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Nov 29

Charts – 25 November 2016

Posted on Tuesday, November 29, 2016 by Paul in Music

It’s pretty much a dead week, to be honest.  Traditionally, we’d be approaching the winter shutdown around this time: unless you were trying to sneak a hit, you generally didn’t try to release or promote a regular single during the Christmas and New Year period.  In the streaming era, when records can take a month or so to slow-build anyway, this may not hold – people might figure it’s worth putting something out and seeing if it takes off at the start of January.  But it’s all  looking familiarly quiet right now.

1.  Clean Bandit – “Rockabye” 

Three weeks.  It still needs a fourth to match the run of “Rather Be” in February 2014.  But along the lines of what I’ve just said, it’ll soon be time for the papers to start filling space by blathering about the race for Christmas Number 1.

Ignore the odds this year – odds are driven by the betting, and most people don’t realise how much streaming has changed the charts.  It’s not impossible for a charity record or a novelty release to get to number one, but it’s a lot more difficult than before, because nobody streams them, so it’d take a huge sale to cancel that out.  For example, the BBC’s Children In Need telethon was last week; the official single, Craig David’s “All We Needed”, would be number 8 on a sales chart, but it has zero streaming support, so it winds up at number 42.  There is a charity release this year by the London Hospices Choir, and it’s bound to sell decently, but with the rules changes, it’s perfectly conceivable that it could lose out to a normal release that has better streaming support.

2.  Rae Sremmurd featuring Gucci Mane – “Black Beatles” 

Climbing two.  You never know.

5.  Maroon 5 featuring Kendrick Lamar – “Don’t Wanna Know” 

Up another three places – this has moved 16-17-11-7-8-5.  It’s now their biggest hit since “Maps” in 2014.

17.  Nevada featuring Mark Morrison & Fetty Wap – “The Mack”

Up six places from its entry last week.

18.  The Weeknd featuring Daft Punk – “I Feel It Coming”
33.  The Weeknd – “Party Monster”

Highest new entry, and the second highest.  “Starboy” is still in the top 10 after nine weeks, and there’s another Weeknd track coming in a bit.  These are promotional tracks from the album; there’s no official video for either as such, but both appear in his just-released 12-minute film M A N I A.  Specifically, “I Feel It Coming” is the closing credits, and “Party Monster” is the one before that.  She’s not credited on it, but “Party Monster” has Lana Del Rey on it, apparently.

37.  Tom Zanetti featuring Sadie Ama – “You Want Me”

House music.  Tom Zanetti is a producer from Leeds, and he’s boldly taking a crack at rapping here.  I’ve heard worse.  Sadie Ama is making her chart debut, but she’s the younger sister of Shola Ama, who was having top five hits in 1997 (when Sadie was ten).

36.  Sigma featuring Birdy – “Find Me” 

Up three.

37.  John Legend – “Love Me Now”

Well, this is quite sweet, I guess.  I do like that broken piano sound.

On the album chart:

  • “Glory Days” by Little Mix at 1.  Implausibly, this is the second biggest first week sale of the year (after “Blackstar”), though I wouldn’t put money on that being sustained.  It’s their first number one, though the previous three albums all made 4 or better.  The single “Shout Out To My Ex” was a number 1 at the start of the month, and it’s still at number 3.
  • “Hardwired… to Self-Destruct” by Metallica at 2.  Their first album since 2008’s number 1 “Death Magnetic” – well, as long as you don’t count “Lulu”, their collaboration with Lou Reed from 2011.  Single: “Hardwired”.
  • “24K Magic” by Bruno Mars at 3.  Two acts from the singles chart in one week – this isn’t common any more.  This is his third album.  The first two both made number 1, so this is a slight underperformance.  The title track has spent six weeks in the singles top ten.
  • “Unplugged” by UB40 featuring Ali, Astro & Mickey at 17.  Self-explanatory, except that there are now two competing versions of UB40, both featuring original members.  They were suing each other earlier in the year and I’m not sure it’s settled yet.  Basically, the other group has continuity with earlier versions of the band; this version features three prominent members who quit and then started up a competing version, but say that they picked up the rights to the name from a former trading company that went bust.  Anyway, here’s “Red Red Wine”.
  • “The Ultimate Collection” by Donna Summer at 30.  Here’s “Love To Love You Baby”.
  • “Romanza” by Andrea Bocelli at 32.  20th anniversary re-issue of the album that got to number 6 in… erm, 1997.  Well, close enough.
  • “Intertwined” by Dodie at 35. A six-track EP but it counts as an album.  She’s a YouTube songwriter with a ukulele.  Sample track: “When”.

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