As it turned out, it never made the Top 40 at all, reaching 43. This was almost the final nail in the coffin for Alisha's Attic, though if their album charted well when it was released the following week it may have saved them. It did even worse, only charting at 55 and very soon afterwards they were dropped from their record label.
Alisha's Attic weren't the only victims of the singles chart that week. The Sugababes got off to a solid start with their debut hit "Overload" making the Top 10 the previous year. The album didn't fare so well though, and their following 2 singles failed to reach the Top 10. Their 4th single "Soul Sound" only reached 30 that week and they were dropped from their label shortly afterwards.
Going back to Alisha's Attic and their failure to make the Top 40, this was their one and only single not to make the Top 40. But it got me thinking, is there any music act who has had lot's of singles and never failed to reach the Top 40?
The way to answer that is to find who has had the most singles without ever failing to reach the Top 40. The answer several years ago would have been Madonna, but as she's carried on releasing singles that no longer reach the Top 40 she's no longer it. I know Borderline only made 56 initially but it was the same song that made the Top 40 two years later so this is not a failure the reach the Top 40.
I knew it wouldn't be Queen as I've known for years "Love of my Life" only made 63. Even The Beatles who's chart record was ridiculously good only made 48 with "My Bonnie".
A look through the British Hit Singles book shows that the music act with the most singles without failing to reach the Top 40 was Erasure with 34. However, the book only looks at the Top 75. The Official Charts website show that one of their singles only reached 100 and is therefore not listed in the book. Therefore we can't say Erasure never failed to reach the Top 40.
If we look at the Top 100 on the Official Charts website it looks like the answer is The Supremes with 29. However, a look at their singles discography shows that whilst their last Top 40 hit came in 1973, they were still releasing singles until 1977 which all failed to chart at all. We can't say it's The Supremes either then.
After checking these things, I finally found who has had the most singles that have all reached the Top 40, which incidentally is The Sugababes with 26. Ok the group with single number 1 was different to the group with single number 26, but it's still in theory the same group.
Had Alisha's Attic called it a day before they released "Pretender Got My Heart" they would have had 8 singles and all of them would have reached the Top 40. After much research I've found there are only 20 acts in the history of the charts who have had 8 or more singles and never failed to reach the Top 40 with all their singles. Here they are:
Artist/Group
|
No. of hits
|
Sugababes
|
26
|
M People
|
19
|
Jam
|
18
|
Saturdays
|
18
|
Eternal
|
15
|
Destinys Child
|
14
|
Ashanti
|
13
|
Ace of Base
|
12
|
Five
|
11
|
Spice Girls
|
11
|
S Club 7
|
11
|
Wham
|
10
|
N Sync
|
10
|
Savage Garden
|
10
|
Gareth Gates
|
9
|
Communards
|
8
|
Sean Maguire
|
8
|
Another Level
|
8
|
Billie
|
8
|
Mis-Teeq
|
8
|
Although it's not exactly the who's who of successful chart acts, the list makes sense as it's mostly ones from the era when Top 40 success was everything if you were a pop act. The only one that I'm truly surprised to see on the list is Sean Maguire, I genuinely never knew he even had 8 singles. None of them made the Top 10 though.
This list though could change very soon. We've just had the news that The Sugababes have reunited and have a new single out this week. It could make the Top 40, but it's a cover of "Flowers" by Sweet Female Attitude and is in collaboration with DJ Spoony. Are the kids really interested in a cover of a tune nearly 2 decades old by a DJ and girl group who were big nearly 2 decades ago? I doubt it. Are people my age going to be interested when we can just listen to the original?
It could be a good week for M People then.
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