Popular – Every UK#1 reviewed

OASIS – “The Importance Of Being Idle”
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Popular: #1016, 3^rd September 2005

— 4 September 2026 Tom 26 comments

(#1016, 3rd September 2005)

When I heard the news Oasis were reuniting, my first thought was, “thank God, an angle on the ‘Idle’ entry”. And in the heat of renewed Oasis mania it felt like this might even end up being their penultimate Num[…]

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McFLY – “I’ll Be OK”
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Popular: #1015, 27^th August 2005

— 31 August 2026 Tom 7 comments

I still find McFly hard to appreciate, but in the comments for their previous No.1 I linked a piece by Ciara Moloney which made the strongest case I’d seen for them as songwriters and musicians. One of the questions this piece asked was why critics[…]

The Early Funny Stuff
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— 16 Sep 2026 Tom Comment

Earlier this week I asked a question on Bluesky: what is the earliest piece of media you find intentionally very funny? I wanted to leave the question open but used the “very” intensifier to make sure we weren’t just in the wry chuc[…]

About Popular

I'm writing about every UK number one single, in order. It's taken a while, it'll take a while longer. Wander around in the archives, or join in with the marvellous bunch of commenters we've managed to attract - new voices always very welcome!

Popular is funded by the generosity of my Patreon patrons. They get early posts, exclusive material, and more. You could be one of them! Index of reviews and scores so far Popular FAQ

Latest comments on Popular

AMZ1981 on OASIS – “The Importance Of Being Idle”17 October 2026
Hindsight is a wonderful thing - it wasn't obvious in 2005 that ... Idle would be the last Oasis number…
Tommy Mack on OASIS – “The Importance Of Being Idle”7 October 2026
Not sure I've ever heard this! I had no interest in Oasis' music by 2005 and, playing in a band…
Brandon M on OASIS – “The Importance Of Being Idle”3 October 2026
"Every record, it seemed, Noel would admit that the last one was shite but this one is the Oasis people…

Recently on Popular

JAMES BLUNT – “You’re Beautiful”

18 January 2026

“Proof that one song is all it takes” as James Blunt’s Twitter biography put it. He knows what he’s known for, and in his post-superstar era he’s played his hand with great skill, cultivating a self-deprecating persona on social media as an[…]

2PAC ft ELTON JOHN – “Ghetto Gospel”

23 October 2025

The pattern for recent hip-hop Number 1s on Popular – Nelly’s pair being the best example – has been the chart-topper as a kind of medal for services rendered, generally coming an album cycle after the artist’s more vital work. Mostly[…]

CRAZY FROG – “Axel F”

25 April 2025

In 2004 I took on the worst project of my professional life; worst in the sense that it was miserable and time-consuming and also in the sense that I did it very badly. A certain mobile phone company wanted to know what their rivals were doing online[…]

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BRYAN ADAMS – "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You"

5 May 2011

Sixteen Listens For Sixteen Weeks: An Everything I Do Liveblog
This song got to number one for 16 weeks, so I decided to play it 16 times in a row, writing as I went.
Play 1: And we’re off. I’ve honestly hardly heard this in the last twen[…]

EMINEM – "Stan"

10 July 2015

“Stan” is a murder ballad. A song – not the first or last such Eminem recorded – about killing a woman. If this seems a strange way to look at it, it’s because the record takes pains to make its murder incidental. Its victim is name[…]

JJ BARRIE – "No Charge"

2 May 2008

I was aware of this song long before I heard it – as a young boy it was quoted at me by my Dad should I ever object to tidying my room. Since my room was rarely tidy, I became very familiar with the central notion of “No Charge”. […]

BRITNEY SPEARS – "Oops!… I Did It Again"

4 March 2015

How do you follow “…Baby One More Time”? Perhaps you can’t. Britney Spears’ second album splits the job, starting with two songs that plainly exist in “Baby”’s shadow. One is an overt sequel, “Stronger” – eager, catchy dance[…]

THE KINKS – "You Really Got Me"

16 January 2005

The sound of the atom splitting. Break open the basic unit of pop music, the hook, and we discover a mess of gimmickry, noises and ideas so primeval you can often barely describe them, let alone hum one. Find one strong enough and you can top the cha[…]

SUGABABES – "Freak Like Me"

10 July 2017

At The Disco
A scene from Phonogram III: The Immaterial Girl, by Gillen, McKelvie and Wilson, published in 2015. It’s the early 00s, at a disco somewhere in the south of England. A group of people who love music so much it’s become their life and[…]

ABBA – "Dancing Queen"

13 May 2008

In my teens I read a science fiction novel with a startlingly elegant twist. (I won’t mention the book’s name in case you come across it yourself.) It was about a brilliant scientist who vanishes: the book’s protagonist goes looking[…]

GIRLS ALOUD – "Sound Of The Underground"

8 October 2019

Looked at one way, this had to happen. Reality TV pop shows weren’t going away. Lightning had struck for Hear’Say, then again for Liberty X, then so often for Pop Idol that you’d think Zeus had the ITV voting lines on speed dial. The maths of i[…]

DJ OTZI – "Hey Baby (Uhh, Ahh)"

8 March 2016

So the cruddiest number one of 2001 lands at the top in a week when a lot of people were not caring about music. And certainly, spending £1.99 on “Hey Baby” is one of the more aggressive ways you could find to not care about music. The song is a[…]

ALL SAINTS – "Never Ever"

13 April 2014

You’re in the car with the radio on and no expectations, and suddenly you hear it: a song that stops everything around it, breaking through the playlist and announcing itself as a hit. More than a hit, a classic, a song you’ll be hearing for the […]

ATB – "9PM (Til I Come)"

5 November 2014

The story of breathy trance* hit “9PM (Til I Come)” begins with producer ATB bringing his girlfriend to his studio to check out his instruments. And it continues with him ignoring her and working on an awesome guitar sound until he looked at his […]

LIMP BIZKIT – "Rollin' (Air Raid Vehicle)"

10 August 2015

“Take my advice,” says Fred Durst on “My Generation”, “you don’t want to step into a big pile of shit.” Wise words. But shit comes in many forms. The spoor of Durst, the self-styled chocolate starfish, the anus, is compacted nuggets of […]