Now That’s What I Call a Breakdown

The one who gets one solo line per song if he’s lucky. The one who does all the backflips in the video and none of the interviews. The one who shows up to the reunion tour but barely gets his mic turned on. The one who doesn’t even get a Real Name in the band - just a nickname that sounds like a gym membership.

That one, in Five, was Abs. And honestly? He deserved better.

Look, Five weren’t built for longevity. They were lightning in a Brit Award-shaped bottle: shouty, swaggering, and chaotic in the way only late-'90s boybands with actual attitude problems could be. But Abs brought something different. A little flair. A little weirdness. A lot of eyebrow ring.

He had charisma and flow (yes, flow!!) and a playful delivery that made even the most ridiculous lyrics slap - go back and listen to “Let’s Dance” and tell me he’s not carrying the entire song like a Tesco bag for life. And when Five crumbled under label drama and the emotional toll of being famous and deeply underappreciated, Abs tried to go solo. And it should have worked.

His debut album, Abstract Theory, is a clunky title with a shiny heart. It gave us “What You Got” (lowkey a UKG-lite banger), “Stop Sign” (cheesy? yes. catchy? also yes), and a handful of songs where he sounded like he was having more fun than he ever got to in the band. But the press wasn’t kind, the label got cold feet, and like so many pop boys not named Justin or Robbie, Abs quietly disappeared from the charts.

Here’s the thing: Abs was never the problem. He was just a square peg in a very polished, very shouty boyband hole. And in a better timeline, he’d have been scooped up by Xenomania or invited into a bonkers pop collective with Rachel Stevens and Mutya Buena, and we’d all still be dancing to his left-of-centre bangers at queer nights and wedding discos.

Pop history forgets the side players too easily.
So this is your glittery reminder:
✨Justice for Abs.✨

#1s Before NOW – Entry 001

Before Sugababes harmonised about roundabouts, before Blue wore suspiciously small scarves on CD singles, before Now That’s What I Call Music even existed—there was Al Martino. There was Here in My Heart. And it was, officially, the UK’s very first number one single.

I started this whole project because I wanted to catalogue the mess and magic of Now, but somewhere in the sticker-splattered chaos, I started wondering what came before the compilations. What was pop before it was Pop? What kicked off this whole messed-up, beautiful chart saga?

The answer? A dramatic Italian-American crooner sobbing through a song like he’s been left at the altar by a ghost. And honestly? It slaps.

🕰️ A Little Chart History

The UK Singles Chart launched in November 1952, compiled by New Musical Express (!!!), and the very first official #1 was Here in My Heart by Al Martino. It stayed at the top for nine weeks, which is insane when you realise this was in a time before streaming, before downloads—hell, even jukeboxes weren’t in every pub yet. People physically went to shops to buy this one specific 78rpm record with this one melodramatic love ballad. And they did it a lot.

🎙️ The Song

This isn’t background music. This is curtain-closing, spotlight-hogging, chest-clutching theatre. It’s got strings. It’s got swells. It’s got Al Martino sounding like he’s singing directly into a locket worn by someone who died in the war.

🎶 "Here in my heart / I'm alone and so lonely / Here in my heart / I just yearn for you only..."

There’s a sincerity to this track that’s almost awkward to modern ears. We’re used to irony, to sleek hooks and gloss. But Here in My Heart is gloriously unfiltered. It’s not trying to be clever—it just feels.

And I feel it back.

😭 Maxie’s Emotional Spiral

I didn’t expect this to hit. I put it on expecting some dusty old love song I could nod along to while writing a paragraph about it being “historically important.” Instead, I sat on the floor of my break room at 3AM with one earbud in, nearly crying into a packet of Pom-Bears.

Al doesn’t hold back. He delivers every line like it might be his last, like he’s singing it across a war-torn city street while his lover is dragged away by fate. It’s giving: torch song. It’s giving: vintage melodrama. It’s giving: pop as pure feeling.

• Sticker Rating: 💔💔💔💔 (4 out of 5 crying hearts)
• Would I play it in a DJ Skipless set? Only if the theme is “Final Dance in the Ballroom of Lost Time.”
• Most relatable line: “Here in my arms, I long to hold you...” Yeah, me too, Al. Me too.
•  

💽 The Legacy

Martino would go on to have more hits and even appear in The Godfather (he plays the singer Johnny Fontane, which is basically a stand-in for Sinatra). But Here in My Heart is his monument—it marked the beginning of the UK chart as we know it.

Every glittery earworm, every holiday hit, every inexplicable novelty single—they all trace back to this one. The chart started not with a bang, but with a heartfelt sob.

📍Coming Soon in #1s Before NOW:

Next up? We get into Frankie Laine’s I Believe, which held the #1 spot for 18 weeks—and I have questions. Was it a cult anthem? A lullaby? The emotional support hymn of a crumbling nation? Tune in next time to find out.

Until then, I’ll be under a weighted blanket, whispering Here in My Heart into the void.

💿✨
—Maxie