The Week in UK Number 1s - July 5 2024
Usher lets it burn and Oliver Helden and Becky Hill go into overdrive
In the Week in UK Number 1s, we go back in time - ten years at a time - to see what was hitting the top of the UK Charts. This week, David Whitfield and Mantovani cara their mia, Usher lets it burn and Oliver Heldens and Becky Hill go into overdrive…
1954
“Cara Mia” by David Whitfield with Mantovani and His Orchestra
After a game of hot potato in the early spring, the record buyers of 1954 decided there would be no such shenanigans for the rest of the time the sun was out that year. Following a one-week spell during those few frantic weeks of passing the top spot around, Doris Day’s “Secret Love” had spent eight consecutive weeks at number 1, ultimately being the biggest-selling 45 of the year. It would be followed by another million-seller that would not quite outdo Day in sales but did clock more weeks in pole position.
David Whitfield first hit the charts in 1953 after some initial public success as a part of radio hit Opportunity Knocks, scoring a number 1 with his version of “Answer Me”. Whitfield’s version would soon be overtaken in popularity by Frankie Laine’s take, which also replaced Whitfield’s interpretation at the top of the charts. For one week, both releases of the song jointly held the number 1 position, the first and only time that has happened.
Whitfield would share the limelight for his second chart-topper as well, except on this occasion this was by design. Whitfield had an impressive tenor that ideally suited the orchestral backing popular in many popular songs of the time. And the premier orchestra of the age in the UK was led by Mantovani.
Like Whitfield, Mantovani had tasted number 1 success in 1953, when his troupe scored the first instrumental number 1 with “The Song From Moulin Rouge”. Both Whitfield and Mantovani had followed their top-selling releases with several more Top 10 hits before combining for a megastar collab before that was even a thing.
“Cara Mia” saw Mantovani’s light-orchestra approach mesh perfectly with Whitfield’s tenor to create a suitably melodramatic piece that provided the British public with the chance to feel just a tad more sophisticated when they fired up their record player. Building to a crescendo that would have tested the limits of those record players, “Cara Mia” was a runaway success, clocking ten weeks straight at number 1 and dominating the entire summer.
The popularity of the record made Whitfield the first Brit to hit double figures for weeks at the top, something that no British act would replicate until Wet Wet Wet amassed fifteen never-ending weeks in 1994. Whitfield was also able to crack the Top 10 in the US with “Cara Mia”, the first time an Englishman had done so and something that would remain a rare feat for someone from the UK until the British Invasion a decade later. In total, “Cara Mia” shifted over 3 million copies worldwide, easily ranking as the biggest hit of both Whitfield and Mantovani’s careers.
Neither would return to number 1 in the UK on the singles Hit Parade. Whitfield came closest, spending five weeks at #2 with his next single, the festive “Santo Natale” over Christmas in 1954. The following year, Whitfield and Mantovani looked to replicate the magic of “Cara Mia”, releasing two more singles in collaboration, the #8 “Beyond The Stars” and #7 “When You Lose The One You Love”. Whitfield continued to produce Top 10 hits into the rock’n’roll era, scoring his eleventh and final success by that metric in 1957 with “The Adoration Waltz”. Mantovani found more success on the Album Chart, releasing several million-sellers in the late ’50s and early ’60s while both performers continued to have success on the touring circuit.
Despite a twenty-year age difference (Mantovani being the senior of the pair) both Whitfield and Mantovani would die in 1980. The latter died peacefully in a care home in Kent, having made England his home for several decades, while Whitfield died of a brain haemorrhage while on tour in Sydney, Australia. A former member of the Navy from Hull and a classical conductor from Venice might not have seemed the most likely pair to produce one of the best-selling records of the pre-rock’n’roll age, but in each other David Whitfield and Annunzio Mantovani found perfect foils and added a little operatic flair to a generation’s record collections
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2004
“Burn” by Usher
Usher was having the year of his life in 2004. He had already topped the UK Charts earlier in the year for two weeks with the dancefloor banger “Yeah!”, which also spent a staggering twelve weeks at number 1 in the US. Such was the churn at the top of the UK Charts in the early years of the new millennium that two weeks was not far from being an equivalent of twelve in US weeks.
The follow-up to “Yeah!” was a more traditional smooth slice of R&B. “Burn” looked at the end of a relationship and coming to terms with letting that chapter of your life go. As this coincided with the end of Usher’s relationship with Chilli from TLC, it was assumed by many that “Burn” chronicled the close of that romantic connection. Chilli later revealed that the pair had split due to Usher cheating on her, making the mature and reflective approach of “Burn” less appropriate as a coda for their relationship. In fact, it seems that the inspiration for the song was the life of co-writer Jermaine Dupri.
“Burn” went straight to number 1 in the UK, where it emulated “Yeah!” in spending a fortnight at the top. In the US, “Burn” replaced “Yeah!” in the highest position on the chart, adding Usher to a small group of chart royalty. His next two singles - “Confessions, Pt II” and the Alicia Keys duet “My Boo” - repeated the number 1 trick in the US but the former struggled in the UK. It was only by putting both songs together as a double A-side release that Usher rounded off 2004 with another UK hit, the combined draw of the two tracks producing a #5 peak.
Usher would move to Broadway in 2006 for a brief role in Chicago before returning with a new album, Here I Stand, in 2008. There would be no new chart-toppers from that record but Usher was not done with topping the UK Charts, although he has yet to recapture the magic of 2004, when two two-week stints at number 1 was the equivalent of David Whitfield’s multi-month reign.
2014
“Gecko (Overdrive)” by Oliver Heldens & Becky Hill
Dutch DJ Oliver Heldens was only a teenager when his track “Gecko” caught the attention of fellow Dutchman and DJ Tiësto, who signed Heldens to his record label. A purely instrumental release, it found some minor success in a few European countries but needed something else to take it to another level. British vocalist Becky Hill was drafted in to add a vocal, turning “Gecko” into “Gecko (Overdrive)”.
Hill had been a contestant on the first series of The Voice in 2012, reaching the semi-finals. Her powerful voice was perfect for the EDM sound of the moment and she had already featured on a Top 10 hit for Wilkinson, “Afterglow” and on some tracks on Rudimental’s first album before adding her tones to Heldens’ track.
“Gecko (Overdrive)” went straight in at number 1, giving Hill the first (and so far only) number 1 for a contestant from The Voice. Hill has been back to the Top 10 several times since as both the lead and featured artist on a series of dance tracks, the most successful of which was the #3 collaboration with David Guetta, “Remember” in the summer of 2021. Heldens, as with many European DJs of the mid-2010s, has not had much of a chart presence in the last decade but he has worked with a string of top acts including Katy Perry and Kylie Minogue, in addition to performing sets at the biggest events in the music world such as Glastonbury and Coachella.
Heldens and Hill can lay claim to a unique chart fact, as “Gecko (Overdrive)” was the last song to top the UK Charts without streams factoring into the placing. We’ll see the first song to benefit from Spotify streams in achieving number 1 next week…
Next week! Ariana Grande and Iggy Azalea have a problem and the Animals visit the house of the rising sun…