Will this finally be the week that something stays at number 1 for a second week?  The midweeks say no!  iTunes says yes!  Let’s find out!

But the bigger news by far is the announcement that streaming data will finally be added to the chart from the start of July.  That makes this the penultimate chart to be based entirely on sales, after over fifty years.  But I’m all for including streaming; it reflects what listeners are choosing to hear, and the rise of streaming services spawns an audience who have no logical reason to buy singles any more.

The question is how you weight it, which in turn begs the question of what exactly we’re supposed to be measuring here.  Leave aside the fact that the chart exists primarily because the record industry considers it a useful promotional tool; that usefulness still stems from the perception that it actually measures something.

The weighting is going to be one hundred streams to one sale.  What, then, are we measuring?  Not “the most listened to record”, since that would involve airplay.  Is it the record that the largest number of people are choosing to listen to?  Not that either, since I don’t think many singles are listened to one hundred times.  On the other hand, since most streaming services are either advert-supported or flat rate, there’s another complication, namely that people will stream tracks that they don’t necessarily like all that much, just to find out what they sound like.  I certainly do.  Is the chart measuring the tracks that are making the most money for their creators?  Again, certainly not at a ratio of one hundred streams equals one sale.

The honest answer is that what we’re going to end up with is a sales chart modified by streaming data.  The most popular streaming tracks do somewhere in the 1-1.5m range a week; that will translate into 10-15,000 in sales, which is enough to get you to the bottom end of the top 10.  But of course most of those tracks are high up the chart already.  The most notable effect will probably be to slow the chart down; the Official Streaming Chart (which has existed for a while now) gets little or no attention, because it moves like treacle.  We’re talking here about a chart which has had four number ones all year (due to Clean Bandit and Mr Probz both having multi-month reigns), where “Happy” is still in the top 10, and where “Do I Wanna Know” by the Arctic Monkeys has just celebrated a year in the top 40.

A logical case could be made for treating streaming as more important than downloads, since it’s the bigger audience.  But the result would be a chart so painfully boring that nobody would pay it any attention.  Which, for the industry and the compilers, would jeopardise the point of the exercise.  Hence the uneasy compromise era we’re about to enter.

37.  FAUL & Wad Ad vs Pnau – “Changes”

This made number 3 in April, dropped out of the top 75 entirely, but has now mounted a comeback, apparently because it’s in a Mercedes advert.  Over on the streaming chart, it’s at 51.

35.  The Kooks – “Around Town”

The follow-up to “Down”, which spent a week at number 40 in May.  The video is – and I quote from the band’s press release – intended “to evoke the directors Besson and Tarantino, while also exploring themes of karma and the poem If.”  Over on the streaming chart, it… um, it isn’t.  It’s not in the top 100.

20.  Ed Sheeran – “One”

A re-entry for the single that previous got to number 18 in May, available as an instant gratification track for album pre-orders.  We’re using the word “pre-order” quite loosely here, since about half the album is available as an instant gratification download.  As previously noted, the chart rules only allow one of them to count.  How this will work in the streaming era is unclear.

15.  Demi Lovato – “Neon Lights”

Vastly delayed UK release for a single that came out in America last November.  It’s being wheeled out now because she’s in the country for a tour.  Unfortunately, it’s not very good; though it’s yet another a Ryan Tedder song, it sounds more like a poor attempt to emulate what an Ellie Goulding/Calvin Harris collaboration might sound like.  Again, this is missing entirely from the streaming chart, but an odd feature of that chart is that new releases take a while to feed through to that audience.

7.  Gorgon City featuring Laura Welsh – “Here For You”

The follow-up to “Ready For Your Love”, which made number 4 in February.  It’s a fairly standard issue house track, to be honest.  Welsh is another singer-songwriter whose career is getting a soft launch through guest appearances; her own tracks aren’t particularly house-y at all.  On the streaming chart, it’s at 88 – you see what I mean about this being likely to slow the chart down?

4.  George Ezra – “Budapest”

That’s the official video above, but the rather more basic “alternative version” actually has about three times as many hits on YouTube.  Ezra is a folk-rock singer, and this was his second single, which limped to number 68 on its release last November.  In fairness, it didn’t have a video at all back then, so it’s not like they were trying very hard   to promote it; it was one of those buzz-raising releases that nobody’s expected to actually buy.  Since then, it’s been promoted on the continent, and made the top 10 in Germany, Italy, Holland and Switzerland, and number 1 in Austria.  (Not in Hungary, though, where Budapest presumably seems a lot less exotic.)  So, reasonably enough, the record company is having another crack at it, to promote the album that comes out next week.  This time round, things work out rather better.  On the streaming chart, it’s at 36.

2.  5 Seconds of Summer – “Don’t Stop”

The Australian group who are about 90% Busted and 10% Sum 41.  This was number 1 in the midweeks, and it’s still a respectable follow-up to “She Looks So Perfect” in April.  (They also had their instant grat track “Good Girls” get to number 15 in May, but that was never properly promoted as a single.)

This fell behind in the iTunes charts pretty early in the week, so it must have had some hefty first-day fan base sales to achieve its sales.  On the streaming chart, it’s at 84.

1.  Ella Henderson – “Ghost”

Two weeks at number one!  At last!  Somebody breaks the streak!  And while she’s not presently on course to hold on for a second week, her main challenge comes from a threatened rebound by Ed Sheeran’s “Sing” – so the run of weekly new releases going to the top does seem to be at an end.

On the streaming chart, this is at number 2, behind Mr Probz.  But it’s climbing from number 22, where it entered last week.  This sort of delayed reaction to new releases might be a welcome addition to the regular chart, to be honest.

On the albums chart:

• “Ultraviolence” by Lana Del Rey at 1.  Her second album, and second number 1.  The single “West Coast” is at 36.
• “The Hunting Party” by Linkin Park at 2.  Their seventh studio album, all of which have gone top 5.  (There’s also a collaboration album with Jay-Z, two live albums, and a remix album, all of which did less well.)  No hit singles from this, though.  Single: “Until It’s Gone”
• “While(1<2)” by deadmau5 at 14.  Following from “Random Album Title”, “For Lack of a Better Name” and “Album Title Goes Here”, deadmau5 has finally run out of variations on that joke. Single: “Avaritia”.
• “A Town Called Paradise” by Tiesto at 22.  The single “Wasted” is still at 6.
• “Love Frequency” by the Klaxons at 38.  They’ve actually had more albums land around this end of the chart than at the top, over the years.  And hey, at least they beat Jennifer Lopez’s new album, which missed the top 40 entirely.