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Oct 15

Charts – 13 October 2017

Posted on Sunday, October 15, 2017 by Paul in Music

It’s a milestone!  “Shape of You” by Ed Sheeran finally drops out of the top 40.  After forty weeks.

Meanwhile…

1.  Post Malone featuring 21 Savage – “Rockstar”

That’s two weeks.  There’s a noticeable spillover effect for Post Malone’s other work, as he now has the maximum three tracks in the top 40.  “I Fall Apart” climbs from 40 to 27 this week on the back of its viral exposure, and previous single “Congratulations” climbs to a new peak of 27 in its fifteenth week on the top 40.  The parent album “Stoney” reaches a new peak of 12; it’s been out since Christmas but didn’t reach the albums top 40 until last month.

“Havana” by Camila Cabello featuring Young Thug climbs to number 2; it’s the sales chart number one, but that means less and less.

8.  J Balvin & Willy William – “Mi Gente”

Okay… so this peaked at number 5 last month.  A couple of weeks ago, they released the remix above, with an extra verse by Beyonce.  The proceeds from that version are going to hurricane relief charities.  Although the track climbed 16-14 last week, it’s taken a little while for the full impact to feed through to the chart because of a quirk of the new chart rules.  As I’ve explained many times before, the rules now downweight the streams of tracks which have been out for more than ten weeks and are several weeks past their peak.  “Mi Gente” was already in that category when the new mix was released.

Now, it did occur to the rule designers that the downweighting needed to be reversible, but they didn’t make it especially easy.  Basically, a track has to reverse its decline for several weeks running before it’s reverted to the normal streaming ratio.  Labels can also request a manual reset, but only on tracks which have dropped out of the top 100 altogether – that’s intended to allow a clean start for album tracks which charted on the week of release and dropped straight out, if they’re promoted as singles later.  The result is a delay before a new mix is fully reflected on the top 40, and no doubt they’ll be adding this to the big pile of things to think about in the next rulebook review.

The usual batch of climbers: “What Lovers Do” by Maroon 5 featuring SZA climbs 18-12, and “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran moves 19-13 on its singles push.  “Silence” by Marshmello featuring Khalid moves 20-17.  “Finders Keepers” by Mabel featuring Kojo Funds moves 21-19.  “Young Dumb & Broke” by Khalid jumps a respectable 38-25.  And there’s those other two Post Malone tracks in there as well.

28.  Giggs featuring Donae’O – “Linguo”

Highest new entry, then.  This is the track that’s being singled out from Giggs’ album – well, mixtape, if you prefer – “Wamp 2 Dem”, which enters the album chart at 2.  It is, shall we say, subtler musically than lyrically.  It’s his first hit single in his own right, though he guested on a couple of those Drake album tracks that swamped the chart in March.  His album track record is stronger, with three previous appearance on the albums top 40, including 2016’s “Landlord” making number 2.

Donae’O is the singer on the chorus, but he’s also the producer.  He’s  charted before – he got third billing on “Not a Saint” by Vato Gonzalez vs Lethal Bizzle, which reached number 20 four years ago.

33.  Liam Gallagher – “For What It’s Worth”

The lead single from this week’s number one album, “As You Were”.  This is Liam Gallagher’s first solo album; yes, his post-Oasis band Beady Eye had a couple of albums, but there were other non-Gallagher Oasis members involved in that.  A previous single from the album, “Wall of Glass”, made number 21, though admittedly that had the advantage of being performed on the Manchester One Love charity concert.  Still, it’s unusual for acts like this to score two hit singles from album, even this far down the chart.  Nothing much has changed here from his previous style, but then that’s what people want from a Liam Gallagher album.  The sales have been remarkably high; it doesn’t take much to be the top-selling album these days, but “As You Were” would have managed it purely on its vinyl sales.

38.  CamelPhat & Elderbrook – “Cola”

CamelPhat are a production duo who’ve been around for nearly a decade, but are only just scoring their first hit – though Mike Di Scala previously had a hand in Ultrabeat.  Elderbrook is a singer/producer who’s also got a few years behind him – here’s his 2014 single “Could”.  There’s something a bit distant and sinister about this, to my ears, but I can see it going further.

39.  Sam Smith – “Pray”

The second single from his new album – a promotional single, at any rate.  It’s a collaboration with Timbaland.  The main single “Too Good at Goodbyes” is still sitting happily at 3.

40.  Charlie Puth – “How Long”

Bit more upbeat than usual for this guy.   It’s the second single from his next album, following “Attention”, which made number 9 in June.

On the album chart:

  • “As You Were” by Liam Gallagher is number 1; see above.
  • “Wamp 2 Dem” by Giggs is number 2; again, see above.
  • “MTV Unplugged – Summer Solstice” by A-Ha at 6.  It’s an A-Ha acoustic album, obviously.  They last had a top ten album in 2015 with the comeback “Cast In Steel”, so it’s not a huge surprise to see the acoustic hits collection do respectably.  Here’s “The Sun Always Shines On TV”.
  • “Heaven Upside Down” by Marilyn Manson is 7.  That’s his highest position since a greatest hits album in 2004.  Single: “Say10” (do you see what he did there?).
  • “Pinewood Smile” by The Darkness at 8.  The Darkness seem to have settled into a role as heritage rockers.  It’s their fifth album and they’ve never come below 12.  Single: “Solid Gold”.
  • “Raised Under Grey Skies” by JP Cooper at 9.  His debut album, including “September Song”, which got to number 7 last year.  The title track has been floating around for a couple of years now.
  • “A Different Stage” by Jason Manford at 10.  Mainly a comedian and TV presenter, but apparently there’s an audience for a Jason Manford musical standards album.  Here he is singing “Hushabye Mountain” from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
  • “Secure the Bag” by AJ Tracey at 13.  UK rap, debut album.  Single: “LA4AWEEK”.
  • “Christmas with Elvis and the RPO” by Elvis Presley at 22, because it’s what he would have wanted.  Here’s the album link.

Bring on the comments

  1. K says:

    Never mind a-ha – the bigger news in 2017 is that MTV Unplugged is somehow still around.

    …It turns out they’re even rebooting the show itself with a new season. Instead of the previous model of keeping the brand on life support by making a special whenever some artist happens to be available.

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