Right, I'm
currently working on a big bumper article, which will be uploaded in
two parts over this week, entitled the “Ten Most Baffling UK Number
One Singles of All Time” which I hope you fine empty spaces enjoy
reading as much as I enjoyed writing, which means partly because
wanting to punch your brain for making you listen to some immensely
awful songs. Now, the criteria isn't so much about terrible number
one hits, but songs you can't believe ever made it; they just don't
make sense, even if you go back to the era they came from. I'm
intending to look at the ten most odd and make speculations as to
what could have possessed the Great British public to buy these songs
by the hundred thousand.
Now, I'm
doing a top ten list, but there were so many I wanted to put on
there, so I might do an honourable mention thing afterwards, but
there was one I so desperately needed to put in there but just
couldn't fit it in and had already removed some songs that would
appear to be certain choices for this sort of thing. But I so very
wish I had another place for this:
Every Loser
Wins – Nick Berry (1986)
What?
And probably
“Who?” to pretty much everyone except people in the UK over a
certain age. Nick Berry was a soap opera actor who appeared in the
most popular celebration of abject misery in England, Eastenders, as
one of its central stars during its early years, and he along with a
bunch of stage school graduates were part of a story that in
hindsight everyone thought was utterly appalling, which saw the folk
of Albert Square assaulted aurally by the 80s synthpop stylings of
The Banned.
See, their
first mistake was making a fictional band in a soap opera, since they
work about as often as genuine rock bands making it into the pop
charts. Their second was actually releasing music in the real world,
which saw the top forty assaulted not once but twice, first by the
abusively dated Something Outta Nothing, the song sung by the Banned
in the show, where your ears are battered by a series of appalling
samples, which might be fine if it didn't sound like an alien
orchestra.
Of course
we're not talking about that one, we're talking about the utterly
tuneless ballad that came after it and went to number one. It's a
breakup song apparently also part of this ludicrous storyline, where
Nick Berry's character played the song on a pub piano or something,
and has one of the worst, most insulting hooks in the history of
breakup songs. “We nearly made it” rivals “Let's have a look at
what you could've won” as one of the best ways to kick 'em when
they're down. Also, because a lifeless piano ballad only gets radio
play if you're a sixteen year old girl or Billy Joel, they pump this
somewhat simple song full of synth gimmicks, trying to will it into
becoming In the Air Tonight.
Most
Ridiculous Part?
The video.
The song is largely pointless I know, but what in the name of hell
does riverboats have to do with Every Loser Winning? I should also
point out the utterly pointless singing around a stripper pole by
Berry himself, who looks and sounds utterly petrified.
Why?
Merchendise
of course. At this point, Eastenders had been on the air for only a
year or two, but was already a big hit, as well as a great money
spinner for the BBC, and people as cynical as me could consider
having a storyline with a real life counter part either a failed
attempt at metafiction or a cash-in. People saw it on television and
wanted a part of the story they'd seen, and this gave them a chance,
which I suppose is fair enough, though I hope the next time soaps
clumsily attempt metafictional stories they make them vaguely
tolerable?
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