Rick Astley’s overplayed debut single, Never Gonna Give You Up, apparently hit #1 in both the US and the UK, and also in Australia and Belgium and Canada and Denmark and Finland and Germany and the Netherlands and New Zealand and Norway and South Africa and Spain and Sweden and I may have missed some.
If we’re counting one-off novelty acts, then we’ve definitely got to make mention of Stars on 45’ “Medley: Intro ‘Venus’ / Sugar Sugar / No Reply / I’ll Be Back / Drive My Car / Do You Want to Know a Secret / We Can Work It Out / I Should Have Known Better / Nowhere Man / You’re Going to Lose That Girl / Stars on 45”, which made #1 in the US and a slew of other countries.
There are also probably a bunch of examples from singers who were part of a group but then went solo. Zayn Malik’s first solo single after leaving One Direction hit #1. One Direction’s first single went #1 in the UK, but interestingly they never had a #1 in the US despite being the biggest group in the world at the time (the best they could do in the US were a few #2’s).
For the opposite of a sure thing, the #1 that was DISCO DUCK. “According to Dees, it took one day to write the song, but three months to convince anyone to perform it.”
There ought to be charities to benefit victims of that song.
[Moderating]
I had to re-read the title three times before I noticed the typo, but anyway, it’s fixed now.
That may need an asterisk.
Heh. For the reverse, how about the #1 debut that was Winchester Cathedral?
Mention was made, in passing, of how George Harrison hit #1 with what’s arguably his debut single when MY SWEET LORD topped various charts around the world; figure I’ll now add, for one reason or another, that HE’S SO FINE had already hit #1 as the debut single for the Chiffons back in ‘63.
Another girl group apparently worth a quick mention: the Chordettes, back when they were asking Mister Sandman to please bring them a dream.
And, later: the Dixie Cups, singing about goin’ to the Chapel of Love.
“Afternoon Delight” was Starland Vocal Band’s #1 debut single.
Peter and Gordon hit #1 with the McCartney-penned World Without Love.
“Unbelievable” was a #1 debut for EMF (with an assist from Andrew Dice Clay).
Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch hit #1 with “Good Vibrations”, and then he became an Oscar-caliber dramatic actor, and if you were to add something about Wahlburgers then this sentence would seem like something out of Mad Libs.
Rick Dees was the roommate of John Tesh for a little while. Tesh went to Entertainment tonight TV show and later his own music career.
Speaking of living arrangements: “Hey Paula” was a debut #1 single for the duo of, uh, Paul and Paula. “Paul” was the song’s writer, Ray Hildebrand, a student at Texas’ Howard Payne University, a Baptist institution in the city of Brownwood. “Paula” was Jill Jackson, the niece of the owner of the boarding house where Ray lived.
Since today’s a holiday built around jokey stuff, I’ll make quick mention of the #1 single that was “Monster Mash”, from Bobby ‘Boris’ Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers.
I love that in the early days of rock ‘n’ roll any teenager could write an insanely catchy song and have it discovered and turned into a national hit. It kept happening over and over.
My favorite went only to #2. The Surfaris were a bunch of high schoolers who were recording a possible single for a tiny record company. They needed a b-side, so they made one up on the spot and recorded it in one take. That was the sublime “Wipe Out,” my candidate for the most perfect rock instrumental. Not a single note out of place or extra, but with every one counting.
And like most of the others who had that moment of supreme inspiration, they never did nothing no more.
Hey, even decades later, teens could still write a catchy #1 debut with MMMBop.