Number 1

Album: Catch 22 (2009)
Charted: 1
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • This Grime-Pop paean to young love features Stryder's fellow Londoners, the pop trio N-Dubz. It originally only featured Dappy, but Tulisa and Fazer recorded extra vocals so the track could be included on N-Dubz's Against All Odds album.
  • This song features a string sample of "The Last Time" as performed by The Andrew Oldham Orchestra. The same sample was previously utilised by The Verve on their 1997 hit "Bittersweet Symphony."
  • When this topped the UK singles chart, we thought Stryder may have became the shortest ever adult male to reach #1. But, at 5 feet, 5 inches, the East London MC dwarfs the tiniest man to reach the summit, the 5 foot, 2 inch Prince.
  • This aptly named song become the first UK #1 single to reference the chart position in its title. The two acts who previously had come closest to achieving this feat were The Tremeloes with "(Call Me) Number One" and S Club 7 with "You're My Number One," which both stalled at #2. Several chart-topping songs have included the phrase "number one" in their lyrics, including in 1980 Blondie's "The Tide is High" and the tune that succeeded it at the summit, Abba's Super Trouper."
  • The Daily Mirror August 14, 2009 asked Styder whether the title of this chart-topping song was an example of positive thinking as self-fulfilling prophecy? He replied: "Nah, it was as simple as thinking of the phrase 'number one.'. At first we had 'you're the one', but in the studio I thought 'number one' was better."
  • Stryder told The Lancashire Evening Post that his favorite collaboration to date was with N-Dubz on this track, due to he and the N-Dubz frontman getting on so well. He grinned: "It's just Dappy really. I met them a few years back at the first MOBOs I went to. I was just speaking to him really, like, yeah, we need to do something... and then we was all busy and then no one ever had time but then it just came about that our managers wanted to do it and our A&R and everyone got on it. Then I spoke to Dappy. It wasn't even nothing overplanned, we just went in the studio and we was cool from before anyway and we just started writing and working on the track. We was only in there for like an hour actually writing the song, yeah man, it just came together that quick."

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Little Richard

Little RichardFact or Fiction

Was Long Tall Sally a cross-dresser? Did he really set his piano on fire? See if you know the real stories about one of rock's greatest innovators.

Lori McKenna

Lori McKennaSongwriter Interviews

Lori's songs have been recorded by Faith Hill and Sara Evans. She's performed on the CMAs and on Oprah. She also has five kids.

Barney Hoskyns Explores The Forgotten History Of Woodstock, New York

Barney Hoskyns Explores The Forgotten History Of Woodstock, New YorkSong Writing

Our chat with Barney Hoskyns, who covers the wild years of Woodstock - the town, not the festival - in his book Small Town Talk.

Let Me Be Your Teddy Bear: Teddy Bears and Teddy Boys in Songs

Let Me Be Your Teddy Bear: Teddy Bears and Teddy Boys in SongsSong Writing

Elvis, Little Richard and Cheryl Cole have all sung about Teddy Bears, but there is also a terrifying Teddy song from 1932 and a touching trucker Teddy tune from 1976.

Devo

DevoSongwriter Interviews

Devo founders Mark Mothersbaugh and Jerry Casale take us into their world of subversive performance art. They may be right about the De-Evoloution thing.

La La Brooks of The Crystals

La La Brooks of The CrystalsSong Writing

The lead singer on "Da Doo Ron Ron" and "Then He Kissed Me," La La explains how and why Phil Spector replaced The Crystals with Darlene Love on "He's A Rebel."