{"id":366467,"date":"2026-01-12T17:22:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T17:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/366467\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T17:22:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T17:22:12","slug":"the-worst-number-one-that-was-released-in-1981","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/366467\/","title":{"rendered":"The worst number one that was released in 1981"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Charts<\/p>\n

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

Mon 12 January 2026 0:00, UK <\/p>\n

The impact of the 1980s<\/a> as a whole, but particularly in early years like 1981, is an odd thing to quantify. On one hand, it was the peak of pop and rock music. On the other, it was beefed out with a load of utter garbage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That sounds overly harsh, so allow me to explain. The decade in itself was a revolution between the electrifying shores of new wave, synth pop, and glam metal commanding the saddle of the mainstream juggernaut. That element isn\u2019t being questioned \u2013 more so what came in between it, lost and thankfully confined to the era\u2019s graveyard. <\/p>\n

Think of the neon palette, the leg warmers, the hair that looked like you\u2019d stuck your fingers in a plug socket: that kind of vibe. There\u2019s no point in trying to claim that this somehow wasn\u2019t popular at the time, but it simply proved that the \u201880s, supposedly the best era ever made, also fell victim to the fads and fashions that were better left to die once the moment had passed. <\/p>\n

In this spirit, without wanting to crush anyone\u2019s heady \u201880s memories too much, it\u2019s time that we acknowledged some clangers of the era. There is no better place to start than 1981: still close to the start of the era, but just off the starting block enough that the sonic remnants of the \u201870s<\/a> were beginning to be left behind.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To be fair to the charts of 1981, it doesn\u2019t make all that bad a listen. You had a commemorative stint for the dearly departed John Lennon that lasted six weeks, split between \u2018Imagine\u2019 and \u2018Woman\u2019, and there were also era-defining hits such as \u2018Tainted Love\u2019 by Soft Cell and \u2018Stand and Deliver\u2019 by Adam and the Ants.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

But in between all that glory you do find a dud, namely in the form of \u2018Begin the Beguine\u2019 by Julio Iglesias, topping the chart for only one week, starting from December 5th. To be fair, we can\u2019t apportion all of the blame to Iglesias \u2013 the song was written by Cole Porter in 1935, and he only covered it \u2013 but even still, the crime had already been committed. <\/p>\n

If you were to imagine a tired cruise line for old age pensioners that goes sailing around the Mediterranean for two weeks in the height of July, this song is not far off what you anticipate the so-called entertainment to sound like. But with a bit of romance, way too much fake tan, and a bossa nova twirl, it became the making of a hit. <\/p>\n

It was maybe a reminder of that continental air that attracted the British masses to \u2018Begin the Beguine\u2019 so much, especially as they were in the dark depths of winter and coming up to Christmas. The song does take the prize for the first Spanish-language track to ever top the UK charts \u2013 but when you realise it knocked \u2018Under Pressure\u2019 by Queen and David Bowie off number one, its offences keep stacking up. <\/p>\n

In fairness, there are far worse crimes against music than just this singular Spanish affair, but putting it in the context of the seismic hits which the rest of the year produced, as well as the decade as a whole, there\u2019s no point in pretending that it doesn\u2019t pale in comparison. Iglesias was only bringing a taste of the Mediterranean to the world, but that holiday was probably best left out of the memory book.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ NASA \/ Uwe Conrad) Mon 12 January 2026 0:00, UK The impact of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[30275,96,128,83604,56,135,54,55],"class_list":["post-366467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-1980s","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-spanish","tag-uk","tag-uk-charts","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}