Nick Berry 'Every Loser Wins'

Chart Peak: 1 [3 weeks]
YouTube

Charted at No. 66 on 30th September, had blasted to No.1 by 1th October and was still topping the chart at the beginning of November. By the way, the first Eastenders star to be on a No.1 record was Mrs Pauline Fowler, A.K.A. Wendy Richard who appeared on the 1962 No.1 'Come Outside' by Mike Sarne.

Just to clarify for younger or non-British readers, Nick Berry is an actor who was an early cast member in the popular soap opera Eastenders. This song was heavily promoted on the show itself as part of a storyline in which his character Wicksy was originally the lead singer of a band and then fell out with them and went solo so he ended up in competition with them. Well, something like that anyway: I didn't watch the show at that time (or ever, really) so I mainly became aware of this through the chart success of this song and of its rival 'Something Outa Nothing'[sic] by the actors Laetita Dean and Paul Medford, which peaked at 12 around the same time. Both songs were co-written by MOR veteran Simon May (who had of course also composed the distinctive theme tune) and Stewart and Bradley James.

'Every Loser Wins' is probably the more competent of the two songs, though it does resemble the quiet section from the end of 'Bohemian Rhapsody' stretched out to a full song. It's barely three minutes long but it feels much longer. There's nothing particularly wrong with it and I seem to recall that when I was eight I thought this was what good songwriting was supposed to sound like, but this is really the triumph of competence over the things that make music enjoyable. It's an inevitable but rather unsatisfying end to Now 8 on the analogue formats, though the CD version is reshuffled to end with Genesis instead. It's been a decent album, but Side Four was virtually a wash-out.

Also appearing on: Now 22
Available on: Eastenders - Peggy's Theme