{"id":372,"date":"2010-06-14T21:55:40","date_gmt":"2010-06-14T20:55:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=372"},"modified":"2010-06-14T21:55:40","modified_gmt":"2010-06-14T20:55:40","slug":"number-1s-of-2010-13-june-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=372","title":{"rendered":"Number 1s of 2010 – 13 June 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

In England, they take the World Cup very seriously. \u00a0Those of you on the other side of the Atlantic may not fully grasp quite how excited they get down there. \u00a0The English operate on a strict schedule. \u00a0Whenever the World Cup or the European Championships come around (every second year, basically), they proudly declare that this will be their year, and that they will finally win a major tournament for the first time since 1966. \u00a0They get terribly wound up about it. \u00a0And then, when they invariably get knocked out in the quarter finals, they go into an enormous national sulk.<\/p>\n

Here in Scotland, it works slightly differently. \u00a0The national team – for arcane historical reasons, the four components of the United Kingdom all enter separately – probably struggles to qualify at all, and if it does, the Scots are pretty much delighted to win a match. \u00a0I’m not kidding – just look at the official team song from 1998, Del Amitri’s “Don’t Come Home Too Soon”, a wistful ode to the distant dream of getting past the group stages.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object>
\n(If you’re too young or too American to remember, the video is a parody of a Nike advert with that year’s Brazilian team.)<\/p>\n

The English… well, as we’re about to see, the English are a bit more bombastic.<\/p>\n

And this week’s top 40 is a veritable tour of the English football song. \u00a0When album track downloads were first admitted to the singles chart, a deluge of seasonal favourites swamped the chart over Christmas. \u00a0It’s died down in later years. \u00a0This is the first World Cup of the download era and the results speak for themselves. \u00a0There are seven new entries on this week’s chart, and six<\/em> of them are football-related singles. \u00a0Three of them are from the back catalogue. \u00a0One of them is in the top ten. \u00a0A couple of them are quite good. \u00a0A couple of them definitely aren’t.<\/p>\n

Still, at least none of them has a vuvuzela. \u00a0Give it time.<\/p>\n

There is no official England team song this year. \u00a0That leaves the way clear for Simon Cowell, who has banged out a charity single. \u00a0Unveiled on the final of Britain’s Got Talent<\/em> and released midweek, this shifted 110,000 copies in four days to become number one. \u00a0“Shout” by Dizzee Rascal & James Corden.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

You’ve got to hand it to Dizzee Rascal, he’s desperate to get rid of that last remaining shred of credibility. \u00a0A mere two weeks after “Dirtee Disco” was number one, he’s back on a Simon Cowell novelty single. \u00a0It’s his sixteenth top 40 hit since 2003 and his fifth number 1 (all of them coming since 2008). \u00a0Commercially, he’s never been bigger.<\/p>\n

James Corden is an actor who’s been around for years, but saw a major career upturn when Gavin & Stacey<\/em>, which he co-wrote with Ruth Jones, was widely acclaimed as one of the BBC’s best sitcoms of recent years. \u00a0He’s never shown up in the charts before, though Jones, in character as Vanessa Jenkins, did have a number one with last year’s Comic Relief single “Islands in the Stream”. \u00a0Since the success of Gavin & Stacey<\/em>, Corden has been trying to diversify into comedy with decidedly mixed success. \u00a0A sketch show with Matthew Horne was generally agreed to be one of the worst comedy shows the BBC had ever made, and the less said of their film Lesbian Vampire Killers<\/em>, the better. \u00a0Supposedly he’s better as a panel game host, and he’s doing ITV’s post-match comedy show for this year’s World Cup coverage. \u00a0Basically, he’s talented but with a horrific lack of quality control, and his presence on this record is not a surprise.<\/p>\n

The song is a mash-up of “Shout” by Tears for Fears<\/a> (number 4 in 1984) with bits of\u00a0“No Diggity” by Blackstreet<\/a> (number 9 in 1996) and a load of yelling about the prospects of the England World Cup team. \u00a0It’s not awful<\/em>, and it’s certainly better than a lot of charity singles that Simon Cowell has had a hand in, but it’s not exactly a classic.<\/p>\n

At number 2 we have the week’s lone non-football single, “Frisky” by Tinie Tempah<\/a>. This is the follow-up to his debut “Pass Out”, which was number one earlier in the year. \u00a0Fans of the arrangement will be pleased to see that it’s back, complete with the double-paced drums in the last thirty seconds. \u00a0He just about gets away with it, though, and at least he’s more in touch with roots than most of the grime crossover acts have been.<\/p>\n

At number 10, we have the original version of “3 Lions” by David Baddiel, Frank Skinner and the Lightning Seeds.<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

Originally recorded as England’s official single for the Euro 96 tournament (held in England, hence the “It’s coming home” chorus), this is a rare example of a football single that’s legitimately quite good. Baddiel and Skinner are comedians who were hosting a football comedy show at the time, and the song is basically about being a fan of a team who haven’t actually achieved a great deal in 30 years. It’s unusually open about England being obsessed with past glories, too.<\/p>\n

The Lightning Seeds – represented in the video by their songwriter Ian Broudie – will probably be best known to Americans for their 1989 single “Pure”<\/a>, which was really quite good, now I come to think of it.<\/p>\n

“3 Lions” is held in genuine affection. \u00a0It reached number 1 on its release in 1996. \u00a0A rewritten version<\/a> (which is a bit whiny, to be honest) reached number 1 again for the 1998 World Cup. \u00a0A reissue made number 16 for the 2002 World Cup, and in 2006 it made number 9. \u00a0A cover version credited to The Squad, with Baddiel and Skinner’s blessing, was released a couple of weeks ago, and crashed out at number 21. \u00a0People want the original instead, and I don’t blame them.<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

At number 22, we have “World in Motion” by New Order. \u00a0(The original release was credited to “englandneworder”, but presumably people have been downloading it from New Order’s greatest hits album.) \u00a0This was the official England single for the 1990 World Cup, when it reached number 1. It remains their biggest hit (the runner-up being “Blue Monday”, which got to number 3). \u00a0The lyrical connection to football is… tenuous, to put it mildly. \u00a0It sounds suspiciously like a song they had lying around the studio, to which some football references were added at the last minute. \u00a0But that’s probably for the best. \u00a0As a concession to the remit, it also includes a notoriously terrible rap from striker John Barnes. \u00a0The bloke standing behind him is comedian Keith Allen, who co-wrote the lyrics. \u00a0We’ll be hearing from him again later.<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

From the sublime to the ridiculous, number 23 is “If I Can Dream” by Terry Venables, who was the England manager in the mid-nineties. This is being used in an advert by the Sun newspaper, and it’s basically a joke. It’s a cover of an Elvis Presley single which reached number 11 in 1969. One of those rare records which is not quite as bad as you’d think, yet still dreadful.<\/p>\n

And now, back to Keith Allen.<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

This, god help us, is “Vindaloo” by Fat Les, originally a number 2 hit for the 1998 World Cup, and now back at number 32. Fat Les were Keith Allen, Alex James from Blur, and Damian Hirst. On the offchance that some of you might conceivably not recognise it, I’ll mention that the video is a parody of “Bittersweet Symphony” by the Verve<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It’s certainly an odd record, with the weirdly sinister layered vocals. \u00a0Depending on your point of view, it’s either a self-deprecatingly ironic celebration of Englishness, or an extremely compelling argument for napalming the Groucho Club.<\/p>\n

Despite being involved in two separate England singles (plus his unofficial Euro 2000 England single “Jerusalem”), Keith Allen is Welsh. \u00a0His daughter is Lily Allen, who has made some vastly better records.<\/p>\n

Finally, and perhaps appropriately tailing in last, we have the official anthem of the 2010 World Cup.<\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

Because nothing says “football” like Shakira doing Afrobeat! It’s called “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)”. It’s her tenth UK hit – she’s released fewer singles than you’d think.<\/p>\n

Next week… probably a return to normal, assuming anyone’s crazy enough to try and promote a single when the population’s busy watching the football.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In England, they take the World Cup very seriously. \u00a0Those of you on the other side of the Atlantic may not fully grasp quite how excited they get down there. \u00a0The English operate on a strict schedule. \u00a0Whenever the World Cup or the European Championships come around (every second year, basically), they proudly declare that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=372"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":375,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions\/375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}