Charts – 3 June 2022
If nothing else, here’s an eclectic set of new entries. But first!
Nine weeks. It’s still another two weeks away from matching “Bad Habits” by Ed Sheeran from last year. The parent album drops to 2 this week, which is perfectly good, since the record that knocked it off is likely to be a one-week wonder.
8. Kate Bush – “Running Up That Hill”
Well, this wasn’t in the script. “Running Up That Hill” has been used in Stranger Things; I don’t watch the show, but it evidently made an impact in order to go viral on this scale. “Running Up That Hill” was a number 3 hit on release in 1985; it was also re-issued in 2012 after being used in the closing ceremony of the London Olympics, and it got to number 6. That’s the last time Kate Bush was in the singles chart. Re-releases aside, her final hit single was “King of the Mountain” from 2005, which got to number 4.
Charts – 27 May 2022
Well, if there was any doubt that Harry Styles was an A-lister, this should answer it.
1. Harry Styles – “As It Was”
2. Harry Styles – “Late Night Talking”
3. Harry Styles – “Music for a Sushi Restaurant”
That, of course, is the maximum number of singles from the same lead artist permitted under chart rules, introduced a few years back to put a stop to the phenomenon where major album releases swamped the top 20. The parent album “Harry’s House” is of course number 1 on the album chart; that’s his second number 1. His 2017 self-titled debut did spent a week at number 1, and hung around the top 10 for three weeks, but it was out of the top 40 after 15 weeks – a decent size hit but not Ed Sheeran territory. Its follow up “Fine Line”, from 2019, is another matter – although it entered at 3 and never got above number 2, it spent 62 weeks in the top 10, and 126 in the top 40.
Charts – 20 May 2022
After weeks of me complaining about the singles chart being moribund, this is a bit more like it.
Not that it’s shifting Harry Styles, admittedly. But it was close. He holds on by the equivalent of 4,300 sales, and he’s lucky to do that. The CD single of “As It Was” was offered for pre-order a while back, intended for the hardcore fans. Due to production problems, it didn’t ship until this week, at which point the 9,000 odd pre-orders were added to his total. If it had shipped on time, those sales would have been credited to an earlier week, and he wouldn’t be number one.
2. Sam Ryder – “Space Man”
This is the UK entry for this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. We have a tradition in this country of entering records we don’t like, don’t buy and don’t listen to, and then sulking when the Germans agree with us. This time we’ve entered a record we actually like, and it came second. And considering that nobody was beating Ukraine in a public phone vote in 2022, that’s pretty good.
Charts – 13 May 2022
Well, at least the album chart is busy. Meanwhile, on the singles chart…
That’s six weeks. It heads up a moribund top ten, with four other non-movers, one climber (Lizzo) and four records going down one place. I mean, I’m all for records having decent runs in the top 10, but a bit of turnover would be nice.
19. Jack Harlow featuring Drake – “Churchill Downs”
33. Jack Harlow – “Dua Lipa”
Two tracks from his album “Come Home the Kids Miss You”, which enters the album chart at number 4. He also has “First Class” as a non-mover at number 2.
It’s his second album, and the first to reach the album top 40. His 2020 debut “That’s What They All Say” made the album top 10 in the USA and Canada, but in the UK it could only limp to number 73. His profile has risen a lot since then.
Charts – 6 May 2022
Well, at least someone released an album.
Five weeks, still leading by quite some margin, though it is trending downward. It’s not in any danger from the records in the rest of the top 10, though, all of which have been there for a while. Except for…
8. Future featuring Drake & Tems – “Wait for U”
Feels like more of a mood than a song, but oddly pleasant. It’s the current single from Future’s album “I Never Liked You”, which enters the album chart at 2 – his highest place to date, though his previous solo album, “High Off Life”, got to 5.
Future’s track record on the singles chart is decidedly mixed; he’s been around for a decade plus, but this is only his second top ten hit. The other one was “Life is Good”, which reached number 3 in 2020 – and that had Drake on it too. That said, it’s not just a case of getting in a guest star with a bigger fan base; there are plenty of guest verses by Drake that go nowhere. (He’s also on “Bubbly” by Young Thug, for example, and that got to number 60.)
Charts – 29 April 2022
The singles chart has slowed to a crawl in the last few weeks, but at least we’ve got some mid-table entries this time.
Five weeks, with Jack Harlow’s first class also stuck at number 2. There’s not much else going on at the top end of the chart, frankly. There’s one track climbing into the top 10 – “BMW” by Bad Boy Chiller Crew, which is a bit of a surprise – but everything else in the top 10 has been there for over five weeks now. “Peru” by Fireboy DML & Ed Sheeran has been in the top 10 since January.
13. Ed Sheeran – “2Step”
Another single from his last album. There’s a remix with a verse by Lil Baby, but the chart is listing the album version as the principle version. The most notable thing about it is the video, which was filmed in Kyiv just before the invasion; it’s also a genuinely good video.
Charts – 22 April 2022
Yet again, the singles chart is almost aggressively uneventful, and this week the album chart has chosen to join it. There really is a dearth of new material breaking through this spring.
Three weeks. It’s peaked, but it’s still comfortably ahead of the competition. “First Class” by Jack Harlow is stuck at number 2 (and to be fair, that is a new hit), and the rest of the top 10 consists entirely of tracks shuffling a place up or down. The only significant activity in the top 20 is the highest new entry…
18. Lauren Spencer-Smith – “Flowers”
This is the follow-up to her self-released single “Fingers Crossed”, which reached number 4 in January. Unsurprisingly, she is now signed (to Island). It’s a slightly repetitive ballad, and unrelated to any of the various earlier hits of the same name, but it might have a chance by standing out as something different.
Charts – 15 April 2022
We’ve had some dull singles charts lately, but gosh, this is a really boring one.
Second week – which is more than he managed with his only other solo number one, “Sign of the Times”, back in 2017. It was closer than expected; at the start of the week his lead over the single below was equivalent to a few hundred sales, but it wound up being in the thousands.
2. Jack Harlow – “First Class”
This is… a surprise, to be honest. Jack Harlow has had two previous top 40 hits in the UK – “Whats Poppin”, which reached number 25 in 2020, and his guest shot on Lil Nas X’s “Industry Baby”, which got to number 3 last year. His previous single “Nail Tech” missed the top 40, so he’s certainly not here on the strength of fanbase. I wouldn’t have thought this was an obvious candidate for a breakthrough hit – the chorus is lifted from “Glamorous” by Fergie, which is one of her better singles, but hardly a lost classic. (It reached number 6 in 2007.) Harlow’s version is better, mind you.
Charts – 8 April 2022
It’s another week with very few new entries, but at least this time it’s because nobody wants to go up against…
1. Harry Styles – “As It Was”
I see you’re the Weeknd now, Harry. Fair enough. This is the lead single from his third album, and his second solo number one. The first was his solo debut “Sign of the Times”, which was number one in its first week of release in 2017 – it dropped to 4 the following week, but to be fair, it hung around the top 10 for seven weeks total.
Charts – 25 March 2022
We won’t be long with this one.
A third week for Dave in a very, very dull top ten – the top seven is completely static. By the way, his only other number 1, “Freaky Friday”, only had a week. So by that metric, this is comfortably his biggest hit.
Anyway, in search of new entries we have to trawl all the way down to…
31. Joel Corry, David Guetta & Bryson Tiller – “What Would You Do”
They’re not kidding about that strobe warning at the start of the video, by the way. Anyhow, this is very much what you expect from something credited to Joel Corry and David Guetta – it’s very polished, it’s very professional, you can hear their signature stuff in it. You don’t come to these guys for innovation.
