RSS Feed
Jan 22

Charts – 21 January 2022

Posted on Saturday, January 22, 2022 by Paul in Music

I love unexpected number ones.

1. Carolina Gaitan, Mauro Castillo, Adassa, Rhenzy Feliz, Diane Guerrero & Stephanie Beatriz – “We Don’t Talk About Bruno”

Or “The Cast of Encanto“, if you prefer, but that’s the official credit. “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” is a great song, but it’s an unlikely number one. It’s a song designed to advance the plot of a musical, and it doesn’t really make much sense if you haven’t seen the movie. And it’s a Disney song. Yes, “Let it Go” hung around the top 40 for ages, but it peaked at  number 11.

The Official Chart Company (and Disney) are very carefully billing this as the first “original” Disney song to reach number 1. The word “original” is there because the UK release of Lilo & Stitch had Gareth Gates’ version of “Suspicious Minds” playing over the closing credits, and that song reached number 1 as a double A-side with “The Long and Winding Road”. But it wasn’t part of the actual film, it was a cover anyway, and we’re all pretty happy to accept the invitation to turn a blind eye to it.

Technically, everyone on the list of names above joins the UK one-hit-wonders list, except for Stephanie Beatriz, who has a solo credit on “The Family Madrigal”.

26. Hazey – “Packs and Potions”

There’s not much going on in terms of new entries this week, so we kick off the debut hit of Liverpudlian rapper Hazey. He’s another of the UK’s masked anonymous rappers, and this is another track that got traction over on TikTok. Fair enough, though. It’s pretty good.

32. The Game featuring Kanye West – “Eazy”

That’s not an official lyric video, but the official version is audio-only and displays the controversial and rather unpleasant cover art. (It’s a photo of a skinned monkey, if you haven’t seen it.) This is at least covered by the YouTube license, so I’ll run with that.

The Game hasn’t had a top 40 hit in years – you’re going back to “My Life” in 2008. Kanye West’s track record is rather better – so far as I can see, since his career began in 2004, he’s placed a top 40 hit in every single year except for 2017.

And that’s it for new entries. This week’s climbers:

  • “Peru” by Fireboy DML & Ed Sheeran climbs 6-4.
  • “Surface Pressure” by Jessica Darrow climbs 8-5, giving Encanto two singles in the top 5.
  • “Where Are You Now” by Lost Frequencies & Calum Scott climbs 17-11.
  • “The Family Madrigal” by Stephanie Beatriz, Olga Merediz & The Cast of Encanto climbs 29-15.
  • “Make Me Feel Good” by Belters Only featuring Jazzy climbs 35-17.
  • “Down Under” by Luude featuring Colin Hay climbs 25-19.
  • “The Motto” by Tiesto & Ava Max, which dropped out of the top 40 last week, re-enters at a new peak of 35.
  • “Pushin P” by Gunna, Future & Young Thug climbs 40-37.

Only three records drop out of the top 40 this week:

  • “Sweet Talker” by Years & Years featuring Galantis, which managed just two weeks at number 36.
  • “Miserable Man” by David Kushner, which drops straight from 39 to 70.
  • “How Do I Make You Love Me” by the Weeknd, which was number 22 last week on the back of his album release. It gets disqualified under the 3-song rule this week, because another track from the album, “Is There Someone Else”, outperformed it. But that track’s only at number 45, so “How Do I Make You Love Me” would have dropped out of the top 40 anyway.

The album chart is slightly busier.

1. The Wombats – “Fix Yourself Not The World”

Ah, the strange parallel world of the album chart, where the Wombats are number one act. In fact, this is their first number one, but their previous three albums all made the top 5.

5. Bonobo – “Fragments”

Same position as his previous album, from 2017. Lovely video.

6. Elvis Costello & The Imposters – “The Boy Named If”

Elvis Costello’s 32nd studio album, apparently. He’s still good. Number 6 is an unusually high position for him – he hasn’t been this high, or even in the top 10, since the 90s.

18. The Lumineers – “Brightside”

Remember the Lumineers? “Ho Hey”? Number 8 hit ten years ago? Well, they’ve done better on the album chart – their last three albums all made the top 10, and 2016’s “Cleopatra” was a number 1. This is notably low by their standards.

35. The Temperance Movement – “Caught on Stage – Live and Acoustic”

The actual song starts at 0:25 – they’re not stretching the definition of “acoustic” that far. Regular Temperance Movement albums usually make the top 20, but obviously, this is a side project.

Bring on the comments

  1. Mark Coale says:

    Since the Billboard chart in the US didn’t start until the mid 50s, none of the “classic” Disney songs could have made number 1. I believe that Snow White was the first soundtrack released on vinyl, as opposed to sheet music of a film score.

Leave a Reply