The horrifically low chart positions of some of the UK’s favourite songs

Since 1952, the UK charts have kept track of our nation’s very favourite songs, with over 1,400 hits making it to number one in 72 years.

Britain loves the pop charts more than any other country on the planet and our national playlist features thousands of huge hits from all around the world.

But sometimes, the chart positions of certain massive songs don’t reflect just how popular they really have become with the British public.

We all know certain songs should have been number one over others (Joe Dolce vs Ultravox, anyone?), but what about songs that barely charted at all?

What if we told you that one of the UK’s biggest selling albums of all time, Rumours by Fleetwood Mac, didn’t even produce a top 10 single?

And what if we told you that a song released in 2004, which has spent almost 10 years on the UK charts in total, only spent one week inside the top 10?

Get ready for some all-time shockers…

Don’t Stop – Fleetwood Mac

Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours is one of the UK’s most beloved albums of all time, with millions of copies sold in this country since its original release back in February 1977.

But would you believe that not one of its singles made it into the UK top 10? In fact, Dreams, The Chain, You Make Loving Fun, and Don’t Stop all stalled outside the top 20.

Over the years, Don’t Stop endured as a classic, eventually (technically) reaching number one in 2009 as part of the Children In Need medley sung by Peter Kay’s Animated All Star Band.

But on its own, it has only spent a month on the UK singles chart, reaching a peak of just 32 when it was released three months after the album it came from.

It was a massive success in America, where it reached number three, and the song has eventually been certified Platinum in the UK thanks to streaming and online sales.

But the raw data tells us that, while Rod Stewart and the Sex Pistols were battling it out for number one in 1977, Fleetwood Mac were languishing in the lower reaches.

Pocketful of Sunshine – Natasha Bedingfield

As it turns out, Gen Z love a bit of Natasha Bedingfield. The singer-songwriter has seen renewed interest in her hits from 20 years ago – especially the song Unwritten.

That single originally reached number six in the UK in 2004 and went all the way back to number 12 this year after it was used in recent Sydney Sweeney film Anyone But You.

20 years go, Natasha was celebrating the success of her first ever number one single, These Words, and her debut studio album Unwritten, which also topped the charts.

When she was planning where to go next, she co-wrote the song Pocketful of Sunshine. But, strangely, it was never included on her second album in 2007 and was never released as a single in the UK.

It was eventually released as a single in the US in early 2008, where it soared all the way to number five and was used on the soundtrack for comedies like Easy A and The Ugly Truth.

But in the UK it was never released as a proper single and never charted. iTunes purchases and Spotify streams eventually made sure it was certified Silver, but it remains Natasha’s biggest song to never appear on the UK charts.

Mr. Brightside – The Killers

The Killers’ Mr. Brightside might have been released 20 years ago, but it remains as popular as ever, with the song still in the UK top 100 as of November 2024.

In total, it has spent 434 weeks on the UK chart, which is equivalent to eight years and four months. Only special chart rules prevent Mr. Brightside from being in the main top 40 chart literally every single week in 2024.

It’s played at the end of every party, almost every DJ set, and definitely every wedding you’ve ever been to since 2004 – and yet, it’s never been a number one.

And not only has it never been number one, it’s also spent just one week in the top 10 in its entire chart run. 434 weeks in the top 100, and 433 of them have been spent at number 11 or lower.

It only reached a peak of number 10 at the time of its release, held way off the top as one-hit wonders Eamon and Frankee battled it out with their two versions of the exact same song (I Don’t Want You Back).

Mr. Brightside originally left the charts inside a month, but kept creeping back in throughout the late 2000s and early 2010s thanks to online sales and streaming figures.

Then, during the early weeks of 2021, as the UK gradually came out of Covid-19 lockdown, it re-entered the top 100. It hasn’t left the charts at all since then at the time of writing.

Ring of Fire – Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash is a legend of American music, with the country singer-songwriter releasing dozens of albums and hundreds of songs over a 50-year career.

While only a handful of his songs have made it into the UK charts, we’ve still taken his massive songbook to our hearts in Britain.

And his 1963 song Ring of Fire is one of them, with the song known up and down the land and by numerous generations from the 1960s onwards.

Despite how popular it’s become, however, the song never charted during its original run as a single in the mid-60s and only reached number 95 in 2007.

That week, The Proclaimers were at number one alongside Peter Kay and Matt Lucas (in character as Brian Potter and Andy Pipkin) for Comic Relief.

Cash’s biggest hit to date remains A Boy Named Sue, a comedy country song that reached number four all the way back in 1969.

Summer of ’69 – Bryan Adams

While A Boy Named Sue was in the UK charts, events were taking place that would eventually inspire one of Bryan Adams’ best known UK songs – Summer of ’69.

The Canadian singer-songwriter needed to wait until he was 31 before he landed his first UK top 10 hit, but that was a biggie – Everything I Do, I Do It for You in 1991.

That song was number one in the UK for a whopping 16 weeks on the trot over the summer, and woke Britain up to an artist who’d already been around for almost a decade.

Because across the entire 1980s, Bryan Adams had never registered a top 10 hit in the UK. He got close with debut single Run to You, but that stalled at 11.

Summer of ’69 – a huge hit today – only exploded in popularity after the release of his 1993 greatest hits collection. In 1985, when it was originally released, it peaked all the way back at number 42.

The song was only in the charts for six weeks at the time, and has peaked way outside the top 40 whenever it’s charted since, in 2008, 2012, and 2014.

When it originally charted, Madonna was atop the charts asking us all to get Into the Groove, while The Cars song Drive was also in the top 10 after its usage during the TV coverage of Live Aid.

Man Down – Rihanna

When you think of pop artists who defined the late 2000s and early 2010s, Rihanna is one of the first names that immediately springs to mind.

However, while she did have major chart successes in 2011 – two number ones that year – one of her biggest songs barely tickled the UK top 40.

Man Down, from her album Loud, made a major splash in Europe, reaching the top 10 in Italy, Switzerland, Romania, Belgium, and France.

But in the UK it stalled miles away from the top 10 at number 54, and even in America the song only rose as high as number 59 upon its release.

It stayed around the UK charts for almost three months in the end, and it’s had almost 400 million streams on Spotify, but never made the top 40 around the time of her huge hits We Found Love and Diamonds.

Ironically, California King Bed – from the same album – was Rihanna’s biggest hit that week, which had become yet another top 10 hit for the Barbados singer.

Changes – David Bowie

David Bowie is one of Britain’s most celebrated pop artists, with dozens of hits, five UK number one singles, and a whopping 11 number one albums.

But one of his most famous songs, Changes, from his 1971 album Hunky Dory, didn’t even chart in the UK despite being given a push as a single.

The album itself made it to number three on the album charts, and Life On Mars? made a huge splash on the singles charts when it also peaked at number three – but this was all two years later in 1973.

Changes came just before Bowie was a huge, huge star in the UK. Albums like Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust might be classics now, but it took a while for them to take hold on the British public.

It was only after the success of his sixth album, 1973’s Aladdin Sane, that Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust started to shift thousands and thousands of copies nd reach their peaks on the chart.

By that point, Changes had been available as a single for almost 18 months, meaning that almost nobody went out and bought it to send it up the charts alongside Hunky Dory.

Changes eventually reached a peak of number 49 when Bowie died in January 2016, aged 69, following the release of his last ever album, Blackstar.

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