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Oct 29

Charts – 26 October 2014

Posted on Wednesday, October 29, 2014 by Paul in Music

With no fewer than four records appearing on the midweeks but vanishing by Sunday, this is an unusually volatile week.  It’s unlikely that many readers will be that bothered about Bondax’s “All I See”, Hudson Taylor’s “Chasing Rubies”, or Alex Clare’s “War Rages On”, but I suspect more of you would be disappointed if I skipped the other one, so let’s take a rare meander outside the top 40…

44.  The Independents – “UKIP Calypso”

This is a truly bizarre recording by any stretch of the imagination.  UKIP – the UK Independence Party – is a populist anti-EU, anti-immigration policy currently enjoying a surge in the polls.  The actual record consists of former Radio 1 DJ Mike Read, accompanying himself on the acoustic guitar, singing the party’s praises in what he optimistically conceives to be a calypso style.  This entails a somewhat half-hearted attempt at a generically Caribbean accent.

It’s mind-blowingly awful.  To be fair, I think it’s overstating the case to say that it’s racist; the dodgy accent as a calypso pastiche staple is hardly Read’s invention, and the main focus of UKIP’s anti-immigration rhetoric is eastern Europeans.  Still, in the same week when UKIP cheerfully signed a formal alliance with a Polish ultra-right party – a group so nuts that even the French National Front won’t talk to them – it’s probably territory that sensible people would steer clear of.  But then, most sensible people would steer clear of hanging around with neo-Nazis for money.  Sends the wrong message, doesn’t it?  Nonetheless, the record itself is more xenophobic than outright racist.  It’s mainly just bizarre.  It’s unhinged in a way we rarely see in the chart – and tragically we have been deprived by four places of seeing it today.

Read has been knocking around local radio since leaving Radio 1 in 1991; his name occasionally re-surfaces in connection with largely unsuccessful efforts in the field of music and stage musicals.  This is not his first chart appearance; he was a member of the Jungle Boys (some people who’d just been on I’m a Celebrity – Read was first out that year), who had a number 30 hit in 2004 with “Jungle Rock”.  He also wrote the 2005 tsunami-relief charity single “Grief Never Grows Old” by the One World Project, which reached number 4.  But the only trace of his chart career I can actually find on YouTube is Slade’s final hit single, “Radio Wall of Sound”, which reached number 21 in 1991.  (Yes, you read that right.)  Read is, obviously, the DJ doing to the intro vocal.

Outright political songs – as distinct from download campaigns of thematically appropriate back catalogue material – are very rarely seen in the UK chart.  We did have “Roll of Honour” by the Irish Brigade charting at the start of the year, which is a political record, but it was being downloaded by Celtic fans for a rather different political cause, namely their opposition to anti-sectarianism laws.  For a case of an outright political campaign record being downloaded on first release and making the chart, I think we have to go back to 1998, when insurance broker George Bowyer got to number 33 with his song “Guardians of the Land”, registering his strong disapproval of proposals to band fox hunting.

“Guardians” is quite something in its own right.  Mike Read sadly omitted to make a video, but George Bowyer did, so let’s take a moment to enjoy it.  He does a good stride, does George.

39.  Taylor Swift – “Welcome to New York” 

Another promotional release for her “1989” album.  This doesn’t have a video (the link above is to a David Letterman performance) and there’s only a 30-second clip on YouTube, and quite honestly it’s a fairly forgettable song, so it’s very much a fan-targeted job.  The actual single “Shake it Off” is at 5, spending its 10th week in the top 10.

32.  Maroon 5 – “Animals”

Pretentious video alert.  Though a Maroon 5 song with unsubtle serial killer overtones is a bit of an oddity to start with.  The song itself is basically an exercise in taking some stock “animal passion” cliches and pushing them far enough to become creepy, which isn’t really something Maroon 5 can pull off, but isn’t an inherently horrible idea.  The video takes that idea and runs with it, which is… kind of ill-judged.  Still, if you’ve ever wanted to see a video where Adam Levine plays a shirtless stalker who takes out his frustration on animal carcasses, you will be surprised but delighted to hear that one has now been made.

9.  Fuse ODG featuring Angel – “T.I.N.A.”

His fifth hit, and the fourth to make the top 10.  Fuse ODG still has the Afrobeat crossover market pretty much to himself, and it’s working well for him.  According to the record sleeve, “T.I.N.A.” stands for “This Is New Africa”; the lyric seems to use it as a girl’s name but you could read it as a personification without too much stretching.

The OCC website lists the credit as simply “Fuse ODG featuring Angel”, as does the sleeve.  Curiously, the BBC website, and a few other places such as Last FM, list this as “Fuse ODG featuring Angel Rene & The Johnny Rodriguez Orchestra”, which seems wildly improbable, since they’re an easy listening act.  I’m fairly sure the “Angel” here is the guy who reached number 9 in 2012 with “Wonderful”, but don’t quote me.

3.  Waze & Odyssey vs R Kelly – “Bump & Grind 2014”

Despite the credit, this is really more of a mash-up with a prominent sample of “Bump n’ Grind”, so well done to R Kelly’s management for getting it billed as a remix.  The original was a number 1 hit in America in 1994, but only got to number 8 in the UK – Kelly’s biggest hit in this country was the gloopy “I Believe I Can Fly”, which was a number 1 in 1997, and has always made want to test his theory with the aid of a cliff and a catapult.

Waze & Odyssey are UK producers making their chart debut – this track has been floating around as a bootleg since 2012, and the other major source is the baseline from the Nightcrawlers’ 1995 hit “Push the Feeling On”, another of those MK tracks I seem to be mentioning a lot this year.

1.  Meghan Trainor – “All About That Bass”

Four weeks!  Four weeks!  That matches Clean Bandit’s “Rather Be” back in February, as well as the non-continuous run for Pharrell Williams’ “Happy”.  It doesn’t look like we’re going to get a fifth, but nor are we going back to the barrage of new entries – quite the opposite, in fact…

Over on the album chart (and ignoring some back catalogue re-entries which are probably due to an iTunes sale or something):

  • “I Forget Where We Were” by Ben Howard at 1.  The follow-up to his Mercury-nominated debut “Every Kingdom”, which got to number 4.  Single: “I Forget Where We Were”.
  • “.5: The Gray Chapter” by Slipknot at 2.  Not their highest – “Iowa” was a number 1 in 2001.  Since then, all their studio albums have gone top 5.  Single: “The Devil In I”.
  • “Melody Road” by Neil Diamond at 4.  His studio albums are still consistent chart performers, over 40 years into his career.  Single: “Something Blue”.
  • “Aquostic (Stripped Bare)” by Status Quo at 5.  Not a joke.  Real thing.  Sample track: “Rockin’ All Over The World”.
  • “Big Fat Lie” by Nicole Scherzinger at 17.  Crash, meet burn.  The single “Your Love” got to number 6 in July, but when somebody with as much media coverage as Scherzinger can’t even make the top 10 in the current album market…
  • “Phantom Radio” by Mark Lanegan Band at 22.  Not quite their highest place – 2012’s “Blues Funeral” got to 21.  Single: “Sad Lover”.
  • “Soused” by Scott Walker & Sunn O))) at 30.  This week’s oddball collaboration – the veteran baritone and the drone experimentalists.  (If you’re wondering how to pronounce “O)))”, by the way, apparently you don’t – it’s supposed to represent the logo of Sunn amplifiers.)  Single: “Brando”.  It’s a very odd listen.
  • “Aretha Franklin Sings the Great Diva Classics” at 32.  A new covers album.  Single: “Rolling In The Deep”.
  • “Kings & Queens of the Underground” by Billy Idol at 35.  His first new studio album since 1993’s “Cyberpunk”.  Single: “Can’t Break Me Down”.  (You won’t be surprised to hear that it’s written by a guy who’s produced records for Pink.)

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