This week's Official UK Singles Chart
This week's Official UK Albums Chart
The streak is broken! For the first time since the end of February is not a brand new record at all, but instead, a single which spends a second week at the top of the charts. Non-consecutive I grant you, but you take what you can get. A fortnight after its initial week of glory when first released, Waves by Mr Probz sustains the momentum which saw it overtake the Calvin Harris single Summer at the tail end of the survey two weeks ago and reclaims its crown as the Number One track on the Official UK Singles Charts. The second single this year to repeat at the top of the charts, one might argue it has only done so in the absence of any other strong contenders for the crown, but if anyone does so just tell them to hush.
The nearest thing we had to a rival is the highest new entry of the week, and one from a man whose chart-topping credentials are in no doubt with one Number One hit to his name already in 2014. This time around, however, Pitbull can only manage a Number 6 entry with new single Wild Wild Love, the follow-up to Timber which topped the charts for a week in early January. Said single has yet to exit the Top 40 since its release and dips three places to Number 36 this week, four places above the Enrique Iglesias single I'm A Freak on which the American rap star also guests. Wild Wild Love's failure to chart higher is all the more curious when you consider the track is a brand new recording and features on neither the star's last album Global Warming nor the Meltdown EP from which Timber was lifted.
British interest in the week's new releases comes via Foxes who follows up her Number 7 hit single Let Go For Tonight from back in March with new release Holding Onto Heaven. Her third hit single as a solo star, it serves as the final introductory release for her debut album Glorious which hits the stores this week.
To top the album charts, Foxes will have to contend with Lily Allen whose comeback singles may have attracted a lukewarm reception but who still debuts at Number One on the Official UK Albums chart with some ease with new collection Sheezus. The collection duly becomes her second British Number One, after 2009 release It's Not Me, It's You also stormed to the top when released just over five years ago.
Her nearest rival was a record which came up on the rails at the end of the week and indeed one which has been available for some months. The dramatic uptick in sales of Gary Barlow's Since I Saw You Last which sees it rockets 38-2 this week to match its original chart peak is all thanks to a TV profile hosted by comedian James Corden which aired in Britain last week, the star telling in his own words the story of his fall from grace and the rebuilding of his career over the past eight years. The broadcast has also renewed interest in Never Forget - The Ultimate Collection hits compilation from Take That which was first released back in 2005 (also in the wake of a TV documentary on the group as it happens) and which returns to the album chart for the first time in three years, landing at Number 21 this week.
The Barlow interest isn't confined to albums either, with lead single Let Me Go leaping 74-22 this week, its highest chart placing since early January. Meanwhile, the album's title track charts for the first time at Number 65 as does the Elton John duet Face To Face which the pair performed live on the X Factor final last December in the hope of seeing it become a hit. Having bombed with a Number 80 peak last December the single lands at Number 69 this week.
Those who questioned my disparaging of the sales performance of the 'new' Michael Jackson single Love Never Felt So Good last week which made Number 27 on the basis of two days sales will note that with a full week under its belt it rises just three places this week, despite growing popularity for the Justin Timberlake version of the track. JT himself has other fish to fry as his own current single Not A Bad Thing still edges agonisingly slowly up the chart to sit at Number 21 this week. [Which was sadly as far as this one got. Although it was the video which made it more than the song itself].
The broadcast of the Eurovision song contest on Saturday night ended in the traditional dismal failure for the British entry (although voting figures indicate that our entry was Top 5 on public votes and it was a lack of interest from the parallel national juries which sent it crashing to a Number 17 finish). Nonetheless, the increased interest in the UK entry Children Of The Universe as sung by Molly sends the single up to Number 33 this week, a placing which may well increase next week alongside the usual surge in sales for the more popular entries from other countries. Molly Smitten-Downes has actually tasted chart success before as the singer with dance act Stunt whose track Raindrops was mashed-up with the Sash! single Encore Une Fois to create a Number 9 hit in October 2008.
