This week's Official UK Singles Chart
This week's Official UK Albums Chart
Top of the UK Singles chart? As you were pretty much as for the moment there is little to shift Spectrum by Florence and the Machine which sits comfortably at Number One for a third straight week and is now only the third single this year (after Somebody That I Used To Know and Call Me Maybe to last longer than a fortnight at the top.
Spectrum tops the charts with what is curiously its highest weekly sales total to date, increasing the gap between it and Maroon 5's Payphone which also remains in place for a third week at Number 2. One place below is a surprise climber, Stooshe's enduring and appealing Black Heart which after six weeks around reaches a brand new peak of Number 3.
At least this week we have some new releases to get our teeth into. The biggest of these is Vegas Girl from Conor Maynard which charges in at Number 4. The second hit for the hot new singer-songwriter, it follows hard on the heels of Can't Say No which peaked at Number 2 back in April. Both tracks are lifted from his debut album Contrast which is in stores this week.
Also new in the Top 10 are US duo Karmin who parlayed a strong online following (helped by a handful of celebrity endorsements) into a record deal last year. Their single Brokenhearted was of course a Top 20 hit on the Hot 100 earlier this year and it makes a strong showing in the UK first week out by storming to Number 6. An enormously appealing pop-dance track, it is one of those singles which has a shelf life far beyond its initial first few weeks as casual audiences wake up to its appeal. Watch for it lodging in the Top 3 for a month or so before too long. [I wish it had, it remains my favourite pop hit of the year and a high point they have to date fallen short of emulating].
The volatile album chart hands us some curiosities once more, although given his past pedigree it is hardly much of a surprise to see Plan B's Ill Manors entering at Number One, three months after its title track first peaked at Number 6. It is his second chart-topping album, following 2010 release The Defamation Of Strickland Banks, although given his dramatic change in style and the more challenging subject matter of his new release it is hard to see there being much of a crossover audience between the two. The Ill Manors album is branded as the Original Soundtrack of the film in which the singer and rapper stars, effectively the first OST recording to make Number One since the AC/DC Iron Man II collection in 2010. Film soundtracks have a long and proud history of performing well in the UK charts (not least the Sound Of Music album which spent half of the 1960s topping the pile) but as the AC/DC album was largely a collection of older recordings Ill Manors is the first collection of specifically recorded film music to make Number One since James Horner's Titanic soundtrack made Number One in February and March 1998.
Slipping in at Number 2 is Handwritten from American rockers Gaslight Anthem which duly becomes their first Top 10 hit album, its predecessor American Slang reaching Number 18 in 2010 and The 59 Sound limping to Number 55 in 2009. This dramatic turnaround in their chart fortunes isn't so much a reflection of their ever growing appeal as another indication of the weak state of the albums market. Indeed the biggest selling long player of the week was actually compilation Now That's What I Call Music Volume 82 which shifts an astounding 267,000 copies to debut at the top of the compilations chart. That is enough to outsell the combined sales of the entire Top 42 artist albums.
As one final aside, the fifth biggest selling compilation album of the week is Isles Of Wonder the soundtrack to the Olympics opening ceremony which went on sale at the weekend and thus was only able to register less than one day of sales for this survey. Two of its tracks creep onto the Top 75 singles chart, the Arctic Monkeys cover of Come Together at Number 67 and Caliban's Dream by Underworld (who were the music directors of the performance) two places lower. Both will make greater chart impacts next week, with the seven minute longer Underworld track easily the biggest of them all.
