{"id":228,"date":"2010-02-15T21:39:15","date_gmt":"2010-02-15T21:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=228"},"modified":"2010-02-15T21:39:15","modified_gmt":"2010-02-15T21:39:15","slug":"number-1s-of-2010-14-february","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=228","title":{"rendered":"Number 1s of 2010 – 14 February"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cometh the disaster, cometh the charity single.\u00a0 The Haiti earthquake has prompted plenty of fundraising efforts, and the British record industry’s contribution is this cover version of “Everybody Hurts”<\/strong>, credited to Helping Haiti.\u00a0 <\/strong>The official video isn’t on their YouTube channel, but here’s an officially sanctioned set of still photos.<\/p>\n

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This was organised by Simon Cowell, supposedly at the request of the Prime Minister.\u00a0 The complete list of participants: Leona Lewis, Rod Stewart, Mariah Carey, Cheryl Cole, Mika, Michael Buble, Joe McElderry, Miley Cyrus, James Blunt, half of Take That, Jon Bon Jovi, James Morrison, Alexandra Burke, Susan Boyle, half of JLS, half of Westlife, Kylie Minogue and Robbie Williams.\u00a0 And it sounds pretty much exactly how you’d expect from a charity cover version with those artists attached.<\/p>\n

Of course, charity singles are essentially review proof, because they’re not really about the quality.\u00a0 They’re about the money and they’re about raising the profile of the cause.\u00a0 Or, if you prefer, they’re records which people buy to show support.\u00a0 Obviously, judged purely as a piece of music, it’s a mediocre cover version of a good song, and at best, it’s hard to imagine why anyone would listen to it in preference to the R.E.M. original.\u00a0 But that’s not the point, really, and nobody seriously pretends that it is.<\/p>\n

The single sold in vast quantities in its first couple of days on sale, but tailed off later in the week to sales which were merely very good rather than jawdropping.\u00a0 In the end it shifted a little under half a million copies in its first week.\u00a0 Interestingly, this week’s charity single – a remake of “We Are The World” – doesn’t seem to be selling anywhere near as well.\u00a0 At the time of writing, it’s at number 25 on the\u00a0British iTunes chart, which is surprisingly low.<\/p>\n

R.E.M. themselves have never had a UK number one hit single, though they’ve had seven number one albums.\u00a0\u00a0They’re one of those acts who sell mainly in albums, and whose\u00a0track record on the singles chart gives a\u00a0very distorted impression of their career – partly because they picked up some of their biggest hits with\u00a0relatively minor singles that came out in quiet weeks. \u00a0 The original of “Everybody Hurts”<\/a>\u00a0peaked at number 7 on its release in 1993.\u00a0\u00a0Their biggest hit is technically “The Great Beyond”<\/a>, which reached number 3 in 2000.\u00a0 Their second biggest UK hit, surprisingly, is “E-Bow The Letter”<\/a>, the lead single from “New Adventures in Hi-Fi”, which got to number 4 in 1996.<\/p>\n

“Everybody Hurts” knocks Owl City off the top after a respectable three weeks.\u00a0 “Fireflies” is still at number 2, so (unless there’s another major new release which has been rescheduled to avoid Helping Haiti) it would presumably have hung on for a fourth.\u00a0 Three weeks is still enough to make it the longest-running number 1 since “Break Your Heart” by Taio Cruz last September.<\/p>\n

Naturally, a bunch of singles have passed through the charts since I last wrote one of these.\u00a0 From the sublime to the ridiculous…<\/p>\n