Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

You are currently looking at (statistically) the best pop act of all time.

This week the Black Eyed Peas scored the longest successive stay at the top of the US Billboard Hot 100 singles chart by a duo or group. The band have spent 17 weeks at the top after initially spending 12 at Number One with Boom Boom Pow before their current single I Gotta Feeling took over for a further five weeks.

On a purely numerical this makes the BEP better than Madonna, MJ, Prince, Bowie and last (and almost certainly least) Usher from who they took ownership of the record. This is of course ludicrous but it does beg the question of how to judge 'the greatest pop star ever question' if not by the hand of such a blunt instrument.

Here are a couple home-brewed examples:*

1) Universal Appeal - Gimme Gimme Gimme a song laced with sexual inneudo but make sure everyone from six to sicty can dance to it.

2) Charisma - The true personality of a pop star should always remain a mystery. The best create their own enigma and discard this Man In The Mirror as soon as the public's attention begins to waver.

3) Trend Setters - No pop legend worth their salt has ever towed the party line fom musical era to musical era. Such a Toxic lack of innovation condemns the Holly Valences, the Jason Donnovans, the 3 of a Kinds of the Top 40 graveyard.

4) Image Is Everything - One Way Or Another members of your own sex should want to be you and the other portion of the world's population should want to be with you. Whether this means dressing up as a school girl or sporting a lightning bolt accross your face is your perogative.

5) The Devil Is In The Details - Pavorotti could sing but could he dance, compose, direct his own video and protest his own virginty until the eventual emergence of a graphic sex tape? No! That morbidly obese Italina would not be able to say, "I'm Still Standing".**

These criteria should only act as a rough guideline but using them as my guide, I propose the best contender for a while to take her place within this already esteemed pantheon:




* Advanced apologies for horrific use of pop based puns
** This was as painful to type as it must have been to read