THE 1000 UK NUMBER ONES POLL.

your asking a lot !

?

Here's how I did it.

Took the spreadsheet, and marked every "possible" with an X in column C. Did this quickly, working on instant reactions/gut instinct. Rule of thumb: if in doubt, leave it out.

Sorted the spreadsheet: Data / Sort / Column C descending.
This gave a long-list of 119.

Went through the long-list, marking every "definite" with XX.

Did the Sort again.
This gave a shortlist of 49. Picked one more from the long-list.

Marked all the "definite top ten" with XXX and sorted again.
This gave a top 12.
Arranged the top 12 in order.

Marked and arranged the "definite top twenty", and so on.

Shouldn't take more than 30 minutes maximum...

There is already a runaway winner, and a clear gap between #2/#3 and the rest of the field. One of the three is something which I would never have predicted.

All decades except the 1950s feature at least once in the current Top 10.

309 songs (31%) have picked up at least one vote.

Keep 'em coming...

No, I'm kidding. What kind of ecstasy were these people on?

"Brimful of Asha" got to number one? That song's so fucking boring...I'm amazed it did as well as it did Stateside.

I can't BELIEVE some of the total bobbins that some people have voted for, but rest assured: I won't be breaking the confessional sanctity of the Inbox. At least it's canon-busting.

Hobart & Stevem: That's two howls of dismay so far. Or whimpers of dismay, at least. I'd really like to post the results this Friday, but I'm a Listening Kinda Guy, so we'll see...

Namely ME: I put "Hello Goodbye," "Candy Girl," "Can We Fix It?," "The Cha Cha Slide," "I Just Called To Say I Love You," and "Xanadu" on mine.

As for the 997 lines on the spreadsheet: take a look back up to the top of the page, where all is explained.

Plenty of non-canonical surprise choices in the Top 20; in fact, it's the surprise choices that are currently making the biggest gains.

One major hitmaking act has yet to pick up a single vote.

Three songs that have been voted as people's favourites have failed to pick up a single vote from anyone else.

I have danced in public to 13 songs in the current top 20.

thats it for 'the final countdown' then ;'''(

I think Alba is right though, 'Ghost Town' could well win this.

1) Atomic Blondie
2) Wuthering Heights Kate Bush
3) Freak Like Me The Sugababes
4) Hot Love T.Rex
5) Brass In Pocket The Pretenders
6) A Town Called Malice/Precious The Jam
7) Paint It Black The Rolling Stones
8) Beetlebum Blur
9) Bright Eyes Art Garfunkel
10)Eternal Flame The Bangles
11) Get It On T.Rex
12) Imagine John Lennon
13) The Hindu Times Oasis
14) All The Things She Said Tatu
15) Blue Moon The Marcels
16) Ghost Town The Specials
17) I Want To Hold Your Hand The Beatles
18) Call Me Blondie
19) Telegram Sam T.Rex
20) The Drugs Don't Work The Verve
21) Stand By Me Ben E. King
22) Oops... I Did it Again - Britney
23) Metal Guru T.Rex
24) Nothing Compares 2 U Sinead O'Connor
25) Round Round Sugababes
26) Runaway Del Shannon
27) Some Might Say Oasis
28) Sunday Girl Blondie
29) Heart Of Glass Blondie
30) Country House Blur
31) Don't Look Back In Anger Oasis
32) I'm a Believer - The Monkees
33) The Tide is High - Blonde
34) Are You Lonesome Tonight Elvis Presley
35) Space Oddity David Bowie
36) Unchained Melody The Righteous Brothers
37) Yellow Submarine / Eleanor Rigby The Beatles
38) You Really Got Me The Kinks
39) Get off my Cloud - Rolling Stones
40) Sound of the Unerground - Girls Aloud
41) Kiss Kiss Holly Valance
42) Sad Sweet Dreamer Sweet Sensation
43) Should I Stay Or Should I Go The Clash
44) Maria Blondie
45) Back For Good Take That
46) Profesisonal Widow - Tori Amos
47) Toxic... Britney
48) Beat Surrender The Jam
49) Like A Prayer Madonna
50) You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' The Righteous Brothers

This was a No.1? How did I miss this?

I think I voted for all the other Blondie No.1s in my 50, though.

But who was in second? (Answer in five)

-- mark grout (mark.grou...) (webmail), January 18th, 2005 2:04 PM. (link)

It is Mel C.

(Er, if it's this week?)

This would also allow for a small deadline extension.

Come On Eileen Dexy's Midnight Runners
Dancing Queen Abba
Video Killed The Radio Star The Buggles
What A Wonderful World / Cabaret Louis Armstrong
99 Red Balloons Nena
Into The Groove Madonna
Relax Frankie Goes To Hollywood
Always On My Mind The Pet Shop Boys
Crazy In Love Beyonce
I Feel Love Donna Summer
Nothing Compares 2 U Sinead O'Connor
Billie Jean Michael Jackson
I Heard It Through The Grapevine Marvin Gaye
Pump Up The Volume MARRS
Tainted Love Soft Cell
The Power Of Love Frankie Goes To Hollywood
The Winner Takes It All Abba
Wuthering Heights Kate Bush
You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) Dead Or Alive
Don't You Want Me The Human League
Ghost Town The Specials
Star Trekkin' The Firm
The Model / Computer Love Kraftwerk
Up Town Top Ranking Althia & Donna
Are Friends Electric? Tubeway Army
Atomic Blondie
China In Your Hand T'Pau
Don't Stop Movin' S Club 7
Heart The Pet Shop Boys
Papa Don't Preach Madonna
Professional Widow Tori Amos
Setting Sun The Chemical Brothers
The Sun Always Shines On TV A-Ha
Ticket To Ride The Beatles
Candy Girl New Edition
Toxic Britney Spears
Turtle Power Partners In Kryme
Two Tribes Frankie Goes To Hollywood
Xanadu Olivia Newton-John & The Electric Light Orchestra
3AM Eternal The K.L.F. featuring Children of the Revolution
Bridge Over Troubled Water Simon & Garfunkel
Doctorin' The Tardis The Timelords
Fire The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown
Heart Of Glass Blondie
Hoots Mon Lord Rockingham's XI
Ice Ice Baby Vanilla Ice
Respectable Mel & Kim
Same Old Brand New You A1
Say You'll Be There The Spice Girls
Something In The Air Thunderclap Newman

(6 on Stevem's list, none on Calz's and only 3 songs in common with it)

I overlooked this?! *thwacks self*

I didn't include any Beatles songs in my list, which astonished me -- the Beatles songs I would have chosen ("Penny Lane," esp.) all managed to not hit #1 on those shores.

I've never totally subscribed to that conspiracy theory; Rod Stewart was HUGE in 1977, and it was a double A-side, and the vast majority of the population disliked the Pistols, and not all stores were even stocking God Save The Queen.

No: the biggest omission is in fact Deee-Lite's "Groove Is In The Heart", which tied for #1 with the Steve Miller Band's "The Joker" in 1990. What happened is that a spurious "rule" was introduced, in which the single already at Number One retained the position. It was thus very tempting to include Deee-Lite on moral grounds... but I didn't, because life can be cruel like that.

Sleeper deserved a few number ones. So did Elastica and Echobelly.

Nirvana never got one either, or The Stone Roses.

This sucks.

Ah, thanks. I should have looked.

In which case, let's get this one in a week early.

VOTING DEADLINE EXTENDED TO 13:00 (UK TIME) ON SUNDAY JAN 23.

RESULTS ANNOUNCED BETWEEN 16:00 AND 19:00 (UK TIME) ON SUNDAY JAN 23.

Don't look for it, it isn't here.

My list shares 10 songs with calum and 15 songs with stevem. ergo I am more like stevem than calum. I'm pleased with it, I think.

I think Freda Payne and Suzi Quatro were relegated.

Unlikely 'though I agree it may seem (and seemed even more so at the time), figures from the distributors apparently indicate that the quantities of 'Pistols singles that they were shifting that week were outstripping quantities of Rod's by a ratio of something decisive like 2 or 3 to 1.

I rather suspect that a lot of people bought GSTQ for all sorts of different reasons that had little or nothing to do with liking either the tune or the band....

My method, on any poll offering a list from which to choose: start reading the list; copy any that catch my eye as likely contenders for my top whatever and paste them into a Notepad in their position relative to what I've already put there. I always end up with too many at the end. Reread the list to see if I am still happy with the positioning, number them, throw away the spares. It's very quick for me.

I had a few "wtf, THAT was #1??" moments too ("Do the Bartman", "Chocolate Salty Balls", etc.).

Four songs have pulled 100 points clear of the field, with the lead constantly swapping between them.

One act has two singles in the Top 10.

Over half the singles on the list now have at least one vote.

There is one particular single - well regarded, rarely disliked, strong song, generally does pretty well in these sorts of things, would have predicted it as a Top 100 cert - which has yet to pick up a single vote.

Excellent. Look forward to the big list and write up.. I assume one of the songs in the "top 4" is one of those in the "25 year Best Song" brit award nom...

Giving 50 points to our top choice and one point to our number 50
skews the vote massively. These are the top fifty out of a thousand songs, so surely it should be 1,000 points for the number one and 950 for number 50? The results would probably be very different (and would make lots more work for Mike)...

I don't think there's any 'surely' about it. There's no right answer. Assuming the points are supposed to be an indication of how much you like a track, the idea that your favour drops in a linear way from the top to the bottom seems psychologically unlikely.

-- Stewart Osborne (stewart.osborn...), January 18th, 2005.

Also, in Jubilee week the BPI introduced a rule which stated shops affiliated with record labels would be excluded from the list chart return shops when compiling the singles chart, i.e. excluding sales from Virgin and HMV shops, i.e. the shops where the majority of copies of "GSTQ" were bought. That rule was magically rescinded the following week. The head of the BPI at the time, John Fruin, was subsequently imprisoned for fraud.

Coupled with the fact that Kenny Rogers' "Lucille," which had actually dropped from 2 to 3 the previous week, suddenly went back up to number one the following week, this would seem to indicate that "GSTQ" actually was the biggest-selling single of Jubilee week.

David's system, despite one mathematical error (it should be 951 for a #50), does indeed produce different results. I've just tried it on the current Top 40, and positions vary by anything up to 14 places - although the usual difference is between 1 and 5 places, and the Number One doesn't change.

The arguable benefit of David's system is that it rewards songs with lots of lower placed votes, thus penalising songs with fewer, higher placed votes. However, you might still argue (as GP does above) that this favours the mediocre, the "quite good", as opposed to the songs that provoke the strongest reactions.

(Amongst my former work colleagues, who once ran a "who's the most fanciable famous lady?" poll, this is known as The Wynona Effect. This is because Wynona Ryder won the poll, despite never being placed much higher than about 7th. In other words, consensus won over passion.)

On the other hand... since you're picking 50 favourites from a pool of 1000, you might quite reasonably argue that all 50 of your choices are songs that you LOVE, as opposed to thinking are "quite good".

Which means that David has made a strong point.

*** blush ***

Looking at the CORRECTLY sorted Top 40, a massive flaw in David's methodology reveals itself. Basically, songs are now ordered strictly in order of the number of votes cast, with huge and unbreachable numeric gaps between each group. Which renders the whole exercise of putting songs into order pointless.

As you were, then...

Anyway, I'd like to see a vote on the greatest number 2 ever. Would Common People win it?

http://www.base58.com/text/number2.txt

Any one of the Jam's No 1 hits, especially A Town Called Malice. What will anyone have to say about the likes of 'Busted' in 20 years time?
Paul Cook, London, UK

The very best No 1 ever? "I Feel Love" by Donna Summer, without a doubt. A groundbreaking track when it was released back in 1977 and still stands up well today. The worst? Anything by the Spice Girls, I guess.
Nse Ette, Lagos, Nigeria

Surely the best number one ever, is In The Year 2525, by Zagar and Evans. The worst number one, Wannabe by Spice Girls, hard to believe that it came out in the same year as Firestarter by the Prodigy.
Tony Evans, Southport

My favourite No.1 was Your Woman by British Asian artist White Town.
Matt Fedak, Sheffield, England
(sorry i am just amused by the pointing out ethnicity of artist there)

this country etc.

the idea that someone would like one but not the other is very strange to me

I've received 43 sets of votes so far, which isn't bad for a tough task at short notice, and gives enough consensus to build a meaningful Top 100. (You need at least six separate votes to get into the Top 100, and things only start getting random and flaky below #150 or so.) Positions have mostly stabilised, and the Top 3 has been consistent for quite some time now.

but most of the no.1 singles are rubbish, tacky novelty songs.

i found it really quite easy to cut that 1000 (or 997) list down to about 55

If Fern Kinney and Sister Sledge do better than expected, you know who to blame.

I also gave much love to Ms Kinney, hobart.

I am surprised to find that I prefer "Can't get you out of my head" to "Ashes to Ashes", but apparently I do. Today. Right now. Ask me in an hour's time and I'll have changed my mind.

The top 3 were pretty easy. After that it sort of got random what went in and what didn't.

I'm getting quite excited about this. Do we get the results tomorrow, Mike?

I hadn't consciously realized it until reading this post, but my top 3 were sung by women too! After that, it gets a bit sparse, with 16 songs sung by women in my top 50 (including two duets with men).

Example number one: The Carpenters never had a Number One hit in the UK? WTF mang