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Aug 29

Charts – 28 August 2020

Posted on Saturday, August 29, 2020 by Paul in Music

Well, this is certainly eclectic.

1 Joel Corry featuring MNEK – “Head & Heart”

Not this one, obviously. “Head & Heart” spends a sixth week at number one, with “WAP” at number 2. The gap is fairly close, equivalent to 1,700 sales.

3. BTS – “Dynamite”

Interesting. The K-Pop boy band BTS got their first hit single in 2018 with “Idol”, and reached number 13 last year with “Boy With Luv”. But thus far they’ve been something of a fanbase act who perform well in their first week, without crossing over to a wider audience. This, however, has more obvious crossover appeal, since (a) it’s in English, and (b) it’s a disco track that sounds not a million miles from something that Bruno Mars might make, albeit sped up a bit. It feels a bit too obviously market-tailored to me, but it’s number 3, so what do I know?

4. Headie One, AJ Tracey & Stormzy – “Ain’t It Different”

Headie One has had three previous top ten hits, but this is the highest – and considering one of them was guesting on a Drake single, that’s not bad at all. It’s a very good track, too. The hook is sampled from “Pretty Little Ditty” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, an instrumental from the 1989 album “Mother’s Milk”, and previously sampled in “Butterfly” by Crazy Town (number 3 in 2001). The uncredited female vocal is more obscure; it’s a sample from “No Long Talking” by Lady Saw. Her only credited appearance on the singles chart was in 2001, when she guested on a UB40 single that spent one week at number 40.

11. 24KGoldn featuring Iann Dior – “Mood”

The follow-up to his debut hit “City of Angels”, which reached number 25 in March. Apparently it’s big on TikTok. It’s alright – kind of needs a second gear, though. Iann Dior, making his first UK chart appearance, is a Puerto Rican rapper who’s had some success in the US and, strangely, New Zealand.

More of 24KGolden later. Meanwhile, “Take You Dancing” by Jason Derulo climbs 19-16.

17. Vera Lynn – “Land of Hope and Glory”

Hmm.

Vera Lynn, who died in June, hasn’t had a hit single since 1957, when “Travellin’ Home” got to number 20. Nobody has previously had a hit single with a version of Elgar’s “Land of Hope and Glory”, for the fairly obvious reason that it’s not a pop song and it’s not exactly the sort of thing people actually buy as a single to listen to at home.

The reason it’s here is because of a frankly bizarre tantrum on the British political right over a suggestion that “Land of Hope and Glory” and “Rule Britannia” would be dropped from the BBC’s traditionally hyper-patriotic Last Night of the Proms concert, in some sort of gesture of appeasement to the left – a proposal that, as far as I can see, virtually nobody seems to have actually made. While it is true that the BBC did not intend to hold the traditional mass singalong this year, that appears to be due to the more prosaic obstacle that there’s a pandemic on so there won’t be anyone in the audience.

Nonetheless, we have the unusual spectacle here of a chart campaign from the right – when these things have a political dimension at all, they tend to be on the left. I can’t recall seeing one of these since 1998, when George Bowyer’s pro-fox-hunting track “Guardians of the Land” reached number 33.

22. Conan Gray – “Heather”

Conan Gray had a minor hit internationally with “Maniac” last year, but “Heather” is his debut hit in the UK. He started off as a YouTuber but this is a perfectly respectable folky effort.

“You Broke Me First” by Tate McRae climbs 34-31.

32. Abra Cadabra – “On Deck”

North London rapper. He’s been around for a few years, but this is his first appearance on the chart.

36. Clean Bandit & Mabel featuring 24KGolden – “Tick Tock”

Gosh, that seems low for the first new Clean Bandit single since 2018. But… this is the first week out, and they do have a tendency to climb from their starting point.

On the album chart…

1. The Killers – “Imploding the Mirage”

No surprise there, Killers albums usually make number 1 – this is their sixth.

4. Erasure – “The Neon”

It’s been three years since the last Erasure album. That album gave them their first top ten studio album since the 1990s (not counting a greatest hits album), and this turns out to be their highest placing album since 1994 (when “I Say I Say I Say” was the last of their string of number 1s).

6. Jamie Webster – “We Get By”

Debut album. He’s from Liverpool, if you couldn’t guess that from the accent.

14. The Waterboys – “Good Luck Seeker”

Still surprisingly prolific as an albums act. Number 14 is fairly standard territory for them. The video is an obvious pandemic job, but the song’s pretty good.

22. Bright Eyes – “Down in the Weeds, Where the World Once Was”

The previous Bright Eyes album missed the top 40, but that was nine years ago and absence makes the heart grow fonder.

24. Nas – “King’s Disease”

Fairly normal territory for a Nas album at this point.

34. Troye Sivan – “In a Dream”

More of a mini-album – officially it’s an EP – so the low position probably shouldn’t be given too much weight.

Bring on the comments

  1. Josie says:

    “Aside from Dynamite by BTS, David Stewart has worked on songs for the Jonas Brothers and Hailee Steinfeld.”

    Well, there you go.

  2. Joe S. Walker says:

    0:57 in the Jamie Webster video: that pub’s only a few minutes away from here. First time I’ve ever heard anyone getting sentimental about it.

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