This week's Official UK Singles Chart
This week's Official UK Albums Chart
There should now be little doubt that the story of 2013 on the Official UK Singles Chart when it comes to be written will focus heavily on what must be considered the golden trio of summertime smash hits - the million-selling singles from Daft Punk and Robin Thicke plus the track which seems all but destined to joint them on the table of all-time greats.
Wake Me Up by Avicii just shows no signs of slowing, three weeks into its chart career. Following sales of 267,000 in Week 1 and 154,000 copies in Week 2, the single last week further blew away the competition with a further 124,000 copies sold - making a grand total of 545,000 singles in just three weeks. It seems almost bizarre to note that the greatest challenge to the country and electropop fusion single comes from none other than Miley Cyrus next week. Expect that to be the big headline dominating chart battle of the next seven days.
Following the flurry of attention which her early releases attracted, with both Video Games and Born To Die becoming solid Top 10 hits in 2011 and 2012, Lana Del Rey's singles career has been rather stop-start ever since, her subsequent releases being minor Top 40 hits and even her contribution to the Great Gatsby soundtrack - the track Young And Beautiful limping merely to Number 23 to coincide with the release of the film earlier in the spring. This week, however, she lands herself her biggest chart hit so far, as Summertime Sadness charges 28 places up the chart to its final resting spot of Number 4. Originally from her debut album Born To Die, the track had been promoted as a single in selected territories in Europe in the summer of 2012 to moderate success. Its newfound international success comes thanks to a radical new remix from Frenchman Cedric Gervais which re-imagines the song as an electropop anthem. Del Rey's smouldering vocals remain intact from the album original but the track is otherwise a re-imagining - taking its place amongst some of the more inspired club remixes in chart history. Already a continental smash, the single here drags the star from quirky novelty to huge Top 5 chart star.
Regular readers of this column will be familiar with my regular pot-stirring where the tally of singles from Calvin Harris' 18 Months album is concerned. The official count of releases from the album repeatedly includes the Rihanna track We Found Love which common sense would dictate is her single, not his, given that it appeared on her own Talk That Talk album a full year before Harris shoe-horned it into the running order of his own release. This argument was thrown into sharp relief back in March when I Need Your Love reached the Top 10, causing Harris to be awarded the record for most Top 10 singles from an album when it was undeservedly listed as the 8th, and not a record-equalling seventh.
We can however all put away the bitter cup as whichever way you spin it, the British producer now does indeed land a new record as Thinking About You rises 14-9 to become the latest track to be found on 18 Months to become a UK Top 10 hit. For the record, it is the 8th. Or possibly the 9th.
The only major new release of the week turned out to be Eliza Doolittle's Big When I Was Little which slots in neatly at Number 12. The daughter of a veritable stage school and west end dynasty, Ms Doolittle shot to fame in 2010 with her self-titled debut album and a handful of attendant hit singles of which Pack Up was the biggest, peaking at Number 5 in the summer of that year. She made her chart comeback a couple of months ago as guest star on the Disclosure single You And Me but this new hit is essentially her first brand new material since that engaging debut. The reggae-flavoured single is as bubbly and chirpy as you might expect, a gentle look back at some of the popular culture highlights of ten years or so ago. The only criticism really is that you hear it and find yourself wondering just what the single is derivative of which makes it seem so instantly familiar. Then you realise - you are reminiscing about her own previous work from three years ago. She hasn't actually moved on in the intervening period.
Also on the move around the Top 10 is the Jay-Z track Holy Grail which for the moment is stuck outside the Top 10 at Number 11, the presence of Justin Timberlake on the single undoubtedly part of its mainstream appeal - although that is without mentioning the Nirvana samples which form a core part of the single. Aside from the Watch The Throne single N****s in Paris, Jay-Z hasn't had a Top 10 hit since Young Forever back in 2009.
Proving far more evergreen than anything they have released in the last six years, the Arctic Monkeys single has taken on a new lease of life over the past few weeks. Having originally peaked at Number 11 back in June, Do I Wanna Know? had dipped as low as Number 21 a fortnight ago before rebounding in style. This week the track is back at Number 15 in its highest chart placing since its debut and its sixth week as a Top 20 hit, their most enduring chart single since their debut I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor in 2005.
As far as the Official UK album chart is concerned, this summer so far it appears to be all about the talent show discoveries. Last week X Factor runner-up Jahmene Douglas took the crown, this week he steps down a place to be replaced at Number One by Britain's Got Talent discoveries Richard & Adam as their album The Impossible Dream outsells the rest of the artists market. Those of you wondering if the album is also an example of Simon Cowell striking whilst the iron is hot and rushing the two Welsh opera singers into the studio to record a straightforward album of pop-opera cover versions of tracks such as The Winner Takes It All and Unchained Melody as well as more standard fare such as Ave Maria and Amazing Grace are to be congratulated on your powers of deduction. Or maybe Simon Cowell really is that predictable.