An extraordinary record.

This week, Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her 23,227th day on the throne and surpassed Queen Victoria to become Britain’s longest reigning monarch. I’m no flag waving Royalist but I do like the Queen. For more than 63 years, she’s served her country with distinction, discretion and dedication to duty. In that time, she has also seen and heard every trend in popular music from Johnnie Ray to James Bay. So which has been the single most extraordinary song to go to top the charts in her record-breaking reign? I think it has to be this. Yes, I know we’ve all heard it a million times so it’s easy to forget just how extraordinary it sounded when it first came out. Groundbreaking, ambitious and original, its huge success proved that Her Majesty’s subjects are anything but dumb. And of course, the name of the band could hardly be more appropriate.