sounds cool, which is way more than you can say for ‘That’s What Friends Are For’.
Billboard Hot 100 Top Ten (Week of May 10th, 1986):
- ‘West End Girls’ – Pet Shop Boys
- ‘Addicted to Love’ – Robert Palmer
- ‘The Greatest Love of All’ – Whitney Houston
- ‘Why Can’t This Be Love’ – Van Halen
- ‘What Have You Done For Me Lately’ – Janet Jackson
- ‘Your Love’ – The Outfield
- ‘Take Me Home’ – Phil Collins
- ‘Bad Boy’ – Miami Sound Machine
- ‘Harlem Shuffle’ – The Rolling Stones
- ‘If You Leave Me’ – Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
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