Tina Turner’s ‘The Best’ celebrates 35th anniversary

This month is the 35th anniversary of Tina Turner’s classic song, ‘The Best’, or as most people know it ‘Simply the Best’. The word ‘simply’ was added to the song’s title in brackets in 1992 because of how often it was mistakenly titled! 

The song, which became a phenomenon since its release in August 1989, is actually a cover of Bonnie Tyler’s ‘The Best’ and has been used in a variety of ways since its release. British boxing champion Chris Eubank used the track for his ring-walks in his boxing career, and is still synonymous with sports to this day. More recently Joe Biden used the track as his theme song for his Presidential campaign and a version of the song returns this week in a new TV advert by Simply Business. 

But despite the song’s global success and instant recognition, it never became a number one hit in the UK charts.

Aston spoke to Dr Jacob Downs, lectruer in music at University of Oxford.