Number One with their first single

Cafe Society
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Have I the Right? by the Honeycombs was #1 in the UK.

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Yeah, the UK route opens this up all over the place. Like, over there, Lou Bega’s debut single — you know, Mambo No. 5 — hit #1, while only hitting #3 in the US; but it was the other way around for C+C Music Factory, with Everybody Dance Now as the debut single that shot to #1 here despite topping out at #3 there.

Looking back, the ‘90s were kind of a weird time.

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And, for an even closer miss: Guy Mitchell’s debut single, My Heart Cries For You, hit #1 in the UK but stalled out at #2 in the US — the reverse of how Soulja Boy’s debut single, Crank That, hit #1 in the US and #2 in the UK.

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B.o.B.’s debut single, Nothin’ on You, reached #1 in the US and the UK (and various other places, from South Korea to the Netherlands).

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David Soul had Don’t Give Up On Us hit #1 in the US and the UK and so on.

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“Wooden Heart” wasn’t just Joe Dowell’s #1 debut: “In 1961 “Wooden Heart” became the first single released on Smash Records to shoot to #1 on the Hot 100. It sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc. In the wake of his success, Dowell wanted to become a songwriter in his own right, but, due to contractual obligations, he was required to sing music owned by Smash’s parent company, Mercury Records. He had two further hits, “The Bridge of Love” (US #50) and “Little Red Rented Rowboat” (US #23), but, after struggles with his management, he was dropped from the label.”

Man, you give them their first #1; and you follow it up with the Top 40 hit they insist on, after they shoot down your idea; and then they drop you anyway?

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Billy Swan’s debut single, ‘I Can Help,’ hit #1 in the US (and topped the country chart, too; and topped the charts in more than half-a-dozen other countries).

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Why was that song listed on the country charts? It was a perfect pastiche of rock’n’roll/rockabilly from ca. 1956, and had no special country feel whatsoever, other than the fact though that the genres are related, but that’s true for countless other rock’n’roll songs. If Billy Swan had been a country act before, I would understand.

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The country chart is kind of all over the place, I guess; the stuff that hit #1 there is, what, Taylor Swift explaining that we are never ever getting back together, along with Johnny Cash explaining that his name is Sue, and how do you do? And in between them was, uh, Convoy? And so the part that makes all the sense is how, at some point, the theme song for the Dukes of Hazzard wound up on top?

(Bringing me, in turn, to how Rhythm Heritage apparently got a #1 debut single of the non-country type with, uh, “Theme from S.W.A.T.”)

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And, at that: Jan Hammer had a #1 debut single with “Miami Vice Theme”.

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“Gonna Fly Now” apparently counts.

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…and, speaking of ‘70s movies (and since it’s May 25th): Meco went on to rack up a succession of Top 40 hits, but only after the #1 debut single that went platinum as the disco version of the Star Wars Theme.

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Divine’s debut single, “Lately”, hit #1.

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The McCoys reached #1 with their debut single, “Hang On Sloopy”.

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Santo & Johnny, with “Sleep Walk”.

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America, with “A Horse With No Name”.

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The Kingston Trio, with “Tom Dooley”.

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Barry McGuire, with “Eve of Destruction”.

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Percy Sledge, with “When A Man Loves A Woman”.

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This week marks a #1 from Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande, which seems to have made it “the first female collaboration to debut atop the chart, and made Grande the first artist to have four songs debut at the number one spot.”

Which makes me think it’s maybe a good time to mention that Lady Gaga’s first single, “Just Dance”, managed to hit #1 during the Bush administration.