There’s a certain romance to the idea of having the Number One song in America.
A song more popular than any other – for a fleeting moment in the pop continuum.
As we’ve seen, some of those songs really stick around and shape the way popular music is written, performed, produced, marketed, and obtained.
So many others, of course, have disappeared without a cultural trace – or, worse, with an unpleasant artistic aftertaste.
Number Nines, of course, don’t have the same kind of cultural expectations set by the public, by Billboard, or by beloved music critic Tom Breihan.
Thanks to his “Number Twos” and “10s” features at the end of select articles, we’ve gotten a glimpse of great music that never quite got the buzz it deserved. Plenty of those songs have stuck around.
But early one morning last week, I started thinking of a song whose #9 peak seemed absurdly low. I challenged myself to think of others like it.
And within five minutes, I’d come up with eight or so.
This couldn’t stand.
So, in an homage to Tom’s book and its “Twenty Chart-Topping Hits That Reveal the History of Pop Music, I’m collecting Twenty Number Nines that were unique, transformative, enduring and (in my view) truly great music.
I’ll spread them out chronologically over five articles. I think these represent a variety of important pop moments that never quite crashed the top of the charts.
And three final notes:
I will not be using this list to commemorate beloved acts that got there with the wrong song. Apologies to Deadheads.
With incredible regret, I must announce that it isn’t “White & Nerdy”, which was the last song I cut when choosing my top twenty.
There will also be one honourable mention, which I will award at its place in the timeline.
Crazy
Patsy Cline
1961
I defy you to find me a Number One with a backstory as compelling as this one. A desolate young songwriter struggling to provide for his family writes a song about the end of a relationship. Country artists turn it down, disliking its several chords. Patsy Cline’s producer is interested, but the singer herself doesn’t want heartbreak songs.
She changes her mind, but suffers a car accident. Her ribs are injured and she can’t hit the high notes. Weeks later, she returns to the studio to try again – and records her part in one take, nailing the combination of grief and wistful longing so completely that the world of pop radio stopped to notice the genre at last.
Cline crossed over into country legend status.
And the songwriter became the Willie Nelson we know today,
And “Crazy” became a genre-reshaping, all-time country standard. It has more jukebox plays than any other song in history. Also, it’s the central leitmotif of Jean-Marc Vallee’s C.R.A.Z.Y., the greatest French-Canadian film of the 21st century.
I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Loved You)
Aretha Franklin
1967
“Respect” gets all the… well, respect – and deservedly so. But the title track from Aretha’s first soul album is just as much of an all-timer. Can you imagine being in the studio, hearing her sing for the first time, and marveling at the incredible things she could make her voice do?
The Muscle Shoals geniuses met her where she was, conjuring a lurching, dramatic soul-blues track that turned Aretha into a star overnight and brought visibility to a harder, more urgent form of soul than American audiences had been used to.
“Respect” might be her signature song – and that of soul as a genre – but this song kickstarted a run so important to the cultural fabric that I simply cannot do it justice with words.
Israelites
Desmond Dekker & The Aces
1969
Crossing over and enduring is a fine art. You have to create something catchy enough for the general public without sacrificing your artistic integrity, and any number of things can go wrong on either end of the deal. Desmond Dekker achieved it with this song and an entire genre.
As far as I can tell, “Israelites” was the only straight-up reggae song to make the top 10 for over a decade.
But Americans chose extremely well.
Using Jamaican patois, his own lithe and emotive tenor, and an enormously satisfying groove to tell his story of impoverished, marginalized Rastafarians struggling to get by in his country, Dekker brought reggae to both sides of the Atlantic and inadvertently influenced several future genres as a result.
Lola
The Kinks
1970
Ray Davies was amused by his manager’s dalliance with a beautiful blonde with stubble on her chin. And he wrote a song about it.
From a historical perspective, this looks incredibly dangerous:
- Either you’ve got a novelty that will age so terribly you wonder if Ray’s last name was actually Stevens…
- Or you’ve got something too transgressive to be released to the listening public.
But Davies grounded his love story between a clueless virgin and a confident cross-dresser (or trans woman) in cleverly written subtext, with empathy for Lola’s desire to be herself.
And most importantly:
A huge singalong chorus that everyone in a room will know by the second time they hear it.
The song took off with its message fully intact, but continued to stick around, inspiring a very funny and prescient Weird Al parody, Lou Reed’s “Walk On The Wild Side”, and probably glam rock as a whole.
The man who might have benefited the most, however, was their new keyboardist John Gosling, whose audition literally was the studio recording.
He remained with them for several years. He died last week, and is warmly remembered by his old bandmates.
That’s it for Part One!
Guess away at the other 16!
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I don’t know whether it will be your “honorable mention” or one of the 20, but I can’t imagine a certain John Lennon song not making the list. Great kickoff to this series, Napoleon!
😬
It would be an amazing case of synergy, but I’m afraid I must disappoint you here. One of my criteria was to have had some kind of encounter with its sound and moment completely independently of TNO. (I grew up on Beatles and Traveling Wilburys, but not solo Beatles.)
I’m very certain there is one song on my list that will earn general derision, but I have no regrets about choosing it as one of my twenty.
This is tnocs.com. We don’t do derision.
Laughing and pointing, maybe, but not derision.
Good distinction! I am heartened to hear it.
🙏 ❤
When Barnes and Noble didn’t have the CD I want, I would buy a Paul McCartney reissue. I have everything, but Wild Life. I picked it up. Just couldn’t do it.
Great article and glad to see you diving into the pool here, NofB! Looking forward to the rest of your picks. I remember watching a doc on PBS a number of years ago on the Muscle Shoals scene and they interviewed musicians and showed footage of how I Never Loved a Man was recorded. Nobody knew what to do with it initially and there was a lot of cacophony as everybody was trying to flesh out their ideas. Then the keyboardist started playing that riff and the whole thing came together in 15 minutes. It is no exaggeration to say that this was the birth of the Aretha sound as we know and love it. Respect may be her signature song, but this one hits uniquely deep, and yes it is every bit as much of an all-timer.
Great idea for a series! I knew Willie Nelson wrote “Crazy” but not the details of the story. Fascinating.
Well done. I’m really looking forward to the next installment.
This is a great idea! My favorite factoid is that “Crazy” is the most played son on juke boxes of all time.
Good list of songs, Napoleon! I look forward to more of these.
Can we all just take a moment to appreciate how awesome mt58 is at editing? The flair for visuals? The bolds and italics at the exact right times? The kind encouragement throughout this whole process? It’s made writing for the dot-com an absolute blast.
And thanks for the warm feedback, all! I hoped it would be something that readers would enjoy weekly features for.
I just hang the drapes around here. It’s the passion, time and talent of our wonderful commenters and Contributing Authors that make this the fun space that it (hopefully) is.
Thank you for the kind words, @Napoleon Of Birds, and congratulations on a rock-solid debut!
Wanted to keep all the paragraphs similar in length, so I left out an adorable part of the “Lola” story: Ray Davies kept the chorus of “Lola” in because his one-year-old was singing along to it at home, and he figured Kinks fans could too.
Given its status within TNOs, “Just a Friend” has gotta be on here.
Here are my remaining 15 guesses…I know I’m going to be wrong as I’m only including artists who never went above #9!
Van Morrison – “Domino” (1971)
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – “Mr. Bojangles” (1971)
Focus – “Hocus Pocus” (1973)
Evelyn “Champagne” King – “Shame” (1978)
Gary Numan – “Cars” (1980)
The Motels – “Only the Lonely” (1982)
Faith No More – “Epic” (1990)
Queensryche – “Silent Lucidity” (1991)
Craig Mack – “Flava in Ya Ear” (1994)
Gin Blossoms – “Follow You Down” (1996)
Lord Tariq & Peter Gunz – “Deja Vu (Uptown Baby)” (1998)
B*Witched – “C’est La Vie” (1999)
Incubus – “Drive” (2001)
My Chemical Romance – “Welcome to the Black Parade” (2007)
Amy Winehouse – “Rehab” (2007)
Lupe Fiasco – “The Show Goes On” (2011)
Almost put “Let My Love Open the Door” here, but you didn’t put “I Can See for Miles” here (unquestionably a better song) so I can’t really see that.
Actually 16 guesses, but one of them could be the honorable mention. Or maybe that’s “Just a Friend.”
ISP! From the old schoolyard, c. 2018!
Delighted to see you here!
Thanks, came here due to the 2000s poll.
Can I say what a shock it is that Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours,” the very first 2000s song to break a billion Spotify plays, wasn’t even nominated?
Good to see you, ISP! It’s been a while.
You’ve listed some classics here, hope most of them make the cut.
Welcome home, ISP! I’m so happy to see you that I’ll evaluate these guesses! Five of them are correct in one way or another, and there’s a sixth that wasn’t on my initial list but I feel very foolish for having excluded.
With great regret, I will cut out “You Got It”.
“Only The Lonely” didn’t do better than #9? Madness….
Wait?! “Bohemian Rhapsody” only made it to #9? WTF?
#9 on its original chart run, reentered and reached #2 because of Wayne’s World, reentered in the 30s because of the movie of the same name
Great idea and looking forward to seeing what songs are included as we get upto date.
Lola was banned by the BBC in Britain but it wasn’t due to Lola’s gender or sexuality. Where Ray crossed the line was in putting Coca Cola in the lyrics. The no advertising policy on the BBC extended to anything that could be construed as product placement. To get round the problem Ray flew home from their US tour just to overdub Coca Cola with Cherry Cola then returned to the tour. That’s the version I’m familiar with so it always jars when I hear Ray singing Coca Cola.
Cherry Coke wasn’t introduced til the 80s in case you’re thinking that he just swapped one Coke product for another.
As to whether a Coca Cola executive was on holiday in Britain and heard the revised version and thought it sounded like a good idea, I couldn’t possibly say.
Third time I’ve returned to this article, just to read your post. I have to get this out of my system.
Nobody really knows for sure what gender Yoda is. Luke Skywalker just presumes Yoda is male. The audience presumes Yoda is male. But as Rey proves, a Jedi can be a girl. So I think Yoda’s gender is open for interpretation.
More so than in 1985, when “Weird Al” Yankovic released Dare to Be Stupid, an album title that also happens to be my motto whenever I sit down to write, “Lola” was perfect for Yankovic to reappropriate as a novelty song about the wisest Muppet of them all.
Awesome concept, NoB!!! Can’t wait to read the future installments.
Napoleon! Great first entry!
I have to ask, though (and V-Dog, et al)…
WHERE does one find all the songs that peaked at a certain number? I remember someone posted “the #41s”, and V-Dog/Ed Kaufmann with their polls, and I was fascinated with the work that must’ve gone into their research.
Also, there are so many trivial nuggets in this first installment I can’t wait to read the rest!
From PLF, with edits from PeiNews and myself:
Hot 100 Top 10s 1958-2010 (in memory of poorlittlefool) – Google Sheets
HOLY CRAP!
I’d never checked out the spreadsheet, but this might be the place I can identify the most successful artist Tom has never mentioned in his column!
(currently in the lead is Yacht Disco stalwarts Dr. Hook!)
Tevin Campbell is pretty close, but I think Dr. Hook takes the cake, with six top-ten hits (all at either #5 or #6). Blood, Sweat & Tears were close until virtual 2005, but two of their #2s already had grades.
And then there is the curious case of Bad Company, whose highest-charting hit (Can’t Get Enough, #5) has no grade but who appeared in the 10s through Feel Like Makin’ Love (#10).
No surprise there, as Tom has no love for adult contemporary and Dr. Hook rode the cheesy/amusing borderline pretty closely (Sexy Eyes, Sylvia’s Mother, When You’re in Love with a Beautiful Woman).
I was in a grocery store on Saturday and heard “Better Love Next Time”
Maybe it was due to the BOGO deal on peanut butter, but I found myself humming along, and kind of enjoying the song.
“Better Love Next Time” is my favorite of theirs (and, if I remember correctly, of Link’s?). Its cheese ratio is far lower than most of their hits.
Wonderful debut! Looking forward to the rest.
Great idea, nobody actually think about the songs that peaked at number 9, and there are good songs here, especially “Crazy”, that I really like.
Looking forward to seeing the rest of this series.
Hey, it’s our favorite music loving ornithologist!!! [Waves to NoB] Excellent idea for a series, looking forward to the rest of these.
And probably repeating “This only made it as high as #9????” often.
Outcry #1?
“WHAT? Crazy only got as high as #9???”
😄
Oh, I only have one song in mind to mention in regards to your list. Not that I’m biased or anything, nawww, not at all. I’ll just be here, dancing on the sand, patiently waiting for the reveals……
“I will not be using this list to commemorate beloved acts that got there with the wrong song. Apologies to Deadheads. ”
But… that’s actually a terrific song…
My question is: does it give me a lens through which to understand and appreciate the band’s cultural influence?
Not at all! 🙂
This is a great idea for a series, Napoleon of Birds. Can’t wait for future installments! In honor of what you’re doing here, I think I’ll post this oldie from the 1970s Saturday morning cartoons on ABC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BgYGHsW8fY
We lived in Winchester, Virginia for more than 20 years, the hometown of Patsy Cline. As you’d expect, she’s a universally beloved figure in Winchester. Interestingly, for a number of years following her tragic 1963 death, there had been quite a bit of ambivalence toward her legacy there. She had been a little too much of a gender trailblazer for some folks. Some viewed her as being a little rowdier than a “lady” should be. That ambivalence had very nearly disappeared by the time we’d moved to Winchester in the mid ’90s, and had completely disappeared by the time we moved away in 2017.