Black Eyed Peas #1 Hits

I failed to mention yesterday that "Meet Me Halfway's" appearance at #1 on the British singles chart signifies another important chart record: It makes The E.N.D. the first album this decade to generate three #1 hits.

Now, some of you may do some Google and Wikipedia searches and come up with some other examples, but....they all need asterisks, while The E.N.D. did it outright.

The other potential albums all included #1 hits that were #1s way before the albums were released (and thus conceptually weren't really part of the album), or were re-released with new tracks and one of the new tracks was #1 (and thus not part of the original album as released). Westlife's Coast to Coast and World of Our Own for example, depending on which version you have, may include "Uptown Girl," thus making three #1 hits on each. But "Uptown Girl" was a one-off and not really part of either album.

S Club 7's Sunshine had three #1 hits because it contained "Never Had a Dream Come True," a #1 hit from a year prior that first appeared on the re-release of their previous album, 7. Same goes for Dizzee Rascal's Tongue N' Cheek, which includes "Dance Wiv Me," a #1 hit a year before the album's release.

Will Young and Gareth Gates both scored three #1 hits from their debut albums, but in both cases the first two singles were recorded significantly ahead of the albums' releases.

McFly's third album, Motion in the Ocean, can count as having three #1 hits if you consider the re-released "tour edition" also included #1 hit "Baby's Coming Back." Nelly's Sweatsuit, a re-release of tracks from his albums Sweat and Suit, contains three #1 hits, including new track "Nasty Girl."

Two albums achieve the feat by having both #1 hits that were hits way before the albums were released and #1 hits that were new tracks added to a re-release. Daniel Bedingfield's Gotta Get Thru This included the late 2001 #1 hit "Gotta Get Thru This," the late 2002 #1 hit "If You're Not the One," released just after the album, and the summer 2003 #1 included on the re-release, "Never Gonna Leave Your Side." Leona Lewis's Spirit likewise includes her X Factor victory hit "A Moment Like This," proper album single "Bleeding Love," and re-release #1, "Run."

The '90s, particularly the late '90s, saw quite a few albums give us 3 or more #1 hits. This, despite the fact that back then there was none of this re-release nonsense to puff up albums. There were even a few that had 4 #1s! Here's a list of those in the latter half of the decade:

Westlife (1999): Swear It Again, If I Let You Go, Flying Without Wings, Fool Again

Geri Halliwell's Schizophrenic (1999): Mi Chico Latino, Lift Me Up, and Bag It Up

B*Witched (1998): C'est La Vie, Rollercoaster, To You I Belong, Blame It on the Weatherman

All Saints (1997): Never Ever, Under the Bridge/Lady Marmalade, Booty Call

Spice Girls Spiceworld (1997): Spice Up Your Life, Too Much, Viva Forever

Aqua Aquarium (1997): Barbie Girl, Doctor Jones, Turn Back Time

Spice Girls Spice (1996): Wannabe, Say You'll Be There, 2 Become 1, Mama/Who Do You Think You Are