The Chart Runs Thread

[Drico One]

Following on from the nostalgic UK Charts thread, I thought it might be a bit of fun to look at individual acts' chart records over the years. Listed are the single titles, the date it first charted, its peak position, and the number of weeks it spent on the chart. To keep it clean, top 10 hits are in red italics and the peak position of the top 10 hit is in bold. If anyone wants to join in, feel free. All info is at http://www.Chartstats.com. Please try to keep the formatting consistent for readability.

Here's Soft Cell:

Tainted Love (01/08/1981) 1 peak 30 weeks
Bedsitter (14/11/1981) 4 12
Say Hello Wave Goodbye (06/02/1982) 3 9
Torch (29/05/1982) 2 9
What (21/08/1982) 3 8
Where The Heart Is (04/12/1982) 21 9
Numbers/Barriers (05/03/1983) 25 4
Soul Inside (24/09/1983) 16 5
Down In The Subway (25/02/1984) 24 6
Tainted Love {1985} (09/02/1985) 43 6
Monoculture (28/09/2002) 52 1
The Night (08/02/2003) 39 2

They really were huge for twelve months from 1981 - five top five hits and then obscurity. I actually bought Monoculture eight years ago. I still think Say Hello Wave Goodbye is magnificent.

[Undertaker]

Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret is a superb album. Sex Dwarf should have been a single as well.

[Drico One]

The KLF:

What Time Is Love? (11/08/1990) 5 12
3AM Eternal (19/01/1991) 1 11
Last Train To Trancentral (04/05/1991) 2 9
Justified And Ancient (07/12/1991) 2 12
America - What Time Is Love? (07/03/1992) 4 7

Well, they also had hits under different monikers (Timelords, The JAMs, etc.), but they were imperious around 1991. Last Train To Trancentral is probably my favourite dance record of that decade - and America What Time Is Love? is so hilariously over-the-top and down-the-other-side that the PSBs could have made it. The KLF were utterly preposterous - in the best possible sense. Mu Mu indeed.

[Patrick Bateman]

Erasure

Who Needs Love Like That 14/09/1985 55 6
Heavenly Action 30/11/1985 100 1
Oh L'Amour 03/05/1986 85 4
Sometimes 18/10/1986 2 21
It Doesn't Have To Be 28/02/1987 12 9
Victim Of Love 30/05/1987 7 9
The Circus 03/10/1987 6 14
Ship Of Fools 05/03/1988 6 8
Chains Of Love 11/06/1988 11 7
A Little Respect 01/10/1988 4 13
Crackers International (EP) 10/12/1988 2 15
Drama! 30/09/1989 4 11
You Surround Me 09/12/1989 15 9
Blue Savannah 10/03/1990 3 10
Star 02/06/1990 11 7
Chorus 29/06/1991 3 9
Love To Hate You 21/09/1991 4 9
Am I Right? 07/12/1991 15 6
Am I Right? (Remix) (EP) 11/01/1992 22 3
Breath Of Life 28/03/1992 8 6
Abba-esque (EP) 13/06/1992 1 12
Who Needs Love (Like That) 07/11/1992 10 4
Always 23/04/1994 4 9
Run To The Sun 30/07/1994 6 5
I Love Saturday 03/12/1994 20 6
Stay With Me 23/09/1995 15 4
Fingers And Thumbs (Cold Summer's Day) 09/12/1995 20 3
In My Arms 18/01/1997 13 4
Don't Say Your Love Is Killing Me 08/03/1997 23 2
Freedom 21/10/2000 27 2
Solsbury Hill 18/01/2003 10 3
Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me) 19/04/2003 14 3
Oh L'Amour {2003} 25/10/2003 13 3
Breathe 15/01/2005 4 6
Don't Say You Love Me 02/04/2005 15 3
Here I Go Impossible Again/All This Time Still Falling Out Of Love 02/07/2005 25 2
I Could Fall In Love With You 14/04/2007 21 2
Sunday Girl 23/06/2007 33 1

So inevitably one must come to Erasure, if only because their chart career is so contemporaneous with PSB's, and is probably the most salient comparison when assessing PSB's own performance. Of course Erasure catapulted to pop stardom on the back of PSB's earlier success in 1986 but from that first triumph they had a chart run to die for; twenty-four consecutive top twenty singles (including fifteen top ten appearances). Their biggest hit comes in the summer before Go West too, and perhaps encapsulates the difference between the two groups. Erasure covered four classic 70s smashs whilst PSB reinvented a lesser known minor disco hit. And it is because Erasure were all about having big hits that they have struggled in the wake of synth-pop being superceded as a chart fixture. Just look at that late 90s run; PSB still had four top ten singles in the Bilingual era whilst Erasure didn't have a top ten hit for the best part of a decade. And it's only got worse; forced to rely on a covers album, and even more ignominiously, remixes of their earlier singles to promote a plethora of greatest hits collections, they have not had a top twenty hit for more than five years.....and probably never will again.

But in their pomp, a fantastic singles group.

[Undertaker]

Their two biggest hits were actually EP's, so maybe thats how they should approach the chart from now on. I know they released a few recently that totally bombed but there was nothing new to appreciate. They certainly deserve more respect than their manager has recently given them.

[fluffmoln]

I wanted to do the KLF entry, Drico! Agreed that Last Train is the best dance record of the nineties, along with all other singles from The White Room, which is easily a top 5 album of that same decade. I love watching their Top of the Pops performances as well, as they are just that, performances. Especially
It's Grim Up North (09/11/1991) 10 6
which is a fantastic record, made better by both video and TOTP appearance, but also chart performance, as it's so abrasive and un-chartlike.

I could talk about these guys forever.

[Undertaker]

Was it the K.L.F that set fire to 1 milion pounds, just for 'art'?

[Undertaker]

Madness

Quite a chart history here.

If it wasn't for Cardiac Arrest peaking at 14, they would have had 16 top ten hits on the trot.

Singles - 37
Number One - 1
Top Ten - 17
Top Fourty - 29
Average Chart Position - 21

The Prince (01/09/1979) 16 peak position 11 weeks
One Step Beyond (10/11/1979) 7 14
My Girl (05/01/1980) 3 10
Night Boat to Cairo (Work Rest And Play) (EP) (05/04/1980) 6 8
Baggy Trousers (13/09/1980) 3 20
Embarrassment (22/11/1980) 4 12
The Return Of The Los Palmas Seven (24/01/1981) 7 11
Grey Day (25/04/1981) 4 10
Shut Up (26/09/1981) 7 9
It Must Be Love (05/12/1981) 4 12
Cardiac Arrest (20/02/1982) 14 10
House Of Fun (22/05/1982) 1 9
Driving In My Car (24/07/1982) 4 8
Our House 27/11/1982 5 13
Tomorrow's (Just Another Day)/Madness (Is All In The Mind) (19/02/1983) 8 9
Wings Of A Dove (20/08/1983) 2 11
The Sun And The Rain (05/11/1983) 5 12
Michael Caine (11/02/1984) 11 8
One Better Day (02/06/1984) 17 7
Yesterday's Men (31/08/1985) 18 7
Uncle Sam (26/10/1985) 21 11
The Sweetest Girl (01/02/1986) 35 6
(Waiting For) The Ghost Train (08/11/1986) 18 9
I Pronounce You (19/03/1988) 44 4 Not Shown
What's That (11/06/1988) 92 2
It Must Be Love {1992} (15/02/1992) 6 9
House Of Fun {1992} (25/04/1992) 40 3
My Girl {1992} (08/08/1992) 27 4
The Harder They Come (28/11/1992) 44 3
Night Boat To Cairo (27/02/1993) 56 2
Lovestruck (31/07/1999) 10 7
Johnny The Horse (06/11/1999) 44 2
Drip Fed Fred (11/03/2000) 55 1
Shame And Scandal (06/08/2005) 38 2
Sorry (17/03/2007) 23 1
NW5 (26/01/2008) 24 2
Dust Devil (23/05/2009) 64 1

[York Minster]

Eh, all these are so predictable. Why not post Buddy Holly or Miley Cryus or Black Eyed Peas or Todd Rundgren?

[BlueSwan]

The KLF:

What Time Is Love? (11/08/1990) 5 12
3AM Eternal (19/01/1991) 1 11
Last Train To Trancentral (04/05/1991) 2 9
Justified And Ancient (07/12/1991) 2 12
America - What Time Is Love? (07/03/1992) 4 7

Well, they also had hits under different monikers (Timelords, The JAMs, etc.), but they were imperious around 1991. Last Train To Trancentral is probably my favourite dance record of that decade - and America What Time Is Love? is so hilariously over-the-top and down-the-other-side that the PSBs could have made it. The KLF were utterly preposterous - in the best possible sense. Mu Mu indeed.

Estimated UK sales figures from Haven:

1 - KLF ft Tammy Wynette = Justified And Ancient :: 365k
2 - KLF = 3AM Eternal :: 340k
3 - KLF = Last Train To Transcentral :: 245k
4 - KLF = What Time Is Love ? :: 225k
5 - Timelords = Doctorin' The Tardis :: 190k
6 - KLF = America: What Time Is Love :: 120k
7 - Justified Ancients of Mu Mu = Its Grim Up North :: 75k
8 - 2K = ***k The Millennium :: 25k

Despite this, I'd argue that "What Time Is Love" is their biggest "classic". It's the defining KLF single, the formula of which their other singles followed. And of course they re-recorded the hilarious "America: What Time Is Love".

Unfortunately, you can't buy KLF mp3's anywhere, as far as I know, part of them deleting their entire catalogue.

A legendary act, and probably all the more legendary exactly because they finished on top, burned their money, wrote a book on how to have a #1 hit and all that. They were huge everywhere in Europe and surely could have scored a number of further big hits, but eventually the novelty would have worn off as it does with all dance acts.

Let's not forget that one of their early singles was a S/A/W pastiche that sounded a bit like a PSB pastiche (video is very PSB too) called "Kylie Said To Jason":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSaZKgAq8J0

[Radiophonic]

Looking at these I wouldn't swap the Pet Shop Boys chart histories with another pop act. Possibly Madonna's or Jacko's.

[York Minster]

Let's not forget that one of their early singles was a S/A/W pastiche that sounded a bit like a PSB pastiche (video is very PSB too) called "Kylie Said To Jason":

Methinks Kylie Said To Jason is a tad more than "just a bit" like a PSB pastiche.

[Patrick Bateman]

wrote a book on how to have a #1 hit and all that

Have Blue Swan read it? It worked for these guys.....

[BlueSwan]

Of course I read it. Never followed it though. According to the author you basically have to go broke and sacrifice everything before you even enter a studio.

[Undertaker]

Erasure's chart stats for singles

Singles - 35
Number One - 1
Top Ten - 17
Top Fourty - 35
Average Chart Position - 17