{"id":210045,"date":"2025-10-13T11:17:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T11:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/210045\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T11:17:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T11:17:09","slug":"the-first-band-to-reach-number-one-with-their-first-three-singles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/210045\/","title":{"rendered":"The first band to reach number one with their first three singles"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Charts<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ NASA \/ Uwe Conrad)<\/p>\n

Mon 13 October 2025 8:00, UK <\/p>\n

Ever since NME advertising manager Percy Dickins planted the seeds of the UK Official Charts<\/a> back in 1952, the natural competitive glow of the coveted top spot has long endured as the pinnacle of pop grail.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s survived seismic changes. The album era\u2019s rockist primacy, the loss of Top of the Pops, and the streaming era\u2019s upending bulldoze still haven\u2019t snuffed the singles chart\u2019s sturdy measure of sales, albeit arguably less monolithic than it used to be. While the 2020s\u2019 music climate is an altogether different realm from over 70 years ago, the number one slot still beckons with coveted glow, commanding a hefty cache in the music biz.<\/p>\n

Many artists can boast a big bag of number ones, Elvis Presley knocking it out of the park in the UK with a whopping 21, but consecutive top hits are a truly impressive feat. The Beatles hit seven in a row from 1964\u2019s \u2018A Hard Day\u2019s Night\u2019 to the double A-side \u2018Yellow Submarine \/ Eleanor Rigby\u2019 two years later, but were matched by Irish boyband Westlife, \u20181999\u2019s Swear It Again\u2019 triggering a steady run of UK top spot entries until \u2018My Love\u2019 the following year.<\/p>\n

To uncover the first band to score such a chart hat trick from their debut, we have to reach back into the pop sphere when a certain British Invasion hadn\u2019t quite set its sights on global conquer, and Merseyside was most famous for its historic ports.<\/p>\n

So, who was the first band to reach number one with their first three singles?<\/p>\n

Way back in Liverpool\u2019s Merseybeat scene in the early 1960s, it wasn\u2019t entirely clear that The Beatles<\/a> were to dominate the decade.<\/p>\n

A huge ace up their sleeve was the internal songwriting chops between Paul McCartney and John Lennon, but debut single \u2018Love Me Do\u2019 sailed to a lowly 17 in the charts, and the infinitely better \u2018Please Please Me\u2019 struck second place due to woolly chart rules at the time, beaten by Cliff Richard\u2019s drippy \u2018Summer Holiday\u2019.<\/p>\n

Signed to EMI\u2019s Parlophone label, and sharing both Brian Epstein and George Martin as respective manager and producer, Gerry and the Pacemakers struck gold before the Fab Four managed, off the success of debut single \u2018How Do You Do It?\u2019. Released in March 1963, a month before \u2018From Me to You\u2019s Beatlemania spark, Gerry Marsden and his Pacemakers band would enjoy the number one spot for three weeks, having cut the Mitch Murray-written piece originally offered to their labelmate competitors.<\/p>\n

Murray would pen Gerry and the Pacemakers\u2019 next chart topper, \u2018I Like It\u2019, and they\u2019d score their third number one with a cover of Rodgers and Hammerstein\u2019s \u2018You\u2019ll Never Walk Alone\u2019 showtune, becoming the official anthem of Liverpool FC<\/a> and bellowed by their fans to this day. <\/p>\n

Such a feat wasn\u2019t witnessed til 20 years later, when fellow Scousers Frankie Goes to Hollywood scored the UK\u2019s second debut single triple whammy with the hi-NRG bangers \u2018Relax\u2019, \u2018Two Tribes\u2019, and \u2018The Power of Love\u2019s festive balladry across the early 1980s.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n

The Far Out Beatles Newsletter<\/p>\n

All the latest stories about The Beatles from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ NASA \/ Uwe Conrad) Mon 13 October 2025 8:00, UK Ever since NME advertising…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[16764,64,63,134,129413,136,36484,129414],"class_list":{"0":"post-210045","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-1960s","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-gerry-and-the-pacemakers","13":"tag-music","14":"tag-the-beatles","15":"tag-uk-singles-chart"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}