The singles chart is still somewhat becalmed in the post-Christmas lull, with a relative handful of new singles this week, most of them at the lower end.  This is all fairly standard, because UK record companies like to promote new singles for weeks before actually releasing them, and there’s no point trying to do that over Christmas.

But apparently things are about to change, because today Universal and Sony announced a change of strategy.   Starting in February, it seems, they’re going to “make singles available for sale on the same day that they’re released to radio stations”.  If it’s on the radio, you’ll be able to buy it.  This seems to be an anti-piracy initiative, the theory being that if you promote material which can’t be legally obtained then you’re creating an additional incentive for illegal downloading.  I suspect it’s a minor factor at best where piracy is concerned, but it’s certainly true that weeks of pre-promotion can easily backfire by creating a situation where interest peaks before the single is on sale.

(more…)

The charts are still in something of a post-festive lull, but things are starting to get back to normal as new material begins to creep into the lower end of the chart.  And with the X Factor sales tailing off, there’s a change at the top.  Having spent the last three weeks stuck at number two, 2011’s first number one single is…

…“What’s My Name” by Rihanna featuring Drake, finally completing a tortuously slow 18-10-8-4-2-2-2-1 climb to the top that began at the tail end of November.

(more…)

No reviews today – Diamond didn’t actually ship any of the X-books to my store last week, and for that matter they didn’t ship very much else either, so there’s pretty much nothing to write about.  It’ll all be in next week’s parcel, and I’ll cover it next weekend.

While I’m at it, I might as well cover the quietest chart of the year, covering sales in the dead period between Christmas and New Year.  You won’t be surprised to hear that the number one single is still “When We Collide” by Matt Cardle, hanging in for a third week.  That’s the longest run at the top since “Good Times” by Roll Deep in May, though of course they had some more intense competition to deal with.  We haven’t had a four-week number one since “The Fear” by Lily Allen in February 2009, but since Cardle is starting to drop down the iTunes chart, I wouldn’t bet on him matching her.

“When We Collide” was the second-biggest seller of 2010, which isn’t bad for three weeks of sales.  The actual top seller of 2010 was “Love The Way You Lie” by Eminem featuring Rihanna.  That’s a surprise, because although it hung around the chart forever, it actually peaked at number 2.  Apparently it’s the first time the chart of the year hasn’t been topped by a number one single.  But the next eleven singles down were all number 1s, and the one after that was “Empire State of Mind” (whose sales were split between two versions), so it looks like a blip rather than a fundamental shift.

That aside, there is literally nothing going on.  The usual shuffling of places at the lower end of the chart, plus some back catalogue sales from year-in-review airplay, results in five re-entries, all between 35 and 40 – “Higher” by the Saturdays, “Pass Out” by Tinie Tempah, “Barbra Streisand” by Duck Sauce, “Please Don’t Let Me Go” by Olly Murs and “Magic” by B.o.B. featuring Rivers Cuomo – but that’s about it.

Next week… there’s at least something out.

Well, this won’t take long.

This may be the chart for the week leading up to Christmas, but traditionally the UK only cares what’s number one on Christmas Day – in other words, last week’s number one.  That was “When Worlds Collide” by Matt Cardle, the 2010 X Factor winner, and to the surprise of absolutely nobody, it’s still there this week.  It helps, of course, that virtually nobody else releases singles at this time of year, aside from a handful of people trying to sneak a hit in the dead period.

The only serious new release this week is “Lights On” by Katy B featuring Ms Dynamite, entering at number 4.

(more…)

It’s the Christmas chart!  No, really, it is – because the UK defines the Christmas number one as whatever record is number 1 on Christmas Day.  This year Christmas Day falls on a Saturday, and so the Christmas number one is determined by the charts announced on the preceding Sunday – covering sales from 12-18 December.  All rather artificial – next week’s chart will be a better guide to what people actually bought in Christmas week – but the rules are the rules.

Last year, a surge of anti-X Factor sentiment and general sense of mischief (combined with chart rules that weren’t really designed to deal with multiple purchases that couldn’t plausibly be blamed on record company chart-hyping) led to the unlikely spectacle of Rage Against The Machine achieving a Christmas number 1 with “Killing In The Name”.  Strangely enough, capitalism has not fallen in the intervening year, and Simon Cowell continues to do quite nicely, thank you.  Once again, no major act is prepared to go head to head with the X Factor winners’ single, and the result is a strange chart, in which virtually every new entry is either connected with X Factor or a reaction against X Factor, and music as we know it is more or less suspended.  There’s one unrelated Christmas single further down the chart – and one lone new entry for an actual regular single.  It’s a strange time.

Anyway, the 2010 Christmas number one is (inevitably) the X Factor winner’s single, “When We Collide” by Matt Cardle.  Matt was the token “vaguely credible” entrant this year – i.e. he owns a Coldplay album and possibly something by U2 – and to be fair, he does have a good voice for that sort of thing.  Now that the voting figures have been released, we know that he won every vote except for week one (when he came second).  He’s also been suffering from flu or something over the last few weeks, so this record doesn’t exactly catch him at his best.  But regardless, your Christmas Number One:

(more…)

Well, this should be easy.  We’re now into the dead space for new releases – as a rule, the record industry doesn’t bother releasing records in the immediate run-up to Christmas, and doesn’t bother starting a fresh round of promotion until the new year.  There are exceptions, the main ones being Christmas singles (which in this day and age basically means Simon Cowell and records that exist solely to vex Simon Cowell), plus the occasional act that tries to take advantage of the promotional lull.  But for the most part it all goes very quiet around Christmas.

The British get very worked up about the Christmas Number One, even though it’s rarely much of a race any more thanks to the scheduling of X Factor singles (last year’s bizarre mass-purchasing of “Killing in the Name” by Rage Against the Machine being an anomaly that won’t be repeated this year).  This year’s Christmas chart is more than usually detached from Christmas itself; since Christmas Day is a Saturday, the Christmas Number One will be whatever tops the chart announced on Sunday 19 December, i.e. the record that sold most copies between 13-19 December.  So this is the last “proper” chart of the year.

And depressingly, the last “proper” number one of the year is “The Time (Dirty Bit)” by the Black Eyed Peas.   (more…)

Simon Cowell’s annual karmic balancing exercise  – “Heroes” by the X-Factor Finalists 2010 – remains at number one for a second week.  This actually comes as something of a surprise, since it was dropping off pretty quickly on iTunes.  But then, high profile charity singles are special.  They sell to people who don’t normally buy singles, and to some extent they sell to impulse buyers in supermarkets.  So the iTunes figures can turn out to be unrepresentative.

But only up to a point.  The midweeks show the track dropping to number 5 on Sunday.

The best-selling “regular” single of the week is Ellie Goulding’s cover of “Your Song” at number 2, and that leaves the highest new entry to take the number 3 slot – “Poison” by Nicole Scherzinger.

(more…)

The chart domination of X Factor hasn’t been quite so comprehensive this year as last, perhaps because the decision to sell performances as (chart ineligible) downloads has diverted some of the sales that might otherwise have gone to originals from the back catalogue.  But it’s still a significant force.  Between present contestants, past contestants, judges, and back catalogue material performed in the finals, it accounts for seven of the top 40 singles, with several more tracks having been promoted on the results show.

But this week, it’s that special time of the year when Simon Cowell strives for karmic balance.  Yes, it’s the annual X Factor finalists’ charity single at number 1, and this year they’re once again raising money for the troops with a cover version of “Heroes”.  Never subtle, that Simon Cowell.

(more…)

Rihanna lasted two weeks at the top, but we now return to our regularly scheduled X Factor dominance.  The current number one – and it’ll be a one-week affair because the annual X Factor charity single will displace it on Sunday – is “Love You More” by JLS.

JLS were the runners-up in the 2008 series of X Factor.  In an uncharacteristic lapse of judgment, Simon Cowell didn’t take up his option to sign them, only for Epic to sweep in and launch them as a proper R&B-ish boy band.  They’ve been genuinely successful – this is their fifth single and their fourth number one – so despite being technically outside the X Factor fold, they’ve been written back into the show’s success story.  Simon Cowell would certainly much rather people were talking about this bunch than Joe McElderry, I suspect.

“Love You More” is an inoffensive mid-paced ballad.  It’s also the official charity single for the BBC’s annual “Children in Need” telethon, but chances are it would have made number 1 without the help.

It successfully fends off the challenge of Ellie Goulding’s “Your Song” cover from the John Lewis ads, which nonetheless climbed 36 places to land at number 3, and looks like it’ll be around for a while.  I’m still not sure about it, to be honest… it feels a little bit calculated to me, but hey, it’s obviously connecting with an audience.

If you believe the newspapers, of course, the big story of last week was supposed to be the debut on iTunes of the Beatles’ back catalogue.  An idea had taken hold with the more gullible sort of journalist that when the Beatles’ songs were finally made available online, there would be a massive chart invasion.  This was never especially likely.  Anyone who really cares about owning Beatles songs has had forty years to make their purchase; it’s not like they’re hard to get.   Nor are the albums sensibly priced on iTunes.  For example, they’re charging £17.99 for the double albums.  But Amazon are selling them for less than half that, so if you’re buying them on iTunes, well, bad choice.

What could potentially make a difference is the ability to download individual songs.  The Beatles have always been very careful about protecting the way their music is presented.  But yes, you can now buy individual tracks from iTunes.  As it turns out, though, there wasn’t much demand for that either.  You have to query whether the Beatles’ audience is particularly interested in iTunes, and whether the typical iTunes consumer is actually all that bothered about the Beatles.  After all the hype, only one Beatles track made the chart – “Hey Jude”, scraping on at number 40.

Ironically, there might actually be more Beatles songs in the chart this week.  Why?  Because they did a Beatles theme week on X Factor.  The midweeks have “Hey Jude” climbing to 35 and “Let It Be” at number 30 – a slightly bigger impact, but hardly earth-shattering.

Also entering the most recent chart:

• “Like a G6” by the Far East Movement featuring the Cataracs and Dev at number 6.  This is the breakthrough hit for an Asian-American hip-hop group who’ve been around for years without previously attracting much notice, only for this to be a hit in America and around Europe.  It’s minimal, to put it mildly, but it’s a good hook.  A G6, if you’re wondering, is a Gulfstream G650 – it’s a private jet.  The Cataracs are a California alt-rap duo who’ve similarly never attracted any previous notice in Britain, and Dev is a rapper who appears to get a credit because they sampled the “like a G6” bit from the bridge of her single “Booty Bounce” (video features some strobe-effect rapid edits, btw, but bonus points for making a video that features absolutely no bouncing of any description).
• “Safe” by Westlife at number 10.  Self-reviewing single from the turn of the century blandly balladeering boy band who seem to never go away.  The days when they consistently got number 1 hits are behind them and to be honest I’m not quite sure who’s still buying their records.  (Since the single is likely to drop out of the top twenty in its second week, the answer may well be “fans who never broke the habit and nobody else”.)  Nonetheless, their 25th hit, every single one of which made the top 10.
• “What’s My Name” by Rihanna featuring Drake at number 18.  This is going to be the second official single from her new album, and while the record company would probably prefer to keep the focus on “Only Girl In The World” for the moment – still at number 2, by the way – this is getting some spill-over sales as an album track download, presumably because they’re already pushing it in other territories so there’s a video available.  (Another track from the album, “S&M”, is also picking up downloads, and charts at number 55.)  Her 21st UK hit, and the third and biggest for Canadian rapper Drake.
• “Game Over” by Tinchy Stryder featuring Chipmunk at number 22.  Well, that’s how the charts are listing the artist credit.  Stryder’s YouTube channel gives it as “Tinchy Stryder featuring Giggs, Professor Green, Tinie Tempah, Devlin, Example and Chipmunk.”  Stryder gets the leap credit because it’s on his album, as near as I can make out, but it’s basically an all-star jam single.  Not especially commercial – it’s a bit of a dirge, to be honest, and the first verse is almost intolerably dull.  Perhaps a case of crossover grime/pop acts trying to reconnect with their original audience.  Stryder’s seventh hit, Chipmunk’s eighth, and the rest apparently technically don’t count.  Still, a break from the normal single release for virtually everyone involved.
• “Shame” by Robbie Williams and Gary Barlow, re-entering at 31 presumably as a side-effect of the Take That album coming out.  (It sold over half a million in its first week.)  The track made number 2 on its original release in October but dropped out of the charts rather more quickly than it deserved to.
• “Just Drive” by Alistair Griffin at number 38.  This is an oddity.  Alistair Griffin was a contestant in the second series of the BBC’s underperforming talent show Fame Academy back in 2003, when he came second to Alex Parks.  He had two hits in 2004 (including the forgettable double A-side “Bring It On”/”My Lover’s Prayer” which got to number 5) but pretty much hasn’t been heard from since.  This is an official single, but it doesn’t have a video or any real promotion behind it – it was, however, used by the BBC to soundtrack a video package at the end of their coverage of the Formula 1 season and seems to have charted solely on the strength of that, giving Griffin a much-delayed third hit.

To the surprise of a lot of people, this week’s number one is “The Only Girl In The World” by Rihanna, which hangs on for a second week.  So far as the record industry are concerned, this wasn’t really in the script.  The general assumption was that Take That would top the charts with ease.  But it turns out that the British really, really like that Rihanna record.

And so it’s a number 2 placing for “The Flood” by Take That.

For the benefit of the Americans out there, it’s worth recapping the story.  Take That were a five-piece boy band who were hugely popular in Britain, and pretty successful in the rest of Europe, in the first half of the 1990s.  With a core fanbase of teenage girls and a secondary fanbase of gay men (that’s not facetiousness, they started off playing the gay nightclub circuit), they updated the boy band format for a new generation and did it very, very well.  And while the group had been manufactured, they served largely as a vehicle for songs written by one of their members, Gary Barlow.

(more…)