The only chart that counted

So yesterday ten years ago was the climax of the central point of Britpop, the end of a week of battle that Treusteppers vs Spiller - sorry, Posh vs Sophie - could only dream of in desperation. But how did the chart actually look in that week beginning 20/8/05?

1 Blur - Country House
Seriously, people loved this at the time. There's clearly the germination of something - apparently Damon worked from the "blow, blow me out" backing vocals outwards, which is strange - but then the music hall gene took over. Matt Lucas was in the Hirst-directed video before anyone knew who he was. Worth noting in the light of the hype, and given the hosannahs the record industry gave when James Blunt made it to about 60,000 a few weeks back, that 274,000 was only the fifth biggest sales week of 1995, beaten by Take That's Back For Good and Robson & Jerome's Unchained Melody three times. What constitution was buying singles at that point?

2 Oasis - Roll With It
And this was eighth, 216,000 putting it behind Robson & Jerome's Up On The Roof and, ironically for Britpop week as it'd turn out, Earth Song. Invited to comment on Chris Evans' Radio 1 show, Damon was heard singing Rockin' All Over The World over this, which led to Noel having a 'Quoasis' T-shirt made, which led to collapse of very few stout parties. Exited the chart quicker too.

3 The Original - I Luv U Baby
Had the above not happened this would have climbed to number one, already unusual enough by mid-1995. Soul jazz singer Everett Bradley repeats the title over the work of one Walter Taieb, now a classical composer who's worked with Vanessa Mae. How strange the potency of cheap music.

4 Take That - Never Forget
Billed at the time as their big salute to their fans to demonstrate how they were still as together and as powerful as ever, stymied by the giveaway "we've had success, we've had good times" lyrics and, more notably, Robbie leaving the week before release. Being shoved into a reservoir by Paula Hamilton was just round the corner.

5 TLC - Waterfalls
So, right, in the video, how come they're perfectly able to perform on top of the water in the middle of the ocean but when it moves to an actual waterfall there are only aqueous representations of the girls?

6 Clock - Everybody
The Eurohouse chart act of champions, who it says here had only just got to number four with a version of Whoomph! There It Is, which followed a cover of Axel F. Both of these are covered on the Crazy Frog album Crazy Hits. Hmmm.

7 JX - Son Of A Gun
Official lyrics: "A man just on the run (x42)/Damn near son of a gun (x60)". People became a little cynical of the charts at this stage, as you can imagine.

8 Madonna - Human Nature
This was Madge's answer song to accusations she'd pimped herself out, not that setting the video around bondage helped her answer reach many ears. After this the forgotten ballads album and then Evita. Wonder if she ever gets these albums out at home.

9 Seal - Kiss From A Rose
Reissued from a year earlier, when it had made number 20 on the back of a Batman film. And they say guitar bands are milked now.

10 Corona - Try Me Out
And another hurrah for Eurodance, an era of pre-eminence meaning at least two sets of men behind decks in white tracksuits next to two women singing while twirling around in cut-off black on TOTP every week. Producer called Francesco Bontempi, which is worth a cheap laugh.

11 Diana King - Shy Guy
She don't want no fly guy. From the Bad Boys soundtrack, if anyone dares to remember that.

12 Charlatans - Just When You're Thinkin' Things Over
Became part of Britpop without actually changing that much, people just noticed they were still around, still lugging a Hammond around and on their third album, you know, like Parklife was.

13 Deuce - On The Bible
Steps before their time, in that they were the property of a famous svengali (Tom Watkins - where he now?), were mixed gender, knowingly kitsch and did Abba inaccurately. Only ever come up in conversation as part of the sentence "Ant McPartlin, whose long time girlfriend is former Deuce singer Lisa Armstrong..."

14 Xpansions - Move Your Body
Armstrong was actually linked with the Live & Kicking job after Emma Forbes left, the Star putting her in the final three on the shortlist with Sally-Anne Marsh, who sang on this, and... Louise Wener! Can you imagine if Zoe Ball was stuck on CBBC while Wener became massively famous?

15 Michelle Gayle - Happy Just To Be With You
No Sweetness, but perfectly respectable pop-soul from one of the few UK soap actors to actually pull off the crossover. Still married to Mark Bright, since you ask.

16 Suggs - I'm Only Sleeping
Thing was, he went on Danny Baker After All the previous year and did this and Suedehead with the Mark Kermode-fronted house band, and apparently the reaction was such that he recorded it as his first solo single. His original go's much better.

17 Boyzone - So Good
Their third single (not counting Working My Way Back To You, obviously). Four of them are still hanging around, which is more than you can say for Take That.

18 Outhere Brothers - Boom Boom Boom
Easy to forget about their reign of terror, less easy to forget the rude lyrics that did the rounds of every classroom. Way-oh!

19 The Real McCoy - Come And Get Your Love
Mad Stuntman not pictured.

20 Supergrass - Alright
Heading down after setting their image in stone for the rest of their career. Gaz has had to grow an unpleasant beard before anyone would take them seriously.

21 Connells - '74-'75
Richard Allinson playlist staple one hit wonders

22 Alanis Morrissette - You Oughta Know
We've never seen such one star-esque marks across the board as we did for Jagged Little Pill Acoustic.

23 Bjork - Isobel
24 Felix - Don't You Want Me
Rollo, in other words. A remix re-release, much like JX (see above) from the same label.

25 Ali Campbell - Let Your Yeah Be Yeah
Clearly not some great concept side project which demanded seperation from UB40 given it's a weak reggae cover, Jimmy Cliff in this case

26 U2 - Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me
Best single in ages, not that it made them cool just yet.

27 Happy Clappers - Hold On
Piano house will never die. Except it has.

28 The Shamen - Destination Eschaton
29 Levellers - Hope Street
Everyone got pulled into the Britpop wave in mid-1995.

30 Moist - Push
Despite the revionism, US rock didn't fully curl up and die the day Parklife was released. You probably got these confused with Cracker.

31 Ash - Girl From Mars
Possibly the very week when Tim announced his A-level results on the Evening Session.

32 Eusebe - Summertime Healing
Proto-Love City Groove, as we recall. Bet it sampled Sexual Healing.

33 Tina Arena - Heaven Help My Heart
The Delta Goodrem of the 90s.

34 Smokie feat. Roy 'Chubby' Brown - Living Next Door To Alice (Who The F**k Is Alice)
Right, what happened was veteran Dutch songwriter Peter Koelewijn and a couple of friends put together, for no good reason, a version of the Chinn/Chapman MOR classic with a crowd chanting the obscenity back after each namecheck. Massive in Holland, obviously, and picked up some British notice in much the same way we would occasionally laugh at the funny foreigners and their odd buying patterns (cf Jordy Lemoine). As if to prove some people miss the point altogether, the then chicken in a basket touring version of Smokie featuring few original members roped Chubby Brown in to cover the cover. It entered in this week and became one of the last records to slowly climb the chart, peaking at number three, two higher than the original. Then Gompie's version, which had made a small chart impact a couple of months before, got re-released and made it to 17. Then everybody slapped themselves round the face.

35 Edwyn Collins - A Girl Like You
Now back at home, thankfully

36 A.D.A.M. featuring Amy - Zombie
A not at all point-missing Eurohouse cover of the Cranberries' tanks/guns/guns/bombs decrying.

37 Shiva - Freedom
38 Shaggy feat. Rayvon - In The Summertime
Plenty of Carribean rap coolness, no jug playing.

39 Cyndi Lauper - Come On Home
40 Matt Goss - The Key
And that was as far as it got, as they used to say on Pick Of The Pops. Goss has released four solo singles in the last ten years, each preceded by excited talk of a comeback. It was Luke that was in Blade II.