Inspired by – and as a kind of antidote to – RickJay’s thread on awful number one hit singles - how about a list of pleasant surprises? Once in a while a song you thought was going to be terrible turns out much better than you feared. There could be many different reasons why you were dreading listening to it – the track record of the band, pre-release publicity, artists from the same stable, whatever. In the example that came to me as I was trawling for awful UK number one hits, this record starts with a minute long spoken section, delivered in Estuary English. If that doesn’t fill you with dread for what comes next, I don’t know what will. But here we have Never Ever by All Saints. Now that was a pleasant surprise. (UK Number 1, US Number 4, hit all over the world).
The only limit on this – let’s keep it to big hits, rather than delving into the obscure (with the obvious qualification that something which was a huge hit in country A may have sunk without trace in country B). Plus it would be nice to know what filled you with apprehension about the record; and let’s have a link so we can all enjoy.
What have you got?
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