THE 100 GREATEST No.1 SINGLES

1950s & 60s   1970s   1980s   1990s & 2000

1. I Believe - Frankie Laine.
   The record for most weeks ever at number one belongs not to Wet Wet Wet or Bryan Adams but to this fifties tearjerker which outsold all others for eighteen weeks.
2. Jailhouse Rock - Elvis Presley.
   The movie of the song inspired Elvis's best screen performance….. and the big Jailhouse Rock production number is the grandfather of the modern pop video. In Britain the recording was the first single ever to debut at number one.
3. That'll Be The Day - Buddy Holly and the Crickets.
   The song that inspired a generation - it was one of the first John Lennon learnt to play. It was Holly's first release and after the initial setback of the song being rejected by Decca, the shortsighted Texan took it to number one on both sides of the Atlantic.
4. (We're Gonna) Rock Around The Clock - Bill Haley and the Comets.
   At the height of his UK popularity in 1956, the original King of Rock'n'Roll had five simultaneous top twenty hits. And then Bill and his band toured the UK. The portly Detroit thirty-something with the kiss curl was not the sex god his teenage following were expecting and the hits started to dry up.

5. Albatross - Fleetwood Mac.
   A departure from the harder blues style that typified early Fleetwood Mac, this sublimely laid back number is the biggest selling instrumental hit ever.
6. Baby Love - The Supremes.
   The first ever number one by an all girl group (the next wouldn't be for 21 years).
7. Good Vibrations - Beach Boys.
   Four studios, six months, seventeen sessions and $50,000 in the making, it's unique sound owed much to the wailing theremin more usually heard up until then on horror movie soundtracks.
8. He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother - The Hollies.
   Often the chart bridesmaids during their sixties heyday, it took twenty three years and a late eighties lager ad to give The Hollies this, their second career number one.
9. Hey Jude - The Beatles.
   Paul McCartney's song of consolation to Julian Lennon during his Dad's marriage break up. Features the longest sing-along fade out ever (all together…."Naaa naa naa na na na naaaa")
10. House of the Rising Sun - The Animals.
    The longest number one ever at the time (over four minutes) and about a brothel, to boot. The wrangle still continues as to whether organist Alan Price should have received all the arrangement royalties for this traditional song.
11. (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction - Rolling Stones.
    Legend has it that Keith Richard didn't see the chart potential of the guitar riff and single line ("I Can't Get No Satisfaction") he wrote one night in the twilight zone between consciousness and sleep in a Florida motel. Mick Jagger did though, and added the complete frustrated rant lyric within days.
12. I Heard It Through The Grapevine - Marvin Gaye.
    Even after Gladys Knight hit number two in the US with her take on the song, composer Barrett Strong persisted in pushing a version Marvin Gaye had cut. Motown supremo, Berry Gordy warned him "Mention that f*****g record again and you're fired," but Strong wouldn't be swayed. His reward was a UK and US No 1 in 1969.
13. I'm A Believer - The Monkees.
    1967 started with the manufactured-for-TV-Monkees leaping to the top of the UK and US charts with this their debut single. By the year's end they had dethroned The Beatles as the World's most successful pop act.
14. Israelites - Desmond Dekker and the Aces.
    Former welder Desmond Dekker's 1969 hit was the UK's first ever reggae number one (if we're not counting Marmalade's Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da, that is).
15. It's Not Unusual - Tom Jones.
    Turned down by Sandie Shaw, this belter launched unknown Welshman Tom Jones. Whatever happened to him?
16. Je T'Aime...Moi Non Plus - Jane Birkin & Serge Gainsbourg.
    Gainsbourg originally wrote this as a duet for himself and Brigitte Bardot, but when her husband heard an early pressing he took exception to her "making love to that man in the studio" and blocked its release, at which point Gainsbourg's girlfriend Jane Birkin stepped into the breach.
17. Mr Tambourine Man - The Byrds.
    Close harmonies, pudding bowl moptops and a Rickenbacker twelve-string guitar transformed Bob Dylan's acoustic folk original into this trippy, mid-sixties classic single.
18. Oh Pretty Woman - Roy Orbison.
    The Big O's third and final number one sold seven million copies world-wide on it's 1964 release and reached a new audience twenty six years later in the Julia Roberts film of (almost) the same name.
19. Reach Out (I'll Be There) - Four Tops.
    Tamla Motown's first UK number one was, with its orchestral production and larynx-tearing vocal, a departure from the Four Tops' hit formula that worked like a dream.
20. San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In You Hair) - Scott Mackenzie.
    The soundtrack song of the summer of love ("My friends were sitting there in the lotus position while I recorded it") recorded by a textbook one hit wonder. This number one was McKenzie's only hit. By the end of the decade he'd 'dropped out' and gone to live in the desert.
21. Something In The Air - Thunderclap Newman.
    The end of the sixties was in sight but anything still seemed possible (just). This Pete Townshend-produced single captures the fragile optimism of the time. Thirty years on it's the soundtrack for BA's latest corporate epic ad.
22. Stand By Me - Ben E.King.
    Twenty-five years and 244 days after first entering the British charts, during which time it had been covered by artists as diverse as John Lennon, Kenny Lynch and Muhammad Ali, Ben E King's soul classic finally reached number one in 1987.
23. Strangers In The Night - Frank Sinatra.
    Taken from the forgettable James Garner movie 'A Man Could Get Killed,' a poised Sinatra vocal performance and throwaway "Doo-be-do-be-do" fade out gave him his second UK number one, almost twelve years after his first.
24. The Young Ones - Cliff Richard and the Shadows.
    Of his fourteen number ones, the song of the 1962 film is Cliff's sole million selling single.
25. What A Wonderful World - Louis Armstrong Orchestra.
    Veteran jazzer Satchmo was 68 when this timeless ballad gave him his only UK number one.
26. Whiter Shade of Pale - Procol Harum.
    Such an overnight hit that it left the group without a permanent line-up or any other songs to tour. The debate rages on as to what it's all about - sixties evocation of the spirit of Chaucer and Lewis Carroll or just the tale of a man on the pull who has had too much to drink?
27. You'll Never Walk Alone - Gerry and the Pacemakers.
    Seeking to follow two number ones from his first two releases, the 21-year-old Gerry Marsden looked back two decades to Rodgers & Hammerstein's classic musical Carousel for the hat-trick. Twenty-two years later Marsden took the song to number one for a second time as part of Bradford City fire disaster charity group The Crowd.
28. You Really Got Me - The Kinks.
    This record's impact is largely down to singer Ray Davies's brother Dave (15 years old at the time) who took a razor blade to the front of his amplifier, cranked his guitar up to 11 and invented heavy metal.
29. You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' - Righteous Brothers.
    When the record company first heard the start of this classic ("You never close your eyes……") they thought that producer Phil Spector was playing it to them at the wrong speed. No song has received more plays on US radio (7 million) and perhaps most importantly it kept Cilla Black's version from the top spot in 1965.