Charts – 5 August 2016
After last week’s exciting anticlimax, when Drake didn’t set a record after all, the singles chart has a nice lie down and a rest.
1. Major Lazer featuring Justin Bieber & MØ – “Cold Water”
It was miles ahead of everyone else last time, so it’s completely unsurprising that “Cold Water” gets a second week at number one. Combined sales and streams are actually slightly up. It still doesn’t have a proper video, by the way, which means that we haven’t had a number one single with a video since April.
2. Calum Scott – “Dancing On My Own”
Four months out, and still climbing. It’d be astonishing if he actually made it to number 1 after this length of time, but it’s not impossible – Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” did it in week 19 in 2014.
This is proving surprisingly persistent as well – it’s still climbing (very, very slowly) after seven weeks on the chart. Bastille seem to be a bit of an outlier in 2016, as a somewhat-alternative act whose records actually stick around and gain momentum.
Another very slow burner, which has now moved 28-19-17-15. It looks like the spillover effect from being on the Major Lazer single is helping this track, instead of overshadowing it.
18. M O – “Who Do You Think Of”
Confusion abounds as MØ’s march up the chart is closely followed by the entirely unrelated girl band M O. This has now gone 35-25-18, so it may have more momentum in it yet. The record industry is still adjusting to a world in which entering at number 35 can be a promising start for a new act (or a newly promoted one, at least – this bunch have been around for years).
20. Twenty One Pilots – “Heathens”
This week’s highest climber (from 34) is the single from the Suicide Squad soundtrack album, which entered at number 33 back in June, dropped out of the top 40, and naturally makes a resurgence as the film comes out. Clearly the advance promotion of Suicide Squad was a big success, generating enough interest to overcome largely bad reviews. That’s hardly surprising, since people who already want to see a film in its opening weekend are rarely put off by bad reviews (good reviews have more impact, I suspect), and it’s word of mouth that makes more difference in the long run. Suicide Squad had a relatively big drop on Saturday, so that word of mouth might not be great.
Anyway. Twenty One Pilots have another single out at the moment, “Ride”, but it peaked at number 49 a few weeks back, overshadowed by the movie tie-in. Their biggest UK hit remains “Stressed Out”, which got to number 12 in February.
21. Christine & The Queens – “Tilted”
Up from 27. It’s great, but I’d never have pegged this mid-tempo synthpop track as a slow burner in the current chart. I wonder if we’re finally starting to see a bit more diversity in the streaming-era chart as people figure out how to promote for it.
This entered at number 32 last week, so a ten-place climb is a good sign.
26. Charlie Puth featuring Selena Gomez – “We Don’t Talk Anymore”
This is making painfully slow progress up the chart, having moved 30-30-28-26. It has a proper video now, which might help – though it doesn’t have Selena Gomez, and the split screen gimmick really does feel like it was meant to have Selena Gomez. Or maybe not, since the promotional strategy seems to be to pointedly dodge questions about why Selena Gomez isn’t in the video, and indeed who the woman taking her place actually is – the word “mystery” turns up in so many articles about the video that I’m guessing it was in the press release.
33. The Chainsmokers featuring Halsey – “Closer”
That’s quick. The Chainsmokers’ previous single “Don’t Let Me Down” peaked at number 2 a few weeks ago, but it’s still in there at number 4. Still, it’s been on the chart for 10 weeks, and the label evidently thinks it’s time to move on. That video above is officially a lyric video, by the way, but it’s from the school of lyric videos that’s had more money spent on it than most actual videos, to the point where it has a director credit at the start.
It’s not as good as “Don’t Let Me Down” – it’s lacking a decent vocal hook for a start – but it’s okay. The male lead vocalist is actually Andrew Taggart, but he doesn’t get separate credit because he’s a member of the band already. It’s the first time they’ve sung on one of their own hits. Halsey is the woman on the middle verse; she’s been in the top 40 before, as a guest on Justin Bieber’s album track “The Feeling”, which got to number 34 last year.
36. Fifth Harmony featuring Fetty Wap – “All In My Head (Flex)”
Their previous single “Work From Home” peaked at number 2 in April, and it’s still hanging around within the top 30. Again, the record company has evidently decided that it’s time to move on, but this has been slow to take off, taking five weeks to climb into the top 40 from the lower reaches. We established with the video for “Work From Home” that Fifth Harmony don’t do subtle, and yup, this one ain’t subtle either. Product placement for an app is a new one on me, though.
On the album chart:
- “Viola Beach” by Viola Beach enters at 1. This is the band that died in a car crash while on tour in Sweden at the start of the year, and had a posthumous number 11 hit on the singles chart with “Swings and Waterslides”. This is a collection of their studio recordings, released with their families’ blessing. Single: “Boys That Sing”.
- “Major Key” by DJ Khaled at 7. This guy’s been having hits in the US for a decade but this is his first appearance on the UK album chart. The lead single “For Free” got to number 25 in June, but it’s not on YouTube, so here’s “I Got The Keys”.
- “For All We Know” by NAO at 17. London soul singer, debut album. She’s worked with Disclosure before. Single: “Fool to Love”.
- “Twenty” by Chicane at 40. Yes, the producer. The one that had a number 1 together with Bryan Adams in 2000. He’s still going, and his last three albums also landed somewhere around here on the album chart. This is his twentieth anniversary album, and it’s mostly a greatest hits/remix collection. Single: “Carry Me Home”.
That Calum Scott cover is so dull, even the Tiesto remix, but at least it’s got me listening to the Robyn version again.
It is a testament that Chicane lasted twenty years (and I’m shocked that the albums, of all things, are charting) because just ten years ago it looked like he was done, with an unreleased album stuck in record label purgatory.
Then suddenly there was the Tom Jones collaboration and an awful attempt at a pop album, before he finally came up with a new dance hit that set up where things are today.