I thought that was pretty cool. Granted Controversy has always been a great track, but for a 13 year old track to go top 5 was brilliant, and kind of leftfield too. Charted higher than Peach, the preceeding single also from the Hits.

I didn't know that...and I can imagine something like that happening again.

Gosh,

That's great. Can I just say that Prince's eyelashes on that cover are Damn Slammin'! WOW!

Sexy Mother Fucker for real!

Yeh I remember.....I also remember it fell off the chart double quick!! It did strike me as very unusual at the time... the choice of single, the high entry and then the drop! In fact it was probably about this time that the man lost the Brits (at least for 11 years).

the uk singles charts used to be [still are?] weird like that. the most
strange choices would all of a sudden enter in the top 10 lol.

at the time i kind of thought that radio in the UK probably played it a
bit and a lot of the younger generation didn't realise it was an oldie,
instead thinking it was a new single and the liked it.

either that or the completists were lapping up that single. at that time
the uk single charts were in dire straits anyway.

remember the Thunder limited edition release charting quite high on it a
few years prior. there were like what, 5,000 copies of that or something?
and it still charted very high lol.

but regardless of what or why or how, it was cool to see "controversy" up
on the charts, if even for a short while. i'm sure it would have stayed
there longer if prince had remixed it and put a cool contemp remix on the
bside.

5-17-41-43-58-Gone

It's quite rare to get a climber in the UK Official singles charts. I think this is to do with the fact that airplay isn't counted, so by the time the single is released, it has it's audience and people tend to buy it in the first week of release or not at all.

There are exceptions of course, songs do sometimes hang around at number one for ages.