{"id":439,"date":"2010-08-03T21:41:25","date_gmt":"2010-08-03T20:41:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=439"},"modified":"2010-08-03T21:41:25","modified_gmt":"2010-08-03T20:41:25","slug":"number-1s-of-2010-1-august-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=439","title":{"rendered":"Number 1s of 2010 – 1 August 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week’s chart had almost no activity in the top 20, other than a new number 1 thanks to some reshuffling among the established singles. \u00a0This week is quite the opposite. \u00a0Five new entries, and they’re all in the top ten. \u00a0Pretty much nothing of interest is going on further down.<\/p>\n

And the winner this week… is “All Time Low” by the Wanted.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Wanted are – and here are some words I haven’t had to use in ages – a manufactured boy band. \u00a0Look at them there in the video, sensitive yet non-threatening.<\/p>\n

And they’re quite open about being manufactured. \u00a0They were formed by audition, after their record company figured that, what with the success of JLS, there surely had to be a gap in the market for a boy band.<\/p>\n

A fair point, to be honest. \u00a0It’s been a while; the statute of limitations must have expired. \u00a0What was the last number 1 single from a manufactured boy band? \u00a0JLS don’t strictly count, because they aren’t manufactured – they showed up at the X-Factor<\/em> auditions already formed. \u00a0The current incarnation of Take That doesn’t really count either; they’re hardly boys any more. \u00a0In fact, by my reckoning, you’ve got to go back to 2007 and the tail-end of McFly’s career, with the double A-side “Baby’s Coming Back”<\/a>\/“Transylvania”<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As for the song… well, it’s surprisingly passable. \u00a0Somebody’s clearly put some effort into giving the band a distinctive debut single instead of going to the usual collection of drippy ballads that tend to plague Anglo-Irish boy bands, and all the better for it. \u00a0(Mind you, checking their YouTube channel, I see they’re still following the traditional route of playing the school assembly circuit. \u00a0They’ve also, somewhat more unusually, posted a lo-fi video of them singing the B-side – a cover of “Fight for this Love”<\/a> – in what looks like a hotel room, which at least confirms that they can hit a note without the benefit of autotune.)<\/p>\n

This week’s handful of other new entries:-<\/p>\n