1, "Like a Virgin," tops our list of her 40 biggest Hot 100 hit singles. It shifted a million copies here to become 1982’s biggest selling single, then dosey doed over to America the next year to repeat the feat.
Plucked from their colossal album ‘The Joshua Tree’, its combination of shimmering, sheeny production and Bono’s walloping vocals saw them rightfully claim their place in rock’s big leagues.A Number one in 17 countries, Marc Almond and Dave Ball stepped out the British avant-garde synthpop scene to produce something that was a pure pop statement of intent. Social comment dressed up in pastoral clothes, there’s a lot of Weller’s future here, and an awful lot about ourselves.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8kjbjx2EUwNaturally, the song that broke sampling into the UK mainstream was a collaboration between two obscure 4AD bands and a couple of DJs. Stephen Morris’s pattering drums rouse ‘Atmosphere’ from troubled slumber, while Bernard Sumner’s glittering, chiming keyboards give it a bright beauty.
It also lends itself beautifully to LGBTQ Pride.There was an error in your submission. Imagine a world where everyone rushed out to buy a brainstorm like this.This brilliant, stately number was written by Elvis Costello as a much needed protest track against the Falklands war. A stripped-down “Paradise” was an unexpected addition to her Confessions Tour.Pure unbridled joy. What next? This thing rocks particularly hard when Madonna plays the electric guitar live (as seen on her Reinvention and Rebel Heart tours).Madonna’s first Billboard number one, the title track from her sophomore LP, is the moment she went from being a big star to being an icon. It’s Spinderella’s record, scratching and diving between the proto-rave synths, while Salt-n-Pepa limit themselves to the occasional quickfire verse.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLBx3g8cowYFeaturing a fistful of samples, this pivotal rap tune would be the foundation of a number of soul numbers including tracks from Soul II Soul and Enigma. The sparsity of the music was a new direction for the band as were the bare, sexual lyrics, but it would provide them with their breakthrough track and cast singer Michael Hutchence as a heartthrob.A slinky, sexy R&B number that pissed a load of people off when they bought Soul II Soul’s debut LP ‘Club Classics Vol. Away from the titanic egos, though, John Deacon proffered one of pop music’s most iconic basslines (though there’s some controversy over whether he wrote it, or Bowie did). The line, "Gotta keep 'em separated" in "Come Out And Play" by The Offspring came to lead singer Dexter Holland when he was a medical student and needed to keep bacteria samples away from each other. Of course, like all the best songs created from samples, it stood alone as a brilliant disco-dance number.Between the 1986 vaudeville funk of ‘Parade’ and the following year’s state of the cosmos address, Prince had ditched The Revolution – in name at least – and set about taking full credit for his new clear-eyed vision.