{"id":2859,"date":"2014-12-22T21:48:39","date_gmt":"2014-12-22T21:48:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=2859"},"modified":"2014-12-22T21:49:26","modified_gmt":"2014-12-22T21:49:26","slug":"charts-21-december-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=2859","title":{"rendered":"Charts &#8211; 21 December 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s the Christmas chart &#8211;\u00a0and once again, Britain sticks to the script. \u00a0This will be short; it&#8217;s a very quiet week for new releases,\u00a0though a couple of\u00a0acts\u00a0have given it a punt. \u00a0The back catalogue Christmas\u00a0songs already entered a few weeks ago &#8211; &#8220;Fairytale&#8221; is the highest, at 11 &#8211; and only one of this year&#8217;s online campaigns results in a top 40 entry. \u00a0(&#8220;Number of the Beast&#8221; by Iron Maiden just missed out, at 44.) So the bottom\u00a0half of the top 40 is all reshuffling, and we can jump straight to&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong>14. \u00a0Gorgon City featuring Jennifer Hudson &#8211; &#8220;Go All Night&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LtHxT0gndjU?rel=0\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Either these guys can&#8217;t read a calendar, or they&#8217;re trying to steal a high chart place in a quiet week. \u00a0Conventional wisdom is that you do that in the week\u00a0<em>after<\/em> Christmas,\u00a0though. \u00a0&#8220;Go All Night&#8221; has been available as an album track since October,\u00a0but\u00a0I imagine there&#8217;ll be the usual extra mixes released now.<\/p>\n<p>This is Gorgon City&#8217;s fourth hit of the year. \u00a0The biggest was &#8220;Ready for Your Love&#8221;, which made number 4 in February. \u00a0Jennifer Hudson is\u00a0an unusually big name to appear as a guest vocalist on a Gorgon City record &#8211;\u00a0it is indeed the Jennifer Hudson who won an Oscar for\u00a0<em>Dreamgirls<\/em>. \u00a0Admittedly,\u00a0her\u00a0track record on the singles chart is pretty poor &#8211; she got to number 11 in 2008 with &#8220;Spotlight&#8221;,\u00a0but all her other singles have missed the top 30 until now.<\/p>\n<p><strong>5. \u00a0The Wealdstone Raider &#8211; &#8220;Got No Fans&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/tFiOe8qIrEQ?rel=0\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>That would be this year&#8217;s token chart campaign record. \u00a0The Wealdstone Raider is a fan of\u00a0a minor league football team <a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/sAhEFuq62-I\" target=\"_blank\">who was filmed at a match\u00a0back in March 2013<\/a>\u00a0having a drunken argument with a fan of the\u00a0other side, which has apparently gone viral in football circles. \u00a0I can&#8217;t honestly say I get the point (as in, I honestly couldn&#8217;t venture an opinion with confidence on why it&#8217;s even\u00a0<em>meant\u00a0<\/em>to be funny), but then in fairness,\u00a0football is generally a bit of a mystery to me. \u00a0So maybe there&#8217;s some context I&#8217;m missing here.<\/p>\n<p>Nobody&#8217;s pretending this is anything other than a novelty charity release, which is fortunate, because judging it by conventional standards, the nicest thing you can say about it is that it&#8217;s over quickly.<\/p>\n<p>And to think, <a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/EBtd3H3Qdi8\" target=\"_blank\">Tinchy Stryder&#8217;s collaboration with the Chuckle Brothers<\/a> didn&#8217;t chart.<\/p>\n<p><strong>4. \u00a0Olly Murs featuring Demi Lovato &#8211; &#8220;Up&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/29GWMT0GB6s?rel=0\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The second single from his upcoming album &#8220;Never Been Better&#8221;. \u00a0The last one only came out a month ago, and it&#8217;s still on the chart at 12, so this is a pretty quick follow up. \u00a0Quite what Demi Lovato is doing on an Olly Murs record, considering that he&#8217;s had very little impact in the\u00a0US so far, and she&#8217;s doing fine in\u00a0Britain on her own, is hard to fathom. \u00a0It really ought to be an equal-billing duet, and in fact it also appears on the deluxe version of Lovato&#8217;s album.<\/p>\n<p>Somewhat to my surprise &#8211; and more thanks to Lovato\u00a0than Murs &#8211; this is alright. \u00a0It&#8217;s a strong chorus, and the\u00a0vague gestures in the direction of upbeat folk work well for it. \u00a0It&#8217;s a lot better most of Murs&#8217; singles.<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. \u00a0Ben Haenow &#8211; &#8220;Something I Need&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zLBaaN2sqlc?rel=0\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It may have been behind\u00a0Mark Ronson on iTunes for most of the week, but <em>X Factor<\/em> winner Ben Haenow has the\u00a0advantage of CD single sales in supermarkets &#8211; and as\u00a0<em>X Factor<\/em>\u00a0coronation singles\u00a0reach a market that doesn&#8217;t have the faintest interest in singles normally, that makes a big difference. \u00a0Its &#8220;sales&#8221; of 214K (including\u00a0streaming)\u00a0are the second highest of the year, after Band Aid.<\/p>\n<p>For all that, there&#8217;s a general consensus that <em>X Factor<\/em> has passed its peak. \u00a0The audience for the final was the lowest since year 1. \u00a0The show is now in the\u00a0tricky position where its imperial days are behind it, but it still draws strong enough audiences that it&#8217;s going nowhere any time soon. \u00a0Simon\u00a0Cowell is making noises about yet more format changes for next year, but the simple reality may be that\u00a0<em>any<\/em> form of\u00a0talent show is currently tired and the genre\u00a0could use a break.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s unfair to judge any singer\u00a0by their <em>X Factor<\/em> coronation single &#8211; not only are they rushed cover versions, but they rarely bear the faintest relationship to what the act ends up releasing. \u00a0The format is very well established by this point; the single is not there to be any good, it&#8217;s there to complete the story arc of triumph against the odds, and the song is chosen largely because of its superficial ability to fit with that. \u00a0(I see that this year they haven&#8217;t even bothered filming any original footage for the video. \u00a0Normally they at least stick the poor sod in front of some candles and tell him to emote.)<\/p>\n<p>Haenow was not the favourite to win &#8211; that was Fleur East, who we can\u00a0doubtless expect to hear from in 2015\u00a0regardless. \u00a0&#8220;Something I Need&#8221; is a OneRepublic song which was a single in some other countries last year (it went triple platinum in Australia), but remained an album track in the UK. \u00a0It&#8217;s also the theme tune to the film\u00a0<em>Mr Peabody &amp;\u00a0Sherman<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qKCGBgOgp08?rel=0\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>On the\u00a0album chart, things are predictably quiet.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>&#8220;X&#8221; by Ed Sheeran<\/strong> is\u00a0at number 1 again.<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8220;The Pinkprint&#8221; by Nicki Minaj<\/strong> limps to a surprisingly poor 22.<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8220;Livesos&#8221; by 5 Seconds of Summer<\/strong> &#8211; which is a live album, obviously enough, charts at 31.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s the Christmas chart &#8211;\u00a0and once again, Britain sticks to the script. \u00a0This will be short; it&#8217;s a very quiet week for new releases,\u00a0though a couple of\u00a0acts\u00a0have given it a punt. \u00a0The back catalogue Christmas\u00a0songs already entered a few weeks ago &#8211; &#8220;Fairytale&#8221; is the highest, at 11 &#8211; and only one of this year&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2859"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2864,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2859\/revisions\/2864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}