RSS Feed
Dec 29

Charts – 29 December 2013

Posted on Sunday, December 29, 2013 by Paul in Music

Welcome to the annual Weird Chart.  Once upon a time, the two charts after Christmas were basically a write-off because the shops were closed for so long.  In the download era, that’s no longer a consideration, but almost nobody releases new material in Christmas week because of the near impossibility of getting anyone to pay attention.  Next week’s chart will be a bit closer to normal, as Pitbull tries to sneak himself a number one.

In the meantime, we have a chart in which the top 75 is basically shoved into a blender and rearranged in a random order.  This is because, even though there’s no new material available, there are plenty of people who got gift cards or MP3 players for Christmas, and who want to fill them up.  Cue the march of the re-entries…

40.  Jessie J – “It’s My Party”
39.  Robin Thicke featuring T.I. & Pharrell Williams – “Blurred Lines”
38.  Bastille – “Pompeii”
36.  James Blunt – “Bonfire Heart”
35.  The Vamps – “Can We Dance”
34.  One Direction – “Best Song Ever”
33.  Ylvis – “The Fox”
31.  Rizzle Kicks – “Skip to the Good Bit”
22.  Miley Cyrus – “Wrecking Ball”
21.  Jason Derulo featuring 2 Chainz – “Talk Dirty”

Yes, all of these are re-entries.  “It’s My Party” wasn’t even in the top 100 last week, so apparently her demographic is people who get gift cards for Christmas.

But wait?  What’s this?  A hint of normality…?

29.  Beyonce featuring JAY Z – “Drunk In Love”

This is from the self-titled album that Beyonce released without warning two weeks ago.  Every track from the album has a video, but only two of them are on her YouTube channel – this one and “XO” – which kind of sort of makes them the singles.  Of course, this has the advantage of featuring Jay-Z, which explains why it’s being cherrypicked from the album.  In an interesting marketing move, the album was originally made available only for download as a whole.  The tracks were offered individually in the third week on sale, which is “Drunk In Love” is only charting now.

Naturally, if you’re making a video for every track on the album – which isn’t unprecedented by any means, the likes of the Super Furry Animals and the Indelicates have done it before – then they’re not all going to be mega-budget affairs.  In this one, Beyonce writhes on a beach in a bikini for six minutes, while being filmed in the style of a Christmas perfume ad.

And that was this week’s only new entry.

There are a couple of high climbers in the top 20, most of which are rebounders.  A notable exception is “Little Me” by Little Mix, which jumps 39-19 and is presumably on par to go further.

1.  Pharrell Williams – “Happy”

And in the last week of the year, Pharrell Williams sneaks a third number one, to go with his guest appearances on “Get Lucky” and “Blurred Lines”.  This is a genuine climber from the lower reaches; it’s moved 71-30-4-2-1 to get here, and I’m pleasantly surprised to find that I still like it after several weeks out.  It also rounds out the year with something that’s reasonably representative of 2013 in pop, which is nice.

God knows it’s a more deserving number one than the X Factor winner, which drops to number 2 this week, and is already out of the top 5 on iTunes.  To be fair, Little Mix’s winner’s single “Cannonball” didn’t exactly sustain its sales either, and they did fine.  Not that I have high hopes for Sam Bailey’s career on the singles chart – she’s an easier sell to the albums market anyway – but her spending one week at the top is not in itself a warning sign.

“Happy” becomes Pharrell’s biggest hit as lead artist.  His previous peak was number 3, with “Can I Have It Like That” in 2005 (which, oddly, doesn’t seem to be on YouTube in any official form, but suffice to say it’s one of those dodgy tracks that sneaked a high first-week placing in the pre-download era when the charts were a bit sickly).  And no, it doesn’t make a difference if you count his hits as a member of N*E*R*D; their biggest hit was “She Likes To Move”, which peaked at 5.

The album chart is, of course, completely dead.  “Swings Both Ways” by Robbie Williams remains number 1.

Bring on the comments

  1. Al says:

    The Jessie J, Bastille and James Blunt tracks were all on the Christmas Day TOTP as well, which may account for some of their popularity this week.

Leave a Reply