Charts – 29 March 2019
This is starting to get a little bit repetitive.
1. Lewis Capaldi – “Someone You Loved”
Five weeks. That’s the longest we’ve had since “Thank U Next” in the run-up to Christmas. Poor “Giant” by Calvin Harris and Rag’N’Bone Man has been stuck behind it the whole time. “Just You and I” by Tom Walker climbs 4-3, and “Sucker” by the Jonas Brothers goes 5-4. “Location” by Dave featuring Burna Boy has now moved 11-8-6, which is odd, since it’s not the official single – that’s “Streatham”, which falls to 22 (while “Disaster” falls to 15).
7. Steel Banglez featuring AJ Tracey & MoStack – “Fashion Week”
X-23 #7-10: “X-Assassin”
X-23 is always going to lend itself to stories about identity. You’ve got Laura herself, the emotionally scarred hero grown and raised in the lab, and then you’ve got her clone Gabby, who’s literally a younger version of the same character, but diverted at an earlier stage and inappropriately gleeful. The nature versus nurture thing is kind of built in, and it comes up a lot.
And here’s another one. Mariko Tamaki and Diego Olortegui’s “X-Assassin” sees our heroes capture a mysterious assassin who turns out to be another clone, except a mute, seemingly soulless one.
Charts – 22 March 2019
There’s some sea shanties further down, if you like that.
1. Lewis Capaldi – “Someone You Loved”
Four weeks, and his streams are still growing, so we could be here a while. The top three is static, and “Just You And I” by Tom Walker climbs 10-4. That overtakes last year’s “Leave a Light On” to be his biggest hit. (Well, bigger. He’s only had two.) “Sucker” by the Jonas Brothers rebounds to a new peak of 5, and “Location” by Dave featuring Burna Boy climbs 11-8. The other two tracks that charted from the album drop to 10 and 13, but it’s still pretty impressive to place three tracks so high, two weeks running. Sigrid’s “Don’t Feel Like Crying” climbs 20-15… oh, hold on, that’s got a video now.
15. Sigrid – “Don’t Feel Like Crying”
X-Force #1-4: “Sins of the Past”
The latest relaunch of X-Force seems suspiciously like a last-minute decision, considering that Weapon X was already covering very much the same territory, and got cut very abruptly short. But this iteration, which spins out of the Extermination miniseries, is unexpectedly strong.
Some versions of X-Force have been ponderously gritty, and this one is certainly happy enough for them to be the paramilitary wing of the X-Men again. But the overall style of the thing strikes a much more appealing tone. A lot of that is due to Dylan Burnett’s art (and Jesus Aburtov’s colouring), which gives the book an appealingly loose, cartooning feel. The exaggeration takes the edge off some of the grimmer bits, but at the same time it brings a lot of personality to the characters. I always like art that doesn’t try to make Cannonball look traditionally heroic, but this story even manages to bring some life to Ahab, patiently trying to explain a slightly saner version of anti-mutant hatred to the raving lunatics that he’s currently aligned with.
Uncanny X-Men: Winter’s End
So here’s a new angle in curious labelling. Uncanny X-Men: Winter’s End may be billed as an X-Men special, but it’s actually the final issue of Sina Grace’s Iceman.
Now, this certainly isn’t false advertising, or anything like that. Iceman is in the X-Men too. And there’s a long history of unresolved plots from cancelled books being dutifully wound up in other titles, at least back in the days when people bothered to do such things as wrap up the unresolved plots from cancelled books. But there’s no getting away from the fact that this is an issue of Iceman – the main story will make sense if you haven’t read that book, but there are subplots that really won’t. So you have to suspect that this has been bannered as an X-Men story in the hope that it’ll sell a few extra copies. (You probably wouldn’t guess that it was an Iceman story from the cover, either, which is a bit of a giveaway.)
Charts – 15 March 2019
Yes, I know there’s a few comics out this week to review – the Iceman one-shot, X-Force and X-23, to be exact – but I feel like keeping this up to date first…
1. Lewis Capaldi – “Someone You Loved”
The top four is static, so Lewis Capaldi gets a third week at number one. It doesn’t have a huge lead, but it’s doing well enough.
8. Dave featuring J Hus – “Disaster”
9. Dave – “Streatham”
11. Dave featuring Burna Boy – “Location”
Charts – 8 March 2019
So the singles chart is looking a bit becalmed again…
1. Lewis Capaldi – “Someone You Loved”
That’s two weeks, with a lead over Calvin Harris equivalent to 6,000 sales. The previous single “Grace” climbs to a new peak of 21. Meanwhile, “Don’t Call Me Up” by Mabel, which I didn’t think much of, moves 5-3, so what do I know?
6. The Jonas Brothers – “Sucker”
Charts – 1 March 2019
So there’s a podcast one post down if that’s more your thing! But meanwhile… here’s something I didn’t see coming.
1. Lewis Capaldi – “Someone You Loved”
The midweeks had it as a toss-up between Ariana Grande and Calvin Harris. And while Lewis Capaldi only made his top 40 debut this year, “Someone You Loved” has been available since last November. Clearly the recently-released video helps – it has an actual star attached, after all – but the song has still taken seven weeks to climb through the top 40 to get here. Whatever Capaldi might say in interviews, he doesn’t technically join the one-hit wonder list here; his previous single “Grace” is also seeing a second wind, and reaches a new peak of 24 this week. (more…)
House to Astonish Episode 172
It’s a relatively quiet few weeks for comics news, but we’re chatting about the upcoming Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen books, the Thought Bubble festival moving from Leeds to Harrogate, Kieron Gillen and Dan Mora’s The Once And Future, Dark Horse losing Usagi Yojimbo to IDW, DC’s Giant books entering the Direct Market and Marvel’s upcoming Venom-centric event. We’ve also got reviews of The Forgotten Queen and X-Tremists and the Official Handbook of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe is written in the stars. All this plus comics tapas, Debbie Pisces and the Rick Jones cooking manga.
The podcast is here, or here on mixcloud, or available via the embedded player below.
Let us know what you think, in the comments, on Twitter, via email or over at our Facebook fan page. And don’t forget, you can get hold of our fab t-shirts over at our Redbubble store.
Charts – 22 February 2019
Ariana Grande is going nowhere.
1. Ariana Grande – “7 Rings”
Back at number 1 for a fourth week after being interrupted last week by, um, the other Ariana Grade single, “Break Up With Your Girlfriend I’m Bored” – though it’s close to a tie between the two tracks. Technically that makes Ariana Grande the first artist ever to replace themselves at number one twice in a row, but it’s the streaming era and this sort of thing is a lot easier than it ever was in the past.
“Break Up” is at number 2, and “Needy” drops to number 11; regular readers will be well aware that the chart rules only allow three tracks from the album to chart. The album itself gets a second week at number one. I don’t think any of these tracks are especially good material, but there’s no denying her A-list status.
“Giant” by Calvin Harris & Rag’N’Bone Man climbs 6-4. “Options” by NSG featuring Tion Wayne climbs 12-9, giving all involved their first top 10 hit. (more…)
