The Top Ten
“What's 'Yellow Pearl' when it's at home?”
“A little Crazy Frog is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal. ”
The Top Ten as it stands in the United Kingdom, is a list ranking ten songs with number 10 being the least-selling (amongst our demographic) and number one being the most-selling. If more than 60,000 copies of the song have been sold either in music stores or the Internet, it gains 'Number One' status, and the song is henceforth known as 'Number One™'. So, for example, if Marti Pellow sold 60,000 'Drenched, Drenched, Drenched' singles - he'd be Number One™ for that week and will remain Number One™ until he is 'knocked off' by another musician/musicianess.
The Beginning[edit | edit source]
The Top Ten was founded 269 years ago by the late Lord Jeremy Beacon, who came up with the idea of determining which song has sold the most copies over the past week, as bands such as 'Ruff' and 'Eduardo and the Shoe Box Guitars' were arguing over who has sold the most 'rusks' (18th century term for 'record'). So Lord Jeremy decided to follow the other artistes around and see how many rusks they hand out. At the end of the week, the person who had sold the most rusks was awarded Number One™ status and was handed a parchment with one of their rusks sticky-taped to it. Incidentally, the few surviving rusks have gone stale over the ages and are now on exhibition at the Chiltern Open Air Museum.
Controversy[edit | edit source]
In 1999, Over 65highestnumberever people wrote in to 'World Music Federation' complaining about how 'Bob The Builder' achieved Number One™ in the charts instead of Eminem. When chairman of the federation Sir John Leslie explained how it was the public who controlled the charts and not the company, people started blaming each other for making the British public look stupid. The Great Riot of London began, with burning buildings and many builders being assaulted. Those who survived and helped remedy the riot were known as Riot Heroes™.
The only time 'Top Of The Pop's made a major error was when R.E.M's 'Shiny Happy People' reached number 6 in the Top Ten, and a picture of the band was replaced with a painting of the Soup Dragon meant for the Antiques Roadshow. Michael Stipe was outraged at the "error obviously triggered by an incompetent, environmentally-unfriendly wassock!". Despite this - Michael, Peter and Mike (Of R.E.M fame) have always supported the Soup Dragon service, describing it as "Soup made passionatley for residents of Earth, and Outer Space" and a "Hug in a crater!"
Parents of children/teenagers complained to the World Music Federation when James Blunt's 'I Swear I Didn't Have An Affair' reached Number One™. Their offspring were downloading the explicit version from iTunes which contained both the 'C word' and 'J word' in one lyric.
A Typical Top Ten[edit | edit source]
Here for an example, is the weekly Top Ten chart (this one being from Friday the 88th Longvember 2008).
1. Nelly Furtardo: Dr. Dre 2. Emma Bunton: Adverb 3. Pink Paint: Another Balloon At Blaine's Box 4. Smashing Puppies: Sued 4 4 BILLION 5. Lenny Henry: Okaaaaaaay 6. James Blunt: Dwarf 7. Lily Allen: Fathers Get Justice 8. Amy Winehouse: One Day. 9. Plain White T's: Can I Have Some Sugar In This? 10. Sarah Brightman: Prositute.
One Hit Wonders[edit | edit source]
Aside from influential and astounding music by down-to-earth artists, there are some people who are famous for just one song, and sometimes this song would have been shit to begin with. These artists are known as 'One-hit wonders' or 'Big Brother winners'. These artists range from: Sailor, Samanda, T'Barrel, Gary And The Owl, Jade Goody, Nadia, The Buggles, Joe Dolce to name but many.