{"id":9357,"date":"2023-08-26T16:44:39","date_gmt":"2023-08-26T15:44:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9357"},"modified":"2023-08-27T09:48:52","modified_gmt":"2023-08-27T08:48:52","slug":"charts-25-august-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/?p=9357","title":{"rendered":"Charts &#8211; 25 August 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As anticipated, Billie Eilish only manages a single week &#8211; which means she&#8217;s now had two 1-week number ones. We&#8217;re still in\u00a0<em>Barbie<\/em> territory, though.<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. Dua Lipa &#8211; &#8220;Dance the Night (From\u00a0<em>Barbie the Album<\/em>)&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/OiC1rgCPmUQ?si=LTAYVnKbxx1hF61t\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Climbing to number 1 in its thirteenth week on chart. This has grown on me somewhat, but it still strikes me as something of a generic Dua Lipa track. It&#8217;s her fourth number 1, following &#8220;New Rules&#8221; (2017), &#8220;One Kiss&#8221; (2018) and &#8220;Cold Heart&#8221; (2021).\u00a0The Billie Eilish track is at number 2, and we&#8217;ve also got &#8220;Barbie World&#8221; at 9, &#8220;Speed Drive&#8221; at 15, and &#8220;I&#8217;m Just Ken&#8221; at 22. Overall, the\u00a0<em>Barbie<\/em> wave seems to have crested, and given how long it took Dua Lipa to get here in the first place, I suspect she won&#8217;t be here too long.<\/p>\n<p>In an absurdly quiet week for new singles, there is just a single new entry on the top 40. There&#8217;s also a slightly baffling re-entry for &#8220;Dog Days are Over&#8221; by Florence &amp; The Machine at number 27, which appears to have had its downweighting reset on the very tenuous basis that it&#8217;s in a film soundtrack on Disney+ &#8211; but it already reached number 21 earlier in the year.<\/p>\n<p>But what about that new entry?\u00a0Ah. Well.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>23. Oliver Anthony Music &#8211; &#8220;Rich Men North of Richmond&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sqSA-SY5Hro?si=ZU2RrISWxXnHxBSf\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This is the current US number one. Let&#8217;s start with the basics. Oliver Anthony is the stage name of one Christopher Lunsford &#8211; apparently it was the name of his grandfather, adopted in reference to his Depression-era influences. &#8220;Rich Men North of Richmond&#8221; is a self-release, and the first thing that he&#8217;s professionally recorded. The video above comes from RadioWV, which is run by one of Anthony&#8217;s managers, but has been running for several years posting similar performances by unsigned Americana acts (without any apparent political angle). I have no idea why he&#8217;s listed on streaming services as &#8220;Oliver Anthony Music&#8221; but the chart is faithfully listing him accordingly.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a massive viral hit in America, and the first time anyone has entered the US chart at number 1 with their debut single. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-IgRd85ENm4\">So he&#8217;s the American Whigfield.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The song itself laments the plight of the working man, who works hard for low pay, a situation which the song blames principally on rich northerners who don&#8217;t care about his community, and on welfare scroungers. There&#8217;s a clear thread of &#8220;world in decline&#8221;. There are some ambiguous suggestions of a conspiratorial worldview &#8211; Jeffrey Epstein&#8217;s private island, for example, is a common feature in US conspiracy theories, but not actually a conspiracy theory in itself. It&#8217;s understandably been taken as a right-wing song; Republicans embrace it, the left disapprove of the welfare stuff. Looking beyond the song itself, while Anthony claims to be in the political centre, the fact that his YouTube channel includes <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PL2gusRdbuxAeA9CtJROtDY3yY1Xk4s70J\">a playlist with some conspiracy theory material about Mossad being involved in 9\/11, and a whole bunch of Jordan Peterson videos<\/a>, rather suggests otherwise. Then again, he&#8217;s also publicly rejected the endorsement of Republican candidates, on the grounds that he counts them among the people he was complaining about in the first place.<\/p>\n<p>The more troubling stuff on the margins will pass most listeners by. What they&#8217;ll take from it is that being poor sucks, hard work isn&#8217;t being fairly rewarded, the establishment don&#8217;t care, and it&#8217;s not fair that some people work the welfare system. This isn&#8217;t a particularly unusual combination of views and the fact that there&#8217;s an audience for it when married to a genuinely good singer with a lot of conviction shouldn&#8217;t really be a surprise to anyone. If you only know the song by reputation, then in purely musical terms, it&#8217;s a lot better than you&#8217;re probably imagining.<\/p>\n<p>But it&#8217;s not the sort of song you expect to make the UK top 40, on genre grounds alone. It&#8217;s not here due to a download campaign &#8211; only 10% of its chart points come from sales &#8211; it really does seem to have connected on some level. A very unusual record indeed, and it&#8217;s difficult to know quite what to make of its appearance here.<\/p>\n<p>This week&#8217;s climbers (well, other than Dua Lipa):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>&#8220;Paint The Town Red&#8221; by Doja Cat<\/strong> climbs 15-4. After the lead single from the album stalled at 37, this will be a great relief.<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8220;Disconnect&#8221; by Becky Hill and Chase &amp; Status<\/strong> climbs 8-7.<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8220;Desire&#8221; by Calvin Harris &amp; Sam Smith<\/strong> climbs 9-8.<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8220;Baddadan&#8221; by Chase &amp; Status, Bou and Flowdan<\/strong> climbs 20-14.<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8220;Prada&#8221; by casso x Raye x D-Block Europe<\/strong> climbs 32-20.<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8220;Asking&#8221; by Sonny Fodera &amp; MK featuring Clementine Douglas<\/strong> climbs 31-21.<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8220;Closer&#8221; by Bou featuring Slay<\/strong> climbs 28-24.<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8220;Bittersweet Goodbye by Issey Cross<\/strong> climbs 38-31.<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8220;Fast Car&#8221; by Luke Combs\u00a0<\/strong>climbs 39-34.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Between &#8220;Rich Men&#8221;, &#8220;Dog Days are Over&#8221; and Rudimental&#8217;s &#8220;Dancing is Healing&#8221; re-entering at 40, we have three records leaving the top 40:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>&#8220;Pink (From\u00a0<em>Barbie the Album<\/em>)&#8221; by Lizzo<\/strong> had four weeks in the top 40 but couldn&#8217;t get above 27.<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8220;Talibans&#8221; by Byron Messia<\/strong> vastly outperformed expectations, peaking at 12 and with 11 weeks on chart.<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8220;How Does It Feel&#8221; by Tom Grennan<\/strong> peaked at 17, with 9 weeks on chart.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;Miracle&#8221; by Calvin Harris &amp; Ellie Goulding remains the longest-running track on the chart, at 24 weeks. It&#8217;s current at number 32.<\/p>\n<p>On the album chart:<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. Hozier &#8211; &#8220;Unreal Unearth&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>His third album, his first number 1 &#8211; the previous two both made the top 10. To be fair, he&#8217;s chosen a quiet week this time. The single &#8220;Eat Your Young&#8221; got to number 22.<\/p>\n<p><strong>6. The View &#8211; &#8220;Exorcism of<\/strong> <strong>Youth&#8221;\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ecd3BZtmGOk?si=F707OcofdHvJpZrm\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Their sixth album, after an eight year hiatus. You might remember them having a few hit singles circa 2007, when they got &#8220;Same Jeans&#8221; to number 3. This is their highest position for an album since 2009.<\/p>\n<p><strong>7. Ren\u00e9e Rapp &#8211; &#8220;Snow Angel&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WZEHXFIa7Bk?si=2guEjiZqYZ58LvHT\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Debut album; she&#8217;s better known as an actress. She has Broadway experience, but this isn&#8217;t a showtunes album.<\/p>\n<p><strong>13. Birdy &#8211; &#8220;Portraits&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FOjytbEbO34?si=XKpRAOOOCxMaEL8S\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Finally&#8230; well, that&#8217;s more 80s than I expected. It&#8217;s her fifth album; since the last two both made number 4, the position is a bit disappointing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As anticipated, Billie Eilish only manages a single week &#8211; which means she&#8217;s now had two 1-week number ones. We&#8217;re still in\u00a0Barbie territory, though. 1. Dua Lipa &#8211; &#8220;Dance the Night (From\u00a0Barbie the Album)&#8221; Climbing to number 1 in its thirteenth week on chart. This has grown on me somewhat, but it still strikes me [&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,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9357","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=9357"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9362,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9357\/revisions\/9362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housetoastonish.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}