Many pop songs, that many people agree are very bad; for example 'Wrecking Ball', still get number one despite people agreeing they suck.

Some songs win many awards and people think they are great songs, but they still do not reach number one. For example, 'Chocolate' by The 1975, only reached about 23 I think in the charts, but still recieved the award as Radio 1's 'Best Song Of The Past 5 Years.

It just baffles me how certain songs get number one in the charts despite the fact it is agreed they are bad songs.

It doesn't matter how many people think they're bad. It's the number of people who like them enough to buy them that counts.

Well, does anyone actually like Wrecking Ball?

3 corporations own and distribute 95% of the music in the western world they dictate and and impose on us whatever they want to be popular.
'if you feed people sh!t long enough they will learn to put BBQ sauce on it' - DMX

(P.S - cant stand miley cyrus but i think wrecking ball is a pretty good pop song)

People dislike the song because of the video

The song itself is actually pretty great!

Wrecking Ball is actually a great song she just gets flacj because of the video. It's all down to taste....

Thread title immediately made me think of Lily Allen's AWFUL 'Somewhere Only We Know' cover.

Didn't "deserve" the number 1 spot -in my opinion- because: It's a terrible cover in that all she's doing is doing her age-old talking over it in her cringey mockney accent; It only got to number 1 because it's Lily "Keith" Allen's apparent comeback single; And because it accompanied the equally as terrible John Lewis advert. (P.S. I adored last year's ad and song)

I just don't like Lily Allen's so-called "music" and am gutted she's back when she promised us that she was retiring and leaving us alone

This always puzzles me in discussions of Lily Allen... what possible influence could her father have on her career beyond, maybe, getting her the initial chance to release stuff? Why would people buy Lily Allen's music because of whose daughter she is?

Keith Allen is a pretty minor celebrity in the first place, it's not like, say, people expecting Julian Lennon to be great because his father is a legend. John Lennon fans might buy Julian's music solely because of the name, I could see that, but no-one's going to think 'yeah, I really liked Vindaloo, so I'm gonna buy this!'

Tbh, I've never heard of Lily Allen's dad. I only found out about the same way as anyone else; she had a hit song and got famous.

I also think this 'Somewhere Only We Know' cover didn't deserve to do well. Keane's original version was far better, and they write the song and play instruments and all, so their version deserves to do better than Lily's.

Why do some songs get number 1 that don't deserve it?

Because the (mainly young) single buying population have no f****g taste??

See Harlem Shake as an example of this. Cringy Internet meme for about 5 mins, future generations will struggle to understand how it got to No1.

This is kind of a stupid forum tbh.

Every single person is going to have their own opinion in a song and taste in music.

Just because you feel a song doesn't merit #1, doesn't mean other people feel the same.

Why does it even bother you? Just enjoy the music that you like listening to.

It doesn't matter if it gets to #1. That shouldn't change how you feel about the song.

Cher Lloyd - Swagger Jagger.

Just kidding. It totally deserved to be #1.

It's just whatever song sells the most in a 7 day period.

And it's strange people are talking about Wrecking Ball. It's not my favourite song, but there's dozens of #1s worse than if from the past few years.

Wrecking Ball: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My2FRPA3Gf8

Harlem Shake: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk1_DbbzSdY

You seriously think its just a matter of taste as to which of these is the better song??

It doesn't. I hated Wrecking Ball, and What Does The Fox Say etc before they got number one. I still hate them now.

However, some songs that get to number one do deserve it, like Pompeii by Bastille for example. I liked this song before it got number one, and liked it after.

My point is that songs that do deserve number one or at least a decent top 10, but they don't. Like Chocolate by The 1975, it only got about 23rd in the charts, yet is winning awards of best song of 2013 and of the past 5 years. Surely if it was worthy of winning these awards, which I believe it is, than it should do well in the charts.

Critical success is not the same thing as popular success, of course. I think MKS's 'Flatline' was a good song but it only made No 50!

If taste is as diverse a trait as many here believe, then all these songs are good in someone's opinion and therefore just as deserving of being No 1 as any song you particularly like.

Setting aside this concept of a song "deserving" to do well (which is nonsense in my opinion), where a song peaks in the chart is often not a good indicator of how well it has actually done in terms of sales, because chart positions are just a snapshot of sales in a single week and are often driven by timing of marketing etc.

e.g. you keep mentioning Chocolate by The 1975. Well that has been certified silver, which means it's sold over 200,000 copies, but they were probably spread out over a fairly long period rather than just all happening in one week because the single wasn't released with lots of advanced hype etc. Other singles might have more marketing around a particular release date designed to ensure sales happen in a particular week to push a higher chart position, but total sales could be much lower that something like Chocolate.

And anyway, the sales needed for any single to get to no 1 and tiny as a proportion of the total UK population, typically a single would have been bought by way less than 1% of the UK population for it to get to no 1. So there's nothing at all baffling about songs that the vast majority of people thinking are rubbish getting to no 1.

Wrecking Ball is an outstanding pop song.

Yeah I'm a little confused as to why Wrecking Ball is being brought up as an example of a terrible number 1? It's actually pretty universally acclaimed as a song , maybe not the video or the performer , but the actual music has received fantastic reviews.

Also I don't get the question , The song that sells the most copies deserves to be number one because it sells the most copies , the charts aren't meant to be an indication of which songs are better/worse ( because this is entirely subjective ) but just which songs sold more.

there hasn't been a no1 song that deserved to get to number 1 since Ghost Town

nobody yet knows why they all get there, it's dumbfounded all studies

OP, what do you mean "Don't deserve it"?

You need to Shaddup You Face

I see what you did there

As Midge Ure once sang on getting stuck at #2...

The feeling has gone only you and I
It means nothing to the general public
Or at least not as much as "Shaddapa Ya Face" does
Oh, Vienna

I'm a fan of hip hop, so I love Harlem Shake personally. I agree there's many worse #1s than Wrecking Ball though.

Harlem Shake isn't hip hop, it's trap

Trap is hip hop. I listen to this kind of music all the time and it sounds exactly the same. They play Harlem Shake on urban stations and hip hop clubs a lot, and it's popular for parties too, so I have got a lot of fond memories from the song.

There have been other trap songs do well in the charts this year too. Trampoline by Tinie Tempah and 2 Chainz, Wild For the Night by A$AP Rocky & Skrillex, Mercy by Kanye West and Earthquake by DJ Fresh & Diplo.

Baauer was going to have Juicy J on the beat to Harlem Shake, but the song blew up before they recorded the vocals, so they just left it as an instrumental. Baauer also had a song with Just Blaze (he's a producer for T.I., Eminem, etc.) and Jay-Z called Higher which is awesome too.