People power! Yes, Rage Against The Machine are officially number 1 for Christmas after having beaten X Factor winner Joe McElderry to the top spot this year by 50,000 copies. To those people that bought a copy of “Killing In The Name” it might come as no surprise but it will go down as one of the biggest UK chart upsets in history. Nobody was expected to break the Simon Cowell monopoly on the charts… but then this is hardly the first upset that has ever happened in the charts.
There have been many chart and awards upsets in the past few decades. The fact that Mr Blobby and Bob The Builder made it to the top of the chart in 1993 and 2000 respectively can certainly be deemed upsetting in more ways than one. There were two credible chart battles that deserve a mention though.
The first was the battle dubbed Posh vs. Posher in 2000. Victoria Beckham’s first post-Spice Girls single was expected to fly to the top of the charts with very little effort but her single, “Out Of Your Mind” featuring Dane Bowers of boy band Another Level, only made it to the second spot with Spiller’s “Groovejet” featuring Sophie Ellis-Bextor claiming the top spot.
The Rage vs. McElderry shocker may trump that battle but nothing can touch the biggest chart upset of all time.
In February 1967, The Beatles released the Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane double A side on the back of 11 straight number 1 singles. There was little doubt that this single would make it 12… and yet somehow the guy with the weirdest name in pop beat them to it. Engelbert Humperdinck’s “Please Release Me” prevented The Beatles from achieving yet another record. Yes, this is indeed true. It might not seem believable now but this event is recorded in history. There is still some way to go before any upset beats that one!
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