Some of my favourite top of the pops hit single (guilty?) pleasures ordered by release date. The Artist name links to the videoclip while the Track name links to the lyrics.
There is a bias towards hits from The Netherlands (NL), most of them from the town where I lived for 44 years, beatstad Den Haag (The Hague):
ROARING TWENTIES (1) | |
1920 Mamie Smith   Crazy Blues | The ultimate startpoint | THIRTIES (2) |
1930 George Olsen & His Music   Beyond The Blue Horizon | Use the train rhythm |
1939 Billie Holiday   Strange Fruit | Best protest song ever Live performance in 1959 | FORTIES (1) |
1940 Jimmie Davis   You Are My Sunshine | Sunshine | FIFTIES (13) |
1954 Jo Stafford   Make Love To Me | Ideal? voice recording in my year of birth |
1955 Little Richard   Tutti Frutti | The inventor of rock and roll had a girl named Sue and probably Buddy Holly liked it too |
1955 Bill Haley & His Comets   Rock Around The Clock | Live in the Ed sullivan show |
1956 Doris Day   Que Sera Sera | . |
1956 Harry Belafonte   Jamaica Farewell | . |
1957 Elvis Presley   Jailhouse Rock | . |
1957 Buddy Holly   Peggy Sue | Died too young (semi live) |
1958 The Teddy Bears   To Know Him Is To Love Him | Sponsored by the Melkbrigade, watch Phil Spector sing and play guitar (semi live) |
1958 Peggy Lee   Fever | Live |
1958 The Champs   Tequila | Live |
1958 Everly Brothers   All I Have To Do Is Dream | Live |
1959 The Everly Brothers   Bird Dog / Till I kissed you | Live |
1959 Chuck Berry   Johnny B Goode | John B. tries to be goode and good, the only rock song floating in space (Voyager 1 and 2) | SIXTIES (61) |
1960 The Brothers Four   Greenfields | Searching the ideal voice recording within the Vereeniging van Arbeiders Radio Amateurs |
1960 Billy Fury   Wondrous Place | Searching the ideal but the voice is too wet |
1961 The Shirelles   Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow | From the Brill building hit factory |
1961 The Allisons   Are You Sure | Live |
1961 Del Shannon   Runaway | Listen to a predecessor of the analog synthesizer, the Musitron at 1:10 |
1962 Little Eva   Loco-motion | Live |
1963 The Crystals   Da Doo Ron Ron | Live |
1964 Freddie and The Dreamers   You Were Made For Me | A crazy dance and a dog that is made for us |
1964 The Honeycombs   Have I The Right | Where Joe Meek instructed the group to stamp their feet on the wooden stairs of the studio |
1964 The Nashville Teens   Tobacco Road | Live |
1965 Adamo   Les filles du bord de mer | . |
1965 The Yardbirds   Still I'm Sad | . |
1965 Dave Berry   This Strange Effect | . |
1965 The Motions   Wasted Words | NL Den Haag, written by Robbie van Leeuwen who was a fan of Martin Luther King |
1965 The Mamas & The Papas   California Dreaming | . |
1965 Sonny & Cher   I Got You Babe | Sonny was 27 and worked for Phil Spector when he met Cher (16), what a small world |
1965 France Gall   Poupee De Cire, Poupee De Son | The singing doll of Serge Gainsbourg, French Eurovision Song Contest winner (even the orchestra is live) |
1965 The Sorrows   Take A Heart | |
1965 Barry McGuire   Eve Of Destruction | If the button is pushed, there's is no runnin' away |
1966 Herman's Hermits   No Milk Today | Live at the Beatclub, from the time that milk was delivered by the milkman, written by the hit wonder of 10cc Graham Gouldman |
1966 Nancy Sinatra   These Boots Are Made For Walkin | Step down low pitch |
1966 The Kinks   Dead End Street | What are we living for? |
1966 The Marmalade   I See The Rain | |
1966 The Beach Boys   Good Vibrations | First? use of a Theremin like (Tanner/Whitsell variant) synthesizer sound in a top hit |
1966 Small Faces   All Or Nothing | |
1966 The Lovin' Spoonful   Summer In The City | Listen to the city sound scape including jackhammer |
1966 Cat Stevens   Matthew & Son | |
1966 Ike & Tina Turner   River Deep Mountain High | Not a hit in the USA because Tina was too black, Phil too white and Ike did not like it anyway |
1966 The Monkees   I'm A Believer | By the group that was dominated by the Wrecking Crew |
1966 Rob Hoeke R & B Group   When People Talk | NL Haarlem i.e. not USA Harlem |
1966 Golden Earring   Daddy Buy Me A Girl | NL Den Haag |
1966 The Outsiders with Wally Tax   Lying all the time | NL Amsterdam |
1966 Q65   The Life I Live | NL Den Haag |
1966 Boudewijn de Groot   Welterusten meneer de president | NL Ultieme protest song van de Nederlandse Bob Dylan (being the Cooper pair partner of Lennaert Nijgh) |
1967 Tee-Set   Don't You Leave | NL Delft |
1967 RO-D-YS   Take Her Home | NL Oude Pekela |
1967 Rudy Bennett   How We Can Hang On To A Dream | NL Den Haag |
1967 Cuby and the Blizzards   Somebody will know someday | NL Grolloo |
1967 Jefferson Airplane   White Rabbit | |
1967 David McWilliams   Days Of Pearly Spencer | Functional use of telephone bandwidth limitation, e.g. 0:36 |
1967 The Turtles   Happy Together | Some members later joined Frank Zappa |
1967 The Small Faces   Itchycoo Park | First? use of a tape flanger Its all too beautifull |
1967 The Tremeloes   Even The Bad Times Are Good | Inversion leads to TRUTH |
1967 The Moody Blues   Nights in White Satin | Just what the TRUTH is,   I can't say anymore |
1967 Andy Williams   Music To Watch Girls By | Guilty pleasure and part of the cancel culture |
1967 Four Tops   Reach Out (I'll Be There) | A Motown topper, one of the many hitsingles of Holland Dozier Holland |
1967 The First Edition   Just Dropped In | A self reference hit towards my condition |
1968 Elvis Presley   A Little Less Conversation | Will probably be cancelled by the Woke community (women talk too much) |
1968 Status Quo   Pictures Of Matchstick Men | . |
1968 The Move   Flowers in the Rain | A thunder start |
1968 The Small Faces   Lazy Sunday Afternoon | Listen to the sea side sound scape including seagulls, church bells and more birds |
1968 Georgie Fame   The Ballad Of Bonnie & Clyde | Listen to the sound scape of sirenes and flying bullets |
1969 Zager And Evans   In The Year 2525 | |
1968 Cuby and the Blizzards   Window Of My Eyes | NL Grolloo |
1969 Shocking Blue   Venus | NL Den Haag, Written by Robbie van Leeuwen |
1969 Earth & Fire   Seasons | NL Den Haag |
1969 George Baker Selection   Little Green Bag | NL Wormerveer, Especially for the first 50 seconds |
1969 Ekseption - The 5th | NL Haarlem |
1969 The Archies   Sugar, Sugar | From the Brill building hit factory |
1969 Rolling Stones   Gimme Shelter | The best intro ever |
1969 Wallace Collection   Daydream | The best dream | SEVENTIES (42) |
1970 Van Morrison   Moondance | Idealism in love ecstasy |
1970 The Guess Who   No time | No time because some day I will DIE |
1970 Smokey Robinson & The Miracles   Tears Of A Clown | |
1970 Steve Rowland & The Family Dogg   Sympathy | |
1970 Pacific Gas and Electric   Are You Ready | Live in the Beat-Club in 1972 |
1970 Supersister   She was naked | NL Den Haag |
1970 Earth & Fire   Wild and excitng | NL Den Haag |
1970 Earth & Fire   Ruby Is The One | NL Den Haag |
1971 Sandy Coast   True Love That's A Wonder | NL Den Haag (Voorburg) |
1971 April Shower   Railroad Song | NL Amsterdam |
1971 Focus /   Hocus Pocus | NL Amsterdam, Original / Live at NBC in 1973 |
1971 Doors   Riders on the storm | |
1971 John Kongos   He's gonna step on you again | |
1971 Slade   Coz I Luv You | The violin makes this hit less guilty |
1971 Lighthouse   One Fine Morning | Live |
1971 Derek & The Dominos   Layla | How being in love can create one of the best intros |
1972 Redbone   We Were All Wounded At Wounded Knee | In the name of manifest destiny or evolution, where the winner can take it all |
1972 Jimmy Cliff   The Harder They Come | Well, they tell me of a pie up in the sky, Waiting for me when I die |
1972 Roxy Music   Re-Make / Re-Model | Perfect sync between musicians |
1972 Creedence Clearwater Revival   I Put A Spell On You | . |
1972 Middle of the Road   The Talk Of All The USA | Guilty pleasure |
1972 Frans Halsema en Jenny Arean   Vluchten kan niet meer | NL Amsterdam, Dutch dystopic hit written by Annie M.G. Schmidt (lyrics) and Harry Bannink |
1973 Golden Earring   Radar Love | NL Den Haag |
1973 Dizzy Man's Band   The Show | NL Zaandam, Guilty pleasure hitsingle about Guilty pleasure hitsingles |
1973 Pink Floyd   Money | Their engineer, Alan Parsons, played an important role (see 1980) |
1974 10 CC   The Wall Street Shuffle | |
1975 Teach-In   Ding-a-Dong | NL Enschede, Dutch Eurovision Song Contest winner guilty pleasure |
1975 Kraftwerk   Autobahn | Electronic simplicity |
1976 Boney M   Daddy cool | |
1977 Johnny Guitar Watson   A Real Mother For Ya | |
1977 KC and the Sunshine Band   I'm Your Boogie Man | I Like to say hello to all our fans in Holland |
1977 Mistral   Starship 109 | NL Den Haag, Guilty pleasure written by Robbie van Leeuwen |
1978 Sweet   Love Is Like Oxygen | Top Of The Pops, guilty pleasure |
1978 Bee Gees   Stayin Alive | Falset survival by the first tape loop hit because the drummer was off to the funeral of his mother, the result was a disco hit that killed positivity |
1978 10 CC   Dreadlock Holiday | I love the truth inversion, I hope it survives the cancel culture |
1978 Santana   She's Not There | |
1978 Massada   Latin Dance | NL 100 % live |
1978 Chic   Le Freak | Live in the Netherlands |
1978 Sniff 'n' The Tears   Driver's Seat | . |
1979 Sister Sledge   Lost In Music | Play back in Musikladen |
1979 Fischer Z   The Worker | Play back in Top Pop, socialist statement by a statistical quality band |
1979 Sheila   Spacer | Guilty please of a USA/France mix up from Nile Rodgers |
1979 Earth, Wind & Fire   Boogie Wonderland | Guilty please boogie | EIGHTIES (27) |
1980 Fruitcake My Feet Won't Move (no lyrics available) | NL Amsterdam, Guilty pleasure |
1980 The Romantics   What I Like About You | Guilty pleasure |
1980 Stevie Wonder   Master Blaster | |
1980 Alan Parsons Project   The Turn Of A Friendly Card | He learned the tricks from Pink Floyd and he was their inspiring engineer (see 1973), watch the Dutch banknotes |
1981 Rick James   Super Freak | |
1981 The Pretenders   I Go To Sleep | |
1981 Men At Work   Down Under | |
1982 The Stranglers   Golden Brown | Use of the harpsichord, you may want to listen to the original |
1982 Steve Miller Band   Abracadabra | Me too ligt altijd op de loer |
1982 Imagination   Just An Illusion | We love illusions |
1982 Michael Jackson   Beat It | We have to seperate the artist from the art |
1983 What Fun   The Right Side Won | NL Haarlem, Written in response to the Falklands war, are we in the right? |
1983 Frankie Goes To Hollywood   Relax | Most people have a hard time getting relaxation |
1983 Herbie Hancock - Rockit | The use of repeats and phase shifts in audio and video |
1983 Elton John   I'm Still Standing | . |
1984 Golden Earring   When the Lady Smiles | NL Den Haag, Video clip was banned in the USA |
1984 Gloria Estefan   Dr. Beat | Guilty pleasure beat disease |
1985 Talking Heads   Road to Nowhere | |
1986 Genesis   Land Of Confusion | There's too many men, too many people, decimating the world population is the ultimate solution |
1986 Paul Simon   You Can Call Me Al | Pokes fun at the concept of video and is a link between high and low culture, Pierre Boulez misunderstood Paul/Peggy as Al/Betty |
1986 Matia Bazar   Ti Sento | For the use of a staircase pitch rise sequence |
1986 Het Goede Doel   Ik dans, dus ik besta | NL Utrecht, Guilty pleasure in Dutch |
1987 Nits   In the Dutch mountains | NL Amsterdam |
1987 France Gall   Ella, elle l'a | |
1987 Elli Medeiros   A Bailar Calypso | |
1988 Mory Kante   Yeke Yeke | |
1989 Paula Abdul   Straight Up | Guilty pleasure |
1989 Soul II Soul   Back To Life | Example of a black and white collective hit integrating many styles, listen to the classic strings, inspired by a dark experience of the singer | NINETIES (17) |
1990 Depeche Mode   Enjoy The Silence | . |
1991 R.E.M.   Losing My Religion | . |
1992 Red Hot Chili Peppers   Under The Bridge | Love for the city and I love the child choir |
1993 Culture Beat   Mr. Vain | Guilty pleasure beat |
1994 Youssou N'Dour   7 Seconds ft. Neneh Cherry | Battle's not over, Even when it's won |
1994 Edwyn Collins   A Girl Like You | . |
1995 Coolio   Gangsta's Paradise | Paradise and Hell lie closer than Stevie Wonder and you might think |
1995 Pulp   Common People | For me the reverse is more true |
1996 Spice Girls   Wannabe | What you really want can be a very guilty pleasure |
1996 No Doubt   Don't Speak | I know what you are thinking |
1997 Buena Vista Social Club   Chan Chan | Wat in het vat zit verzuurt niet, en Ry haalt het op |
1997 White Town   Your Woman | The power of a woman is underestimated |
1998 MC Hammer   U Can't Touch This | EN DE WINNAAR IS: Je kunt dit niet aanraken |
1998 Cher   Believe | Only for the audio-video coupling of the vocoder like harmonic vowel structure introduced by autotune at 0:47 |
1999 Fatboy Slim   Praise You | Listen to the frame repeats e.g. 0:36-0:56 |
1999 Britney Spears   ...Baby One More Time | Guilty pleasure |
1999 Santana ft. Rob Thomas   Smooth | . | ZERO'S (20) |
2000 Alcazar   Crying At The Discoteque | The ultimate disco guilty please with low pass filtering and a video that steps out of the system |
2000 Tom Jones & Mousse T - Sexbomb | Guilty pleasure bomb |
2001 Destiny's Child - Survivor | Will we survive? |
2001 Mary J. Blige - Family Affair | . |
2001 Alizée - Moi... Lolita | Guilty Nabokov pleasure that will probably be cancelled |
2002 Red Hot Chili Peppers - By The Way | . |
2003 The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army | . |
2003 Outkast - Hey Ya! | Guilty pleasure |
2003 Coldplay - Clocks | . |
2004 The Black Eyed Peas - Let's Get It Started | Try to get started, but its difficult |
2004 Anastacia - Sick and Tired | Functional use of a me too silence at 3:05 |
2004 Green Day - Boulevard Of Broken Dreams | . |
2004 Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out | Listen to the best slow down in tempo |
2005 Madonna - Hung Up | best use of bandfiltering for getting timbre changes that express distance |
2006 Editors - All Sparks | About answering questions that have not yet been asked |
2006 Muse   Supermassive Black Hole | A link between the attraction in physics and the attraction in psychology |
2007 New Young Pony Club - The Bomb | Guilty pleasure bomb |
2008 Coldplay - Violet Hill | . |
2009 Lady Gaga - Paparazzi | . |
2009 JAY-Z ft. Alicia Keys - Empire State Of Mind | New York has this , Amsterdam this and Den Haag this | TENS (13) |
2010 Lady Gaga - Telephone ft. Beyoncé | Functional frame repeats that increase quality |
2011 Gotye - Somebody That I Used To Know | . |
2012 Of Monsters And Men - Little Talks | . |
2013 Stromae - Papaoutai | . |
2013 Daft Punk feat. Pharrell Williams - Get Lucky | . |
2014 Stromae - tous les memes | . |
2015 Alvaro Soler - El Mismo Sol | . |
2016 Willy William - Ego | . |
2016 Rag'n'Bone Man - Human | . |
2017 Luis Fonsi ft. Daddy Yankee - Despacito | Are they using PSOLA slow down? |
2018 Camila Cabello ft. Young Thug - Havana | After New York , Amsterdam and Den Haag , we have Havana with a step out of the system |
2019 Niall Horan - Nice To Meet Ya | . |
2019 Billie Eilish - Bad Guy | . | TWENTIES (but not roaring) (9) |
2020 Ava Max - Kings & Queens | Bon Jovi rip-off and partial cause of a split up in the political party Forum voor Democratie |
2020 Harry Styles - Watermelon Sugar | Inspired by a post apocalyptic iDEATH roman?, definitely a guilty pleasure likely to be cancelled in the future |
2021 Ava Max - Who's Laughing Now | . |
2022 Stromae - L'enfer | Pain reflected in a glitch |
2022 Maan ft. Goldband - Stiekem | NL Den Haag |
2022 Son Mieux - Multicolor | NL Den Haag |
2023 Iguana Death Cult - Pushermen | NL Rotterdam |
2023 Racoon - Nickel For Goodbye | NL Goes |
2024 Joost Klein - Europapa | NL The only disqualified song ever in Eurovision |
2024 Shaboozey - A Bar Song (Tipsy) | . |