Official Charts Flashback 2009: Lady Gaga – Poker Face

It's five years since Mother Monster scored her second Number 1 – and that all-important first million-seller.
lady_gaga_poker_face.jpg

It's five years since Mother Monster scored her second Number 1 – and that all-important first million-seller.

2009 really was Lady Gaga’s year. She kicked it off by taking her debut single Just Dance to the very top of the Official Singles Chart and just over two months later took up residency at Number 1 again with its follow-up Poker Face.

On Poker Face we got to know Lady Gaga a heck of a lot better. The kooky New Yorker was definitely starting to reveal her own unique style, although it wouldn’t be until next single Paparazzi that we’d really get a taste of the theatrics yet to come. But let's face it, she wasn't exactly a shrinking violet on Poker Face either. Gotta love Gaga.

This week in 2009, Poker Face was spending its third and final week at the top – Calvin Harris’s I’m Not Alone was about to pull the plug on Gaga’s chart-topping party.

Poker Face was the first of four Number 1s for Lady Gaga, and one of three she’d achieve in 2009 alone. It was her first song to cross the million mark, which it did in September 2010. (Bad Romance was her second, in 2013.) Poker Face’s current sales tally stands at an impressive 1.1 million copies.

Since Poker Face, Lady Gaga has racked up a further nine Top 10 hits, the most recent being Do What U Want FT R Kelly, which reached Number 9. All three of Gaga’s studio albums – The Fame (2009), Born This Way (2011) and ARTPOP (2013) have hit Number 1 on the Official Albums Chart, and the star promises a part two to ARTPOP is on its way this year. Her most recent chart-topping single was the mother of all collaborations: 2010’s Telephone FT Beyoncé.

Funnily enough, Bey hasn’t had a Number 1 single since then, either. Time to team up again, ladies? We hope so!

Watch the video for Bad Romance before we count down the rest of 2009’s retro Top 5.

2: Noisettes – Don’t Upset The Rhythm

Former BRIT School students Shingai Soniwa and Dan Smith had waited a long time for their mainstream success. They’d met in 2003 and, along with drummer Jamie Morrison, were onto their second album when Don’t Upset The Rhythm was featured in a car ad, propelling them to the upper reaches of the Official Singles Chart. Don’t Upset The Rhythm was their first and only Top 10 hit, and would go no farther than Number 2. One more Top 40 hit, Never Forget You, followed later in the year, and their album Wild Young Hearts peaked at Number 7. Don’t Upset The Rhythm has sold 347,000 copies in the UK.

3: A R Rahman & Pussycat Dolls FT Nicole Scherzinger – Jai Ho

Before Nicole Scherzinger was a permanent fixture in our magazines and on TV thanks to her role on The X Factor, she was, of course, lead singer with Pussycat Dolls. This track, their last Top 10 hit, was a collaboration with Indian musician A R Rahman, whose original, solo version of Jai Ho was recorded for the hit movie Slumdog Millionaire. After 10 Top 40 hits, including two massive Number 1s Don’t Cha and Stickwitu, Nicole decided it was time to leave the dolls’ house and try her hand at solo success. Jai Ho would go no further than Number 3 and has sold 575,000 copies in the UK.

4: Flo Rida FT Ke$ha – Right Round

Next, a track has a heap of firsts attached to it – Right Round was US rapper Flo Rida’s first ever UK Number 1, and it was our introduction to ballsy, hedonistic heroine Ke$ha, who would go on to considerable solo success of her own. Flo Rida had four more Number 1s awaiting him, including collaborations with Alexandra Burke and Olly Murs while Ke$ha has scored another two, including this year’s big hit Timber with Pitbull. Right Round was a pretty good start for both of them – it’s shifted over 545,000 copies.

5: Beyoncé – Halo

Unlucky for some, but not Queen B, who was scoring her 13th Top 10 hit with her now classic ballad from the pen of OneRepublic frontman and talented producer Ryan Tedder. The third of four Top 10 hits from Beyoncé’s third solo studio album I Am…Sasha Fierce, Halo was on its way back down the Official Singles Chart after peaking at Number 4. The track is one of the star’s biggest selling singles, shifting over 680,000 copies.

See the full Top 40 for this week in 2009

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