This week's Official UK Singles Chart

This week's Official UK Albums Chart

[Fun fact, if you like to track these things: this was the last ever week that total purchased singles sales exceeded those of the same week 12 months prior. From this point on, weekly single sales showed a steady long-term decline].  

Exactly 21 years ago this month, an American country singer by the name of Billy Ray Cyrus was enjoying his biggest ever international hit, his single Achy Breaky Heart a Top 3 hit on the Official UK Singles Chart. Whilst he was busy promoting the single, his partner Letitia was heavily pregnant with a girl they would name Destiny Hope Cyrus.

Fast forward to the present day and their daughter, performing under the name of Miley since she began her own show business career as a teenage actress, now eclipses her father's chart record as she tops the British charts for the very first time. The arrival of her new single We Can't Stop at Number One essentially completes an orderly transition for the now 20-year-old singer as she has moved from her earliest Hannah Montana tie-in releases through more mainstream pop records to the moment when she unleashes a new, more credible musical persona on the world. The child actress is dead, long live Miley Cyrus the adult pop star.

We Can't Stop is far and away her biggest chart single ever in this country, her first to even register inside the Top 10 after she stalled at Number 11 no less than three times - most recently in 2009 with the single Party In The USA, a song which is now more notable as being Jessie J's most famous pre-fame songwriting success. Miley is now the third member of her family to score a UK Top 10 single, for as well as her father, half-brother Trace landed himself a Number 6 hit as lead singer of Metro Station with their one and only hit single Shake It making the chart in April 2009. For those keeping track, yes this was indeed another impressively large sale, Miley hitting Number One after selling 128,000 singles.

This does mean that Avicii's Number One run comes to an end for the moment, although Wake Me Up continues to further edge towards its inevitable million selling moment. The other big new entry of the week comes from a returning Tinie Tempah who charges to Number 3 with new single Trampoline. Although he has hardly been a stranger to the charts, appearing alongside Labrinth, Rita Ora and Calvin Harris in the last 18 months, this single marks the British rapper's first hit single as lead artist since 2011 and the hits finally dried up from his first album. This new single is the first release from his upcoming second album Demonstration and proves that his appeal remains undimmed since he first burst onto the chart scene in 2010. The track is his fourth Top 3 hit as lead artist, and including collaborations is his ninth Top 10 hit single. Guest star on Trampoline is 2 Chainz who can boast his own biggest chart hit to date, eclipsing the Number 6 peak he scaled alongside Wiz Khalifa on We Own It (Fast And Furious) back in June.

It is a hip-hop and R&B collision which provides us with the other new Top 10 arrival this week, Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake climbing 11-7 with Holy Grail. By a strange coincidence, the single has now matched the original 1991 peak of Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit whose lyrics it unashamedly appropriates throughout.

Justin Timberlake actually registers on two Top 40 hits this week, for as well as the Jay-Z single his latest hit Take Back The Night makes a flying 59-29 leap. The single's rather graceful start its chart life is something of a curiosity given that it is an entirely new single, one which features on the second half of his double dose of album releases - the forthcoming The 20/20 Experience - 2 of 2 which is due out in September. Having channelled the likes of Sylvester on smash hits such as Suit And Tie earlier this year, JT now goes for a full-on Off The Wall homage for this new single, but its sales progress remains somewhat sluggish.

This is turning into something of a month for unexpected rebounds for heavily discounted catalogue hits. Just as Toploader's Dancing In The Moonlight sinks back down the chart, the 2012 single Little Talks from Of Monsters And Men makes its own charge for bargain bin glory, leaping 34-19 this week on the first anniversary of its first release.. This is now the second time the single has returned to the Top 20 this year after it reached Number 13 back in June following its use as an audition piece by contestants on The Voice and Britain's Got Talent. Clearly (and rightly) one of the most enduringly popular releases of the last year or so, it first peaked at Number 12 for the Icelandic group in September last year.

To round off the Top 40 Kings Of Leon land their second hit this year with Wait For Me which charts at Number 31. That is one place higher than their previous offering, the "promotional single" Supersoaker which was released four weeks ago, both singles lifted from their forthcoming sixth album Mechanical Bull.

Next week is shaping up to be just as busy as the summer of hits rolls on with new singles from Ellie Goulding, The Wanted and a newly chart-friendly Arctic Monkeys all set to make an immediate impact. I could write a book about all this...