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Apr 3

Charts – 2 April 2021

Posted on Saturday, April 3, 2021 by Paul in Music

We were overdue for a big new entry, and lo.

1. Lil Nas X – “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)”

This is Lil Nas X’s second UK number one, after 2019’s “Old Town Road”. Both his subsequent hits, “Panini” and “Holiday”, landed just outside the top 20 – so while he wasn’t a one hit wonder by any means, he was in some danger of being an artist who had one Really Big Hit as an outlier on an otherwise mid-table career. It’s tempting to ascribe Montero’s success to the video, though really, that’s been more controversial in the USA than in Britain; religion just doesn’t have the same traction in British culture wars. Still, it won’t hurt that the charts count YouTube views. But mainly, “Montero” is just a much better track than “Panini” or “Holiday” – it feels like more of a complete song.

There’s not much else happening in the top 10. “Your Love (9pm)” by ATB, Topic & A7S climbs 12-8, and “Little Bit of Love” by Tom Grennan climbs 13-10, giving Grennan his first top 10 hit. “Let’s Go Home Together” by Ella Henderson & Tom Grennan climbs 19-13 – it was looking for a while like it had stalled after entering at 28 and falling, but it’s back with momentum again now.

17. Mimi Webb – “Good Without”

Debut hit. This is another track that’s taken off via TikTok. I can’t say it does much for me – the production is really heavy handed. The song itself is okay, I guess.

“Astronaut in the Ocean” by Masked Wolf climbs 23-20.

21. Russ Millions & Tion Wayne – “Body”

I seriously question the Covid protocols on some of GRM Daily’s videos. Anyway… Russ Millions is the same guy previously credited as “Russ” and “Russ Splash” who had top ten hits in 2019 with “Gun Lean” and (also with Tion Wayne) “Keisha & Becky”.

“Ferrari Horses” by D-Block Europe featuring Raye climbs 30-28. This really is unusual for D-Block Europe, whose singles tend to peak in their first week – this one has climbed from the lower reaches and it’s still going. “Black Hole” by Griff climbs 39-37, which isn’t much, but keeps a foot in the door.

38. Majestic & Boney M – “Rasputin”

How a London producer wangled a co-artist credit simply for doing a straight remix of “Rasputin”, I have no idea. The original reached number 2 in 1978; the original arrangement is slightly slower and makes a few more nods at Russian-ness, but it’s the same song.

I see from Wikipedia that Boney M never had any significant hits in the US, and certainly not this one. American readers unfamiliar with it are strongly encouraged to play the lyric video above, since nothing can really do justice to its combination of unusual subject matter, passable historical accuracy, disco-era slang, and being written in a second language.

The footage used in the lyric video comes from Boney M’s performance on Top of the Pops at Christmas 1978. So it’s the real Boney M… well, kind of. They’re the group who performed as Boney M live, but Boney M in the studio was actually two of the women (Liz Mitchell and Marcia Barrett), plus producer Frank Farian singing the male part. Nobody really minded about this sort of thing in the disco era, which might explain why Farian thought it would work again in the 1980s when he formed Milli Vanilli.

39. Giveon – “Heartbreak Anniversary”

Giveon has charted twice as a guest singer – he was on Drake’s “Chicago Freestyle” last year and on Justin Bieber’s “Peaches” just last week – but this is his first appearance in his own right. It’s pretty good! It’s the sort of thing I’m more used to including in the albums section, but it’s good.

On the album chart, it’s a busy week.

1. Ben Howard – “Collections from the Whiteout”

His second number one album, following 2014’s “I Forget Where We Were.” His other albums, in 2011 and 2018, both got to number 4. So that’s a pleasing pattern.

(The video above features non-graphic gun violence.)

4. Evanescence – “The Bitter Truth”

Once of those bands who seem to be mentally lodged in my “are they still going” file, though it’s only been four years since the last album. That said, that album only got to number 23, and it has been a decade since they were last in the album top ten – which makes me feel a bit better about it.

12. NF – “Clouds”

NF is the rapper with the odd career trajectory of starting off on a Christian label and actually escaping into the mainstream. With hindsight, the real question is how he wound up on a Christian label in the first place, since his musical output is basically secular. His previous album made the top 10, but this is still respectable.

17. Smith/Kotzen – “Smith/Kotzen”

That’s Adrian Smith from Iron Maiden, and Richie Kotzen, who used to be in Poison. So if you like that vintage of metal, well, this is some.

18. Marti Pellow – “Stargazer”

The lead singer of Wet Wet Wet has released a number of solo albums this century, of which only the first, “Smile”, made a particularly notable impression (it got to number 7). Three of the others made the low 20s or 30s, and three more – including the previous two – missed the album top 40 altogether. So this isn’t a bad position for him at all.

23. Joe Strummer – “Assembly”

The track above is a demo thrown in as a bonus track, but “Assembly” is basically a greatest hits collection.

27. The Dust Coda – “Mojo Skyline”

English rock band of traditional bent. This is their second studio album, but the first to do anything in the album chart.

29. Neil Young – “Young Shakespeare”

Live album recorded in 1971 (though slightly more than fifty years before it came out, so I suppose it can’t just be a copyright protection release). “Shakespeare” was the name of the theatre where it was recorded, in Stratford, Connecticut.

37. Amy Wadge – “Keeping Faith – Series 1 and 2”

And finally, the soundtrack album for the Welsh thriller series. They’re only releasing the first two series on this album, when series 3 is currently airing on the BBC, which seems an odd choice.

Bring on the comments

  1. K says:

    Wouldn’t you know it, the lyrics video posted for the benefit of US readers is… blocked in the US.

    The song is probably known in the US among hardcore disco fans, Russian history fans, and anyone who is a fan of Frank Farian specifically for whatever reason.

  2. Douglas says:

    This week “Mr Brightside” made it to 260 weeks on the UK charts! Stars burn out, empires fall, but somewhere, somehow, the people of the United Kingdom play Mr Brightside 1.2 million times per week: https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/the-killers-mr-brightside-claims-record-breaking-260th-week-exactly-five-years-on-the-official-singles-chart-top-100__32800/.

  3. BringTheNoise says:

    Here’s a lyric video for a cover of “Rasputin” by Finnish metal band Turisas – hopefully this is available to US readers: https://youtu.be/h2fAQ65uVwQ

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