Official Chart Flashback 2019: Tones & I was in the midst of a record-setting Number 1 streak

The Australian artist's biggest (and so far, only) hit was a chart behemoth in 2019, with a legacy that still lingers today.

If you were even a little bit mentally cognisant in 2019, you would have been aware of Tones & I's Dance Monkey.

In this week in 2019 - just four short years ago, but what really feels like...um...14 - the Australian busker-turned-renegade-pop-star was in the midst of a record-setting run at Number 1 with her biggest (and so far, only) UK chart hit, Dance Monkey.

Everyone knows what Dance Monkey sounds like. Pop songs are always accused of having hooks that worm their way into your brain, whether you want them to or not. But Dance Monkey really does sink its hooks into you. We bet you're even humming 'dance for me, dance for me, dance for me...' while you're reading this, right?

No-one can deny Dance Monkey's catchiness. It's the main reason why the song did so well - once you heard it, you couldn't stop thinking about it. Originally, the song was written by Tones & I (whose real name is Toni Watson) about her experience busking in her native Australia, and she the pressure she felt to get the audience around her to engage.

WATCH Tones & I accept her Official Singles Chart Number 1 award for Dance Monkey

MORE: See where all of Tones & I's singles have charted in the UK here

Dance Monkey was born out of these frustrations for fleeting attention, and it's of course somewhat ironic that a song written about and during a time when no-one was paying attention to Tones's work became her breakout song, and the defining hit of her career. No-one was listening and then, suddenly, everyone was.

Dance Monkey's success on the Official Singles Chart was both unprecedented and long-lasting. In this week in 2019, the song was spending its third consecutive week at Number 1. It had initially bounced around outside the Top 40 for a few weeks, before finally ascending into the Top 10 at Number 7, seven weeks after its UK chart debut, before jumping all the way to Number 1.

And when Dance Monkey hit Number 1, it just didn't let go. Overall, it spent a brain-storming 11 weeks at Number 1 in the UK, setting an Official Chart record in the process. Not only is Dance Monkey one of the longest-running Number 1 singles in UK chart history, but it entered the history books as the longest-running UK Number 1 single by a female solo artist ever. At the time, Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You and Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On jointly held that record with 10 weeks at the top each (this year, Miley became only the fourth solo female artist ever to achieve a 10 week run at Number 1, with Flowers).

Given its success, Dance Monkey's stats are equally impressive. According to Official Charts Company data, Dance Monkey has shifted a massive 3.9 million chart units to date, including over 481 million streams.

In fact, Dance Monkey was last year named as one of the most-streamed tracks in UK chart history, landing alongside fellow chart behemoths like Lewis Capaldi's Someone You Loved and The Weeknd's Blinding Lights.

Dance Monkey remains Tones & I's one and only UK Number 1 single, as well as her first and so far only Top 10 single too. Coming off the back of a global smash, she struggled to find her footing in a post-Dance Monkey world, but did reach Number 1 in 2021 with Fly Away. A second album is due for release this year in her native Australia.

Elsewhere in the Top 10 this week four years ago, DJ Regard reached a new high of Number 2 with his remix of Jay Sean's Ride It, while Harry Styles was the week's highest new entry on the euphoric Lights Out, the lead single from his second solo album, Fine Line.