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Maxie ([personal profile] popghost) wrote2025-07-06 10:10 pm
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đź“€ Track 0: The List That Broke Me

I wasn’t looking for anything. That’s the dangerous part.

It was just a random night—fluorescent lights buzzing, shelf-stacking autopilot, the radio quietly insulting me with a censored version of “Hotline Bling” for the third time that week. Later, at home, too wired to sleep but too tired to exist, I started doomscrolling pop trivia on my phone. Harmless. Educational. Normal behavior.

Then I found The List.

Every UK #1 single since 1952. All of them. In order. A timeline of British taste, in all its glorious, baffling, chaotic glory.

And something clicked. Not like a lightbulb—more like a glitter cannon going off inside my head.

Because yes, I’m already halfway down a rabbit hole trying to listen to every Now That’s What I Call Music album in order (no skips, no shame, etc. etc.), but this… this was deeper. Messier. Older.

This wasn’t just compilation CDs and bonus remixes. This was history.

Like: did you know the UK’s very first #1 single was Al Martino’s “Here in My Heart” in 1952? Neither did I. Did you know “Common People” by Pulp never got to #1? Because I screamed. Did you know that there are seven different Christmas #1s that involve novelty food items or puppets?

Reader, I spiralled again.

So now this blog isn’t just about the Now albums anymore. It’s about the whole glittery mess: the charts, the flukes, the remixes, the heartbreak bangers we forgot to remember.

Consider this my declaration of obsession.