This week's Official UK Singles Chart
This week's Official UK Albums Chart
Get Lucky, Blurred Lines, Wake Me Up. So far this summer has been blessed with major global smash hits which not only sold in the proverbial shedloads but which also exploded into life on the singles chart in triumphant fashion.
This week their numbers are joined by a fourth global megahit, a much-awaited brand new single from a major new star, a record whose release puts the past few weeks into perspective as little more than a throat-clearing exercise as we awaited its release. Number One on the Official UK Singles chart this week is, needless to say, Roar by Katy Perry.
As the biggest single bar none on the planet right now it hardly needs a proper introduction here, so instead let's concentrate on the bare facts. Arriving a week earlier than originally planned in order to coincide with the release of its full video, Roar debuts at Number One with a healthy sale (one which includes several weeks of pre-orders) of over 179,000 copies, the third biggest single week sale of the year and far and away the biggest sales total of her career to date. In total it is Katy Perry's fourth Number One hit and maintains her track record of topping the charts with the introductory single from each of her three albums to date.
In the weeks leading up to its release, a close friend of mine remarked how she loved hearing the track as the lyrics resonated with just how she felt about life at this time - the true measure of any great pop record surely being the way it speaks to its audience and defines for them a particular moment in time. For that reason alone, Roar can easily rank amongst the biggest and best singles of the year so far.
Elsewhere in an otherwise quiet Top 10 the only upwards progress is that of Drake and Majid Jordan who move 9-6 with Hold On We're Going Home. That is enough to ensure it becomes Drake's highest charting single as a lead artist, its performance dwarfed only by his presence on Rihanna's What's My Name which topped the charts at the start of 2011.
This week we had something of a burst of midweek single releases, but none made quite the impact of the record that enters at Number 11 despite only hitting the shops on Tuesday. Lived A Lie is far and away the biggest chart hit single to date for alt-rock band You Me At Six, a group who command a fiercely loyal following amongst teen girls who have outgrown ordinary boy bands but who to date haven't quite been able to translate that into mainstream commercial success. The first track taken from their upcoming fourth album Cavalier Youth, the single at one point challenged Katy Perry near the top of the live digital charts only to fade as the week went on as the impact of a consolidated mass-purchase by their fanbase wore off. Probably destined to be a one week wonder, the track is at the very least their first ever Top 20 hit single, eclipsing the Number 21 peak scaled by Rescue Me which charted in 2011.
Working on the basis that just what the world needs is another noisy teenage girl group, new four-piece Neon Jungle makes their chart debut at Number 12 with the enthusiastic and shouty Trouble, a single which can count itself unlucky not to have landed a Top 10 slot given the strength of its sales earlier in the week. The single is notable for being the first ever hit production for its co-writers and producers, namely Anita 'Cocknbullkid' Blay whose own records have attracted much acclaim without yet troubling the charts, and Ben Berry whose Fear Of Tigers remixes have popped up on many previous commercial releases and who spookily enough used to publish this column on a different site six years ago.
Just one other single makes a Top 20 new entry, Strong landing at Number 17 to give London Grammar their second chart single of the year, following on from Wasting My Young Years which peaked at Number 31 back in June. Both singles are taken from the debut album for the London-based trio If You Wait which is in the shops as you read this.
Meanwhile, lower down the new X Factor series continues to prompt a series of bizarre chart incursions by older hits, none more notable this week than the appearance at Number 23 of Listen by Beyonce. Dating from her appearance in the movie Dreamgirls back in 2007, the single reached Number 16 upon first release at the start of that year, only to reappear at the end of 2008 following its performance by Alexandra Burke on the live finals of the X Factor. When Beyonce herself duetted with the singer during her march to victory in the grand final of the series, the single leapt into the Top 10 to peak at Number 8.
An all-new Top 3 on the Official UK Albums chart should give you some idea of how competitive the release schedule was this week. Emerging victorious are The 1975 whose self-titled debut album storms to Number One, just ahead of Nine Inch Nails whose latest release Hesitation Marks gives Trent Reznor his highest charting album ever. Completing the trio are Rizzle Kicks whose Roaring 20s album (home to current Top 10 hit single Lost Generation) enters at Number 3.