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Jul 14

Charts – 14 July 2018

Posted on Saturday, July 14, 2018 by Paul in Music

Well, this is unfortunate timing.

1.  David Baddiel, Frank Skinner & The Lightning Seeds – “Three Lions”

England’s favourite football song soars to number one on the strength of the team’s sterling performance in the World Cup!  The semifinal, and peak of English excitement, was almost perfectly timed to coincide with the end of the chart week.  And… they lost.  So “Three Lions” arrives at number one just in time for the mood to be over.  Ah well.

This really isn’t supposed to be possible under the current chart rules, since they give less weight to the streams of records that have been out for ten weeks and have clearly peaked.  And “Three Lions” peaked in… well, in 1996.  There are rules to hit the reset button on album tracks that get promoted to single status, but those aren’t in play here.  So “Three Lions” gets to be number one even with that handicap.

It’s now been number one four times – twice in 1996 (five weeks apart, so it kind of does count), once in the updated version in 1998, and now again in 2018.  And even by this fairly generous definition of what counts as being number one four times, the list of songs which qualify is extremely short: “Three Lions”, “Do They Know It’s Christmas”, “Unchained Melody”, and, er, “Singing the Blues”, which makes the list because it was one of those odd records that traded the number one spot in competing versions back in the fifties.

You could argue that 1996 should only count as a single number one, since it was just the one release.  And you could argue that the 1998 version is a different record.  But that still leaves “Three Lions” as one of the handful of records to be number one twice, in the exact same version.  The others are “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “My Sweet Lord”, and three of the Elvis Presley singles that were re-issued in 2005.

4.  Drake – “In My Feelings”

Technically this week’s highest new entry, but it’s an artefact of the chart rules.  As you must know by now – I’ve mentioned it often enough – the chart rules only allow three tracks by the same artist.  So if your album would otherwise have swamped the chart, the charts only list the top three.  Last week, we had “Don’t Matter To Me” at 2, “Nonstop” at 4, and “Emotionless” at 5.  This week “In My Feelings” overtakes all three… so it registers as a new entry, “Don’t Matter” drops to 5, “Nonstop” drops to 15, and “Emotionless” simply vanishes.  This has happened further down the chart with tracks from the Greatest Showman album (which is treated as a single artist in order to qualify it for the artists album chart, as opposed to compilation chart purgatory), but it’s the first time we’ve seen it happen this high up.

The parent album spends a second week at number 1.

25.  Green Day – “American Idiot”

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Donald Trump is in town.  This is a download campaign, and it must have done pretty well to get this high up the chart in the streaming era, but this stuff just doesn’t work in the post-download era.  “Three Lions” isn’t number one because of a download campaign, it’s number one because people are actually listening to it.

“American Idiot” originally reached number 3 in 2004.  It’s not their highest placed UK single; technically, that would be their charity collaboration with U2, “The Saints Are Coming”, which got to number 2 in 2006.

38.  Ziezie – “Fine Girl”

The highest proper new entry of the week, all the way down here.  It’s his first hit, and it’s another track from the Love Island Pool Party compilation.

39.  Au/Ra & Camelphat – “Panic Room”

Strangely, the only video for this on YouTube is the rather claustrophobic original mix, by Spanish singer Au/Ra.  The version actually being pushed in the UK, and given lead status on the chart, is the remix by Camelphat, who you might remember from last year’s number 17 hit “Cola”.

This week’s climbers:

  • “Rise” by Jonas Blue featuring Jack & Jack has climbed 31-17-12-11-7, giving Jonas Blue his fourth top ten hit.
  • “Girls Like You” by Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B climbs 10-8.
  • “Jackie Chan” by Tiesto & Dzeko featuring Preme & Post Malone climbs 17-12.
  • “First Time” by M-22 featuring Medina reaches a new peak of 22, after hovering between 24 and 31 for the last seven weeks.
  • “Only You” by Cheat Codes & Little Mix climbs to 28 in its third week out, after dropping to 40 last time.  That’ll calm some nerves.
  • “Ring Ring” by Jax Jones & Mabel featuring Rich the Kid climbs 36-29.

On the album chart, “Scorpion” by Drake is still number 1, and “Palo Santo” by Years & Years is the highest new entry at 3.  The single “If You’re Over Me” is at 6 this week.  The previous album “Communion” managed two weeks at number one, but the competition is stiff right now.  (Last time, they were facing off against Ed Sheeran’s “x”, which had been out for more than a year by that time, plus a new album by Tame Impala.)

5.  Tom Grennan – “Lighting Matches”

He’s a singer-songwriter from London, being pushed by the likes of Radio X.  This is his debut album, and the promotional stunt was to set a world record for doing the most gigs in twelve hours. (Ten.)

17.  Mamma Mia motion picture cast recording

And in a very quiet week for new entries, we also have this – presumably helped by the promotion for the upcoming sequel film.  It is technically a new entry, because when the album first came out, it was classed as a compilation and wasn’t eligible for the chart.  The rules have changed since then (hello, Greatest Showman) to treat cast recordings as artist albums.  If you haven’t heard Pierce Brosnan and Meryl Streep’s take on “S.O.S.” before, it’s…  it’s certainly something.  Give it a play.

Bring on the comments

  1. Mark coale says:

    “ And even by this fairly generous definition of what cunts as being number one four times,…”

    So, how do you feel about this song, Paul? 🙂

    I can only hope WC 2022 in Qatar seems the nostalgic revival of Vindaloo.

  2. Paul says:

    Ah. I’ll fix that.

  3. SanityOrMadness says:

    *also came to mention the Freudian slip, since he saw it in his RSS reader*

  4. LiamKav says:

    Patriotism often makes me cringe, and I’ll happily admit the English can be complete arseholes, but even despite all that I’ve always loved Three Lions. Just the right balance between nostalgia, wistfulness, melancholy, pessimism and optimism.

    I’d take it in a heartbeat over hearing the England Band play that tone deaf version of The Great Escape for the thousandth time.

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